Westminster Abbey Totally Explained

Everything about Westminster Abbey totally explained

The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, which is almost always referred to by its original name of Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, (it served as a cathedral from 1546 - 1556), in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English monarchs.

History

According to tradition a shrine was first founded in 616 on the present site, then known as Thorn Ey (Thorn Island); its tradition of miraculous consecration after a fisherman on the River Thames saw a vision of Saint Peter justifying the presents of salmon from the Thames fishermen that the Abbey received. In the 960s or early 970s Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, planted a community of Benedictine monks here. The stone Abbey was built around 1045–1050 by King Edward the Confessor and was later rebuilt again by Henry III in 1245, who had selected the site for his burial: it was consecrated on December 28 1065, only a week before the Confessor's death and subsequent funeral. It was the site of the last coronation prior to the Norman Invasion, that of his successor King Harold.
   The only extant depiction of the original Abbey, in the Romanesque style that's called Norman in England, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry. Increased endowments supported a community increased from a dozen monks in Dunstan's original foundation, to about eighty monks.
   The Abbot and learned monks, in close proximity to the Royal Palace of Westminster, the seat of government from the later twelfth century, became a powerful force in the centuries after the Norman Conquest: the Abbot was often employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. Released from the burdens of spiritual leadership, which passed to the reformed Cluniac movement after the mid-tenth century, and occupied with the administration of great landed properties, some of which lay far from Westminster, "the Benedictines achieved a remarkable degree of identification with the secular life of their times, and particularly with upper-class life", Barbara Harvey concluded, to the extent that her depiction of daily life provides a wider view of the concerns of the English gentry in the High and Late Middle Ages. The proximity of the Palace of Westminster didn't extend to providing monks or abbots with high royal connections; in social origin the Benedictines of Westminster were as modest as most of the order. The abbot remained Lord of the Manor of Westminster as a town of two to three thousand persons grew around it: as a consumer and employer on a grand scale the monastery helped fuel the town economy, and relations with the town remained unusually cordial, but no enfranchising charter was issued during the Middle Ages. The abbey built shops and dwellings on the west side, encroaching upon the sanctuary.
   The Abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings, but none were buried there until Henry III, intensely devoted to the cult of the Confessor, rebuilt the Abbey in Anglo-French Gothic style as a shrine to honour Edward the Confessor and as a suitably regal setting for Henry's own tomb, under the highest Gothic nave in England. The Confessor's shrine subsequently played a great part in his canonisation. The work continued between 1245-1517 and was largely finished by the architect Henry Yevele in the reign of King Richard II. Henry VII added a Perpendicular style chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1503 (known as the Henry VII Chapel). Much of the stone came from Caen, in France (Caen stone), the Isle of Portland (Portland stone) and the Loire Valley region of France (tuffeau limestone). In 1535, the Abbey's annual income of £2400-2800 during the assessment attendant on the Dissolution of the Monasteries rendered it second in wealth only to Glastonbury Abbey. Henry VIII had assumed direct royal control in 1539 and granted the Abbey cathedral status by charter in 1540, simultaneously issuing letters patent establishing the Diocese of Westminster. By granting the Abbey cathedral status Henry VIII gained an excuse to spare it from the destruction or dissolution which he inflicted on most English abbeys during this period. Westminster was a cathedral only until 1550. The expression "robbing Peter to pay Paul" may arise from this period when money meant for the Abbey, which was dedicated to St Peter, was diverted to the treasury of St Paul's Cathedral.
   The Abbey was restored to the Benedictines under the Catholic Queen Mary, but they were again ejected under Queen Elizabeth I in 1559. In 1579, Elizabeth re-established Westminster as a "Royal Peculiar" — a church responsible directly to the sovereign, rather than to a diocesan bishop — and made it the Collegiate Church of St Peter, (that is a church with an attached chapter of canons, headed by a dean). The last Abbot was made the first Dean. It suffered damage during the turbulent 1640s, when it was attacked by Puritan iconoclasts, but was again protected by its close ties to the state during the Commonwealth period. Oliver Cromwell was given an elaborate funeral there in 1658, only to be disinterred in January 1661 and posthumously hanged from a nearby gibbet.
   The abbey's two western towers were built between 1722 and 1745 by Nicholas Hawksmoor, constructed from Portland stone to an early example of a Gothic Revival design. Further rebuilding and restoration occurred in the 19th century under Sir George Gilbert Scott. A narthex for the west front was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in the mid C20 but wasn't executed.
   Until the 19th century, Westminster was the third seat of learning in England, after Oxford and Cambridge. It was here that the first third of the King James Bible Old Testament and the last half of the New Testament were translated. The New English Bible was also put together here in the 20th century.

Coronations

Since the coronations in 1066 of both King Harold and William the Conqueror, all English and British monarchs (except Edward V and Edward VIII, who didn't have coronations) have been crowned in the Abbey. Lady Jane Grey, whose reign lasted just nine days, and was of doubtful legality was also never crowned. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the traditional cleric in the coronation ceremony. King Edward's Chair (or St Edward's Chair), the throne on which British sovereigns are seated at the moment of coronation, is housed within the Abbey; from 1296 to 1996 the chair also housed the Stone of Scone upon which the kings of Scotland are crowned, but pending another coronation the Stone is now kept in Scotland.

Burials and memorials

Henry III rebuilt the Abbey in honour of the Royal Saint Edward the Confessor whose relics were placed in a shrine in the sanctuary and now lie in a burial vault beneath the 1268 Cosmati mosaic pavement, in front of the High Altar. Henry III was interred nearby in a superb chest tomb with effigial monument, as were many of the Plantagenet kings of England, their wives and other relatives. Subsequently, most Kings and Queens of England were buried here, although Henry VIII and Charles I are buried in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, as are all monarchs and royals after George II.
Aristocrats were buried inside chapels and monks and people associated with the Abbey were buried in the Cloisters and other areas. One of these was Geoffrey Chaucer, who was buried here as he'd apartments in the Abbey where he was employed as master of the Kings Works. Other poets were buried around Chaucer in what became known as Poets' Corner. Abbey musicians such as Henry Purcell were also buried in their place of work. Subsequently it became an honour to be buried or memorialised here. The practice spread from aristocrats and poets to generals, admirals, politicians, scientists, doctors, etc.. These include:

Buried

See also:

Monarchs and their consorts

The following English and British Monarchs and their consorts are buried in the Abbey:

Edward the Confessor and wife Edith of Wessex

Henry III of England

Edward I of England and wife Eleanor of Castile

Edward III of England and wife Philippa of Hainault

Richard II of England and wife Anne of Bohemia

Henry V of England and wife Catherine of Valois

Edward V of England

Henry VII of England and wife Elizabeth of York

Edward VI of England

Mary I of England

Elizabeth I of England

James I of England and wife Anne of Denmark

Charles II of England

Mary II of England

William III of England

Anne of Great Britain and husband Prince George of Denmark

George II of Great Britain and wife Caroline of Ansbach

Other monarchs and consorts

Nave

The following are buried in the Nave

Clement Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee

Ernest Bevin

Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts

Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald

Charles Darwin

Saint Edward the Confessor

Sir Isaac Newton

Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford

Robert Stephenson

Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox

George Edmund Street

J.J. Thomson

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

Thomas Tompion

The Unknown Warrior

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham

Beatrice Webb

Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield

Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon

North Transept

William Ewart Gladstone

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

William Pitt the Younger

William Wilberforce

Sir John Malcolm

South Transept

Poets' Corner

George Frederick Handel

Lord Laurence Olivier

Thomas Parr

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Edmund Spenser

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Henry VII Chapel

Maj. Gen. Charles Worsley, though no memorial remains.

Commemorated

Lord Byron

Jane Austen, buried in Winchester Cathedral

Robert, Lord Baden-Powell, buried in Nyeri, Kenya

Charlotte Brontë, Emily Jane Brontë, Anne Brontë

Sir Winston Churchill, buried at Bladon, Oxfordshire

John Clare, buried in St. Botolph's churchyard, Helpston, Cambridgeshire

Paul Dirac, buried in Florida

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, buried at Hughenden Manor, Buckinghamshire

Adam Lindsay Gordon, buried in Australia

John Harrison, buried in St. John's Church in Hampstead

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, buried at Cambridge, Massachusetts

Evelyn Levett Sutton, prebendary of Westminster who collapsed and died after reading the ninth commandment during Sunday services (in a monument)

William Shakespeare, buried at Stratford-upon-Avon

Oscar Wilde (in a stained glass window unveiled in 1995), buried in Paris

Gen. James Wolfe, buried in Greenwich

William Booth Founder of the Salvation army

Above the Great West Door, ten 20th century Christian martyrs from across the world are depicted in statues; from left to right:

Removed

The following were buried in the Abbey but later removed on the orders of Charles II:

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector

Adm. Robert Blake

John Pym The most recent person to be buried in the Abbey was Sir Laurence Olivier in 1989.

Schools

Westminster School and Westminster Abbey Choir School are also in the precincts of the Abbey. It was natural for the learned and literate monks to be entrusted with education, and Benedictine monks were required by the Pope to maintain a charity school in 1179; Westminster School may have been founded even earlier for children or novices, and the legendary Croyland Chronicle relates a story of 11th century king Edward the Confessor's Queen Editha chatting to a schoolboy in the cloisters, and sending him off to the Palace larder for a treat.

Organ

The organ was built by Harrison & Harrison in 1937, then with four manuals and 84 speaking stops, and was used for the first time at the Coronation of King George VI. Some pipework from the previous Hill organ of 1848 was revoiced and incorporated in the new scheme. The two organ cases, designed in the late nineteenth century by John Loughborough Pearson, were re-instated and coloured in 1959. In 1982 and 1987, Harrison and Harrison enlarged the organ under the direction of the then Abbey Organist Simon Preston to include an additional Lower Choir Organ and a Bombarde Organ: the current instrument now has five manuals and 109 speaking stops. In 2006 the console of the organ was refurbished by Harrison and Harrison, and space was prepared for two additional 16ft stops on the Lower Choir Organ and the Bombarde Organ. Link to details of the organ on the National Pipe Organ Register.

Organists

1549 John Howe

1560 Master Whitt

1562 John Taylor

1570 Robert White

1575 Henry Leeve

1585 Nathaniel Giles and John Mundy (joint organists)

1606 Edmund Hooper

1621 John Parsons

1623 Orlando Gibbons

1625 Thomas Day

1633 Richard Portman

1660 Christopher Gibbons

1666 Albertus Bryan

1668 John Blow

1679 Henry Purcell

1696 John Blow (re-appointed)

1708 William Croft

1727 John Robinson

1762 Benjamin Cooke

1793 Samuel Arnold

1802 Robert Cooke

1814 George Ebenezer Williams

1819 Thomas Greatorex

1831 James Turle

1882 Frederick Bridge

1919 Sydney Nicholson, MVO

1928 Ernest Bullock, CVO

1941 Sir William Neil McKie

1963 Douglas Guest, CVO

1981 Simon Preston

1988 Martin Neary

1999 Martin Baker (Acting)

2000 James O'Donnell

Transport

Nearest London Underground stations:

St. James's Park (District, Circle lines)
Westminster (Jubilee, District, Circle lines)

Chapter

The Abbey is a collegiate church organised into the College of St Peter, which comprises the Dean and four residentiary Canons (one of whom is also Rector of St Margaret's Church, Westminster, and Speaker's Chaplain), and seventeen other persons who are members ex officio, as well as twelve lay vicars and ten choristers. The seventeen are the Receiver-General and Chapter Clerk, the Registrar, the Auditor, the Legal Secretary and the Clerk of the Works (the administrative officers). Those more directly concerned with liturgical and ceremonial operations include the Precentor, the Chaplain and Sacrist, the Organist, and the (honorary) High Steward and High Bailiff. The Abbey and its property is in the care of the Librarian, the Keeper of the Muniments, and the Surveyor of the Fabric. Lastly, the educational role of the Abbey is reflected in the presence of the Headmaster of the Choir School, the Headmaster and Under Master of Westminster School, and the Master of The Queen's Scholars.
The Abbey is governed by the Dean and Chapter established under the Elizabethan statute of 1560. This consists of the Dean and the four residentiary Canons.

Museum

The Westminster abbey museum is located in the 11th century vaulted undercroft of St Peter beneath the former monks' dormitory in Westminster Abbey. This is one of the oldest areas of the Abbey, dating back almost to the foundation of the Norman church by King Edward the Confessor in 1065.

Exhibits

The exhibits include a unique collection of royal and other funeral effigies (funeral saddle, helm and shield of Henry V), together with other treasures, including some panels of medieval glass, 12th century sculpture fragments, Mary II's coronation chair and replicas of the Coronation regalia, effigies of Edward III, Henry VII and his queen, Elizabeth I, Charles II, William III, Mary II and Queen Anne.
Later wax effigies include a striking likeness of Horatio, Viscount Nelson wearing some of his own clothes and another of the famous Prime Minister William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, modelled by an American lady called Patience Wright. During recent conservation of Elizabeth I's effigy a unique corset dating from 1603 was found on the figure and is now displayed separately.

A recent addition to the display is the late 13th century Westminster Retable, England's oldest altarpiece. It was most probably designed for the High Altar of the Abbey, although it has been damaged in past centuries. The panel has been expertly cleaned and conserved. One section shows the figure of St Peter, the patron saint of the Abbey.

Gallery

Image:Westminster Abbey London 900px.jpg|The Great West Door and towers, as seen from Tothill Street Image:Westminsterabbeyfromeye.jpg|An view of from the nearby London Eye to the North East Image:Westminster abbey night.jpg|At night, from Dean's Yard to the South; artificial light highlights the flying buttresses Image:Westminster.abbey.northentrance.arp.500pix.jpg|The North entrance Image:Westminster Abbey C20th martyrs.jpg|Four of the ten Christian martyrs depicted in statues above the Great West Door Image:Westminster Abbey Choir ILN 1848.jpg|The Quire in 1848. Image:westminster.abbey.tombofhenry.london.arp.jpg|The tomb of Henry III of England in the Abbey. Image:CourtyardWestminster.JPG|The Little Cloister Further Information

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