Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom's most notable religious buildings and since Edward the Confessor, a burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have occurred in Westminster Abbey.Westminster-abbey.org
/ref> Sixteen royal weddings have occurred at the abbey since 1100.

According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site (then known as Thorney Island) in the seventh century, at the time of Mellitus, Bishop of London. Construction of the present church began in 1245 on the orders of Henry III.

The church was originally part of a Catholic Benedictine abbey, which was dissolved in 1539. It then served as the cathedral of the Diocese of Westminster until 1550, then as a second cathedral of the Diocese of London until 1556. The abbey was restored to the Benedictines by Mary I in 1556, then in 1559 made a royal peculiar—a Church of England church responsible directly to the sovereign—by Elizabeth I.

The abbey is the burial site of more than 3,300 people, usually of prominence in British history: at least 16 monarchs, eight prime ministers, poets laureate, actors, scientists, military leaders, and the Unknown Warrior.

History

A late tradition claims that Aldrich, a young fisherman on the River Thames, had a vision of Saint Peter near the site. This seems to have been quoted as the origin of the salmon that Thames fishermen offered to the abbey in later years, a custom still observed annually by the Fishmongers' Company. The recorded origins of the abbey date to the 960s or early 970s, when Saint Dunstan and King Edgar installed a community of Benedictine monks on the site.

1042: Edward the Confessor starts rebuilding St Peter's Abbey

Between 1042 and 1052, Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter's Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church. It was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style. The building was completed around 1060 and was consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edward's death on 5 January 1066. A week later, he was buried in the church; nine years later, his wife Edith was buried alongside him. His successor, Harold Godwinson, was probably crowned here, although the first documented coronation is that of William the Conqueror later the same year.

The only extant depiction of Edward's abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry. Some of the lower parts of the monastic dormitory, an extension of the South Transept, survive in the Norman Undercroft of the Great School, including a door said to come from the previous Saxon abbey. Increased endowments supported a community that increased from a dozen monks during Dunstan's time, up to as many as eighty monks.

Construction of the present church

Released from the burdens of spiritual leadership, which passed to the reformed Cluniac movement after the mid-10th 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 concludes, 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 abbot and monks, being adjacent to the Palace of Westminster (the seat of government from the late 13th century), became a powerful force in the centuries after the Norman Conquest, with the Abbot of Westminster taking his place in the House of Lords in due course. The proximity to the palace did not however extend to providing them 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 people grew around it: as a consumer and employer on a grand scale, the monastery helped fuel the town's economy, and relations with the town remained unusually cordial, but no enfranchising charter was issued during the Middle Ages.

Westminster Abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings, but none were buried there until Henry III rebuilt it in the Anglo-French Gothic style as a shrine to venerate King Edward the Confessor and as a suitably regal setting for his own tomb, under the highest Gothic nave in England. The Confessor's shrine subsequently played a great part in his canonization.

Construction began in 1245.History – Westminster Abbey
. Retrieved 29 April 2011 The first building stage included the entire eastern end, the transepts, and the easternmost bay of the nave. The Lady chapel, built from around 1220 at the extreme eastern end, was incorporated into the chevet of the new building, but was later replaced. This work must have been largely completed by 1258–60, when the second stage began. This carried the nave on an additional five bays, bringing it to one bay beyond the ritual choir. Here, construction stopped in about 1269. A consecration ceremony being held on 13 October of that year, but because of Henry's death, construction did not resume. The old Romanesque nave remained attached to the new building for over a century, until it was pulled down and rebuilt from 1376, closely following the original (and by now outdated) design. Construction was largely finished by the architect Henry Yevele in the reign of Richard II.

Henry III also commissioned the unique Cosmati pavement in front of the High Altar; the pavement was re-dedicated by the Dean at a service on 21 May 2010 after undergoing a major cleaning and conservation programme.

Henry VII added a Perpendicular style chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1503 (known as the "Henry VII Chapel" or the "Lady Chapel"). Much of the stone came from Caen

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