Westminster Abbey: Encyclopedia - Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

The Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster, which is almost always referred to as Westminster Abbey, is a mainly Gothic church, on the scale of a cathedral, 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.

Westminster Abbey - History

According to tradition, a shrine was first founded in 616 on the present site, then known as Thorney Island; it was said to have been miraculously consecrated after a fisherman on the River Thames saw a vision of Saint Peter, and for many centuries the monks received presents of salmon from the Thames fishermen. While the existence of this shrine is uncertain, there was certainly a community of Benedictine monks before the first historic Abbey was built by King Edward the Confessor around 1045-1050. Its construction originated in King Edward's failure to keep a vow to go on a pilgrimage; the Pope agreed that he redeem himself by building a church to St. Peter. It was consecrated on December 28, 1065, immediately before the Confessor's funeral and the last Saxon coronation of his successor King Harold.

The only extant depiction of the original Abbey, in the Romanesque style that is called "Norman" in England, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry. The Confessor's shrine subsequently played a great part in his canonisation.

The Abbot and learned monks, in close proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, 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. Henry III ordered the rebuilding of the Abbey in the Gothic style, as a shrine to honor Edward the Confessor and as a suitably regal setting for Henry's own tomb, under the highest Gothic nave in England. 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 Virgin Mary in 1503 (known as the Henry VII Chapel).

Although the Abbey was seized by Henry VIII in 1534 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and closed in 1540, becoming a cathedral until 1550, its royal connections saved it from the destruction wrought on most other English abbeys. 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. 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 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.

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.

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.

Westminster Abbey - Coronations

Since the coronations in 1066 of both King Harold and William the Conqueror, all English monarchs (except Lady Jane Grey, Edward V and Edward VIII, who did not have coronations) have been crowned in the Abbey. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the traditional cleric in the coronation ceremony. 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.

Westminster Abbey - Burials and Memorials

Henry III rebuilt the Abbey in honour of the Royal Saint Edward the Confessor whose memorial and relics were placed in the Sanctuary. Henry III was buried nearby as were the Plantagenet kings of England, their wives and relatives. Subsequently, most Kings and Queens of England were buried here, although Henry VIII and Charles I are buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, as are all monarchs and royals since George II.

Aristocrats were buried in side 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 had 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., etc. These include:

Westminster Abbey - Buried

• Clement Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee
• Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts
• Charles Darwin
• James Clerk Maxwell
• J.J. Thomson
• Saint Edward the Confessor
• Ben Jonson
• David Livingstone
• Sir Isaac Newton
• Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford
• William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
• The Unknown Warrior
• George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
• Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox
• Thomas Tompion
• George Graham

• William Ewart Gladstone
• William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
• William Pitt the Younger

Poets' Corner

• Robert Adam
• Robert Browning
• William Camden
• Thomas Campbell
• Geoffrey Chaucer
• William Congreve
• Abraham Cowley
• William Davenant
• Charles Dickens
• John Dryden
• Adam Fox
• David Garrick
• John Gay
• George Frederick Handel
• Thomas Hardy
• Dr Samuel Johnson
• Rudyard Kipling
• Thomas Macaulay
• John Masefield
• Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier
• Thomas Parr

• Richard Brinsley Sheridan
• Edmund Spenser
• Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

• Aphra Behn

• Henry Purcell
• Ralph Vaughan Williams

Westminster Abbey - Commemorated

• William Shakespeare, buried at Stratford-upon-Avon
• Sir Winston Churchill, buried at Bladon, Oxfordshire
• Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, buried at Hughenden Manor, Buckinghamshire
• Adam Lindsay Gordon, buried in Australia
• Paul Dirac, buried in Florida
• Oscar Wilde (in a stained glass window unveiled in 1995), buried in Paris [1]
• Ten 20th-century Christian martyrs from across the world are depicted in statues above the Great West Door. Unveiled in 1998, these are, from left to right:
  • St. Maximilian Kolbe
  • Manche Masemola
  • Janani Luwum
  • Elizabeth of Russia
  • Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Óscar Romero
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • Esther John
  • Lucian Tapiedi
  • Wang Zhiming

Westminster Abbey - Removed

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

• Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector
• Admiral Robert Blake

Westminster Abbey - Schools

Westminster School and Westminster Abbey Choir School are also on the grounds of the Abbey. Westminster School was originally founded by the Benedictine monks in 1179.

Westminster Abbey - Transport

• Nearest London Underground stations:
  • St. James's Park (District, Circle lines)
  • Westminster (Jubilee, District, Circle lines)

Westminster Abbey - List of Abbots Deans and the Bishop of Westminster

Westminster Abbey - Gallery

The west front

The tomb of King Henry III in the Abbey. Henry was crowned king at the age of nine, reigning from 1216 to 1272

See also

• List of churches and cathedrals of London
• List of other famous burial sites
• The Unknown Warrior

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Westminster Abbey", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki