WESTMINSTER ABBEY

When the abbey was established by monks in 960 AD, it existed on an island on the River Thames called Thorney Island. Its elevations and stable foundations delivered the perfect position to build an abbey and the Palace of Westminster. The island no longer exists, although it has provided the name for Thorney Street in Westminster.

The structure complex we see today dates from the thirteenth century when Henry III began the transformation of the abbey in the new Gothic style of design. By 1269, the eastern portions were finished and King Edward the Confessor’s body had been moved to a new shrine, which brought in thousands of pilgrims every year.

In 1300, King Edward I had a Coronation Chair made to encompass the Stone of Scone, which he had fetched from Scotland in 1296. The Stone, a symbol of Scotland’s surrender to England, was restored to Scotland in 1996. All but two of the kings of England have been crowned in the Abbey, and Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Richard II, and Henry V are buried there. There are over three thousand people are buried in the Abbey. Among them is the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who actually rented a house from the Abbey.

Henry VIII presumed direct control in 1539 and established the abbey with the status of a cathedral by charter in 1540, instantaneously issuing letters instituting the Diocese of Westminster. By granting it cathedral status, Henry VIII could spare it from the demolition or dissolution which he imposed on many English abbeys during the period.

Around thirty to sixty monks lived there in the middle ages, and possibly three times as many servants, skilled craftsmen, masons and carpenters. The Abbot and the chief officers had cloistered rooms, but most monks lived in a dormitory. The monks had access to a garden, which can still be visited today, where they could take a walk and grow herbs. Unwell monks were looked after in the Infirmary, part of which is now the Little Cloister. The Abbey was located in Westminster, which was outside the walls of London. Like most towns, it was ruled by a small well-off elite. Unlike most towns, it had two influential inhabitants: the king and the wealthy Benedictine Abbey of Westminster.

Parliament usually met in Westminster, where the Lords congregated at Westminster Palace. The House of Commons occasionally met in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. Almsgiving was a significant part of the Benedictine life and was particularly important at Westminster because so many of the nobility left hefty sums of money for the Abbey to allocate to the poor at their funeral and on the anniversary of their deaths on the supposition that the poor getting alms would pray for their souls. Other alms were scraps from the monks’ meals, dispensed to the poor who grouped at the monastery’s gate. The poor included pilgrims and travellers, and the poor who lived in Westminster. Enormous crowds would gather when alms were distributed. On the anniversary of the death of Queen Eleanor of Castile, at least twelve thousand poor arrived at the Abbey to collect a penny each.

Westminster Abbey holds the only surviving Anglo Saxon door in the country, dating from about 1050. Recent dendrochronological analysis discovered the boards were cut from a single tree from Essex, which was growing between 924 to 1030.

The tree would have been a sapling some six hundred years before, during the finale of Roman Britain. In the nineteenth century, it was detected there were pieces of hide covering the door. Theories pointed to a theft in 1303, suggesting the skin of convicted criminals was nailed to the door as a warning. It seems more likely that these hides were taken from cows and added to provide a smooth ornamental surface.