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, 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. It briefly held the status of a cathedral from 1546 1556, and is currently a Royal Peculiar.
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 monks here. The stone Abbey was built around 1045 1050 by King Edward the Confessor and was later rebuilt again by Henry I 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 is 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 Westminst! er, “the Benedictines achieved a remarkable degree of id! entification 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 did not 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.
Coronations Burials and memorials Buried Monarchs and their consorts Other monarchs and consorts Nave North Tr! ansept South Transept Cloisters North Choir Aisle Chapel of St Paul Henry VII Chapel Commemorated Removed Schools Organ Organists Transport Chapter Museum Exhibits Hot! Westminster Abbey
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