A Hasty Story of the Abbey and a
Descriptive Guide to the Abbey Ruins
Albert E Webb
Avalon Press, Glastonbury, 1928
The Celtic Paradise?
To the reader unacquainted with the history of Glastonbury it may not be out of place to give a hasty outline of its story – legendary and historical. Probably to some the name of Glastonbury has little or no significance, yet its sacredness, dating for us from the first years of the Christian era, would seem to be older than Christianity. For in very ancient times Glastonbury – Ynys Witrin – Isle of Avalon – was known throughout Europe as the 'Happy Isle of the Blest', the abode of departed spirits; and from being a fabled Paradise in pre-Christian days, Glastonbury became the spot most hallowed by Christian tradition of any within this realm.
The Wattle Church
Tradition or history – the two bearing a near affinity to each other – says that while Christianity was in its earliest infancy Joseph of Arimathaea landed in the Isle of Avalon, then isolated from the surrounding country by the sea, and built a little Church of Wattles, and that from this primitve building arose, in later ages, that glorious pile whose ruin in our modern days commands our astonishment and admiration. Although it is customary to regard this time-honoured tradition of Joseph of Arimathaea as mythical, it is curious that the mission of Joseph has more than once received high ecclesiastical mention as a fact of some weight in the history of the English Church, for the English bishops at the Council of Basle in 1434 claimed precedence over those of France and Spain on the ground of 'Britain's conversion by Joseph of Arimathaea'.
That Christianity existed in Britain at a very early period there can be no reasonable doubt. Bede, a historian of singular credit and veracity, says that while Eleutherius filled the papal chair, about 166 AD, two missioners named Phaganus and Dervianus came to Britain, baptising King Lucius, who had embraced Christianity. They repaired the Wattle Church and established a community of anchorites on the spot. The Britons over whom Lucius presided peacefully preserved the faith until the period of Diocletian's persecution. It is an unquestioned historical fact that for two years the British Christians suffered fearful persecution by Diocletian at the close of the third century. Diocletian died AD 304. But in time the Church began to enjoy a greater tranquility and to gain many powerful adherents. The emperor Constantine, who had embraced Christianity, summoned bishops of the British Church to the Council of Arles in the year 314. Afterwards St Patrick came and introduced a regular monastic life among the anchorites living here, and a tradition persisted throughout the ages that St Patrick's bones rested at Glastonbury.
King Arthur
Fortunately hidden away in the West, the old Wattle Church escaped the attentions of the early invaders, and when the rest of England returned to paganism the Light continued to shine at Glastonbury. The ancient Welsh Triads mentions Glastonbury as one of the three chief perpetual choirs in Britain, and it was the channel through which there ran into Emglish monasticism all the treasured legends and beliefs of the earlier Celtic Church. Glastonbury became the local habitation of the abundant legends of the Arthurian Cycle – that body of stories which Geoffrey of Monmouth first codified, which Malory enriched and Tennyson popularised with the Idylls of the King.
According to Leland King Arthur was a constant visitor to Glastonbury. Here he was brought, mortally wounded, to the Happy Island of the Blest – but the belief was very generally entertained that he was not dead but would return again to restore the kingdom of the Kymri. History and legend appear in an amazing jumble, for with the legend of the 'Passing of Arthur' there comes to light a piece of genuine history in the Charter of King Ine of Wessex, who built and endowed a church and monastery here, which in spite of preceding establishments may almost be considered as a new foundation. The Charter of Ine, signed in the Wattle Church in 704, still exists, and confirms to the Church certain rights that had previously existed. The Glastonbury monks were Benedictines, the order having been introduced here in the time of St Augustine. King Ine's monastery maintained a great reputaion until the coming of the Danes, who ravished but did not utterly destroy.
St Dunstan
The real greatness of the abbey began with its greatest abbot, St Dunstan. Dunstan was born at Baltonsborough, four miles from Glastonbury. Through one or both parents he was connected with the royal house. We learn from Dunstan's first biographer that his father's property actually adjoins what he speaks of as 'the royal isle of Glastonbury'. King Edmund was an intimate friend of Dunstan and made him abbot of Glastonbury about 943. Dunstan not only reformed the very lax life of the monastery, and also rebuilt the eastern church which King Ine had erected. In the time of king Edgar Dunstan passed into the greater world of England as archbishop of Canterbury. King Edgar held his court at Glastonbury, and his name still lingers in the adjacent hamlet of Edgarley.
All through the centuries from 704 to the Norman conquest privileges, gifts and estates had been conferred on the Abbey, and at the time of the Doomsday survey Glastonbury was one of the richest and most influential monasteries in England, possessing altogether 818 hides of land. It possessed estates in Wiltshire, Dorset and Berkshire, whilst in Somerset it possessed a huge estate through the centre of the county containing 442 hides, and on which a full tenth of the population of Somerset resided.
Glaston Twelve Hides
At the Domesday survey the monastery of Glastonbury held the ancient lordship called Glaston Twelve Hides, which had never paid tax because of its sanctity and peculiar privileges. Within this lordship the King's Writ ceased to run, and the bishop might not celebrate a solemn mass, nor dedicate an altar, nor ordain a priest without leave of the Lord Abbot. The wealth of the abbey was so great that Fuller said it was commonly reported "that if the Abbot of Glaston might wed the Abbess of Shaston (Shaftesbury) their heir would have more land than the King of England".
At the Conquest Saxon abbots had to give way to Normans. The first Norman abbot, Thurstin, was a great builder and a good steward . But the monks had all an Englishman's prejudice against the foreigner, and their rebellion ended in a fight in which two monks were killed and fourteen wounded. The next abbot, Herelwin, was another great builder. Then in 1126 Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen, became abbot and ruled until 1171, the monastery flourishing under his powerful influence. It was under his direction that William of Malmesbury wrote the history of the abbey. As early at least as the beginning of the 11th the tradition that King Arthur was buried at Glastonbury appears to have taken shape, and in the reign of Henry II, according to Geraldus Cambrensis, who was an eye-witness, the abbot, Henry of Blois, causing a search to be made, discovered at a depth of 16ft a massive oak trunk with the inscription: Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurus in Insula Avalonia (here lies interred in the Isle of Avalon the renowned King Arthur). The remains then discovered were evidently believed to have been those of the ancient British king and were treated accordingly as sacred relics and reverently placed within the church.
The Great Fire – the old Wattle Church destroyed
On St Urban's day, May 25th 1184, the whole of the church and the greater part of the monastery, including the old Wattle Church, was destroyed by fire, and the work of centuries had to be undertaken afresh. Henry II determined to rebuild the whole at his own and his family's expense, and committed the work to his chamberlain Radulphus Fitzstephens. Rebuilding was at once taken in hand, the first portion to be commenced being the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin at the west end. It was dedicated by Bishop Reginald on June 11th 1186. Fitzstephens repaired the offices of the monastery and laid the foundations of the ecclesia major, the beautiful ruin of which we look upon today.
The death of Henry II in 1189 put an end to building for 50 years, and it was not until the time of Abbot Geoffrey Fromond, 1302-22, that the roof was put on and the church dedicated. Thus between the laying of the foundations by Ralph Fitzstephens and the dedication 120 years elapsed. Between the years 1193 and 1219 Glastonbury was distracted by a strange dispute caused by the death of Savaric, the ambitious Bishop of Bath, to make himself master of the abbey. The conflict came to an end in Bishop Jocelin's time – he relinquished his claim to Glastonbury for the valuable consideration of diverse rich manors given up to him by the monks of Glastonbury, which went to subsidise the See of Wells.
The Tomb of King Arthur
In finishing the Choir they erected a stately black marble mausoleum in the midst of the Feretory, at the east end, in which were placed the relics of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. We learn from Froissart, the court chronicler, of the romantic pilgrimage which King Edward I and his young Queen Eleanor made to Arthur's tomb at Glastonbury at Easter 1278. King Edward III and Queen Philippa spent Christmas at the abbey in 1331, being entertained by Abbot Adam of Sodbury.
Although Glastonbury was the largest, certainly the most magnificent, of all the monasteries of England, yet few abbots could refrain from an addition of their own to the vast complex of edifices over which they presided. In the 14th century the cloisters, dormitory and fratery were rebuilt and the Abbot's Kitchen constructed. Up to the verge of the final catastrophe the masons were busy. Abbot Beere built the Edgar Chapel at the extreme east end and Abbot Whiting was able to add some final touches before the hand of the destroyer came down to kill him and ruin Glaston forever.
Richard Beere, the last great builder, was elected on January 30th 1493. He was a great scholar and possessed the most distinguished gifts of any abbot since Dunstan. When King Henry VII visited the abbey on October 1st 1497, the princely abbot entertained him right royally. The king occupied the new chambers which Abbot Beere had built, and the apartments henceforth bore the name of the King's Lodgings. Abbot Beere died on 20th January 1524, being followed by Richard Whiting, the sixtieth abbot, the last and most unfortunate of them all.
The Last Abbot of Glastonbury
The monks in sacred orders, forty-seven in number, agreed to leave the selection of the abbot in the hands of Cardinal Wolsey, who named Richard Whiting for th vacancy. On the morning of March 8th 1524, in the presence of a vast multitude who filled the great abbey church, a notary public proclaimed in English, from the steps of the high altar, the due election of Brother Whiting. Thus was inaugurated the rule of the last abbot of Glastonbury.
Leland, who visited the abbey in Abbot Whiting's time, tells how he rejoiced at the sight of the literary treasures of the monastery, and it is certain that in the 14th century Glastonbury was the centre of culture,morality and religious zeal. In the summer of 1539 the abbey stood in unrivalled magnificence. All the other monasteries had been suppressed, and from April 1539 to November in that year Glastonbury stood alone. It is interesting to note that just as Glastonbury was the first monastic foundation to appear in England, so it was the last to fall.
'The Blackest Page of the Reformation'
Henry VIII, having cast off the Pope's authority and declared himself supreme head of the Church of England, named Thomas Crumwell his vicar-general, and a loot of all the religious houses in England began. In 1534 there was the breaking up of the smaller monasteries, 383 in number, whose income did not exceed £200. In that year Abbot Whiting and the monks of Glastonbury had accepted the Act of Supremacy "as far as the law of God permitted". From the lesser to the larger monasteries was but a step, and the year 1539 witnessed the fall of the larger monasteries and abbeys, 645 in number. Richard Pollard, one of Crumwell'sagents sent into Somerset to inspect the monasteries, on his first arrival here had described it to his employer as "a house so great, goodly, and so princely that we have not seen the like", whilst in another letter he adds, "It is a house meet for the King's majesty, and no one else".
A general intimation had now been given to all the religious houses how acceptable a surrender would be to the king. Abbot Whiting's refusal to surrender, indeed, cost him his life, but tradition fondly cherishes his memory, and the inhabitants of Glastonbury invariably refer to his execution as murder. On September 19th the commissioners Layton, Pollard and Moyle arived at the abbey. Abbot Whiting being at Sharpham Manor, they proceeded thither and brought him back as a prisoner. Then the real tragedy begins, which Froude calls "the blackest page of the Reformation". Whilst the 'visitors' were rummaging at Glastonbury, Abbot Whiting was safely lodged at the Tower of London, charged more or less indefinitely with high treason. Crumwell, however, had written in his Remembrance book "that the Abbot of Glaston should be tried at Glaston and also executed there, with his two accomplices".
In the absence of Abbot Whiting the valuables of the church were sent up to the Treasury – gold, silver and precious stones – described as the possessions of the attainted persons. Abbot Whiting was condemned secretly in London and conveyed to Wells, where Lord Russell was about to hold assizes. The abbot and his two monks, John Arthur and Roger Wilfrid, were arraigned in the now-ruined banqueting hall of the Bishop's Palace in Wells on a charge of robbing Glastonbury Church. The sentence of death was confirmed by a specially elected jury, as Froude says: "Already condemned at a tribunal where Crumwell sat as prosecutor, jury and judge". The murder of Abbot Whiting is thus described in a letter written to Thomas Crumwell by Richard Pollard, one of the 'visitors' and published by the Camden Society: "Since my last letter to your lordship the late Abbot of Glastonbury went from Wells to Glastonbury, and there was drawn through the town upon a hurdle to the hill called the Torre, where he was put to execution... The late abbot would accuse no man but himself of any offence against the King's Highness, nor he could confess no more gold nor silver nor any other thing more than he did before your lordship in the Tower. From Wells, 16th of November".
Not content with the judicial murder, the tribunal decided that the remains of the abbot should be prominently exhibited in the county. His head, white with the touch of eighty years, was fixed upon the abbey gate, the rest of his body being quartered and sent to Bath, Wells, Bridgwater and Ilchester. The monks and dependents were driven out into the world to find refuge where they could, whilst the revenues poured into the royal coffers! When everything of value had been carried away the venerable pile eventually became a common quarry!
The abbey of Glastonbury is, in its own special aspect, something more even than the royal minster of St Peter, Westminster, the crowning-place of Harold and William, which came to supplant Glastonbury as the burial place of kings – for the church of Glastonbury was already older when the Conqueror landed than it would have been now if he had founded it. Unlike any oter monastery, Glastonbury has handed down from the earliest times the record of a national faith, which endured through the British, Saxon and Norman times.
The Ruins pass to the English Church
In the year 1906 the abbey ruins, having been offered for sale by Mr Stanley Austin, came into the possession of the English Church through the instrumentality of Dr Kennion, the then bishop of the diocese. To celebrate the acquisition a Thanksgiving service was held in the ruins on June 22nd 1909, being attended by King George and Queen Mary (then Prince and Princess of Wales). Bishop Kennion was proud to have had some share in restoring Glastonbury Abbey from its position as a private possession to the guardianship of the trustees, and in placing the power of directing the uses of which it may be put in the hands of a council of representative churchmen. The trustees, to safeguard the condition of the ruined buildings, placed it in the care of one of the most experienced of our architects, Mr Caroe of Westminster, under whose guidance much preservation work has been carried out by the local firm of ecclesiastical builders, F Merrick & Son, of which the late Alderman Merrick was the head.