THE MONASTIC BUILDINGS
“_That Fabric rises high as Heaven,
Whose Basis on Devotion stands._”
MATTHEW PRIOR.
With the help of the Abbey we have taken a long, and perhaps rather
hurried, journey through many centuries of our country’s history, and
have tried to think of the many links by which the Abbey is bound to all
English hearts. We must now turn back again across those centuries, and
try to remember something of the old monastery, of its buildings, of the
Abbots who governed it, and of the sort of lives the monks lived.
The Abbey, as we already know, was dedicated to St. Peter from the
earliest days. The monks belonged to the great Benedictine order. That
order, which had spread over all Europe, “from Poland to Portugal, and
from Cumberland to Calabria,” was founded by St. Benedict in the sixth
century after Christ. St. Benedict was born in Italy about the year 480,
during a very restless and troubled time, just after the last Emperor
had been driven out of Rome. Benedict very soon determined to live the
life of a monk, and when he was quite a boy he went away from Rome to a
place in the mountains near. From this place he went to a yet more
remote and lonely one, the wild and beautiful Subiaco, where the Emperor
Nero had once had a “villa” or country house.
There are two famous Benedictine monasteries at Subiaco, and it is an
interesting thing to remember that the first books printed in Italy were
printed at one of these monasteries, just as in England many of Caxton’s
books were printed under the shadow of the Benedictine Abbey of
Westminster.
Again, when St. Benedict built his great monastery at Monte Cassino, he
built it on the site of a Temple of Apollo, just as King Lucius is said
to have done in those far-off days at “Thorney,” or Westminster.
St. Benedict directed that the monks of his order should divide their
time between the services in the church, study, and manual work of some
kind. It should never be forgotten that it is largely to the monasteries
that we owe the preservation of learning, and our inheritance of the
great writings of the Greek and Roman world.
The idea of making monasteries places of study and learning did not
begin with St. Benedict, but Western Europe owes him a great debt for
having insisted that study should be an important part of a monk’s work.
This was a great service to mankind and to civilisation in those wild
days of barbarian invasion and almost constant war.
It should be remembered, too, that the clergy and monks were the chief,
if not the only, teachers during several centuries. If we want to see
and understand this we can find an example in what our own countryman,
Alcuin of York, did for education under the patronage and with the help
of Charlemagne.
The Chapel dedicated to St. Benedict in the Abbey has already been
mentioned two or three times. This Chapel is just at the entrance of the
South Ambulatory.
On the south side of the Abbey Church, and protected by it from the cold
north, lies the beautiful cloister where the monks and their pupils
spent a great deal of their time. The Cloister-walks form a quadrangle,
with a large grass plot in the middle. Under that peaceful grass plot
many of the Westminster monks are resting, and many people are buried in
the Cloister itself.
The present Cloister is of different dates. Parts of the East and North
Walks are of the time of Henry III and Edward I. Another part of the
East Walk was built in the reign of Edward III, and the South and West
Walks were built some years later by Abbot Litlington. It is said that
every style of English architecture can be seen in the Westminster
Cloisters; and this is true, because, as we shall see, some of the old
Norman Cloister remains, and in the great Cloister we can find the Early
English, the Decorated, and the Perpendicular styles.
The Cloister was not a burial-place only. It was a very important part
of the monastery, as much of the daily life went on there.
In those days the windows had glass in them; the floor and benches were
strewn with straw and hay in summer, and with rushes in winter. The
walls were decorated with frescoes, and lamps hung from the vaulting.
The East Cloister was given up to the Abbot, who was a great personage.
Whenever he passed, every one rose and bowed and kept silence. The monks
themselves used the North Cloister, where the Prior also sate. The
novices and pupils worked at their lessons in the West Cloister. The
pupils sate one behind the other; they were not allowed to make jokes or
to make signals to one another. They had to talk always in French. They
were to take great care about their writing and illuminations, and no
doubt many beautiful old illuminated missals and other books came forth
from those Cloister walks at Westminster.
In the South Cloister is a very large bluish gravestone, reminding us of
the terrible plague which visited most of Europe about the middle of the
fourteenth century, and which was called “The Black Death.” Twenty-six
of the Westminster monks, including the Abbot, died of the Black Death
in 1348–49, and the monks are supposed to have been buried beneath this
huge gravestone, which used to be called “Long Meg.” The Abbot,
Byrcheston, was buried near the Chapter-House entrance, in the part of
the Cloister which was built in his time.
Close to “Long Meg” are the graves of several of the Abbots of Norman
and early Plantagenet times. Three of the figures still remain close to
the wall, but the names are not carved over the right gravestones. After
1220 it became the custom to bury the Abbots in the church itself.
In the East Cloister there is a beautiful carved archway, which forms
the entrance to a lovely little passage with very sharply pointed
arches. This passage leads into the Chapter-House, one of the finest
parts of the Abbey buildings. The “incomparable Chapter-House,” as an
old chronicler calls it, was begun by Henry III in 1250. It is
eight-sided, and the vault springs from a tall and graceful central
pillar, just as the branches spring from a palm tree. The windows are
very famous for their beautiful tracery. The stained glass in them is
modern, and is a memorial to the late Dean Stanley.
The walls were once covered with paintings, but these have been sadly
destroyed, and only very few have been preserved. In the glass cases
which are now placed in the Chapter-House are many most interesting and
valuable things, such as the great illuminated missal presented to the
Abbey by Abbot Litlington, and charters granted to the Abbey by various
Kings, from the Saxon times onward.
There is also a splendidly bound book of Henry VII’s time, concerning
certain arrangements between the King and the Abbey of Westminster, and
the _Liber Regalis_, or Coronation book of Richard II.
In another case will be found an interesting collection of old seals.
The Westminster Chapter-House has had a very varied and rather exciting
history. In the old days the Chapter-House was the meeting-place of the
convent. There the affairs of the monastery used to be discussed; there
complaints might be made; there the monks might confess their faults;
and there, usually, they were punished. The Consistory Court of the
convent used to be held in the South-West Tower. The seats for the judge
and his assessors are still to be seen against the south wall, below the
monument to Henry Fawcett. A Consistory Court was the place where trials
which had to do with church matters were held.
[Illustration:
[_G. A. Dunn._
THE CHAPTER-HOUSE.
]
About thirty years after the Chapter-House was first built it began to
be used as the meeting-place of the House of Commons, at the time when
the Commons were separated from the Lords. The last time that the
Commons sate in the Westminster Chapter-House was on the last day of
Henry VIII’s reign, and the last act passed there was the attainder of
the Duke of Norfolk (1546). In 1547 the House of Commons moved to the
Chapel of St. Stephen in the Palace of Westminster, and the
Chapter-House began to be used as the Record Office. It is curious, when
we look at the Chapter-House as it is now, to think that it was once all
lined round with galleries and cupboards, and that the Records of the
kingdom were kept here until 1864. Soon afterwards the Chapter-House was
restored to its present state, and is no doubt very like what it was in
Henry III’s time. While it was the Record Office, Domesday Book and many
other most precious books and documents had their home at Westminster.
Under the Chapter-House is a crypt, of which the walls are eighteen feet
thick, and which, long centuries ago, was used as the Royal Treasury.
The Regalia and stores of money were kept there. In 1303 a terrible
thing happened. There was a great robbery of the Royal Treasure; the
money which Edward I had collected for the Scottish wars was stolen, as
well as part of the Regalia. It is sad to think that some of the
Westminster monks had to do with this disgraceful robbery, but they were
found out and punished.
Below the pavement of the entrance to the Chapter-House are buried (1)
Abbot Edwyn, the friend and adviser of Edward the Confessor, and the
first Abbot of his new monastery; (2) Hugolin, who was Chamberlain and
Treasurer to the Confessor; and (3) Sulcard, a monk, who wrote the first
history of the Abbey. In the vestibule, close to the Chapter-House, are
the modern window and tablet in memory of James Russell Lowell, the
well-known American poet and prose writer. Lowell was for many years the
United States Minister in London, and was much beloved, both in this
country and his own.
The Chapel of the Pyx, close by the Chapter-House, was formerly the
monastic Treasury. At one time the Regalia were kept there. The Chapel
is so called from the “pyx,” or box, which contained the standard coins
of the realm, used for testing our current coinage. The pyx has now been
moved to the Mint, but the Chapel still keeps its ancient name. The
Chapel of the Pyx, and the buildings next to it, belong to the Norman
time, and over them the monks’ Dormitory was built. Part of the old
Dormitory is now used as the Chapter Library, and part as the Great
School.
Most of the treasures in the old monastic library were destroyed in the
time of Edward VI; and unfortunately, many of the books collected by the
earlier Deans were destroyed in a fire in 1694.
Another very interesting part of the monastic buildings was the
Refectory, or dining-hall of the monks. The first Refectory was built,
probably, in the early Norman times, and was a stately room. It was
rebuilt in the reign of Edward III, when it was made still larger, and
only the lower part of the old Norman walls was kept. Some of this
Norman wall can still be seen.
In the book of the “Customs” of the monastery, or “Consuetudines,” as
the long Latin name goes, are very strict rules about behaviour at
meals. No monk might speak at all, and even the guests might only
whisper. No one was to sit with his hand on his chin, or with his hand
over his head, because that might look as if he were in pain. No one
might lean on his elbows, or stare, or crack nuts with his teeth. All
these old rules seem to be very good ones, and might be useful to some
people in the twentieth century.
But the Refectory is interesting for many historical reasons. Here, in
1252, Henry III swore to observe Magna Charta. Henry, standing with the
Book of the Gospels in one hand and a lighted taper in the other, and
surrounded by the Archbishops and other great clergy, took his solemn
oath. Upon this they all dashed their tapers on the ground, saying “So
go out, with smoke and stench, the accursed souls of those who break or
pervert the Charter.”
In 1294, Edward I held a great council of clergy and laity in the
Refectory at Westminster. On this occasion the King was demanding a
subsidy of half their possessions, to the consternation of the assembled
council. The Dean of St. Paul’s was trying to persuade the King not to
ask so much, and in his anxiety and excitement the poor man fell dead at
Edward’s feet. The old history says that Edward took very little
notice,—“passed over this event with indifferent eyes,” and insisted on
having what he asked.
It was in the Refectory that the Commons impeached Piers Gaveston, the
favourite and bad adviser of Edward II. And besides this, the Commons
met here several times during the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, and
Henry V, so we see that this great hall has been very closely connected
with the history of England.
It is supposed that part of the large quantity of stone granted to
Protector Somerset was taken from the Refectory. This stone was used by
him in the building of Somerset House.
Another important part of the monastery was the Infirmary, the place
where the old and infirm monks lived in their old age. It stood on the
site of what is now called the Little Cloister, but the present Little
Cloister is much more modern, and belongs to what is called the
“Jacobean” time.
The low, barrel-vaulted passages which lead from the Great Cloister to
the site of the old Infirmary are some of the very oldest parts of the
Abbey buildings, as they were built, if not actually during the
Confessor’s lifetime, at any rate by the first Norman Kings. They are
therefore more than 800 years old. In one of the ancient Norman rooms,
below the former Dormitory of the monks, the Dean and Chapter have
lately arranged a very interesting kind of museum, containing various
fragments of old carving and other valuable relics of former times.
There, too, have been placed the very oldest of the wax effigies, which
are too battered and ragged to be shown with the others in the Islip
Chantry. Here are the rather ghastly remains of the effigies of Edward
III and Philippa, Henry V and Katherine de Valois, of Mary Tudor and
some others.
Round to the left, through an even darker bit of Cloister, was the
Infirmary, of which we were just now speaking. The Infirmary was almost
a monastery in itself, having a cloister, a garden, and a very beautiful
chapel of its own. This chapel was built in the twelfth century, and was
dedicated to St. Katherine. Some of its arches still remain in the
garden of one of the modern houses. Many interesting things took place
in St. Katherine’s Chapel. One of these was a famous struggle between
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York as to which was to sit in the
chief place on the right hand of the Papal Legate. It was settled that
the Archbishop of Canterbury was to have the precedence, and be called
“Primate of all England.” Another interesting event connected with St.
Katherine’s Chapel, and a pleasanter one to think of, is the
consecration of St. Hugh of Lincoln in 1186. St. Hugh was a pupil and
disciple of St. Bruno, and came to his northern bishopric from the
famous monastery of the Grande Chartreuse in the south of France. The
old garden of the Infirmary is still the Abbey garden, and lies just
beyond the Little Cloister. Close to it is the ancient Jewel House,
where the King’s jewels used to be kept. It was built by Richard II on a
piece of ground which was bought from the Abbey by Edward III in the
last year of his reign.
Other parts of the monastery, such as the granary, the malt-house,
brew-house, and bake-house, stood in the square or court which is now
called Dean’s Yard. Parts of some of these ancient buildings still
remain below the modern houses. We shall hear of the granary again, in
another chapter.
In former days Dean’s Yard used to be known as “The Elms,” and was
enclosed by the old monastery walls.
The Almonry, or place where the alms of the monastery used to be given
to the poor, was on the south-west side of Broad Sanctuary. It was close
to the Almonry that Caxton set up his printing-press.
We can easily see what an important place a great monastery must have
been, when we think of all its different parts, and of the work of
various kinds that went on in it.
But we must not take leave of the old monastic buildings and life
without saying a few words about the Sanctuary, which played an
important part in the Abbey history, and even in the history of England.
It has already been told how Queen Elizabeth Woodville “took Sanctuary,”
as they said in those days, and how Edward V was born while she was at
Westminster. The Abbey, like many other great religious houses, had the
right of Sanctuary. That is to say, people who took refuge there could
not be carried off to prison, or injured in any way. It was considered
an awful thing to kill any one who was in Sanctuary. In the rough and
cruel times of the Middle Ages it was perhaps a good thing for people to
have such a refuge, and no doubt many helpless and innocent persons were
then saved from violence and injustice. But, as might be expected, many
bad people used to fly into Sanctuary, and as time went on this became a
great abuse. Queen Elizabeth took away some of the privileges of
Sanctuary, and in James I’s reign it was done away with altogether.
The actual Sanctuary Tower, which was a square Norman fortress, stood
very much where Westminster Hospital now stands. Close to this tower
there was a belfry, where some famous bells used to hang.
Near the Sanctuary Tower was the old Gatehouse, or prison, of the
monastery. It was in this Gatehouse that Sir Walter Raleigh spent the
last night of his life, and other well-known people were imprisoned
there, such as John Hampden, and Richard Lovelace, the Cavalier poet.