Modern England (and for that matter the whole UK), unlike most of the rest of Europe, considers itself to be a continuation of medieval England. King Charles III is a descendant of William the Conqueror, and for that matter of the Saxon royal line pre-1066. No French Revolution here! (Okay, so we don't need to talk about the English civil war of the seventeenth century, when the monarch was beheaded and replaced by Cromwell as Protector. They eventually restored the monarchy with the dead king's son.)
England's medieval roots are always fully on display for great ceremonies, such as the upcoming royal coronation of King Charles at Westminster Abbey. Charles is already king, having been since his mother's death in September 2022, but a new king needs an elaborate ceremony, a performative act. He is king of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, and northern Ireland. The Scots will tell you that Scotland took over England rather than vice versa, because James VI was already king of Scotland when he became James I of England in 1603, but we don't need to talk about that now.
Westminster is its own city, surrounded by London but not officially part of it. It was called Westminster because it was the area surrounding a church (what the word "minster" means) located west of what was then the city of London. London has grown enormously over the centuries, but the central bit is still called The City.
There was an abbey founded at Westminster in the tenth century, and in the eleventh century Edward the Confessor, next to last of the Saxon kings of England (last if you don't count Harold, defeated by William the Conqueror) paid for a new church to be built for the monks. He'd already built a royal palace right next door. He was buried at Westminster abbey when he died in 1066, the first of a great many kings to be buried there. (It's not happened for the last two centuries, however; Queen Elizabeth II was buried out at Windsor, even though her funeral was at Westminster—as was her wedding to Prince Philip in 1947.) William the Conqueror chose Westminster for his own coronation ceremony in 1066, doubtless to assert continuity with Saxon kings, and chose Christmas Day, most likely to assert some sort of continuity with Charlemagne (crowned Roman Emperor on Christmas Day 800).
The monastery flourished over the following centuries. In the thirteenth centuries, as great Gothic cathedrals, like Notre Dame in Paris, were being built all over, the decision was made to tear down the Romanesque eleventh-century church, which now seemed hopelessly old-fashioned, and rebuild in the high Gothic style. The church as it now stands was more or less completed in the fifteenth century; Gothic takes a long time to build.
Now of course the church has gone through a lot since the thirteenth century. The big central window on the west end (seen above) dates from the eighteenth century. So do the towers on either side. (In the picture above you can see the stone of the towers is a lighter color.) The organ was installed in the twentieth century. And of course it is no longer a monastery. In the sixteenth century you'll recall England became Protestant ("Church of England") under Henry VIII, and Catholic monasteries were shut down. Briefly the abbey church was designated a cathedral, although it is not one now. (Instead Westminster cathedral is a separate church, the seat of a Catholic bishop, head of English Catholicism.) Although the monks are long gone, the abbey church still has a school for choir boys.
Westminster palace, built much later in its current form to replace Edward the Confessor's palace, is now the home of England's Parliament.
The April/May 2023 issue of Smithsonian magazine has a good article about Westminster.
© C. Dale Brittain 2023
For more on Britain during the Middle Ages, see my ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages. Also available in paperback.
No comments:
Post a Comment