Westminster Abbey

Let its now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us All these were honoured in their generation -, and were the glory of their Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name Ivoeth for evermore Printed, at THE DARIBN PRESS, Edinburgh. PR1HTED IN GREAT BRITAIN. PREFACE. OF all the magnificent memorials which we and the English-speaking nations beyond the seas have inherited from the piety and genius of our fathers, none approaches in interest the great church at Westminster, which from its primitive foundation, as a monastic chronicler proudly records, was the Coronation Church of England and the mausoleum of her kings, the head of England, and the diadem of the English realms. Round the Abbey a voluminous literature has gathered. A considerable part of it is devoted rather to the cemetery at West minster than to the church. Another portion consists of architectural monographs on special subjects by Sir Gilbert Scott, Mr William Surges, Professor Lethaby, Mr J. T. Micklethwaite, and others all of great value. Lately, too, a large amount of documentary evidence as to the history of the church has been put on record by Sir E. M. Thomson, Dr . Wickham Legg, Mr L. G. W. Legg, Colonel Chester, the present Dean of Westminster, Dr J. Armitage Robinson, Dr Montague R. James, and the Reverend R. B. Rackham. But the only comprehen sive account of the architectural history of the church is that published by Mr E. W. Brayley in 1818. The present volume may be regarded in part as an attempt to do on a small scale what was done by Mr Brayley in two large quarto volumes, but with the addition of information drawn from the special monographs and documentary evidence men tioned above. This comprises the chapters on the churches of the Confessor and Henry the Third, on the rebuilding of the nave, on Henry the Sevenths Chapel, and on the monastic buildings. And as it would be idle to describe the monastic buildings and arrangements without reference to their occupants, the materials furnished by Abbot Wares Customary have been largely utilised, to enable the reader in some measure to realise the daily life of a Benedictine monk as it was lived at Westminster. But the book attempts more than this. The church at Westminster is but one of the host of great monastic, collegiate, and cathedral churches left to us which, amid a multitude of varying details, are in their main viii PREFACE arrangements largely the same. What is true of Westminster is true in essentials of all. If we understand the meaning of the planning of Westminster, we can visit with assured insight Tewkesbury, Gloucester, Winchester, Lincoln, and the rest. It is from this wider point of view that Westminster Abbey is regarded in this volume. To a large extent the book aims at describing the general arrangements and purpose of the English churches in general, except those which are purely parochial. Few people seem to recognise the great disparity in aim of the non parochial and parish churches. Six chapters are here devoted to this subject. Then we turn to the architectural and artistic side of the monument. With the details of the design we are not here concerned they are treated at length in connection with English mediaeval architecture in general in a larger work of the writer. What is attempted here is something different it is to get at the fundamentals of the design... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.