When was benedictine order founded

The constitution was modelled on that of the congregation of St. Justina of Padua and it was a genuine return to the primitive austerity of conventual observance.

It became chiefly celebrated for the literary achievements of its members, amongst whom it counted Mabillon , Montfaucon, d'Achery, Martene, and many others equally famous for their erudition and industry. In the Revolution suppressed all its monasteries and the monks were dispersed. The superior general and two others suffered in the massacre at the Carmes, 2 September, Others sought safety in flight and were received into Lamspring, and abbeys of Switzerland , England , and North America.

A few of the survivors endeavoured to restore their congregation at Solesmes in , but the attempt was not successful, and the congregation died out, leaving behind it a fame unrivalled in the annals of monastic history. Hubert in Ardennes, which had been founded about for canons regular but had become Benedictine in , was the first in the Low Countries to embrace the reform.

To facilitate its introduction, monks were sent from St. Denis in Hainault, St. Adrian, Afflighem, St. Peter's at Ghent , and others followed suit.

These were formed into a new congregation c. Two abbeys of this congregation, Termonde and Afflighem, have since been restored and affiliated to the Belgian province of the Cassinese P.

The example of reform set by the congregation of St. Justina in the fifteenth century exercised an influence upon the Austrian monasteries. Beginning in the Abbey of Melk founded about , the reform was extended to other houses, and in a union of those that had adopted it was proposed. In it was proposed to unite this congregation, those of Bursfeld and Bavaria , and all the houses that were still independent, into one general federation, and a meeting was held at Ratisbon to discuss the scheme.

The Swedish invitation, however, put an end to the plan and the only result was the formation of another small congregation of nine abbeys , with that of St. Peter's, Salzburg , at its head. These two congregations, Melk and Salzburg, lasted until towards the end of the eighteenth century, when the despotic rule of Joseph II gave them their death-blow.

In many of the abbeys were suppressed and those that were suffered to remain were forbidden to receive fresh novices. The Emperor Francis I, however, restored several of them between the years and , and in those that still survived, some twenty in number, were formed into two new congregations under the titles of the Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph, respectively. Paul's in Carinthia, and the Scots monastery at Vienna , includes none of later date than the twelfth century; whilst in the congregation of St.

Joseph there are Salzburg before , Michaelbeuern , four others of the eleventh century, and only one of recent foundation, Innsbruck It then consisted of eighteen houses which flourished until the general suppression at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Pius IX restored the congregation comprising the above houses, of which the Abbot of Metten is president.

The abbeys of Plankstetten and Ettal were restored in and , respectively and added to the congregation. It comprises the four abbeys of Zalavar , Bakonybel , Tihany , and Domolk , which are dependent on the Arch-Abbey of Monte Pannonia Martinsberg , and to these are added six "residences" or educational establishments conducted by the monks.

The members of this body are professed for the congregation and not for any particular monastery , and they can be moved from one house to another at the discretion of the arch-abbot and his sixteen assessors. The arch-abbey was founded by Stephen, the first king of Hungary , in , and together with the other houses enjoys an unbroken succession from the date of foundation. The congregation is affiliated to the Cassinese, though it enjoys a status of comparative independence. He had been professed at St.

Paul's , Rome , and though at one time desirous of joining the community of Monte Cassino , was urged by the Bishop of Le Mans to restore the Benedictine Order in France.

He acquired possession of the old Maurist priory of Solesmes , which Pope Gregory XVI made an abbey and the mother-house of the new congregation. He also declared it to be the true successor to all the privileges formerly enjoyed by the congregations of Cluny, St.

Wandrille , founded , in New foundations were likewise made at Marseilles in , Farnborough England , and Wisque in , Paris , Kergonan , and a cell from Silos was established in Mexico in The community of Solesmes have been expelled from their monastery by the French government no less than four times.

In the years , , and they were ejected by force , and, being afforded hospitality in the neighbourhood, kept up their corporate life as far as possible, using the parish church for the Divine Office. Each time they succeeded in re-entering their abbey , but at the final expulsion in they were, in common with all other religious of France , driven out of the country.

The Fathers at Paris have been allowed to remain, in consideration of the important literary and history work on which they are engaged. This congregation has endeavoured to carry on the work of the Maurists , and numbers many well-known writers amongst its members.

The Abbot of Solesmes is the superior general, to which position he has been twice re-elected. He went to St. Paul's , Rome , where he was joined by his two brothers, and all were professed in , one dying soon after.

In , through the influence of the Princess Katharina von Hohenzollern, they obtained possession of the old Abbey of Beuron, near Sigmaringen, which had been originally founded in , but was destroyed in the tenth century by Hungarian invaders and later restored as a house of canons regular; it had been unoccupied since Dom Maurus became the first abbot of Beuron and superior of the congregation.

In a colony was sent to Belgium to found the Abbey of Maredsous, of which Dom Placid was first abbot. The community of Beuron were banished in by the "May Laws" of the Prussian Government and found a temporary home in an old Servite monastery in the Tyrol. Whilst there their numbers increased sufficiently to make new foundations at Erdington , England , in , Prague in , and Seckau, Styria , in There were probably settlements amongst the Eskimo from Iceland , by way of Greenland , but these must have disappeared at an early date.

In a monk from Montserrat accompanied Columbus on his voyage of discovery and became vicar-Apostolic of the West Indies, but his stay was short, and he returned to Spain. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries one or two English monks , and at least one of the Maurist congregation, worked on the American mission; and at the time of the French Revolution negotiations had been commenced by Bishop Carroll, first Bishop of Baltimore , for a settlement of English Benedictines in his diocese , which, however, came to nothing.

A number of Bavarians had emigrated to America, and it was suggested that their spiritual wants in the new country should be attended to by Bavarian priests.

Dom Wimmer and a few companions accordingly set out in , and on their arrival in America they acquired the church, a house, and some land belong to the small mission of St.

Vincent, Beatty, Pennsylvania , which had been founded some time previously by a Franciscan missionary. Here they set to work, establishing conventual life, as far as was possible under the circumstances, and applying themselves assiduously to the work of the mission.

Reinforced by more monks from Bavaria and their poverty relieved by some munificent donations, they accepted additional outlying missions and established a large college. Vincent's, which had already founded two dependent priories was made an abbey and the mother-house of a new congregation, Dom Wimmer being appointed first abbot and president. Besides St. Vincent's Arch-Abbey, the following foundations have been made: St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota , founded , mainly through the generosity of King Ludwig I of Bavaria ; connected with the abbey is a large college for boys, with an attendance of over ; St.

Benedict's Abbey, Atchison, Kansas , founded , said to possess the finest Benedictine church in America, built in the style of the Rhenish churches of the tenth and eleventh centuries; there is in connexion a school with boys; St. Mary's Abbey, Newark , New Jersey , founded , with a school of boys; Maryhelp Abbey, Belmont, North Carolina , founded , the abbot of which is also vicar-Apostolic of North Carolina; attached to the abbey are two colleges and a school , with over students; St.

Procopius's Abbey, Chicago , founded , with a school of 50 boys and an orphanage attached; St. Martin's Priory, Lacey, the State of Washington, founded Meinrad, in Indiana , serving the mission and conducting a small school for boys. It became a priory in , and in was made an abbey and the centre of the congregation which was canonically erected at the same time. The first abbot , Dom Martin Marty, became, in , first Vicar Apostolic of Dakota, where he had some years previously inaugurated mission work amongst the Indians.

The following new foundations were made: Conception Abbey, Conception, Missouri , the abbot of the abbey being president of the congregation; New Subiaco Abbey, Spielerville, Arkansas ; St. Joseph's Abbey, Covington , Louisiana ; St.

Gall's Priory, Devil's Lake , the last two communities subject to the same abbot. To all these monasteries are attached numerous missions, in which the monks exercise the cure of souls. They also have several seminaries and colleges. Ottilien, in Bavaria , under the title of the "Congregation of the Sacred Heart". It was not then Benedictine, but in was affiliated to the Cassinese congregation and in formally incorporated into the Benedictine Order. The Abbot of St. Ottilien is the superior general and the Beuronese Abbot of Seckau the apostolic visitor.

This congregation has been largely recruited from the congregation of Beuron, to which it is bound by close ties. In it established a cell at Wipfeld, in Bavaria , and it has also ten mission stations in Central Africa, one of its members being Vicar Apostolic of Zanzibar. Its roll of honour was opened in August, , by a bishop , two monks , two lay brothers , and two nuns , who suffered martyrdom for the Faith at the hands of the Central African natives. Founded in , as a priory of the English congregation, mainly through the munificence of Lord Lovat, its first community was drawn from the other houses of that body.

It was intended partly to continue the community of Sts. Denis and Adrian, originally of Lamspring, which had been dispersed since , and of which there were only one or two surviving members; and partly to preserve continuity with the Scottish monasteries that had from time to time been founded in different parts of Germany and Austria , and of which there was, likewise, only one survivor—Father Anselm Robertson, professed at St.

Jame's, Ratisbon , in These monks took up residence with the new community and assisted in the clothing of the first novice received for Fort Augustus.

In order that its members might be exempt from the external mission work with which the English Benedictines are specially charged, the monastery was, in , separated from the English congregation by the Holy See , and in was made an independent abbey , directly subject to the pope.

A monk of the Beuron congregation, Dom Leo Linse, was at the same time appointed its first abbot. The Beuronese constitutions were first adopted, but these have since been replaced by new constitutions. Of late years the community has undertaken the spiritual care of three parishes in the vicinity of the abbey. This was originally founded in as a college for Benedictines of the Cassinese congregation, but later on monks of other congregations were also admitted.

Having ceased to exist in , it was revived on a small scale by the Abbot of St. Paul's , and reconstituted in as a college and university for Benedictines from all parts of the world by Leo XIII , who at his own expense erected the present extensive buildings.

In the abbey church was consecrated , in the presence of a great gathering of abbots from all over the world, by Cardinal Rampolla, acting as representative of the pope. Anselm's is presided over by Abbot Hildebrand de Hemptinne who is also Abbot of Maredsous with the title of "Abbot Primate" of the whole order. It has power to grant degrees in theology , philosophy , and canon law, and both professors and students are drawn from all congregations of the order. There is accommodation for one hundred students, but the full number in residence at one time has not yet exceeded sixty.

Lay brothers, oblates, confraters, and nuns 1 Lay Brothers. All were on an equal footing in the community and at first comparatively few seem to have been advanced to the priesthood. Benedict himself was probably only a layman ; at any rate it is certain that he was not a priest. A monk not in sacred orders was always considered as eligible as a priest for any office in the community, even that of abbot , though for purposes of convenience some of the monks were usually ordained for the service of the altar; and until literary and scholastic work, which could only be undertaken by men of some education and culture, began to take the place of manual labour, all shared alike in the daily round of agricultural and domestic duties.

John Gualbert, the founder of Vallombrosa, was the first to introduce the system of lay brethren, by drawing a line of distinction between the monks who were clerics and those who were not. The latter had no stalls in choir and no vote in chapter; neither were they bound to the daily recitation of the breviary Office as were the choir monks.

Lay brothers were entrusted with the more menial work of the monastery , and all those duties that involved intercourse with the outside world, in order that the choir brethren might be free to devote themselves entirely to prayer and other occupations proper to their clerical vocation. The system spread rapidly to all branches of the order and was imitated by almost every other religious order.

At the present day there is hardly a congregation, Benedictine or otherwise, that has not its lay brethren, and even amongst numerous orders of nuns a similar distinction is observed, either between the nuns that are bound to choir and those that are not, or between those that keep strict enclosure and those that are not so enclosed.

The habit worn by the lay brethren is usually a modification of that of the choir monks , sometimes differing from it in colour as well as in shape; and the vows of the lay brethren are in most congregations only simple, or renewable periodically, in contrast with the solemn vows for life taken by the choir religious. In some communities at the present time the lay brothers equal and even outnumber the priests , especially in those, like Beuron or New Nursia, where farming and agriculture are carried out on a large scale.

The custom led to many abuses in the Middle Ages , because oblates sometimes abandoned the religious life and returned to the world, whilst still looked upon as professed religious. The Church , therefore, in the twelfth century, forbade the dedication of children in this way, and the term oblate has since been taken to mean persons , either lay or cleric, who voluntarily attach themselves to some monastery or order without taking the vows of religious.

They wear the habit and share all the privileges and exercises of the community they join, but they retain dominion over their property and are free to leave at any time. They usually make a promise of obedience to the superior, which binds them as long as they remain in the monastery , but it only partakes of the nature of a mutual agreement and has none of the properties of a vow or solemn contract. There seem to have been Benedictine confratres as early as the ninth century.

The practice was widely taken up by almost every other order and was developed by the mendicants in the thirteenth century into what are now called "third orders". It was peculiar to Benedictine confratres that they were always aggregated to the particular monastery of their selection and not to the whole order in general, as is the case with others.

The Benedictines have numbered kings and emperors and many distinguished persons amongst their confratres , and there is hardly a monastery of the present day which has not some lay people connected with it by this spiritual bond of union. Gregory the Great certainly tells us that St. Benedict's sister, Scholastica, presided over such a community of religious women who were established in a monastery situated about five miles from his Abbey of Monte Cassino ; but whether that was merely an isolated instance, or whether it may be legitimately regarded as the foundation of the female department of the order, is at least an open question.

We do not even know what rule these nuns followed, though we may conjecture that they were under St. Benedict's spiritual direction and that whatever rule he gave them probably differed but little, except perhaps in minor details, from that for monks which has come down to us bearing his name.

It seems tolerably certain, at any rate, that as St. Benedict's Rule began to be diffused abroad, women as well as men formed themselves into communities in order to live a religious life according to its principles, and wherever the Benedictine monks went, there also we find monasteries being established for nuns.

Nunneries were founded in Gaul by Sts. Caesarius and Aurelian of Arles, St. Martin of Tours , and St. Columbanus of Luxeuil, and up to the sixth century the rules for nuns in most general use were those of St. Caesarius and St. Columbanus, portions of which are still extant. These were, however, eventually supplanted by that of St. Benedict, and amongst the earliest nunneries to make the change were Poitiers, Chelles, Remiremont , and Faremoutier.

Mabillon assigns the beginning of the change to the year though more probably the Benedictine Rule was not received in its entirety at so early a date, but was only combined with the other rules then in force. Remiremont became for women what Luxeuil was for men, the centre from which sprang a numerous spiritual family , and though later on it was converted into a convent of noble canonesses , instead of nuns properly so called, a modified form of the Benedictine Rule was still observed there.

Benedict's Rule was widely propagated by Charlemagne and his son, Louis the Pious, and the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in enforced its general observance in all the nunneries of the empire. The Abbey of Notre Dame de Ronceray, at Angers , founded in by Fulke, Count of Anjou, was one of the most influential convents in France in the Middle Ages , and had under its jurisdiction a large number of dependent priories.

The earliest convents for women in England were at Folkestone , founded , and St. Mildred's in Thanet, established , and it is probable that under the influence of the successors of St. Augustine's monks at Canterbury and elsewhere, these nunneries observed the Benedictine Rule from the first.

Other important Anglo-Saxon convents were: Ely, founded by St. In Northumbria, Whitby and Coldingham were the chief houses of nuns. Hilda was the most celebrated of the abbesses of Whitby, and it was at Whitby that the synod which decided the paschal controversy was held in Most of these convents were destroyed by Danish invaders during the ninth and tenth centuries, but some were subsequently restored and many others were founded in England after the Norman conquest.

The first nuns in Germany came from England in the eighth century, having been brought over by St. Boniface to assist him in his work of conversion and to provide a means of education for their own sex amongst the newly evangelized Teutonic races.

Lioba, Thecla, and Walburga were the earliest of these pioneers, and for them and their companions, who were chiefly from Wimborne , St. Boniface established many convents throughout the countries in which he preached. In other parts of Europe nunneries sprang up as rapidly as the abbeys for men, and in the Middle Ages they were almost, if not quite, as numerous. In later medieval times the names of St. Gertrude, called the "Great", and her sister St. Mechtilde , who flourished in the thirteenth century, shed a lustre on the Benedictine nuns of Germany.

In Italy the convents seem to have been very numerous during the Middle Ages. In the thirteenth century several were founded in which the reform of Vallombrosa was adopted, but none of these now exist. There were also convents belonging to the reforms of Camaldoli and Mount Olivet, of which a few still survive. The convents were generally either under the exclusive direction of some particular abbey , through the influence of which they had been established, or else, especially when founded by lay people, they were subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese in which they were situated.

These two conditions of existence have survived to the present day; there are nine belonging to the first and over two hundred and fifty to the second category. Early in the twelfth century France was the scene of a somewhat remarkable phase in the history of the Benedictine nuns. Robert of Arbrissel , formerly chancellor to the Duke of Brittany, embraced an eremitical life in which he had many disciples, and having founded a monastery of canons regular, carried out a new idea in when he established the double Abbey of Fontevrault in Poitou, famous in France for many centuries.

The monks and nuns both kept the Benedictine Rule , to which were added some additional austerities. The law of enclosure was very strictly observed. In the founder placed the entire community, monks as well as nuns , under the rule of the abbess , and he further provided that the person elected to that office should always be chosen from the outside world, as such a one would have more practical knowledge of affairs and capacity for administration than one trained in the cloister. Many noble ladies and royal princesses of France are reckoned amongst the abbesses of Fontevrault.

Excepting at Fontevrault the nuns seem at first not to have been strictly enclosed, as now, but were free to leave the cloister whenever some special duty or occasion might demand it, as in the case of the English nuns already mentioned, who went to Germany for active missionary work. This freedom with regard to enclosure gave rise, in course of time , to grave scandals , and the Councils of Constance , Basle , and Trent , amongst others, regulated that all the professedly contemplative orders of nuns should observe strict enclosure, and this has continued to the present time as the normal rule of a Benedictine convent.

The Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century affected the nuns as well as the monks. Throughout northwestern Europe the Benedictine institute was practically obliterated. In England the convents were suppressed and the nuns turned adrift. In Germany , Denmark , and Scandinavia the Lutherans acquired most of the nunneries and ejected their inmates.

The wars of religion in France also had a disastrous effect upon the convents of that country, already much enfeebled by the evils consequent on the practice of commendam. The last few centuries, however, have witnessed a widespread revival of the Benedictine life for women as well as for men. In France , especially, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there sprang up several new congregations of Benedictine nuns , or reforms were instituted among those already existing.

These were not strictly congregations in the technical sense, but rather unions or groups of houses which adopted a uniform observance, though the individual convents still remained for the most part subject to their respective bishops.

Mention may be made of the reforms of Montmartre, Beauvais , Val-de-Grace, and Douai , and those of the Perpetual Adoration founded at Paris in and Valdosne in The French Revolution suppressed all these convents , but many have since been restored and fresh foundations added to their number.

The first convent of English nuns since the Reformation was founded at Brussels in ; and another was established at Cambrai in under the direction of the English Benedictine Fathers of Douai , from which a filiation was made at Paris in At Ghent in a convent was founded under Jesuit guidance, and established daughter-houses at Boulogne in , Ypres in , and Dunkirk in All these communities, except that of Ypres, were expelled at the French Revolution and escaped to England.

That of Cambrai is now at Stanbrook and still remains a member of the English congregation under the jurisdiction of its abbot-president. The Brussels community is now at East Bergholt, and the Paris nuns at Colwich, whence an off-shoot has been planted at Atherstone The convent of Ypres alone remains at the place of its original foundation, having survived the troublous times of the Revolution. There are also small Benedictine convents of more recent foundation at Minster Thanet , Ventnor, Dumfries, and Tenby, and one at Princethorpe, originally a French community founded at Montargis in , but driven to England in , and now almost exclusively English.

The nuns of Stanbrook, Oulton, Princethorpe, Ventnor, and Dumfries conduct boarding-school for the higher education of young ladies, and those of Teignmouth, Colwich, Atherstone, and Dumfries have undertaken the work of perpetual adoration.

In Austria many of the medieval convents have remained undisturbed, and likewise a few in Switzerland. In Belgium there are seven dating from the seventeenth century, and in Germany fourteen, established mostly during the last half century.

In Italy , where at one time they were very numerous, there still remain, in spite of recent suppressions, eighty-five Benedictine convents dating from the Middle Ages , with over a thousand nuns. Holland has three convents of modern date, and Poland one, at Warsaw , founded in The convents of Spain numbered thirty at the time of the suppressions of The nuns were then robbed of all their possessions, but managed to preserve their corporate existence, though in great poverty and with reduced numbers.

Ten of the old convents have since been restored, and eleven new ones founded. It is a peculiarity of the Spanish convents that their abbesses who are elected triennially, receive no solemn blessing, as elsewhere, nor do they make use of any abbatial insignia.

Benedictine life in America may be said to be in a flourishing condition. There are thirty-four convents with nearly two thousand nuns , all of which have been founded within the last sixty years.

The first establishment was at St. Benedict's convent at St. Joseph , Minnesota , founded in , is the largest Benedictine convent in America. The nuns are chiefly occupied with the work of education , which comprises elementary schools as well as boarding school for secondary education.

All the American convents are subject to the bishops of their respective dioceses. Influence and work of the order The influence exercised by the Order of St. Benedict has manifested itself chiefly in three directions: 1 the conversion of the Teutonic races and other missionary works; 2 the civilization of northwestern Europe ; 3 educational work and the cultivation of literature and the arts, the forming of libraries , etc.

Benedict's death c. The remaining countries all received the Gospel during the next few centuries, either wholly or partially through the preaching of the Benedictines.

Beginning with St. Augustine's arrival in England in , the missionary work of the order can be easily traced. The companions of St. Augustine , who is usually called the "Apostle of England", planted the Faith anew throughout the country whence it had been driven out nearly two centuries previously by the Anglo-Saxon and other heathen invaders.

Augustine and St. Lawrence at Canterbury , St. Justus at Rochester, St. Mellitus at London , and St. Paulinus at York were Benedictine pioneers, and their labours were afterwards supplemented by other monks who, though not strictly Benedictine, were at least assisted by the black monks in establishing the Faith. Thus St. Birinus evangelized Wessex, St. Chad the Midlands, and St. Paulinus in Northumbria was continued by St. Aidan , St. Cuthbert , and many others. At Fulda he placed a Bavarian convert named Sturm at the head of a monastery he founded there in , from which came many missionaries who carried the Gospel to Prussia and what is now Austria.

From Corbie, in Picardy, one of the most famous monasteries in France , St. Ansgar set out in for Denmark , Sweden , and Norway , in each of which countries he founded many monasteries and firmly planted the Benedictine Rule. These in turn spread the Faith and monasticism through Iceland and Greenland. For a short time Friesland was the scene of the labours of St. Wilfrid during a temporary banishment from England in , and the work he began there was continued and extended to Holland by the English monks Willibrord and Swithbert.

Christianity was first preached in Bavaria by Eustace and Agilus, monks from Luseuil, early in the seventh century; their work was continued by St. Rupert , who founded the monastery and see of Salzburg , and firmly established by St. Boniface about So rapidly did the Faith spread in this country that between the years and no less than twenty-nine Benedictine abbeys were founded there. Another phase of Benedictine influence may be founded in the work of those monks who, from the sixth to the twelfth century, so frequently acted as the chosen counsellors of kings, and whose wise advice and guidance had much to do with the political history of most of the countries of Europe during that period.

In more recent times the missionary spirit has manifested itself anew amongst the Benedictines. During the penal times the Catholic Church in England was kept alive in great measure by the Benedictine missioners from abroad, not a few of whom shed their blood for the Faith.

Still more recently Australia has been indebted to the order for both its Catholicity and its hierarchy. The English congregation supplied some of its earliest missionaries, as well as its first prelates , in the persons of Archbishop Polding , Archbishop Ullathorne , and others during the first half of the nineteenth century. Later on, the Spanish monks , DD. Serra and Salvado, arrived and successfully evangelized the western portion of the continent from New Nursia as a centre.

Mention must also be made of the numerous missions amongst the North American Indians by the monks of the Swiss-American congregation from St. Meinrad's abbey , Indiana ; and those of the American-Cassinese congregation in various parts of the United States , from St.

This sense of community was to become one of the essential principles of the Benedictine Order. It is said that when St Benedict came to bless the cup of poisoned wine that his community had given him, it shattered, and his life was spared. St Benedict left Subiaco to found another monastery at Monte Cassino. It is there that he wrote his Rule for Monks, his only surviving written work. The centre area of the cloister was probably used as a garden - a turf bench was made round a tree there in The daily round of services usually commenced with Matins at midnight, Lauds at daybreak, and Prime at about 6.

Terce, Sext, and None were said before dinner and Vespers at 6. The monks retired to bed at about 8. The Abbots of Westminster were important and powerful men and were often employed by the king on state business. William of Colchester was so involved in politics that in he was sent to the Tower of London for a time for his part in a plot to restore Richard II to the throne.

Westminster Abbey owned much property in London, such as Hampstead, Paddington and Knightsbridge, and in many parts of England. Windsor was part of Edward the Confessor's endowment but William the Conqueror decided he wanted this for hunting and the Abbey exchanged it for Battersea and Wandsworth and lands in Essex.

In return for the lands of the Priory of Hurley, which he dissolved in l and which was already a daughter-house of Westminster, the king received Covent Convent Garden the monks' vegetable garden , Hyde Park and a good deal of property in Westminster. On 16th January monastic life at Westminster came to an end when Henry VIII dissolved the monastery and the deed of surrender was signed.

Many of the monks retired or went into "civilian" life. However, the Abbot became the first Dean of the new Cathedral Church founded by Henry and the Prior and several monks became clergy in the new church.

A bishop was appointed to the new see of Westminster but after ten short years the bishopric was surrendered and the Church became a Cathedral within the diocese of London. Monks were brought together from former establishments and at least two monks from the previous Westminster community returned. Photos can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library. Barbara Harvey: Living and Dying in England The monastic experience.

Clarendon Press, Oxford, Barbara Harvey: The obedientiaries of Westminster Abbey and their financial records c. Boydell Press, Barbara Harvey: Monastic dress in the Middle Ages. Precept and practice William Urry Memorial Trust publication Barbara Harvey: Before and after the Black Death: a monastic infirmary in 14th c. England , in Death, sickness and health in medieval society and culture , Armitage Robinson editor : The history of Westminster Abbey by John Flete , from the original manuscript written by Flete who was a monk from Including lists of relics.

Sloane [J. Mackenzie Walcott: The inventories of Westminster Abbey at the Dissolution [ornaments, vestments etc.