King Ina, persuaded by St Aldhelm, rebuilt and re-endowed the abbey in the 8th century, renounced his royal state, and lived as an ordinary civilian, being induced to do so by extraordinary devices on the part of his wife Ethelburh. On one occasion, after King Ina had given a great feast to his barons, he and his queen left the castle and proceeded to another of the royal residences. Before leaving, Ethelburh had commanded the servants to strip the castle of all its valuables, furniture, etc., and to fill it with rubbish and to put a litter of pigs in the king’s bed. A short distance on their journey, Ethelburh persuaded the king to return, and showing him over the desecrated palace, exhorted him to consider the utter worthlessness of all earthly splendour and the advisability of joining her on a pilgrimage to Rome. Impressed by her words, Ina acted as she advised, and later endowed a school in Rome in which Anglo-Saxon children might become acquainted with the customs of foreign countries. Ina and Ethelburh spent the remainder of their days in privacy in the Holy City.
The famous Dunstan, one of the greatest of ecclesiastical statesmen, was born in Glastonbury, and after proving his many marvellous capabilities and aptitude for learning, was made abbot of the Benedictine house in his native town in the reign of Edmund the Magnificent. Many strange stories are told of him—the most fantastic perhaps being that of his interview with the natural enemy of man, the Devil himself, during which the reverend man became either so irritated or terrified that he was provoked to seize the nose of his ghostly visitor with a pair of red-hot pincers. Dunstan staunchly supported all the reforms introduced by Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury, and in particular the enforcing of more rigid rules upon the clergy or “seculars” in the matter of marriage. The monks or “regulars,” sworn to a life of celibacy, considered that the “seculars” should be subject to similar restrictions. In this matter, Odo’s motives were deeper and more pecuniary than were at first apparent. After the quarrel between the two parties had raged for many years, the “regulars” gained the victory, and much ecclesiastical property changed hands consequent on a large number of the clergy being compelled to enter the monasteries. William the Conqueror despoiled the abbey of much of its property at the beginning of his reign, but later he relented somewhat. Thurstan, a Norman, was appointed abbot, and the monks declining to conform to new musical rules which he enforced in tyrannical fashion, Thurstan summoned soldiers into the sacred building and ruthlessly killed many of the monks.
Though the ruins of Glastonbury are somewhat scanty, they possess an attraction unrivalled for the antiquarian. Of the abbey church only the east piers of the central tower, a single east bay of both transepts with triforium and clerestory, the south wall of the choir, part of the south nave aisle, and the chapel of St Mary remain. The latter is situated in the north transept. The church was originally cruciform, consisting of nave with aisles; north and south transepts with north aisles (containing eastern chapels) and an apsidal east end. The abbot’s stone kitchen, octangular in shape with a pyramidical roof, and built in the 14th century by John de Chinnock, contains four huge fireplaces and is the most perfect portion left of the former magnificent monastery. The chapel of St Joseph of Arimathæa, beneath which is a large crypt, stands to the west of the church.
The fame belonging to this noble foundation exceeded that of any other great building in England. An old writer tells us, “Kings and queens, not only of the west Saxons, but of other kingdoms; several archbishops and bishops; many dukes; and the nobility of both sexes thought themselves happy in increasing the revenues of this venerable house, to ensure themselves a place of burial therein.” The story of the burial of St Joseph of Arimathæa at Glastonbury, to us a mere shadowy legend, was accepted as a fact in the early English ages, and that it figured in the mind of these worthies as endowing Glastonbury with extraordinary sanctity, is beyond doubt.
At the time of the Dissolution no corruption whatever was revealed at Glastonbury, nor any blame recorded against its management. It was still doing splendid work, having daily services and extending its educational influence for miles around. There was but scanty comfort for its inmates, who rested on a straw mattress and bolster on their narrow bedstead in a bare cell, and whose food, duties and discipline were marked by an austere simplicity. Nor were they idle, these monks of Glastonbury,—some taught in the abbey school, others toiled in the orchards, and the beauty of the stained glass, designed within the abbey walls, found fame far and wide. Richard Whiting was Abbot of Glastonbury when in 1539 Henry VIII. ordered inquiries to be made into the condition and property of the abbey. Although he recognised the monarch as supreme head of the church, he respected the Glastonbury traditions and met the “visitors” in a spirit of passive resistance. With the object of preserving them from desecration, the abbot had concealed some of the communion vessels, and for this offence the venerable man was tried, and condemned to death. His head, white with the touch of eighty years, was fixed upon the abbey gate, and the rest of his body quartered and sent to Bath, Wells, Bridgwater and Ilchester. The abbey building—one of the most perfect examples of architecture in the land—served as a stone quarry, much of the material being used to make a road over the fenland from Glastonbury to Wells. The revenue at the time of the Dissolution was over £3000, a big income in those days.
[BATH (Benedictine)]
The history of Bath Abbey is tersely and comprehensively put on a brass tablet on the lower part of the screen which admits to the south aisle of the chancel. It may serve in lieu of the ordinary table of notable events concerning the abbey, for it runs as follows:—
“In 775 the first Cathedral was built by King Offa.
In 973 King Edgar was crowned therein.
About 1010 the church was destroyed by Sweyne the Dane,