An abbey is a monastery or religious community of the highest class, governed by an abbot, assisted generally by a prior, sub-prior, and other subordinate functionaries; or, in the case of a female community, superintended by an abbess. An abbey invariably included a church. A priory differed from an abbey only in being scarcely so extensive an establishment, and was governed by a prior. In the English conventual cathedral establishments, as Canterbury, Norwich, Ely, etc, the archbishops or bishops held the abbot's place, the immediate governor of the monastery being called a prior.
Some priories sprang originally from the more important abbeys, and remained under the jurisdiction of the abbots; but subsequently any real distinction between abbeys and priories was lost. The greater abbeys formed most complete and extensive establishments, including not only the church and other buildings devoted to the monastic life and its daily requirements, such as the refectory or eating-room, the dormitories or sleeping-rooms, the room for social intercourse, the school for novices, the scribes' cells, library, and so on; but also workshops, storehouses, mills, cattle and poultry sheds, dwellings for artisans, labourers, and other servants, infirmary, guest-house, etc. Among the most famous abbeys on the continent of Europe were those of Cluny, Clairvaux, and Citeaux in France; St Galle in Switzerland, and Pulda in Germany; the most noteworthy English abbeys were those of Westminster, St Mary's of York, Fountains, Kirkstall, Tintern, Rievaulx, Netley; and of Scotland, Melrose, Paisley, and Arbroath. Research Abbey
The Aelfric Society was founded in 1842 to publish the Homilies of Aelfric, archbishop of Canterbury and other Anglo-Saxon works. It closed in 1856. Research Aelfric Society
In Christian theology, atonement is the special work of Christ effected by his life, sufferings, and death. The first explicit exposition of the evangelical doctrine of the atonement is ascribed to Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1093. Research Atonement
The Burnett prizes were prizes established by a Mr. Burnett, a merchant of Aberdeen, on his death in 1784. He left a fund from which were to be given every forty years two theological prizes (not less than 1200 pounds and 400 pounds) for the best two essays in favour of the evidence that there is an all-powerful, wise, and good Being, and this independent of all revelation.
The first competition was in 1815, when Dr. Brown, principal of Aberdeen University, gained the first prize, and Dr. John Bird Sumner, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, the second. In 1855 the first prize was adjudged to the Reverend R. A. Thompson, Lincolnshire, and the second prize to the Reverend Dr. John Tulloch, afterwards principal of St Mary's College, St. Andrews. The destination of the fund was later altered by parliament, and from the late 19th century courses of lectures were delivered, the first, on light, being by Professor Gabriel Stokes in 1883. Research Burnett Prizes
Catholic Emancipation was the abolition of those civil and ecclesiastical restraints to which the Roman Catholics of Great Britain, and particularly of Ireland, were once subjected. By the statutes of William III. Roman Catholics were forbidden to hold property in land, and their spiritual instructors were open to the penalties of felony; and although latterly these restrictions had not been enforced, they remained unrepealed in England until 1778. The proposal to repeal similar enactments on the Scotch statute-books was delayed by the strenuous opposition of the Protestant associations, in connection with which the Lord Gordon riots occurred. In 1791, however, a bill was passed allowing Roman Catholics who took the oath of allegiance to hold landed property, enter the legal profession, and enjoy freedom of education.
In Ireland the Roman Catholics had been even more unjustly treated. Their public worship was proscribed, all offices and the learned professions were closed against them, they were deprived of the guardianship of their children, and if they had landed estates they were forbidden to marry Protestants. Burke and a strong body of followers took up their cause, and in 1792 and 1793 the worst of the disabilities were removed by the Irish parliament. Restraints on worship, education, and disposition of property were removed; they were admitted to the franchise, and to some of the higher civil and military offices, and to the honours and endowments of the Dublin University. They continued to be excluded, however, from thirty public offices, and from parliament = an arrangement which could not be changed without a repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. It was part of Pitt's scheme when the union with Ireland was formulated in 1799 to admit Irish Roman Catholics to the parliament of the United Kingdom and to offices of state.
To this proposal, however, George III. was strongly hostile, and in 1801 Pitt was compelled to resign. Between that year and 1828 numerous attempts were made to abolish remaining disabilities, but without success, the Lords throwing out the bills passed latterly in the Commons, and George IV proving not less unyielding than his father. At length, on April the 10th 1829 an emancipation bill was carried through the Commons by Mr. Peel, and through the Lords by the Duke of Wellington. By this act Catholics became eligible to all offices of state, excepting the lord-chancellorships of England and Ireland, the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, the office of regent or guardian of the United Kingdom, and that of High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland. They were still excluded from the right of presentation to livings, and all places connected with the ecclesiastical courts and establishment. The church patronage attached to any office in the hands of a Catholic was vested in the Archbishop of Canterbury. Attached to the bill was a clause for the gradual suppression of the Jesuits and monastic orders (religious establishments of females excepted). During the 20th century full emancipation was realised. Research Catholic Emancipation
A coronation is the placing of the crown on a monarch's head with solemn rites and ceremonies. Part of the ceremony usually consists in the oath which the monarch takes, that he will govern justly, will always consult the real welfare of his people, and will conscientiously observe the fundamental laws of the state. In England kings and queens have been anointed and crowned in WestminsterAbbey, even to the latest times, with great splendour. The form of the coronation oath is that settled after the revolution of 1688. The Archbishop of Canterbury puts it to the sovereign, who swears to govern according to the statutes of parliament, to cause law and justice in mercy to be executed, and to maintain the Protestant religion. Research Coronation
The dissolution of the monasteries in England was carried out by Henry VIII between 1535 and 1539. This was an attack on Church property for three reasons. First, the monks were the main supporters of the Papal authority in England, and they were members of orders which were spread over Europe. It had proved possible to separate the English bishops and clergy from allegiance to the Pope; this was not possible with the monastic orders, which were international, not insular, institutions. The second reason was the wealth of the monasteries, which was the result of the pious bequest of many centuries. The cry against monastic wealth had been raised many times previously in English history, particularly by John Wycliffe and others from the time of Edward III and Richard II. The courtiers of Henry VIII and the rising middle class were greedy for land, and Henry VIII saw that by ministering to their greed he could make his new nobility and their new property a firm support of his Reformation. The third reason for ending the monasteries was
the reason given to Parliament: that the monks had outlived their day of usefulness and were abandoned to idleness and vice. There were over 600 religious houses in England, and no doubt there was some truth in this charge. Zealous churchmen had long known that all was not well with these ancient institutions. In Henry VII's reign the Oxford Reformers had rebuked monkish follies, and CardinalMorton had noted the 'incurable uselessness' of many of the smaller houses where the monks were idle and ignorant. CardinalWolsey had obtained a Papal Bull to visit the monasteries, and had begun to suppress some, intending to use their revenues for the benefit of education and the New Learning and to found new bishoprics. One of them, St. Frideswide's Priory at Oxford, he converted into Cardinal College (later Christ Church).
In 1535 Henry VIII made Thomas Cromwell his Vicar-General, 'with power to visit any monastery in England'. The character of Cromwell was sufficient guarantee that the visitation would not be conducted fairly. He knew what was expected of him; he was to be 'The Hammer of the Monks'. His agents hurried through England, visited some of the monasteries, and drew up an evil report. This report unfortunately no longer exists. Our only information is derived from Cromwell's note-books and from the letters of his agents, from which we may gather something of their methods. For example, Dr. Layton, vicar of Harrow-on-the-Hill, dashed through southern England from Gloucestershire to Rent between August and October 1535. He condemned monasteries wholesale, on insufficient evidence, although at the same time he did not scruple to accept bribes from some, or to help himself to plate and jewels from others.
However, Parliament was satisfied, and the country squires, anxious for the 'goods of the Church', shouted ' Down with them!' The Act dissolving 276 of the lesser monasteries of England in 1536 was the last important Act of the Reformation Parliament. In dissolving the smaller monasteries first, Henry VIII had cautiously tested his power. But his violent measures had by 1536 caused grave discontent, especially in the west and north, and in Parliament itself. His wholesale destruction of the smaller monasteries was followed by two popular uprisings. The first occurred in Lincolnshire, where the rebels were crushed by a military force under the Duke of Suffolk. The second rising, in Yorkshire in 1536, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, was much more serious. The following year the famous shrine of Becket at Canterbury was attacked. Thomas Becket was declared in April 1538 'a false saint and a traitor to the Supreme Head of the Church'; his bones were burnt; his shrine pillaged and its offerings confiscated.
Then Henry VIII was ready to turn his attention to the greater monasteries, although Parliament had saved them earlier because of their good conduct. Cromwell and his agents in 1539 began a persecution of the abbots: many were induced to surrender their abbeys to the king; others could only be reduced by methods of terror. The Abbots of Reading and Colchester were tried for treason; the Abbot of Glastonbury for felony. All three were executed. The odious methods of Cromwell are well shown in some notes left in his own handwriting: 'To see that the evidence be well sorted and the indictments well drawn against the said abbots. The Abbot of Reading to be sent down to be tried and executed at Reading with his accomplices. The Abbot of Glaston to be tried at Glaston, and also executed there with his accomplices.' The last Abbot of Glastonbury, a pious, venerable man beloved in the countryside, was executed with two of his brethren on GlastonburyTor, after a mock trial in November 1539. These ferocities had the desired effect: many less brave spirits gave in, and soon there were no monasteries left. The dissolution of 616 religious houses was the greatest revolution in the ownership of land in England since the Norman Conquest. The monastic income has been variously estimated at between one-fifth and one-third of the total rental of England.
This newly acquired wealth the king might have used in developing public works, such as education. Some of it was spent in re-building the Navy; but the king's own greed and the greed of courtiers swallowed most of the spoil. A thousand newly enriched families became the nobility on which Henry in future relied for support. The 'Abbey' where the descendants or successors of these Tudor families now live is a name to be found in many an English village. But sad indeed was the fate of the original buildings. Some, like the great church at Tewkesbury, have been preserved in the form of parish churches; others have been partly preserved to form cathedrals. But the greater number were ruthlessly destroyed by their new possessors, their roofs despoiled for the valuable lead, their walls made quarries for new buildings, their treasures scattered, and their ruins left desolate. Whatever defence may be made for the suppression of the monastic orders, no excuse can be offered for this orgy of destruction, which deprived England of some of her noblest monuments.
It is probable that at least 15000 persons were cast adrift. These people went to swell the already large number of the unemployed, for whom Tudor statesmanship could find no better relief than the savage punishments inflicted on thieves and vagabonds. Some of the monks were given benefices or pensioned by the Government, but the pensions were not always paid; the occupants of the lesser houses fared worse than those of the greater. The hospitality which the monks had always given to the poor was now removed. There was nothing to take its place, and many monks and nuns joined the ranks of those who had formerly subsisted on their charity. Many gaps were left in national life, for the abbeys, said Aske 'were one of the beauties of this realm to all men and strangers passing through the same; all gentlemen much succoured in their needs with money, and in nunneries their daughters brought up in virtue. And such abbeys as were near the danger of seabanks were great maintainers of sea-walls and dykes, builders of bridges and highways, and such other things for the commonwealth.' Research Dissolution of the Monasteries
Essays and Reviews was a volume written by six Church of England clergymen and one layman: Dr. Frederick Temple (in 1896-1902 Archbishop of Canterbury), Dr. Rowland Williams, Baden Powell, H B Wilson, Mark Pattison, Professor Jowett, and Mr. C W Goodwin, and published in March, 1860. Its alleged heterodoxy caused much excitement, and called forth numerous replies, condemnation by convocation in 1864, and the prosecution of two of the writers by the ecclesiastical courts. Research Essays and Reviews
Campanula is the bellflowergenus of plants of the family Campanulaceae. The species are herbaceous plants, with bell-shaped flowers usually of a blue or white colour. Nine species are indigenous to Britain, of which the most common and best known are the Campanula rotundifolia, blue-bell of Scotland or harebell, a native also of Asia and North America, and the Campanula medium, or Canterbury-bell, a well-known garden flower with double and single varieties. Research Campanula
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Abbreviations
Research Abbey
