Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1891 — GLASTONBURY ABBEY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GLASTONBURY ABBEY.

The Most Rsnownsd Ecclesiastical Bute In England. t Glastonbury Abbey is justly the most renowned ecclesiastical ruin in. England and bears a weight of the most varied and interesting assQciations. Though now, like some ancient tomb, it sits in solitary ruin, the influences, social, political, and rtligious. that it once distributed weave around' it a halo of renown. Glastonbury is said to have been originally an island and its surface a marsh, its then name being Yniswydryn—the Isle of the Glassy Water. This was changed by St. Benignus, one of the early abbots

of the monastery, to Avalonia and subsequently, when Saxon power was ascendant, to Glastonbury. A very fuestionable tradition has it that oseph of Aramathtea, who provided a tomb for the Savior, was the first Christian missionary of Britain and the most beautiful romance has been thrown around the event. But more probably Britain was visited by some other missionaries in the first century, one of whom, it is believed, was S*t. Paul or Bran, the father of the renowned Caractaous. At this era the tendenoy of religious life was toward asceticism. Persecution raged and Christians retired into the solitudes of forests and caves, hoping to find that peace and security denied them by the cruelty of their enemies. Societies were formed and the foundations of regular monasteries were laid v This was so in Britain as in the Orient and Glastonbury Abbey was founded. Whatever community* of Christians dwelt together at Glastonbury during the first six centuries appear not to have adopted any particular garb, but when St. Austin visited the abbey in 605 he changed the existing institutes for those of St. Benedict. Glastonbury is therefore the first Benedictine abbey in England. In the beginning the buildings were poor, architecture in Britain being at that; time in its infancy. Abbot Herelewinus is credited with afterward rear-i ing the gorgeous pile of architecture which in its time was the delight and wonder of the age and still in its ruins is sublime and beautiful. The massive and lofty walls which inclosed the buildings ran in a quadrangular form and inclosed an area of sixty acres. Ht. Joseph’s chapel was strikingly beautiful and another chapel, whose ruins no longer exist, was plated over with 2,640 pounds of silver and had an altar of gold weighing 264 pounds. Kings visited the venerable pile and bestowed lands upon the abbey. King. Arthur, Kenwalch, the second King of the West Saxons, King Ina, King Eddins, Edward I. and his consort, Eleonora, »Canute, Edward 111. and his.

queen, Philippa, were among thosewho contributed to the richness aud beautifying of the place. In 1184 the monastic buildings were destroyed by fire and Henry 11. rebuilt them. In 1286 an earthquake occurred in Somerset County and again the abbey was damaged. Improvements were then made till the far-famed convent reached its summit of magnificence and renown. But in the reign of Henry VIII. Glastonbury eharcdl the fate of other similar Its abbot, Bichard Whiting, was hang;ed, his body quartered, and different portions of it sent to Wells, Bath, Hchester, and Bridgewater to bleach in the winds of heaven, while his head! was placed on the abbey gate. The work of plundering the abbey went on until its immense revenues and possessions were squandered and the timehonored structure became a ruin. Modern vandals afterward repaired roads with portions of the building, and now one, while standing amid the ruins, can meditate on its past mutations and learn lessons impressive, instructive and mournful.

RUINS OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY.

RUINS OF ST. JOSEPH’S CHURCH.