When it comes to historic English writers, one conjures images of Shakespeare, Bacon, Shelly, even Chaucer (for those with a penchant for prolifically pretentious prose), forgetting that some of England’s most historic writings were recorded in the diaries of a less than famous Londoner. Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), son of an English tailor and member of the English parliament, was responsible for some of the most accurate and detailed coverage of London’s great fire and the crowning of Charles II.
Pepys is known for his comments on the plague that was spreading through England at the time. Known as the Black Death, the plague took thousands of lives and resulted in mass grave pits throughout the city. Pepys’ was one of the few on the ground providing descriptions of the deaths and its effect on the people of London.
Christopher Wren rebuilder of London after the fire and architect of Charles II is also noted in Pepys’ diary. Indeed, the coronation of the king is recorded with both detail and opinion by Pepys’. It was the journalist’s nature to record both his life and the life of his city and give his opinion on both.
Though the modern archaeological record dates Glastonbury Abbey to the early seventh century, that has not stopped it from holding a place in many a set of much older mythologies. To some it is the resting place of the Holy Grail, shepherded to England by Joseph of Arimathia following the Crucifixion. To others it is a conduit of Earth’s natural power and lynchpin of the supposed Ley Line network crisscrossing the English countryside. But to most, the now ruined abbey will forever be known as the final resting place of Albion’s “Once and Future King,” the legendary Arthur Pendragon.
Located in the west of England, the earliest recorded account, dating from 1090 AD, attribute the abbey at Glastonbury to St. David, patron saint of Wales. However, half a century later, early medieval historian and Glastonbury monk, William of Malmesbury, erroneously dated its foundations to the era immediately following Christ’s death – a thread later picked up on by French Romantics in subsequent centuries and one that would indelibly link England’s own inborn Arthurian tropes with the ever-evolving Grail lore of the continent.
From there, the myth of Arthur took on a life of its own. According to legend, Arthur was interred at a mystical island known as Avalon, following his death at the Battle of Camlann. This detail, in particular, led dozens of legend trippers to identify Glastonbury and Avalon as one and the same; a nearby river is to this day still known as the River Cam and, in its earliest incarnation, the Abbey had been surrounded by a vast walled-in moat and/or bog, resulting in the eerie appearance of an inland island rising out the countryside.
Whether that anecdotal evidence supported such claims or not, in the era following Malmesbury’s death, the resident monks of Glastonbury decided to capitalize on the Arthurian myth’s prominent place in the English psyche. In 1190, they claimed to have discovered the mortal remains of Arthur and his ill-fated queen, Guinevere; the bodies were supposedly identified by means a leaden cross baring the convenient inscription of “Here lies renowned King Arthur in the island of Avalon.” Though the bodies and cross – if they ever existed to begin with – have not been located since, history does record that they were reburied in the floor beneath Glastonbury’s High Altar in 1278 before a cadre of true believers, including King Edward I. As expected, the Abbey’s tourism trade boomed thereafter.
Later monarchs, however, did not behold the abbey at Glastonbury with the sort same reverence as their predecessors. Following Henry VIII’s schism with the Church in 1536, he dissolved all of England’s Catholic churches and monasteries; Glastonbury’s abbot was subsequently drawn and quartered, while the abbey itself was dismantled brick by brick and its stone used to expand the homes of local loyalist nobles.
| Though only the bases of the abbey’s once towering walls and columns remain atop the gigantic conical mound that is Glastonbury Tor today, Glastonbury itself is still a destination for travelers of all stripes; a site several miles away was chosen to host the United Kingdom’s largest annual concert, the Glastonbury Festival, due to the spiritual, mythical and mystical connotations the Abbey still holds for the British populace – much the same as it did for their fathers, and fathers before them, over the past thousand years. |
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Tags: 1090 AD, 1190 AD, 1278, 1536, Arthur Pendragon, Battle of Camlann, crucifixion of Christ, Deluxe Excalibur Sword with scabbard, English History, European History, French Romantics, Glastonbury Abbey, Glastonbury Festival, Glastonbury High Altar, Grail lore, Guenevere Pewter Sculpture, Here lies renowned King Arthur in the island of Avalon, Historical Excalibur Sword, Holy Grail, Joseph of Arimathia, king arthur, King Arthur Pewter Sculpture, King Edward I, King Henry VIII, legend of King Arthur, legend of the Holy Grail, Ley Line network, Medieval History, Medieval Myth, Medieval Store, myth of King Arthur, Once and Future King, Queen Guinevere, the Isle of Avalon, The schism, William of Malmesbury
