Westminster Abbey [antikvár]

Above: the south face of the Abbey, seenfrom Dean's Yard. Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey is one of the most famous, historic and widely visited churches not only in Britain but in the whole Christian world. There are other reasons for its fame apart from its beauty and its vitai role as a centre of the Christian faith in one of the world's most important capital cities. These include the facts that since 1066 every sovereign apart from Edward V and Edward VIII has been crowned here (see section on coronations in Westminster Abbey) and that for many centuries it was alsó the burial place of kings, queens and princes. The royal connections began even earlier than the present Abbey, for it was Edward the Confessor, sometimes called the last of the English kings (1042-66) and canonised in 1163, who established an earlier church on this site. His great Norman Abbey was built close to his palace on Thorney Island. It was completed in 1065 and stood surrounded by the many ancillary buildings needed by the community of Benedictine monks who passed their lives of prayer here. Edward's death near the time of his Abbey's consecration made it natural for his burial place to be by the High Altar. Only 200 years later, the Norman east end of the Abbey was demolished and rebuilt on the orders of Henry III, who had a great devotion to Edward the Confessor and wanted to honour him; the new apse, transepts and Choir (as far west as the present Choir screen) were consecrated in 1269. The central focus of the new Abbey was a magnificent shrine to house St Edward's body; the remains of this shrine, dismantled at the Reformation but later reerected in rather a clumsy and piecemeal way, can still be seen behind the High Altar today. The new Abbey remained incomplete until 1376, when the rebuilding of the Nave began; it was not finished until 150 years later, but the master masons car-