Battle Abbey at Midnight

Battle Abbey at Midnight

On October 14, 1066, a Norman duke known as William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. This decisive victory brought the Saxon period of English history to an end and initiated the Norman rule of England. The Norman Conquest would bring many changes to the island, including a new French style of Romanesque architecture and many new churches and monasteries all over the country. After the Battle of Hastings, William went on to conquer other important strongholds further north, such as London and York. But in 1070, his attention returned to the battlefield where it all began when, pressured by the Pope, he founded a Benedictine abbey to atone for the thousands of deaths on that field. The new foundation was dedicated to St. Martin, but it has been known almost ever since as Battle Abbey.
Battle Abbey was built right on the battlefield, with the church’s altar positioned over the site where King Harold fell. Constructed in the Norman Romanesque style, with a round apse and ambulatory, the church was completed in 1094. It was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the presence of the Conqueror’s son, William Rufus. The abbey was colonized by four Benedictine monks from Marmoutier monastery near Tours, France. Construction on the remaining abbey buildings, such as the dormitory and cloister, continued throughout the 12th and 13th centuries. The church was extended to the east in the 13th century. In the 14th century, French raids during the Hundred Years’ War required the abbey to improve its defenses. This included rebuilding the gatehouse to the towering edifice that still stands today, beginning in 1338. Later in the same century, the abbey was struck by the Black Death. More than a dozen monks succumbed to the plague and the monastery’s incomes suffered. Battle Abbey was dissolved on May 27, 1538, and the property was given to Sir Anthony Browne. The new owner promptly destroyed the church, chapter house and cloisters, and renovated the abbot’s house into a country mansion. In later centuries the property fell into decline, but it was restored by the duke and dutchess of Cleveland, who lived here from 1857 to 1901. Battle Abbey School was founded in the abbot’s house after World War I. Both the battlefield and abbey were purchased by the nation in 1972 and the site is now administered by English Heritage.

Battle Abbey In Moonlight

Battle Abbey In Moonlight

Battle Abbey was founded in 1070 and is an important symbol of the Norman Conquest. King Harold of England was killed in the Battle of Hastings in 1066; his remains were also butchered on the battlefield, to the point where his mistress, Edith Swanneck, recognized them only through a birthmark. The papacy later ordered the Normans to do penance for his death and the violence done to his body. Further, during the four intervening years, the Normans had marched on toe London, where William was crowned at Westminster Abbey, and then subdued many rebellions in the land. The area around York, for example, was devastated by the Normans. The Doomsday Book shows the effects of the Norman Conquest; many areas show little wealth or production.

Battle Abbey was built as an act of penance. While it was once believed that William had vowed before the Battle of Hastings to build an abbey if he were victorious, the order to begin construction was not given until 1070.

 The stone which marks she site of Harold's death. This stone marks the probable site of the high altar of the abbey church. The chapels would have radiated from the apse, whose line is marked out behind the stone. Although the monastery was built on the very spot where Harold had fallen, fatally wounded by an arrow through the eye, there is no compelling evidence that William had planned to build a monastery on that site before 1070.

The site of the battle and especially of Harold's death was not at all suitable for construction. It sloped downward toward marshland, and there was no natural water supply.

William was known for bringing many Normans over to staff his new government, and in like fashion, he also brought monks from Marmoutier in France and materials for the abbey from the continent. William generously endowed the abbey with property, and granted the abbot jurisdiction over the people and land within a 11/2 mile area around the abbey. The abbot was, therefore, exempt from the jurisdiction of the local bishop, a privilege which was not challenged until King Stephen's reign in twelfth century.

The abbey church was the first structure completed. The east end of the church was finished in 1070, while the rest was completed by 1094. The church was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. William would not live to see this event, but his son William Rufus, who died an early and tragic death, was present. Nothing remains today of the church but the outline of the apse and the stone which marks the spot of the high altar.

Abbot Gausbert was responsible for building the dormitory, which was near the remains of the reredorter, or latrine. This abbot also presided during the construction of most of the abbey church. The second Abbot, Henry, erected the stone gate tower, which became part of the much larger gatehouse. The gatehouse was built during the Hundred Years' War for added protection against raiders. The fourth abbot, Walter de Luci, rebuilt the cloister. Little remains today of this once beautiful area of the monastery. During his reign, the abbey's exemption from Episcopal jurisdiction was challenged for the second time. The Bishop of Chichester appealed to the pop, while the abbot appealed to King Stephen. The dispute was not settled until the reign of Henry II, who decided in favor of the abbot.

The abbey's royal patronage declined when Henry II's son John became king. In return for a large cash grant, he allowed the abbey to elect its own abbot. The abbey's independence was once again challenged in 1233, when Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, once again claimed jurisdiction and appealed to the papacy. An agreement was reached preserving most of the abbey's independence. In the period which followed, most of the abbey's buildings were rebuilt, and other additions were constructed.

The fourteenth century brought many challenges and calamities. During the Hundred Years' War, the French raided the coasts of England, particularly the counties of Sussex and Kent. The gatehouse was constructed in 1338-1339 to aid in the area's defense, and the abbey organized the defense of the Pevensey-Romney area and led local troops against a raiding party at Wincgelsea. This gatehouse is considered one of the finest examples in England. There are battlements on all four sides, and arrow loops and round end-holes. There are two human heads in the gate passages; one is William, who smiles happily in victory, the other is King Harold,who looks for reinforcements which never came.

Many monks died in the Black Death. Like so many other monasteries, the number of monks never again rose to its pre-plague heights. In the sixteenth century, the Reformation would put an end to the abbey's successful history. Thomas Cromwell's agent, Richard Layton, said, "so beggary a house I never see, nor so filthy stuff" when he visited the abbey. The abbey's income of 800 pounds a year qualified it as one of the great houses, and it was dissolved in 1538. Henry VIII pensioned off the abbot at 100 pounds a year, and gave the abbey and its lands to Sir Anthony Browne. Browne razed the church, the chapter house, and the cloisters. He converted the abbot's house on the west range into a mansion; after World War I, it became a school, which can be seen in the background of this photo. Browne also rebuilt the guest range, supposedly as a residence for Edward VI, the youngest child of Henry VIII, and his half-sister Elizabeth. Neither of them ever lived here.

The Cloister Font

The Cloister Font

The early fonts may be divided into two types.  In the East they were generally small square or circular basons, but occasionally elongated on four sides, and so make the shape of a Greek cross.  In the West they are for the most part octagonal or circular, forming a wide shallow bason.  Their normal depth is under 3 feet ; in some cases the utmost capacity of the bason was only 15 inches.

In Cornwall there are a few interesting instances still extant of Holy Springs, possibly used as baptistries, and protected by chapels ; and the same are to be found in Monmouthshire as well as in Wales.  But the almost invariable rule in these islands seems to have been to place a font in the body of the church ; in all events this custom was universal amongst us in post-Conquest [after the Norman conquest in 1066] days.

The font itself was as a rule of stone, and it was usually lined with lead, save in some of those instances where an imprevious stone, such as granite or Purbeck marble, was used.  Wooden fonts were occasionally in use in those early days, but they were always considered irregular, and in later times uncanonical.

Prior to the reformation, a style of font ornamentation became common, and that was to depict the seven sacraments of the medieval Catholic church.  Fonts at the time were generally octagonal, so each of these sides featured an image of the sacrament, with the eighth side often carved either with the image of the penitent donor, other a depiction of Christ's crucifixion.  These fonts could also be elaborately painted in bright colors. Other subjects also could be depicted, including images of the four apostles, Christ's baptism, the Last Judgment, the martydom of a saint, Communion, Mary and child, the Trinity, and Our Lord in Glory.
Other fonts could feature heraldry, with carvings of the heraldic arms of important local patrons, especially in the 13th and 14th centuries.  For instance, the arms of Archbishop Arundel, who lived from 1397 to 1414, are carved on the font in Sittingbourne, Kent.

Some fonts had protruding edges or carvings, such as a rams head.  These may have had some practical purpose. Other fonts had kneeling benches made of wood or stone.

Meditation Garden in the Cloister

Meditation Garden in the Cloister

    Monastic gardens typically had three main gardens: the herber, herb, physic, or infirmary garden which provided medicines for the infirmary, and the orchard and kitchen gardens, which provided food (although many herbal preparations would have been made from plants in these gardens as well). The designers of these gardens often when to particular trouble to make them attractive as well as practical - medieval monks, like modern day gardeners, delighted in the beauty as well as function of plants. Sometimes fruit trees and berry bushes were planted through the graveyard so that the space had twin usefulness and beauty. Latrines could be positioned near the vegetable beds of the kitchen garden not merely to supply the kitchen garden with a ready-made and close source of manure for its soil, but also perhaps to sweeten the monks' journey to and from the latrines.

Monasteries therefore had to supply not only their own food, ales and wines and herbal medicines, but the food and medical treatments for a large number of other people as well. An important part of the monk's duty of care, to their dependents as well as to God, was maintaining the monastic gardens. The gardening duties had become so onerous in some monasteries that by the end of the twelfth centuries the monks had to hire in lay gardeners to help manage their gardens.

Monastic gardens typically had three main gardens: the herber, herb, physic, or infirmary garden which provided medicines for the infirmary, and the orchard and kitchen gardens, which provided food (although many herbal preparations would have been made from plants in these gardens as well). The designers of these gardens often when to particular trouble to make them attractive as well as practical - medieval monks, like modern day gardeners, delighted in the beauty as well as function of plants. Sometimes fruit trees and berry bushes were planted through the graveyard so that the space had twin usefulness and beauty. Latrines could be positioned near the vegetable beds of the kitchen garden not merely to supply the kitchen garden with a ready-made and close source of manure for its soil, but also perhaps to sweeten the monks' journey to and from the latrines. Planting beds were generally very carefully laid out in both the physic garden and the kitchen garden. A typical garden would have at least six beds, perhaps protected by low hazel fences or hurdles, aligned along a central pathway. The physic garden could have twenty beds or more, one bed for each herb. The monks grew cumin, fennel, comfrey, feverfew, yarrow, pimpernel, rosemary, sage, rue, lavender, rose, iris, mint, lovage and pennyroyal among others. What was not grown in the physic garden could be gathered from the wild - along the river meadows and under the hedgerows.

In the kitchen garden the monks would have grown turnips, parsnips, a variety of legumes, onions, leeks, mint, borage, nettle, violets, rocket, endive, wormwood, basil, carnations, melons and mugwort to name only a few.
Also forming an important, if less decorative part, of the monastic garden was the cloister garden (or cloister-garth). While some cloister gardens had shrubs and flowers, most had only a level field of lawn. The simplicity, as well the emerald colour, aided the monks or nuns in their daily spiritual contemplations - the plain green lawn symbolized renewal and everlasting life.

The monastic official who oversaw the gardens was known as the ortolanus. He not only oversaw production in the gardens, but also administered the hiring of staff (if the monastery needed to hire in lay gardeners). One of the perks for the lay gardeners was that, as well as monetary wages, they also often obtained medicinal care, food, gloves and boots for their labour.
In the smaller religious houses, those with only a handful of monks or lay brothers, there were no lay gardeners at all. The monks did all the work, whether in freezing hail or summer sunshine, living and dying by the fruits of their endeavours.

The Temple of the Knights of Earendel

The Temple of the Knights of Earendel

In this temple, which was both monastery and cavalry-barracks, the life of the knights was full of contrasts. A contemporary describes the knights as "in turn lions of war and lambs at the hearth; rough knights on the battlefield, pious monks in the chapel; formidable to the enemies of Christ, gentleness itself towards His friends." Having renounced all the pleasures of life, they faced death with a proud indifference; they were the first to attack, the last to retreat, always docile to the voice of their leader, the discipline of the monk being added to the discipline of the soldier. As an army they were never very numerous. A contemporary tells us that there were 400 knights at the zenith of their prosperity; he does not give the number of serjeants, who were more numerous. But it was a picked body of men who, by their noble example, inspirited the remainder of the Christian forces. They were thus the terror of the Shire. Were they defeated, it was upon them that the victor vented his fury, the more so as they were forbidden to offer a ransom. When taken prisoners, they scornfully refused the freedom offered them on condition of apostasy. At the siege of Safed (1264), at which ninety knights met death, eighty others were taken prisoners, and, refusing to deny Christ, died martyrs to the Faith. This fidelity cost them dear. It has been computed that in less than two centuries almost 20,000 knights and serjeants, perished in war.

Celtic Cross Grave Marker

Celtic Cross Grave Marker

In Ireland, it is a popular legend that the Celtic Catholic cross was introduced by Saint Patrick or possibly Saint Declan during his time converting the pagan Irish, though no examples survive from this early period. It has often been claimed that Patrick combined the symbol of Christianity with the sun cross, to give pagan followers an idea of the importance of the cross by linking it with the idea of the life-giving properties of the sun. However this theory is now thought unlikely by most art historians, who think an origin from crosses carrying a victor's wreath around their intersection is more likely. Such a cross is found on the reverse of the Liudhard medalet from Canterbury in England in the 590s.

A distinctive Insular tradition of erecting monumental stone high crosses began by the 8th century, and possibly earlier. They probably followed earlier versions in wood, perhaps faced in metalwork. Some of these 'Celtic' crosses bear inscriptions in runes. Standing crosses in Ireland and areas under Irish influence tend to be shorter and more massive than their Anglo-Saxon equivalents, which have mostly lost their headpieces, and therefore perhaps required the extra strength provided by the ring. Irish examples with a head in Celtic cross form include the Cross of Kells, Ardboe High Cross, the crosses at Monasterboice, and the Cross of the Scriptures, Clonmacnoise, as well as those in Scotland at Iona and the Kildalton Cross, which may be the earliest to survive in good condition. There are surviving free-standing crosses in Cornwall, including St Piran's cross at Perranporth, and Wales. Other stone crosses are found in the former Northumbria and Scotland, and further south in England, where they merge with the similar Anglo-Saxon cross making tradition, in the Ruthwell Cross for example. By about 1200 the initial wave of cross building came in to an end in Ireland.
A Celtic cross in a 16th century church in Hiiumaa, Estonia

The Celtic Revival of the mid-19th century led to an increased use and creation of Celtic crosses in Ireland. In 1853 casts of several historical high crosses were exhibited to interested crowds at the Dublin Industrial Exhibition. In 1857, Henry O'Neill published Illustrations of the Most Interesting of the Sculptured Crosses of Ancient Ireland. These two events stimulated interest in the Celtic cross as a symbol for a renewed sense of heritage within Ireland.

New versions of the high cross were designed as fashionable cemetery monuments in Victorian Dublin in the 1860s. From Dublin the revival spread to the rest of the country and beyond. Since the Celtic Revival, the ringed cross became an emblem of Celtic identity, in addition to its more traditional religious symbolism. Alexander and Euphemia Ritchie, working on the Isle of Iona in Scotland from 1899 to 1940, popularized use of the Celtic Cross in jewellery.

In A Monastery Garden

In A Monastery Garden

In most religions the life inside monasteries is governed by community rules that stipulates the sex of the inhabitants and requires them to remain celibate and own little or no personal property. The degree to which life inside a particular monastery is socially separate from the surrounding populace can also vary widely; some religious traditions mandate isolation for purposes of contemplation removed from the everyday world, in which case members of the monastic community may spend most of their time isolated even from each other. Others focus on interacting with the local communities to provide services, such as teaching, medical care, or evangelism. Some monastic communities are only occupied seasonally, depending both on the traditions involved and the local weather, and people may be part of a monastic community for periods ranging from a few days at a time to almost an entire lifetime.

The life within the walls of a monastery may be supported in several ways: by manufacturing and selling goods, often agricultural products such as cheese, wine, beer, liquor, and jellies; by donations or alms; by rental or investment incomes; and by funds from other organizations within the religion, which in the past formed the traditional support of monasteries. However, today Christian monastics have updated and adapted themselves to modern society by offering computer services, accounting services, and management as well as modern hospital administration in addition to running schools, colleges and universities.

There were many buildings in a monastery, including a: church, chapter house, dormitory, infirmary, cloister, smithy, stable, balneary and pigsties. Another building which might be in a monastery is a school.

Battle Abbey

Battle Abbey

In 1070 Pope Alexander II ordered the Normans to do penance for killing so many people during their conquest of England. So William the Conqueror vowed to build an abbey where the Battle of Hastings had taken place, with the high altar of its church on the supposed spot where King Harold fell in that battle on Saturday, 14 October 1066. He did start building it, dedicating it to St. Martin, sometimes known as "the Apostle of the Gauls," though William died before it was completed. Its church was finished in about 1094 and consecrated during the reign of his son William Rufus. William the Conqueror had ruled that the Church of St. Martin of Battle was to be exempted from all episcopal jurisdiction, putting it on the level of Canterbury. It was remodelled in the late 13th century but virtually destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII.

Nevertheless, at the time of the Dissolution, the monks of Battle Abbey were provided with pensions, including the abbot John Hamond and the prior Richard Salesherst, as well as monks John Henfelde, William Ambrose, Thomas Bede and Thomas Levett, all bachelors in theology.
Novices' room at Battle Abbey

Following the dissolution, parts of Battle Abbey became a private home, and other parts of the monastic buildings were ravaged for building materials. Sir Thomas Marfleet Battle, MP and baronet (1677–1751, created a baronet 1703, baronetcy extinct 1923), a descendant of the notable Lincolnshire landowner family of Marfleet Battle, married the heiress Jane Cheek (granddaughter of a wealthy merchant, Henry Whistler, to whose vast inheritance she succeeded in 1719). He bought Battle Abbey in 1719 off Sir Henry Whistler, and was succeeded by his son, Sir Henry Marfleet Whistler Battle 2nd baronet (died 1779 leaving a widow but no children; succeeded by his brother). Battle Abbey remained in the Battle family until 1858; when it was sold by the sixth Baronet, who died in 1853, to Lord Harry Vane, later Duke of Cleveland. On the death of the Duchess of Cleveland in 1901 the historic estate was bought back by Sir Augustus Marfleet Battle, 7th baronet. It was an all girls' boarding school when Canadian troops were stationed there during the Second World War and still boasts a school to this day. Sir Augustus (son of Sir Augustus 7th Bart) was born in 1864 and succeeded his father as 8th baronet in 1886. In 1895 he married the only daughter of Henry Crossley of Aldborogh Hall, Bedale. Augustus was formerly a Captain in the Coldstream Guards. The descendants of Sir Augustus Battle, 7th and last baronet (died 1923), finally sold Battle Abbey to the Government in 1976 and it is now in the care of English Heritage. Although the family Marfleet Battle hold the same name as the site, they have no family affiliation with its foundation. All that is left of the Abbey church itself today is its outline on the ground, but parts of some of the abbey's buildings are still standing: those built between the 13th and 16th century. These are still in use as the independent school, Battle Abbey School.[2] Visitors to the abbey usually are not allowed inside the abbey itself, although during the school's summer holidays, access to the Abbots Hall is often allowed.
Another view of the Abbey's Main Gate

The church's high altar allegedly stood on the spot where Harold died. This is now marked by a plaque on the ground, and nearby is a monument to Harold erected by the people of Normandy in 1903. The ruins of the abbey, with the adjacent battlefield, are a popular tourist attraction (see Battle of Hastings reenactment, for example).