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The Medieval Abbeys of England and Wales: A Resource Guide by Roland W. Morant 586 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0432; ISBN 1-4120-2604-0; US$42.50, C$48.50, EUR35.00, £24.50 Resource guide to surviving buildings and artifacts of the monastaries suppressed by Henry VIII. Fills a significant information gap and is of interest to academics and enthusiasts alike.
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about the book
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About the Book
This resource guide aims to assemble within one volume brief details of all the surviving buildings in England and Wales as well as smaller artifacts which may be described collectively as contents. The guide is targeted both at researchers from a variety of disciplines - historical, archaeological and architectural etc. - as well as at individual heritage enthusiasts who wish to track down items of particular interest. It is also hoped that it will become a standard of reference in libraries. About 580 monastic houses are referred to in the text, the author having visited almost all of them over a period of fifteen years. As far as the author is aware, no comprehensive effort has been made to bring this data together within one book. The work seeks therefore to fill a significant information gap.
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About the Author
A lecturer for many years at Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education, now part of the Metropolitan University of Manchester, the author has had articles of educational theory and practice featured in major educational journals and written three books on aspects of teacher education. Now retired and living in the Midlands, he has been able to indulge his lifelong interest in medieval church buildings. This has resulted in the publication of several works including 'Cheshire Churches' and 'The Monastic Gatehouse'. The present book is the outcome of much of his wider researches.
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Excerpts
Foreword
Before the Dissolution of the monasteries, there were in
round terms about one thousand abbeys and priories in
England and Wales . By the end of the year 1540 all these
houses had been closed and their occupants dispersed. It
was not long afterwards that many of the buildings were
dismantled and their contents destroyed or sold.
Notwithstanding this bleak picture, we are left with a
residue of perhaps several hundred monastic sites which
today display substantial remains of one kind or another.
On some sites there are intact but isolated buildings (such
as a refectory or chapter- house) or even groups of
buildings that continue to envelop the original cloistergarth;
while many other buildings are roofless but
otherwise intact (for instance at Fountains abbey).
It is also true that although many of the contents of
monastic houses were wantonly destroyed, some did
survive for a variety of reasons - frequently because they
were sold or given away, or because some items were
required by local parishioners who had acquired the
conventual church. Some such contents which included
diverse items such as fonts, pulpits or screens were often
dispersed over a wide area and are now not always easy to
track down.
The aim of this Resource Guide is to assemble within one
volume as much information as possible involving all these
surviving buildings and smaller artefacts. The Guide is
targeted both at researchers from a variety of disciplines
(historical, archaeological, architectural etc.) as well as at
enthusiasts who wish to locate items of particular personal
interest. For practical reasons the distinction is made here
between on the one hand items of all kinds that are intact
or reasonably so, and on the other, those that are
fragmentary or barely recognisable. The former are listed,
and the latter apart from a few exceptions, are not. As far
as the author is aware, no comprehensive guide bringing
all this data together has been compiled.
The Introduction states this aim and summarises the
existing sources of written information which are currently
available to researchers. This is followed by a Directory of
Monastic Sites which lists all the religious houses where
significant remains are to be found. .It gives under each
house named in the Directory its grid reference and brief
details of site accessibility, and provides numerical
references to the ensuing sections of the book, thus
enabling the reader to find the locations of surviving
physical remains and artefacts. To facilitate crossreferencing,
the sites are listed by historic counties and
religious orders as well as alphabetically.
The remainder of the Guide consists of twenty sections
summarising these remains and artefacts. The first sixteen
are ordered on the traditional precinct layout, these being:
1. Chapels & churches provided for lay people
2. The precinct boundaries
3. Conventual churches
4. Choirs, chapels & crypts
5. Naves, transepts, porches, crossings & towers
6. Screens
7. Other fittings, fixtures & furnishings 1. (i.e. altars,
fonts, lecterns & pulpits)
8. Other fittings, fixtures & furnishings 2. (i.e. piscinas,
aumbries & sedilia)
9. Other fittings, fixtures & furnishings 3. (i.e. stalls,
canopies, misericords, thrones & seats, pavements,
stained glass, paintings, statuary & sculpture)
10. Chantries, shrines & tombs
11. Cloisters
12. Dormitory ranges 1. (mainly vestibules, chapterhouses,
sacristries, slypes etc.)
13. Dormitory ranges 2. (mainly nightstairs, daystairs,
reredorters, warming houses etc.)
14. Refectory ranges
15. Cellar ranges
16. Little cloisters & infirmary buildings.
Section 17 lists a number of monastic properties found
chiefly outside the precinct (such as barns, manor-houses
& granges). In Section 18, Miscellaneous, are included
other rare, special or unusual items of interest, many of
which do not logically fit into one of the earlier sections.
Also placed here is a list of other monastic buildings which
though conventual, are difficult to interpret within the
normal claustral context.
Section 19 identifies the best surviving monastic sites, each
considered as a whole and identified in terms of belonging
to one or other named religious order. Lastly, Section 20
brings together in a summary those individual ranges which
survive around the cloister, some in combination with a
surviving conventual church.
Catalogue Information
