An architectural handbook of Glastonbury Abbey : with a historical chronicle of the building / by Frederick Bligh Bond.

  • Frederick Bligh Bond
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An architectural handbook of Glastonbury Abbey : with a historical chronicle of the building / by Frederick Bligh Bond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/128 (page 9)
    An Architectural Description OF THE Abbey of Glastonbury. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. LASTONBURY is the one great religious foundation of our British forefathers in England which has survived without a break the period of successive conquests of Saxon and Norseman, and its august history carries us back to the time of the earliest Christian settlement in Britain. Thus it stands alone as a connecting link with the British Church. Here alone the Celtic element has lived on under the rule of the Saxon, and the traditions of both races have been assimilated. Here, without breach of continuity, the Saxon priest officiated at the same altar as the British priest, and the Norman followed him. The tradition which ascribes to Joseph of Arimathea and his companions, the building of the first little church of wattle work is a familiar one * All through the era of Celtic dominance * John of Glaston’s Hist: (Ed. Hearne) I pp. 1 10, & 48: also Malmesbury’s “ Gesta Pontificorum ” Ed. Hearne, pp. 5, 12. The story is that Joseph, the companion of St. Philip, together with eleven other disciples of that apostle, introduced the Christian religion into this country at Glas¬ tonbury circa 63 A.D., and obtained permission to settle there from the British King Arviragus, who gave them each a “ hide ” of land; the whole forming the district known as the “ Twelve Hides of Glaston.” [See also Polydore Vergilius Hist: fol. Basileae 1557, lib. iv. p. 89.]