Читать книгу The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey онлайн

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We are reminded too, of the signing of Magna Charta, of the Barons’ War, of the Crusades, of the beginning of the House of Commons, of the long Hundred Years’ War with France, of the Wars of the Roses, of the great Civil War, of the rise of our Indian and Colonial Empire, and indeed of all the important things that have happened in our country until this very twentieth century, when the Abbey is still just as much a part of our history as it ever was.

If we want to see and understand how this is, we can learn a good deal from the history of the building itself, that is, of how, when, and where it was built.

To begin with, what do we mean when we speak of the “Abbey”?

An abbey was really a place where a number of monks or nuns lived, under the rule of an abbot or abbess,—the name abbot being taken from “abbas,” the Syriac word for father. The actual church was only a part of the “Abbey,” to which belonged many other buildings, besides gardens, orchards, fields and farms, and often large estates in various places.