Global Courant 2023-05-05 22:14:02
The Abbey is the church where kings and queens are crowned, and this Saturday will once again be the scene of a historic event: the coronation of Carlos III and the queen consort, Camila.
The church we see today was rebuilt by Henry III in 1245, but it was founded much earlier, around the year 960, by Benedictine monks.
“The site of the Abbey has been at the center of English political life for nearly a thousand years,” Hannah Boston, Professor of Medieval History at Oxford University’s Magdalen College, told the BBC.
Today, more than 3,300 famous people, including monarchs, are buried or have a memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey.
Here are five interesting facts about this monument.
1. Venue of 16 royal weddings
Getty Images Prince William and Catherine Middleton were married in Westminster Abbey in 2011.
In 2011, wearing a yellow dress, Queen Elizabeth II attended the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, the last to be held at the Abbey.
That ceremony followed a long line of royal weddings spanning 900 years.
So far, there have been 16 royal weddings at the Abbey, beginning with Henry I, who married Princess Matilda of Scotland there in 1100, and including the marriage of then-Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip in 1947.
2. The oldest door in England
In 2005, it was discovered thanks to a study that Westminster Abbey houses the oldest door in England.
It was built sometime in the 1050s, before the Norman conquest of England.
“Edward the Confessor, King of England 1042-1066, had the first abbey built,” Professor Boston explained.
But little survives of the original Westminster Abbey, apart from the gate.
“It was probably the first building in England to be built using the new Romanesque style that was spreading across Europe. The excavations showed that it was 87 meters long”, explained the expert.
Getty Images
The door has fragments of cowhide. In the 19th century, a legend arose that these pieces were actually human skin, belonging to someone who had been skinned after being caught committing sacrilege or church robbery.
The skin was said to have been nailed to the door to deter others.
3. A multitude of royal tombs (and thousands of others)
Getty Images/Peter DazeleyThe tomb of Queen Elizabeth I in Westminster Abbey.
Westminster Abbey is the final resting place of 30 queens and kings, the first of which is King Edward the Confessor.
The remains of Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots and 11 queen consorts are also there.
The last monarch to be buried in Westminster Abbey was King George II in 1760.
But it’s not just the royals who are buried in the abbey.
It is a final resting place for more than 3,300 people, including mathematician Isaac Newton, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, composer George Frederic Handel, and writer and poet Mary Trevor.
The abbey is also home to Poets’ Corner, a monument to writers and poets, including Jane Austen and Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë.
In modern times, royal funerals at Westminster Abbey included that of Queen Elizabeth II on 19 September 2022; that of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, in 2002; and the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.
4. The Coronation Chair
Getty Images The Coronation Chair was made by order of King Edward I to encapsulate the famous Stone of Scone.
The Coronation Chair is considered one of the most famous pieces of furniture in the world and has been at the center of the coronations of British monarchs for seven centuries.
It was made by order of King Edward I to encapsulate the famous Stone of Scone or Stone of Doom, an object of reverence for the Scots that Edward took to London (and was briefly stolen by Scottish nationalists in 1950).
Queen Elizabeth II sat in the chair on the stone when she was crowned at her ceremony in 1953 and the chair will also appear at the ceremony for her son, King Charles III.
Since 1066, all but two monarchs have been crowned in Westminster Abbey. There were 39 in total.
5. A UNESCO World Heritage Site and an apocalyptic message
Getty Images Westminster Abbey has witnessed much of British history.
In front of the high altar in Westminster Abbey is a mosaic floor of medieval tiles with three inscriptions predicting the end of the world.
It is made of geometric patterns constructed from different colored and sized pieces of stone and glass, cut into a variety of shapes.
Known as Cosmati, he mysteriously suggests that the world will last 19,683 years.
But it was only recently that this message became visible after a major cleanup and conservation program.
In 1987, the apocalyptic mosaic, the oldest gate and the Coronation Chair became even more important to world culture when the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.
Westminster Abbey received the honor for being “a striking example of the successive phases of English Gothic art” and because it has “great historical and symbolic significance.”
