In medieval England, before Henry VIII, when being Christian meant
being Catholic, nearly every town had an abbey or a priory. No matter to which
order the monks belonged – Cistercian, Cluniac, or other; black, white or gray
– they followed the rules set down by St. Benedict. They took vows of chastity, obedience and poverty and spent
their waking hours in prayer, contemplation and work. They shaved their heads in a tonsure to
represent Christ’s crown of thorns.
The abbey or priory usually consisted of an open cloister, the
chapel, and several rooms. The
monks would meet in the “chapter house,” so called because a chapter of St. Benedict’s
philosophy was read during each meal.
Silence was required, except in the parlor. They slept in open dormitories, which were sometimes
connected to the chapel by stairs so the monks wouldn’t have to venture outside
for their midnight prayers.
The tranquil ruins of Wenlock Priory sit on the fringe of the town
of Much Wenlock. Wenlock began as
an Anglo-Saxon monastery in 680 A.D. It was founded by King Merewalh whose daughter, Milburge, was
the first abbeyess and was later hailed as a saint. When her remains were "discovered" here in 1101, they
attracted both pilgrims and prosperity to the priory. By then it had been established as a Cluniac priory and was
headed by the Prior of Wenlock, who reported to the Abbot of Cluny in
France. Generally an
abbey was larger than a priory and headed by an abbot rather than a prior but the Cluniac
monks believe in elaborate decoration. Parts of the 13th century
church still stand high and in the adjoining cloister is a monk’s washing
chamber with elaborate carvings where up to 16 monks could wash here before
eating in the nearby refectory.
The best remains is the extravagantly decorated chapter house of 1140
with its walls carved with designed arches. If the ruins today are any
indication, Wenlock would have been something to behold.
The Hailes Abbey was a Cistercian abbey founded in 1246 by Richard
of Cornwall, King Henry III’s brother, in thanksgiving for deliverance from a
shipwreck, and it was dissolved on Christmas Eve 1539. Though never housing a large number of
monks, it had extensive and elaborate buildings, financed by pilgrims visiting
its renowned relic, ‘the holy blood of Hailes’, allegedly a phial of Christ’s
blood.
All things must come to an end.
By the mid-1530s Henry VIII faced several issues. He was at odds with the Pope in Rome
over the refusal to annul his marriage with Catherine of Aragon. At the same time he was running low on
money. It was believed that the
monasteries were wealthy that they were sending money to the Vatican. The simple solution was to dissolve the
abbeys and priories and confiscate their property, the "dissolution of monasteries," which took place in 1536. A few abbeys and priories were exempted but most were shut down, their resources sold, and the buildings reduced to rubble. The monks were cast out and left to their own devices.
