Glastonbury Abbey
From The Red Pill
Situated in southwest England are the ancient ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. The locale is believed to have been the birthplace of Christianity in England. There are many legends connected with it, including Joseph of Arimathea, St. Patrick, King Arthur, the Isle of Avalon, and the Holy Grail. It has been called the "English Jerusalem," and "the holyest erthe in England." Some believe that Glastonbury is connected to nearby Stonehenge and neighboring Avebury by leys – alignments and patterns of powerful, invisible energy within the earth.
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History
References on Glastonbury are vague as to the actual establishment of Glastonbury Abbey. It is said that Joseph of Arimathea, the great-uncle of Jesus of Nazareth, came to Glastonbury in 63 AD, accompanied by 11 companions, at the direction of Philip the Apostle, in order to convert the pagans to Christianity. Aviragus, the king at that time, gave the 12 men the Island of Ynys-witrin (Glastonbury), where they built a church called the vetusta ecclesia, in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Legend has it that Joseph also brought with him the Holy Grail, the chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper, and that he buried it at the foot of the Tor, a 521-foot hill that towers over the abbey, at a place now known as the Chalice Well.
St. Patrick is said to have come to Glastonbury in 433 AD, teaching the hermits there to live together as cenobites (members of a religious order). He then became their abbot and remained in Glastonbury until his death, when his body was buried in the vetusta ecclesia. After St. Patrick’s death, St.Benignus, his disciple, became the abbot of Glastonbury.
The monastery at Glastonbury was founded in 601 when Gwrgan Varvtrwch, King of Dumonia, gave the land to the Celtic Church. The monastery was ravaged by the Danes in 878, although the vestusta ecclesia, also referred to in later years as the Old Wattle Church, was not destroyed. In 943, St. Dunstan restored the monastery after becoming its abbot and placing it under Benedectine rule.
In 1184, a fire destroyed the Old Wattle Church and the greater part of the Benedictine Monastery. Reconstruction began soon thereafter, and in 1186 Bishop Reginald dedicated the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin on the west end of the grounds. After King Henry VIII broke with Rome and declared himself head of the Church of England, he ordered that monasteries and abbeys in England be dissolved, and Glastonbury Abbey was plundered in 1539. Most of its stones were later carried off to be used to construct roads and cottages, and gradually erosion resulted in much of the foundation disappearing from sight, some of it a full six feet underground.
Glastonbury Geography
The abbey ruins at Glastonbury are situated on 37 acres of land in the center of the market town of Glastonbury, about 140 miles southwest of London and 13 miles inland from the Bristol Channel in what is called the West Country, on the plains of Somerset County. The word "Glastonbury" comes from the Celtic Ynis-witrin, meaning the "Glassy Isle," or "Shining Isle." In more ancient times, it was referred to as the Isle of Avalon, or the Apple Isle, in reference to the fact that the area was once salt marsh land with many small hills protruding above the marshes, as "islands." It was not until dykes were built on Bridgewater Bay, some 20 miles away, that the plains were drained, marshes became green meadows, and the islands changed to hills. Chief among these formations is Glastonbury Tor.
Forty miles to the east of Glastonbury is the ancient monument of Stonehenge. Twelve miles southeast of Glastonbury are the scant remains of Cadbury Castle, believed by some to be the site of King Arthur’s Camelot. Excavations carried out in 1966 and 1967 turned up evidence that a powerful British leader indeed lived there around the sixth century, the time of King Arthur. Arthur is said to have been buried on the Glastonbury Abbey grounds, a sign now marking the spot where he and his beloved Guinevere were supposedly laid to rest.
Alexander Thom, a professor of engineering at Oxford University, concluded that around 2000 BC, Glastonbury was laid out as a lunar observatory.
Glastonbury Excavations
Soon after its destruction, the abbey fell into private hands when Queen Elizabeth deeded the site to Peter Carew. The record of ownership is difficult to follow, but it is known that the Church of England acquired the property from Stanley Austin in 1908, although in anticipation of acquiring the property, plans were being made to preserve it as early as 1903.
Frederick Bligh Bond, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a member of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, was appointed director of excavations at Glastonbury in 1908. This was a non-paying, seasonal job, one which Bond, who specialized in ecclesiastical architecture, took on as something of a hobby while he continued his regular architectural practice in Bristol.
As references to the Glastonbury grounds, Bond had available to him various antiquarian works, the most important of which was Architectural History by Professor R. Willis, published in 1866. However, while the references described Edgar Chapel and Loretto Chapel as they appeared, the locations of these two chapels were not specified and remained a mystery when Bond undertook his work.
Bond had developed an interest in psychic matters well before being appointed to head up the Glastonbury dig. He was a member of the Society for Psychical Research, an organization whose membership included a number of esteemed British scientists, and it was through this organization that Bond befriended Capt. John Allen Bartlett and began experimenting with automatic writing.
In anticipation of receiving the appointment as director of excavations, it was on November 7, 1907, that Bond and Bartlett first began experimenting with automatic writing relative to Glastonbury Abbey. One message that flowed from Bartlett’s pencil read:
Digge east beyond the beds of feathered grasses. There was a passage to the east doore in ye walle to the streete. In the midst it remaineth. There was a lodging where now is the great howse, and wee loved passages. They were safe, and the priesthood loveth secret places. There is somewhat in us that loveth mystical things, so we tell not all, but leave it to the love which seeketh and is not wearied.
This was part of one of more than 60 messages now referred to as the "Glastonbury Scripts," writings supposedly communicated by long-dead monks who had once lived at Glastonbury Abbey in southwest England. Some came through in old English, some in Latin, and some in "monk Latin." One of the communicators wrote through Bartlett:
Ye names of builded things are very hard in Latin tongue - transome, fanne, tracery, and the like. Wee wold speak in the Englyshe tongue.
When some conflicting information came through regarding dates of construction, Bond, on September 23, 1908, asked for clarification, and a spirit replied that it was difficult to give exact locations and measurements because there was overlapping construction over the centuries, one building on top of another, and the foundations rarely matched.
The communications continued regularly over the next few months. After that, they were less frequent. Most of the communications had to do with the layout and construction of the abbey and the Edgar Chapel was quickly located by Bond, based on information provided by the various monks.
On at least two occasions, there was reference to "Arthur." For instance, in sitting number 34 the following was communicated:
The tombe of Arthur in shining blacke stone was in front of ye altare. Ye can see hys size even now, an ye wis in ye claye, and certain fragmentes that yet are for hym to seeke.
Bond's Fall from Grace
For some 10 years, Bond kept his mystical sources a secret from the Church of England, sharing it only with a few friends, including American Dr. Ralph Adams Cram, a fellow architect who met with Bond in 1912 and urged him to write out the whole story for publication, and even offered to do it for him. But Bond rejected the idea, as he believed that it would meet with disfavor by the Church of England.
Bond eventually changed his mind about writing a book and The Gate of Remembrance was published in 1918. As he anticipated, it invited contempt from the Church and scorn from fellow professionals. His reputation was further compromised after the publication of The Hill of Vision in 1919, which rehashed some of the material in his first book.
In early 1921, insult was added to injury when a co-director of excavations was appointed by the excavation committee. When Bond refused to work with the new co-director, in April of 1922, he was relieved of his duties. There is little mention of Bond in the Abbey museum and its book store.
(this Red Pill entry written by Michael E. Tymn, reproduced with permission)
External Links
- Official website of Glastonbury Abbey
- Glastonbury Abbey and the legends of King Arthur
- Gate of Remembrance on Google Books
- Biography of Frederick Bligh Bond
