The Gate of Remembrance: The Story of the Psychological Experiment which Resulted in the Discovery of the Edgar Chapel at GlastonburyBond, Frederick Bligh
Religion
The Gate of Remembrance: The Story of the Psychological Experiment which Resulted in the Discovery of the Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury
Bond, Frederick Bligh
Glastonbury Abbey -- Miscellanea; Parapsychology and archaeology -- England -- Glastonbury -- Case studies; Spirit writings
It appears to have been put forward as an explanation of the curious
diagram given in Phelps's _Somerset_, where a plan of the church is
published, showing in dotted lines a short projection at the point
where Willis shows his chapel, and this is given a semicircular or
apsidal end.[5] Phelps calls this the "Lady's Chapel." And in the
corner of the same sheet this author gives another long rectangular
diagram, again with a semicircular end, which Warner, who reproduces
the plan, calls the "Chapel according to its original dimensions." The
apse being the constant feature, these additional dimensions would be
to the west, and would answer to the difference in the former and the
latter dimensions of the quire which Monington lengthened in 1344-5.
And it will be clear that some such reasoning may have guided Parker or
Freeman to the tentative conclusion mentioned, and have assisted Willis
to form his definite theory of a slight prominence in the central
chapel of the later retro-quire.
[5] See Fig. 1, p. 5.
Among the documents which have been recovered whose period is that of
the immediate post-Reformation, is one which would have been readily
accessible to Willis and others, and which is preserved by Phelps and
copied by Warner in his _Glastonbury_, published in the twenties of the
last century. This is a transcript of a report made to Queen Elizabeth
by a Commissioner, who was sent to make an inventory of the Abbey
buildings, and he gives a series of measurements of the principal parts
of the monastery, including the Abbey Church, as to which he says:
"The great church in the Aby was in length 594 as followeth:
The Chapter House, in length, 90 foot.
The Quier, in length, 159 foot; in breadth, 75 foot.
The bodie of the Church, in length, 228 foot.
The Joseph's chapell, in length, 117 foot."
In the seventeenth century we have the bare statements of Hollar and of
Hearne, that the total length of the Abbey Church was 580 feet.
All the measures given by the Elizabethan Commissioner are very
excessive, and perhaps for that reason, as well as for the confusion
of idea suggested by the association of the Chapter-House measure with
those of the Church, they have been rejected, or not regarded, by
modern antiquaries. In like manner the bare statement of Hollar and
Hearne, being without any description of what buildings were to be
included in their measure, has not been taken into account.
Professor Willis's review of the probabilities of the plan of the
east end seemed conclusive as regards the existence of five chapels
in a row on the east wall of the retro-quire, for the construction
he places upon William Wyrcestre's description must be admitted to
be most reasonable, fortified as it is by the record of Wild's plan
(1813), in which the bases of two piers with fragments of wall attached
and running eastward are shown in precisely the position required as
partitions for the forming of the three central chapels of the five.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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