The Abbey must not, however, be dismissed without some reference to its history. There is a history of its buildings, and there is a history of its people. The architectural history of the Abbey has been written in many volumes. Briefly, there was a monastery with its church here as early as the eighth century: this was destroyed by the Danes; then a new House with its church was founded and the House was rebuilt on a scale of great magnificence by Edward the Confessor. Next, Henry the Third resolved to honor Edward the Confessor by pulling down his church and rebuilding it entirely. This he accomplished as far as the crossing of the transepts and the nave. The great feature of the new church was now the Shrine of the Confessor, raised high above the floor of the church by an artificial mound of earth brought from the Holy Land. St. Peter, to whom Edward had dedicated the church, was now supplanted by St. Edward. The nave was continued by Edward the First, who built five bays, according to Gilbert Scott. The chantry of Henry the Fifth, Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, and the completion of the western towers by Wren, or by his pupil Hawksmoor, have been added since the work of King Edward. As for the domestic buildings of the Abbey, there are still fragments remaining of the Confessor’s work. But the buildings were in great part rebuilt by Abbot Litlington toward the end of the fourteenth century. The Cloisters, the Jerusalem Chamber, the Chapter House, the Abbot’s dining hall, still remain; while the Cloisters, the Refectory, the Infirmary cloisters, and fragments of the Chapel of St. Catherine also show in ruin, more or less complete, the beauty of his work. The history of a monastery apart from its architecture must be meager. The more meager it is, the more likely, one feels, is it that the House has sustained its pristine zeal. To the Benedictine of the ancient rule, behind his walls, cut off from the outer world, there were no events: he was buried; the world did not exist for him; the small events of the Abbey, the death of one Abbot and the election of another; an unexpected legacy; the building of another chapel; the addition of new carved stalls to the Abbey church; what else was there to chronicle?