The Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries

Medieval cathedrals have been the subject of my last three blog postings, but there were other great churches in England at the time, especially some of the monastic churches. Although some monastic churches survived as cathedrals of the new foundation, many important monastic churches did not survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII.

Westminster Abbey is the most famous example of a monastic church that did survive the Dissolution, but it is not a cathedral. It is called a Royal Peculiar. A few monastic churches still survive because they serve as parish churches. I have chosen in my novels to use two of the great monastic churches that were by modern times reduced to ruins.

Templar’s Prophecy, the 4^th novel in the Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries, is set in Cirencester in 1395. In the 14^th century, Cirencester Abbey was the largest of the Augustinian abbeys in England and controlled much of urban life in Cirencester which created considerable tension between the abbey and the town. I have used this tension between town and abbey to be part of the drama of the story. The abbey grounds and fishpond remain in Cirencester, but nothing of the church or other monastic buildings is left standing. Some stones from the abbey can be found in local buildings erected in the 15^th century. Otherwise, only a gate to the abbey grounds and a few buildings away from the centre of town are still standing.

Similarly, Glastonbury Abbey is central to the story of Joseph of Arimathea’s Treasure, the 5^th novel in the series. It is set in 1397 and uses the reality that the medieval town was literally built around the monastery. Glastonbury rivalled Westminster Abbey for its wealth and grandeur. The church was almost 600 feet in length, exceeded only by the length of the Gothic version of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London before the great fire in the 17^th century. Today, only ruins of the church and a few other buildings such as the abbot’s kitchen remain on the abbey grounds. Several other buildings remain outside the abbey grounds, some located as far away as the village of Meare, Somerset.

Westminster Abbey, the most famous of the medieval monastic churches, is pictured below.

Tags: Chaucer's England, historical fiction, medieval mysteries

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