Gloucester Cathedral in England was a monastic church in 1392 and played an important role in Memento Mori, the third novel in my Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries. It was the Abbey of Saint Peter then and was the most important monastic house in Gloucester. The Lady Apollonia visited the abbey church in my novel, and one of my characters was murdered while staying in the abbey infirmary.
The abbey was founded by an Anglo-Saxon prince, Osric, with a dedication to Saint Peter in 678-679 AD. By the early 11th century it is believed that it came under Benedictine Rule. Very little is known about the abbey between these events.
The monastery was not thriving at the beginning of the Norman period in 1066, but the appointment of Serlo as abbot by William the Conqueror in 1072 changed the abbey’s fortunes. Serlo was a monk from Mont St Michel in Normandy. By 1089 he began building the magnificent church that we see today and the columns of the nave in the picture shown above are from that time. You can still see burn marks near the bottom of these columns caused by a major fire in early wooden roof vaults over the nave.
The Abbey’s great wealth lay in its extensive possession of land but one king of England, Henry II, was crowned in this church in 1216. That coronation brought significant additional wealth to enable the monastery to build the church’s first Lady Chapel and a new refectory for the abbey.
The most significant event in the medieval period was the burial of King Edward II following his assassination in nearby Berkeley Castle in 1327. The king was no saint, but his tomb became a great place of pilgrimage. Pilgrimage as well as additional royal support from Edward III brought large sums of money to the abbey which funded significant improvements to the church which I will discuss in my next posting. Part of the mystery in Memento Mori involves these royal monies being delivered to Gloucester.
Other changes in the church came in the 15th century after the time of my novel. These included a new central tower, the lengthening of the nave westward by two bays, and the building of a new Lady Chapel. The dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII in 1540 led the following year to the abbey church being made a Cathedral of the New Foundation, serving the new Diocese of Gloucester which was carved out of the older Diocese of Worcester. Still, the cathedral church we see today is much like the abbey church that was an integral part of my story.
For more on the history of Gloucester Cathedral, click on
http://www.gloucestercathedral.org.uk/history-heritage/cathedral-history/ or on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_Cathedral