The Traditions of Glastonbury IV

Part four of the series looks at the buildings and the cemetery that were at Glastonbury Abbey before the great fire of the eleventh century that unfortunately destroyed one of the greatest libraries we have ever had.

Mary is supposedly buried at Glastonbury and the author asks that if this is not true, then why was the church dedicated to her a thousand years before any others were? Alongside Mary there is a huge list of saints that were interred in the grounds, alongside famous Abbots such as Saint David of Wales and Saint Patrick of Ireland. King Ina built a stone church there alongside the one that Saint David built and this became the Major Ecclesia of Saints Peter and Paul.

The Normans rebuilt the church buildings in an even grander style than they were before and the library was known as the finest one of the period, with over a thousand years of the history of Glastonbury contained within. The church had managed to survive the ravages of the Saxons and the Danes but was eventually burned down supposedly by a candle catching some curtains during a storm in 1184. It did not remain in ruins for long though and we will look at Henry II’s rebuilding of it in the next episode.



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