Monasteries & Abbeys in England

Christianity arrived in Roman Britain around the 2nd century, although we only have evidence for monasteries emerging in this part of the world during the subsequent Early Middle Ages.

By the 6th century, many of the English kingdoms predominantly practiced polytheistic religions that the Christians labelled “pagan.” Efforts to convert these “heathens” came from both continental Europe and from the Brythonic and Gaelic-speaking communities of Western Britain and Ireland. These non-English missionaries probably played an important role in establishing some of England’s earliest monasteries; the Irish missionary Saint Aidan for instance helped form a monastic community on Lindisfarne in Northumberland during the 630s.

From the mid-7th century, monastic settlements became the main framework around which English Christianity was organised. The Latin term monasterium was translated into Old English as mynster, with new minsters often established by rulers of the various English kingdoms. These minsters were ecclesiastical hubs, serving not only as religious houses for monks but also bases from which priests could travel around the surrounding region, providing pastoral care to its communities.

This was an era before every village or town had its own church, and thus the role of these minsters inevitably changed with the introduction of the parish church system in England during the 10th and 11th centuries. Today, the term “minster” survives in various ecclesiastical placenames, such as York Minster in North Yorkshire and Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire, although the term is now largely honorific and does not bear the specific connotations it had in Old English.

Different religious houses belonged to different monastic orders, each with their own rules, regulations, and approaches to the devotional life. Benedictines, for example, followed the example of a 6th-century Italian, Saint Benedict. The Cistercian Order arose in late 11th-century France and soon spread to England, while the Franciscan Order was created in 13th-century Italy by Saint Francis of Assisi. New orders often emerged out of concerns that existing monastic communities had degenerated from their original intentions, reflecting repeated attempts to get back to the purity of Saint Benedict’s teachings.

Often boasting impressive libraries, these religious houses were the main repository of learning and scholarship in medieval England. It was in monasteries, for instance, that the monk Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People in the early 8th century, and where intricate manuscripts like the 8th-century Lindisfarne Gospels were produced. The monasteries were also often involved in charitable work, providing alms to the impoverished and medical treatment to the sick.

English monasteries became increasingly powerful during the Late Middle Ages, often growing rich from their extensive landholdings. Fountains Abbey and Rievaulx, both in Yorkshire, for instance grew very wealthy on the wool trade. Monasteries also raised funds by attracting pilgrims eager to see holy relics associated with the saints. As well as stealing relics from other monasteries, many monks were not above creating elaborate stories to attract the pilgrim trade. In the 12th century, Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset for instance claimed it had unearthed the body of the legendary King Arthur. These funds helped monasteries pay for construction projects, executed largely in the Romanesque style during the 11th and 12th centuries, before Gothic architecture became increasingly popular from the late 12th century onward.

The wealth and elaborate ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church were not popular with all Christians and by the 16th century the Protestant Reformation was challenging Catholic dominance across many parts of Europe. England moved towards the Protestant camp during the 1530s, under the reign of the Tudor King Henry VIII. After the Pope refused to grant Henry a divorce from his first wife, the king broke with Rome through the Act of Supremacy in 1534, declaring himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England. He then initiated the dissolution of the monasteries, a process that occurred in stages but which ensured that by 1540 all of England’s monasteries had closed, their lands and assets confiscated and sold off. The impact on English society was seismic. Attempts to restore the monasteries were made under the reign of Henry’s Roman Catholic daughter, Queen Mary I, but after her death the crown returned to Protestant hands and efforts at monastic restoration were abandoned.

While the monasteries closed, their buildings were often maintained for new purposes, sometimes retaining the old title of “abbey.” Many monasteries were sold off to wealthy nobles who transformed them into country houses; Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire and Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire are examples of stately homes that had their origins as medieval religious houses. Meanwhile, other dissolved monasteries became parish churches or even cathedrals, as at Waltham Abbey Church in Essex or the famous Westminster Abbey in central London.

The dominance of Protestantism in England meant that monastic activity was largely absent from the country for over two hundred years. This began to change in the 19th century, when growing tolerance for the “Old Religion” of Rome allowed for the establishment of new Roman Catholic monasteries across England. These were often constructed in the then-fashionable Neo-Gothic or Gothic Revivalist style inspired by the original Gothic architecture of the Late Middle Ages. This style was part of a broader medievalist trend in Victorian England that perceived the Middle Ages as a noble era of chivalry from which modern people had much to learn. One of the foremost Neo-Gothic architects of the day, Augustus Pugin, was himself a Roman Catholic and was responsible for designing many of the new monasteries from the 1830s, such as Mount St Bernards in Leicestershire.

Roman Catholics were not the only ones interested in establishing new monasteries in Victorian England. The Tractarians, or Oxford Movement, represented a tendency within the Church of England that was inspired by the Middle Ages and wanted to reinforce the role of ceremony in Anglican worship. Tractarian Anglicans established various religious houses, such as Saint Mary’s Convent in Wantage, Oxfordshire, designed for the Sisterhood of Saint Mary the Virgin by one of the most famous architects in Victorian England, George Edmund Street, during the 1850s.

The appeal of monasticism declined in England during the 20th century, with various Victorian religious houses being turned over to other uses or even demolished. A few new monastic houses nevertheless appeared, as with the Olivetan Benedictine monastery, designed in a Dutch Expressionist style and opened in Cockfosters, North London in 1940. Moreover, despite its broader decline, English monasticism also diversified under the influence of new religions, often introduced from Asia. In Southwark, South London, a former library building dating from the 1890s now houses a monastic community of Tibetan Buddhists, for instance. Today, there are still several active monasteries around England, while the ruins of many medieval religious houses are open to visitors as heritage attractions.