Category: History - British
The Rule of St. Benedict, made about the year 540, contemplated only some four officials as in the main responsible for the management of the monastery. These were the Abbot, Prior, Cellarer and Porter. St. Benedict indeed makes mention of a class of officers called Deans, eac...
The Rule of St. Benedict, made about the year 540, contemplated only some four officials as in the main responsible for the management of the monastery. These were the Abbot, Pr...
3. CHAPTER II.In the closing years of the fifteenth century, almost certainly in the year 1492, John Islip began to keep a diary. Like many another such volume it is remarkable for the prolix...
4. CHAPTER III.Next in chronological sequence to the references in his diary to Islip’s earlier years is the brief entry that “on October 2, 1492 the King crossed the sea and came to the town...
5. CHAPTER IV.On May 24th, 1498, Abbot John Estney died. He had ruled the monastery for twenty-four years and was nearly eighty years of age. There are indications that he had been for some t...
6. CHAPTER V.Following on his installation as Abbot, Islip was the recipient of various presents in money from the obedientiaries of the Abbey as well as of many in kind from friends outside.
7. CHAPTER VI.The personality of the Abbot of Westminster can seldom have been a matter of indifference to the reigning Sovereign. The mere proximity of Court and monastery would alone be suf...
8. CHAPTER VII.When Islip died in 1532 the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, was already (with the exception of Hawkesmoor’s addition of the incongruous western towers in the eighteenth...
9. CHAPTER VIII.“The knell that tolled at Islip’s death was really a knell for the Convent itself.” The appointment of his successor was long delayed and it is probable that intrigue was rife i...