Although it has been largely in ruins for centuries, the abbey of Glastonbury attracts thousands of visitors every year. A few names linked with the ancient monastery suggest why the fascination persists: King Arthur, Saint Patrick, and Joseph of Arimathea. It is not at all certain that any of these individuals actually set foot in Glastonbury, but whether or not they did, the legends that developed were taken seriously in the Middle Ages by the learned and unlearned and by the powerful and powerless. Especially significant was the interest shown by two of England's most influential kings, Henry II and Edward I, both of whom had a lasting effect on the subsequent history of the British Isles.

The story of Glastonbury shows much of the complexity of the multicultural heritage of ancient and medieval Britain, and a great deal remains uncertain. Nevertheless, some facts are clear.

The success of the abbey as an influential religious foundation is indisputable. With many wealthy and powerful supporters, the monastery grew through the ages: by the thirteenth century, the abbey church and its adjoining chapels, which are represented in the depicted model, stretched to 594 feet, the largest shrine in England except for Saint Paul's in London. Whatever rigors monastic rules may have imposed, life at Glastonbury was by no means primitive, as the large kitchen suggests. Yet the size and wealth of the religious foundation were clearly secondary to the history (or at least the reputed history) of the monastery itself.

Close to the abbey stands Glastonbury Tor, a hill of only 520 feet yet far higher then the surrounding marshy fields of Somerset. Humans have long visited the Tor, and over the centuries it has become legendary. In much of the Arthurian lore, the hill has become identified as the Isle of Avalon, where the wounded Arthur was taken in his final days.

There is also a tradition of an ancient church being established at Glastonbury very early in the Christian era, and some accounts maintain that it was founded by Joseph of Arimathea, who (the Gospels say) asked Pontius Pilate for permission to bury the body of Jesus after the Crucifixion. Joseph supposedly traveled later with the apostle Philip to Gaul and then to Britain. Other traditions have it that an ancient shrine was established by monks from Ireland, and not surprisingly, the person of Saint Patrick has figured in some of the legends: he is said to have been abbot of the monastery late in life. If there was in fact a church dating to Roman times, it likely lies under the foundations of the Lady Chapel (the walls now visible date only from late twelfth century). Some evidence does exist for quite ancient buildings nearby in the form of traces of post holes.

However slim the evidence may seem to modern eyes, people of medieval Britain sensed that Glastonbury was special place, and they had that sense quite early in the Middle Ages.

King Ine, an Anglo-Saxon ruler of Wessex (688-726), had a chapel built near the part of the monastery depicted at left (though the ruins seen are from a later period). His act of piety has been interpreted by Geoffrey Ashe and others as a clear sign of the decreasing hostility between Celts and Saxons. Scarcely a century earlier, the Anglo-Saxons were pagans who clashed often with the native Britons. The conversion of Wessex and other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to Christianity did not end the ethnic or political conflicts, but Ine's deed suggests that even a conquering Saxon king could respect the deeply held religious traditions of his adversaries.

The cemetery in the foreground of the above picture may well have impressed Ine as it did later royal visitors. Archeologists have found abundant evidence of human settlement in the region of Glastonbury going back some six thousand years, and it is possible that near the monastery (and perhaps the Tor) there lie ancient burial grounds which eventually inspired stories of an afterworld close by.

During the reign of of Henry II (1154-1189) a Welsh legend concerning Glastonbury became widely known to speakers of English, French, and other languages. According to the Norman cleric Gerald of Wales, a Welsh bard told Henry that the resting place of King Arthur was in the cemetery of the Glastonbury shrine. How widespread this legend had been in Wales or how true it might be remains uncertain. Nevertheless, the abbey's fame increased, especially when the monks dug up a coffin believed to be that of Arthur. The bones were placed in the sepulcher of abbey soon afterwards, but in 1278 Edward I moved them to an area close to where the main altar once stood.

Once the abbey became widely associated with Arthur, still other legends arose, including details of the legend of the Holy Grail, which was, according to popular imagination, the chalice of Christ that was brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea. After the dissolution of the abbey in 1539, Glastonbury went into decline, but the renewed interest in Arthurian lore in the last two centuries has brought back ever larger numbers of visitors. Whatever the real facts are about the abbey and the Tor, Glastonbury remains an important symbol of the merging of Celtic, Saxon, and Norman traditions, a merger which has led to a new sense of "Britain" being a cultural a hybrid.

To see other shots of Glastonbury, click here.

Sources for this page:

Geoffrey Ashe. King Arthur's Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury. London: Collins, 1957.

Philip Rahtz. "Glastonbury Tor." In The Quest for Arhtur's Britain, ed. by Geoffrey Ashe, Leslie Alcock, C.A. Raleigh Radford, and Philip Rahtz. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1987.

C.A. Raleigh Radford. "Glastonbury Abbey." In The Quest for Arhtur's Britain, ed. by Geoffrey Ashe, Leslie Alcock, C.A. Raleigh Radford, and Philip Rahtz. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, , 1987.