History
Suggestions that Glastonbury may have been a site of religious importance in Celtic or pre-Celtic times are referred to as dubious by the historian Ronald Hutton. In 1955 Ralegh Radford's excavations uncovered Romano-British pottery at the west end of the nave. The abbey itself was founded by Britons, and it dates at least to the early 7th century. Later medieval Christian legend claimed that the abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea in the 1st century. This fanciful legend is intimately tied to Robert de Boron's version of the Holy Grail story and to Glastonbury's connection to King Arthur, which dates at least to the early 12th century.
Glastonbury fell into Saxon hands after the Battle of Peonnum in 658. The Saxons under Cenwalh of Wessex conquered Somerset as far west as the River Parrett, perhaps with the intention of gaining control of the valuable abbey. However, Cenwalh allowed the British abbot, Bregored, to stay in power, a move perhaps intended as a show of good faith to the defeated Britons. After Bregored's death in 669, he was replaced by the Anglo-Saxon Berhtwald, but British monks remained for many years.
Read more about this topic: Glastonbury Abbey
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)