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| Links related to Westminster Abbey: official website |
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The Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster, which is almost always referred to by its original name of Westminster Abbey, is a mainly Gothic church, on the scale of a cathedral (and indeed often mistaken for one), in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English monarchs.
According to tradition a shrine was first founded in 616 on the present site, then known as Thorn Ey (Thorn Island); its tradition of miraculous consecration after a fisherman on the River Thames saw a vision of Saint Peter justifying the presents of salmon from the Thames fishermen that the Abbey received. In the 960s or early 970s Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, planted a community of Benedictine monks here. The stone Abbey was built around 1045–1050 by King Edward the Confessor, who had selected the site for his burial: it was consecrated on December 28, 1065, only a week before the Confessor's death and subsequent funeral. It was the site of the last Saxon coronation, that of his successor King Harold. |
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| This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Westminster Abbey". |
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