abbey

Ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of Rievaulx in North Yorkshire, England.

The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, in Somerset, date from 1184. Legend says that Joseph of Arimathaea built the first church on this site, but the first archaeological evidence is for an abbey built by the Saxons in around 708. This was destroyed by fire in 1184 and rebuilt, but the buildings fell into disrepair as a result of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and are now ruined.

In the Christian church, a building or group of buildings housing a community of monks or of nuns, all dedicated to a life of celibacy and religious seclusion, governed by an abbot or abbess respectively. The word is also applied to a building that was once the church of an abbey; for example, Westminster Abbey, London.

In England many abbeys were closed by Henry VIII, who turned from the Roman Catholic Church. In other countries many were closed in the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of political revolutions.

The first abbeys, as established in Syria or Egypt, were mere collections of huts, but later massive and extensive building complexes were constructed throughout Europe. St Benedict's Abbey at Monte Cassino in Italy and Citeaux and Cluny in France set the pattern. Others include Clairvaux, France; Fountains Abbey, England; and El Escorial, Spain.