Abbeys in the context of Sénanque Abbey


Abbeys in the context of Sénanque Abbey

⭐ Core Definition: Abbeys

An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian or Buddhist monks and nuns.

The concept of the abbey has developed over many centuries from the early monastic ways of religious men and women where they would live isolated from the lay community about them. Religious life in an abbey may be monastic. An abbey may be the home of an enclosed religious order or may be open to visitors. The layout of the church and associated buildings of an abbey often follows a set plan determined by the founding religious order.

↓ Menu
HINT:

In this Dossier

Abbeys in the context of Abbey of Bec

Bec Abbey, formally the Abbey of Our Lady of Bec (French: Abbaye Notre-Dame du Bec), is a Benedictine monastic foundation in the Eure département, in the Bec valley midway between the cities of Rouen and Bernay. It is located in Le Bec Hellouin, Normandy, France, and was the most influential abbey of the 12th-century Anglo-Norman kingdom.

Like all abbeys, Bec maintained annals of the house but uniquely its first abbots also received individual biographies, brought together by the monk of Bec, Milo Crispin. Because of the abbey's cross-Channel influence, these hagiographic lives sometimes disclose historical information of more than local importance.

View the full Wikipedia page for Abbey of Bec
↑ Return to Menu

Abbeys in the context of Peterborough Cathedral

Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew, and formerly known as Peterborough Abbey or St Peter's Abbey, is a cathedral in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, in the United Kingdom. The seat of the Anglican Bishop of Peterborough, it is dedicated to the Apostles Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the three high gables of the West Front. Founded in the Anglo-Saxon period as a minster it became one of England's most important Benedictine abbeys, becoming a cathedral only in 1542. Its architecture is mainly Norman, following a rebuilding in the 12th century. Alongside the cathedrals of Durham and Ely, it is one of the most important 12th-century buildings in England to have remained largely intact, despite extensions and restoration, and is one of the nation's best preserved pre-Reformation abbeys.

Peterborough Cathedral is known for its imposing Early English Gothic West Front (façade) which, with its three enormous arches, is without architectural precedent and with no direct successor. The appearance is slightly asymmetrical, as one of the two towers that rise from behind the façade was never completed (the tower on the right as one faces the building), but this is only visible from a distance.

View the full Wikipedia page for Peterborough Cathedral
↑ Return to Menu