Title first published in 2003. Westminster Abbey occupies a unique
position in the religious and royal landscape of the United Kingdom and
Commonwealth. As the scene of coronations and other great public
occasions, it has been the continuing focus of the nation's religious
life for half the Christian era. Yet the building itself would not have
survived the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation had the institution
running it not been itself 'reformed' from monastery into collegiate
church. These nine studies discuss ways in which Westminster's new
corporate structure evolved in the first century of its existence, and
look at some of the personalities who played a part in that process. New
research, much of it in the Abbey's own rich archive, opens up
previously unseen views of this great church's internal affairs, its
relationship with the Crown, and its place in its own locality.