Rievaulx Abbey: Community, Architecture, Memory (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art) - Hardcover

Fergusson, Peter; Harrison, Stuart

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300078315 ISBN 13: 9780300078312

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1999

Synopsis

From its foundation in 1132, Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire was home to as many as 650 monks, and became one of the most important Cistercian abbeys, both architecturally and spiritually. This, the first architectural study of the abbey, as well as a review of its 800 year history, looks at the building itself, and the surrounding structures and landscape. Through photographs, plans and reconstructions, Fergusson and Harrison make a detailed study of the infirmary, the walled precinct, the service buildings, and the church itself, producing an historical interpretation of history and function in terms of the abbey's religious and domestic life.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Fergusson holds the Theodora and Stanley Feldberg Chair in Art at Wellesley College, Massachusetts.

From Library Journal

Home to 650 Cistercian monks for 400 years and then deserted in the 16th century, Rievaulx Abbey, or rather its haunting remains, stand framed by trees in North York, England. Despite its former glory and the condition of the abbey remains, it has not been the subject of a monographic study. Nevertheless, Fergusson (art, Wellesley Coll.) and Harrison, an independent archaeological researcher in England, have undertaken a definitive study of this long-overlooked English abbey. Starting with Abbot William, who founded the abbey in 1132, they give a chronology of the abbots and their influence on the abbey is given until the church became crown property under Henry VIII. This fascinating history is well told. Glorious color photos show off the ruins of Rievaulx from different angles, focusing on various features of the complex, the details of construction and architecture, backed up by numerous architectural drawings and reconstruction illustrations, are dissected so finely as to make this book of interest only to the specialist.
-Karen Ellis, Nicholson Memorial Lib. Syst., Garland, TX
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0300078315
• ISBN 13: 9780300078312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 282