Long Reign of Silence: The Story of Britain’s Monasteries , by Joseph Kelly (344pp, Cruachan Hill Press)
Britain remains littered with monastic ruins while possessing remarkably little cultural memory of what the monasteries once were. Eynsham, the very place the author of this article lives, was originally founded around a vibrant Anglo-Saxon minster before truly coming to prominence in 1005 with the establishment of its grand Benedictine abbey by the nobleman Æthelmær. Walking through the village today, it is impossible not to feel the heavy pull of that deep history. Long after Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries reduced the great abbey to rubble in 1538, its physical legacy remained interwoven with the town; the very limestone blocks that once formed soaring cloister walls were salvaged by 16th- and 17th-century locals to construct the historic cottages that still line the streets.
