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Discussion of site and buildings, books and manuscripts, cultural life and traditions, from the earliest Anglo-Saxon period to the later middle ages.

Excerpt from Chapters on the Early History of Glastonbury Abbey In making a short contribution to the early history of Glastonbury Abbey I feel that I need offer no apology, as the old Tor itself, although 20 or 25 miles distant as the crow flies, is visible from my windows, and invites the attempt. More often than not it is draped in the mists that sweep up the Severn Sea from the north-west and lies half hid in the mirage of the moorlands. To write about the birth of Grlastonbury is to write about a creation that has sprung from the sea, that has grown up silently in the weird marshes and meres of the "sea-moor-saetas," and that loves to entangle itself in the magic mists of antiquity. Must we always adhere to the litera scripta in speaking of Glastonbury? It is the land of legend, romantic figures, and shadowy heroes, and there is sometimes more substance to be found in these, especially when place-names, topography, dedications, and the consentanea vox of antiquity confirm them, than in the litera scripta of the monastic scriptorium, where the greatest efforts of the Benedictine pens were directed to invent, to simulate, and to forge, so that the detective genius of a Stubbs can hardly winnow the true record from the false. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

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