abbey, monastic house, especially among Benedictines and Cistercians, consisting of not less than 12 monks or nuns ruled by an abbot or abbess. Many abbeys were originally self-supporting. In the Benedictine expansion after the 8th cent., abbeys were often important centers of learning and peaceful arts and, like Fulda, were sometimes the nuclei of future towns. The buildings surround a church and include a dormitory, refectory, and guest house, all surrounded by a wall. The courtyard, derived from the Roman atrium, was a usual feature, as was the cloister or arcade surrounding the court. Cluniac abbeys were always ornate, Cistercian ones notably bare. The Carthusians with their special polity developed an altogether different structure called the charterhouse.

Westminster Abbey, originally the abbey church of a Benedictine monastery (closed in 1539) in London. One of England's most important Gothic structures, it is also a national shrine. The first church on the site is believed to date from early in the 7th cent. It was erected by Æthelbert, king of Kent. Edward the Confessor began c.1050 the building of a Norman church, consecrated in 1065. In 1245, Henry III began to demolish the edifice and to build a new eastern portion, thus initiating centuries of construction. The fine octagonal chapter house was built in 1250, and in the 14th cent. the cloisters, abbot's house, and principal monastic buildings were added. The nave was completed in the 16th cent. Early in the 16th cent. Henry VIII finished the Lady Chapel, dedicated to Henry VII. This chapel, in Perpendicular style, is noted for its superb fan vaulting. The two western towers were built (1722-40) by Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor. In the late 19th cent. Sir George Gilbert Scott supervised extensive restoration. From that time memorial statues by many academic Victorian sculptors have been added to the decor. The present church is cruciform in plan; both nave and transept have side aisles. The choir is apsidal in plan, and its ring of chapels exhibits the only complete chevet in England. French influence is also seen in the height of the nave, the loftiest in England, and in the strongly emphasized flying buttresses. Nearly every English king and queen since William I has been crowned in Westminster, and it is the burial place of 18 monarchs. England's most notable statesmen and distinguished subjects have been given burial in the Abbey since the 14th cent. In the Poets' Corner in the south transept rest the tombs of Chaucer, Browning, Tennyson, and other great English poets.

Tintern Abbey, ruins of an abbey, Monmouthshire, W. England, near Chepstow. It was founded for Cistercians in 1131 by Walter de Clare and now consists mainly of 13th- and 14-century English work. It is the subject of a poem by Wordsworth.

Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, central England, on the border of Sherwood Forest, between Nottingham and Mansfield. It was founded c.1170 by Henry II in atonement for the murder of Thomas à Becket. It was secularized and granted to John Byron by Henry VIII. Lord Byron lived at the abbey intermittently from 1798 to 1816; he sold it in 1818. His rooms are preserved as he left them.

Fountains Abbey, ruined Cistercian abbey, West Riding of Yorkshire, N England, near Ripon. It was founded in 1132.

Dryburgh Abbey, Premonstratensian abbey, Scottish Borders, SE Scotland, on the Tweed below Melrose. Founded in 1150, it was several times destroyed (1322 and 1545) and rebuilt and is now a picturesque ruin, a favorite subject for etching and painting. It belonged at one time to ancestors of Sir Walter Scott and contains his tomb.

Abbey, Edwin Austin, 1852-1911, American illustrator and painter, b. Philadelphia, studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Employed by Harper & Brothers, he was sent to England, where he gathered materials for his illustration of Herrick's poems and other works. His illustration of Shakespeare is usually considered his best work. The Quest of the Holy Grail (a series of wall panels in the Boston Public Library) is perhaps his most famous painting. He was official painter of the coronation of Edward VII.

Abbey Theatre, Irish theatrical company devoted primarily to indigenous drama. W. B. Yeats was a leader in founding (1902) the Irish National Theatre Society with Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, and A. E. (George Russell) contributing their talents as directors and dramatists. In 1904, Annie Horniman gave them a subsidy and the free use of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The theater was bought for them by public subscription in 1910. Among dramatists whose works the Abbey Theatre first presented are Padraic Colum, Lennox Robinson, Sean O'Casey, and Paul Vincent Carroll. The theater is now in a new building constructed in 1966. In close association with Irish dramatists, the Abbey also has been an important instrument in the revival of Irish drama that began in the 1960s.

Complex of buildings housing a monastery or convent under the direction of an abbot or abbess, serving the needs of a self-contained religious community. The first abbey was Monte Cassino in Italy, founded in 529 by St. Benedict of Nursia. The cloister linked the most important elements of an abbey together. The dormitory was often built over the dining hall on the eastern side of the cloister and linked to the central church. The western side of the cloister provided for public dealings, with the gatehouse controlling the only opening to the outer, public courtyard. On the southern side of the cloister were a central kitchen, brewery, and workshops. The novitiate and infirmary were housed in a building with its own chapel, bathhouse, dining hall, kitchen, and garden. In the 12th–13th century, many abbeys were built throughout Europe, especially in France.

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Church in London. It was originally a Benedictine monastery. Edward the Confessor built a Norman-style church (consecrated 1065) on the site of an older church there; this was pulled down in 1245 by Henry III (except for the nave) and replaced with the present Gothic-style abbey church. The rebuilding of the nave was begun by 1376 and continued intermittently until Tudor times. The chapel of Henry VII (begun circa 1503) is noted for its exquisite fan vaulting. Elizabeth I refounded the church as the Collegiate Church of St. Peter in Westminster (1560). The western towers (1745), by Nicholas Hawksmoor and John James, were the last addition. Every British sovereign since William the Conqueror has been crowned in the abbey except Edward V and Edward VIII. Many are also buried there, and it is crowded with the tombs and memorials to other famous Britons. Part of the southern transept is known as the Poets' Corner, while the northern transept has memorials to statesmen.

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Dublin theatre. It developed from the Irish Literary Theatre, founded in 1899 by William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory to foster Irish drama. After moving the troupe to a renovated theatre on Abbey Street in 1904, they codirected its productions with John Millington Synge, staged their own plays, and commissioned works by Sean O'Casey and others. Important premieres included Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (1907) and O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars (1926). The Abbey became the first state-subsidized theatre in the English-speaking world in 1924. A fire destroyed the original playhouse in 1951, and a new theatre was built in 1966.

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