Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII

Abstract

The Lady Chapel, constructed at the wish of Henry VII, at Westminster Abbey is the last great masterpiece of English medieval architecture, and the culminating achievement of over three hundred years of development in the gothic style, at the point where it intersects with the new movements of the Renaissance. The burial place of some fifteen kings and queens, it houses both the largest surviving programme of gothic figure sculpture and the earliest and finest Renaissance tomb sculptures in England. This new book covers all the most important aspects of the Chapel's history, from the establishment of the cult of the Virgin in the twelfth century to the restoration of the 1990s, which provided an unrepeatable opportunity for close examination of the structure and contents of the building which is the subject of this volume. Contributors include: Roger Bowers, Donald Buttress, Thomas Cocke, Margaret Condon, Barbara Harvey, Jacques Heyman, Phillip Lindley, Richard Mortimer, Julian Munby, John Physick, Andrew Reynolds, Tim Tatton-Brown, Charles Tracy, and, Christopher Wilson, Historians of British Art Book Prize for 2003. Richard Mortimer is Keeper of the Muniments, Westminster Abbey, and, Tim Tatton-Brown is Consultant Archaeologist to Westminster Abbey.