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For some time now, this article has erroneously stated that the Abbey is in the High Church tradition. As a member of the Abbey congregation myself, I know that this hat completely wrong, and that in fact the Abbey stands in a moderate open evangelical tradition. I previously made this revision myself unsigned, only to have it undone by someone; so this time, I've signed in, and also attached a link to the University of Bath Chaplaincy which agrees with me that the Abbey is indeed evangelical. Matthew Butler —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 16:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
An individual by the name of "Vox Humana" has undone my change to the Abbey's theological tradition, replacing my sourced statement with an unsourced, unsupported one. He claims that the reference, from the University of Bath Chaplaincy, is "self-contradictory and therefore unreliable". Would he care to explain how? I fail to see the contradiction. It is perfectly possible to be liturgical AND evangelical. Evangelicals do not oppose set prayers. I should know because I am an evangelical myself - and, what's more, I am a member of the Abbey congregation, as previously stated. I know for a fact that the Abbey is NOT high church because I go to Choral Matins and its 6.30 Evening Service every week. If the Abbey were high, the main service would be eucharistic, with incense, a sanctus bell, the clergy wearing chasubles, etc. This is not the case. For the main service at 11.00 there is no communion (except once a month); incense is not used; and the clergy wear choir vestments. Vox Humana states, bafflingly, that Choral Matins and Evensong are indicative of a high church tradition. This is simply false. They are in fact the quintessential forms of service of the low church tradition, putting less emphasis on the Eucharist in contradistinction to the high wing of the Church of England, which would, as I have said, prefer the Eucharist. The fact that the majority of evangelical churches have abandoned these formal, traditional Prayer Book services is neither here nor there; the Abbey maintains a diversity of worship styles, from the formal to the traditional, in order to cater for all tastes. (The 6.30 Evening Service, in contrast to Matins and Evensong, would be virtually indistinguishable from the happy-clappy services that are now found in most evangelical churches). Its theological tradition is most definitely evangelical. Kindly go to services at the Abbey yourself before you start making such unsupported, erroneous assertions. Matthew Butler
And by the way, I would refer you to the following articles: Low Church, which states the following: "In contemporary usage, 'low churches' place more emphasis on the Reformed nature of Anglicanism than broad or high churches, and are usually Evangelical in belief and practice. They tend to favour the Prayer Book services of Morning and Evening Prayer over the Eucharist, though the Diocese of Sydney has largely abandoned the Prayer Book altogether and uses free form evangelical services." In both cases this applies to the Abbey because it both has the Prayer Book services of Matins and Evensong AND has a free form service at 6.30pm. Also, Mattins, which states: "Morning Prayer (also Mattins or Matins), in the various editions of the Book of Common Prayer and other Anglican liturgical texts, was, until the last quarter of the twentieth century, the main Sunday morning service on most Sundays in all BUT (my emphasis) the most high church Anglican parishes..." The Abbey is a traditional LOW Anglican church. I hope this makes things clear. Matthew Butler
I have now added, as a second source to back the "evangelical" label up, a link to an article on the website of Fulcrum, an Anglican evangelical organisation, by its theological secretary listing Bath Abbey under the heading "open evangelical". Matthew Butler —Preceding comment was added at 14:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked at this entry and found that, yet again, it had been altered to replace my assertion that the Abbey is evangelical, which is backed up by no fewer than two sources and the long explanation above that references numerous other Wikipedia articles, with a completely unsourced one. The utter bone-headed obstinacy of this individual called Vox Humana (what is this fashion for stupid pseudonyms? Why can't you use your real name?) is simply staggering beyond belief. How can you have the overweening gall to declare that both my references are unreliable, and at the same time imply that a completely unsourced, unsupported statement is more so? How is it that you are so unshakeably convinced of your own rectitude that you totally ignore both the denizens of Bath University's Chaplaincy and the theological secretary of an evangelical Anglican organisation? And how many times must I remind you that I am a member of the Abbey congregation, and therefore are somewhat more qualified than you to make this judgement?
Unfortunately what this episode has demonstrated is the lamentable unreliability of Wikipedia itself, which is constantly contributed to by individuals who have at best a shaky knowledge of their subject, at worst an egregious ignorance. But I will persist with changing this page because I know FOR A FACT that the Abbey is evangelical and NOT high church.
Yes, Matins and Evensong date back to the Reformation, when Matins was instituted as the main morning service, IN ALL BUT THE MOST HIGH CHURCHES. Even the most rock-bottom evangelical churches would have celebrated Matins as their principal morning service until a few decades ago. The Abbey is merely continuing this tradition, and, what's more, providing a diversity of styles, including its 6.30 Evening Service which is centred around preaching. This is the standard-type evangelical service nowadays, and it is one that the Abbey celebrates. I am tired of telling you that the Abbey provides a variety of services, some more formal than others. Ritualism is not the issue here; levels of formality is. Evangelicals do not concentrate WHOLLY on scripture and preaching; otherwise, a standard service in an evangelical church would contain nothing but those two: no worship songs, no confession and no blessing! And what's more, the clergy at the Abbey most definitely DO deny the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
I am sick and tired of people automatically assuming that because people prefer a more formal, structured service, they therefore by definition are thoroughgoing Popists, repudiating the 39 articles, stinking of incense and aping Rome. It is NOT true, and it is for this reason that I will not give up in asserting what I know to be the truth: that the Abbey's theological tradition is evangelical. (
Matthew Butler 13:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC))
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Matthew Butler (
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few or no other edits outside this topic.
Vox
Humana
8' 16:57, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Right, here I go again. I have now put in a request for unprotection of this page, and as soon as it is unprotected, I shall change it back again. Many thanks to David Underdown for his sensible contributions to this talk page: it is a refreshing dose of common sense and experience. Unfortunately, Vox Humana has merely shown yet more lamentable ignorance. He asserts that he has spoken to "the Dean". What dean would that be? (This is a question that he has not answered, even though David Underdown has posed the same question.) There is no dean at Bath Abbey: instead, there is a Rector and two associate vicars. So not only is this attempt to back up what he has said unsourced and therefore unreliable, it cannot possibly be true, because you are quoting a person who does not exist. It's like saying you've spoken to the Archbishop of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
Also, yet more inexplicably, he states: "The generally accepted nature of evangelical churchmanship is, as I say, completely unritualistic. No confession, no blessing, etc". He also claims to have had some experience of Anglican evangelical churches. I don't know what kind of "experience" that was, but it certainly doesn't reflect reality. I grew up going to an extremely low, conservative evangelical church: St John's in Wimborne, Dorset. You cannot get any more evangelical than that in the Church of England: they're so low that they don't even allow women priests, not for High Church reasons, but because they believe the line of male headship in the Church is mandated in the Bible. Although their services are generally very free-form, they most certainly DO have a confession and a blessing in every service. And they celebrate communion at least once a month. Your understanding of low Anglicanism is unequivocally false.
Moreover, you assert that the Eucharist is the main Sunday morning service at the Abbey. This is factually incorrect. The main service, as I explained above at length to illustrate my point that, because of the Abbey's evangelicalism, the Eucharist is seen as less important, is Choral Matins. The 9.15 Communion service has only been going for a few years. The 11.00 is the one with the largest congregation, and the one which, whenever there are special occasions (such as the Bath Music Festival) is used to celebrate it. Choral Matins is replaced every month by Sung Eucharist, but normally it is the main morning service.
By the way, apologies if my comments above sounded anti-Catholic: they were not meant to be. I have a great deal of respect for the Catholic Church, and many of my friends are Catholic. I just wanted to illustrate that desiring a more formal, structured kind of service DOES NOT automatically mean you have to sign up to Catholic doctrine, and that it is perfectly possible to mix evangelicalism with traditional services, as David Underdown has so helpfully explained.
But having interpreted it as an attack on his church, it is interesting how Vox Humana appears to have opened fire on my branch of the church. It might be helpful to remember that it is actually evangelicals who are growing faster than any other denomination, because they evangelise and try to adopt a variety of approaches to worship to satisfy all tastes. This is why, as I am tired of telling you, the formality of the service has nothing to do with High or Low church: you can be impeccably evangelical in your theology, while being formal and liturgical in your worship.
Vox Humana, please do go and visit an Anglican evangelical church sometime soon and find out what it's really like, rather than relying on hearsay. And possibly even visit the Abbey too while you're about it, and speak to the clergy to see if they agree with you (and not the phantom Dean, either). And please also accept that you are not in the best position to judge for yourself when (a) you have shown you don't know what Anglican evangelicalism is like, whereas I do, having been brought up in it; (b) you don't go to the Abbey, whereas I do; (c) and you don't support your assertions with references to any sources, whereas I do. My case is rested. Matthew Butler 14:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, very well - I'll accept "Low Church", and have now changed it to read such. There is no reason why you should not be evangelical and have a conservative musical tradition at the same time, but since "Low Church" and "evangelical" are virtually synonymous, I'll settle for that. Thanks for agreeing to this; now perhaps we can go in peace to love and serve the Lord... Matthew Butler 11:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Done - and I've added one of the fan vaulting in the quire as well. Matthew Butler 23:17, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I note that User:160.94.68.156 has recently added a "citation needed" tag for the "Low Church" claim. In the light of the discussion above is this needed - or possible?— Rod talk 10:47, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
I've sung at Bath Abbey many times and have come to love the Organ (well, both of them if you include the chamber organ as well). Does anyone have any information regarding it that can be posted on here? Sithemadmonkey 22:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
As suggested in the peer review I removed "The" from the section headings. I notice this has been replaced on the grounds that they are proper nouns. The wikipedia article Middle ages doesn't include "The" so I'm now unsure which is correct.— Rod talk 09:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I see you have requested a GA review, but have been waiting a while. I have had a read through your article and can see a few areas which might be improved, so have taken the liberty of making a note of them here. Consider these merely as suggestions of things which may aid your way through the GA process. The notes are not exhaustive, and your reviewer might have different concerns. Please note that this is not the GA review: another editor has indicated a desire to perform the review.
Hope these suggestions are helpful. Feel free to chase up any of these comments with me. Gwinva ( talk) 04:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of May 15, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:
I strongly second the comments above.
Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far. Relata refero ( disp.) 11:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
(<-) Is this article ready to pass GA? Majoreditor ( talk) 03:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I have just been accused of vandalism by Vox Humana because I disagree with him over two of the section titles. Specifically whether Middle Ages and Reformation ... should or should not be preceded by the word "The". Vox is adamant that they should, and I believe that they should not, as per the manual of style here.
Rather than continue with this silly toing-and-froing, I'm hoping that we can come to a consensus here on what the correct section headings ought to be. -- Malleus Fatuorum ( talk) 16:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I visited the Abbey this week, and found that the windows on the opposite side of the organ had references to some of the erstwhile British colonies. Canada, South Africa and India, among others. Would someone know when this was done? I know the coat of arms in the South Africa pane wasn't used till 1960, so it has to be a recent addition. Maggiedj ( talk) 12:36, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
This article includes "incomplete lists" of Assistant Directors of Music (1 entry current), Sub Organists (1 entry current) & Assistant organists (entries since 1935). As these individuals do not have articles about them (and they may not meet the notability requirements) would anyone object if I remove them from the article as not being significant enough for inclusion?— Rod talk 09:01, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
I feel if we have a list of organists and assistant organists, we should at least have a list of abbots etc.. There is a list here. Note that first there are abbesses for the convant, then abbots for the monastry, and then priors for the priory, and then rectors for the abbey. Not sure what section title we should give this, their "Leaders of the Abbey Communities" seems a bit vague. Also not sure where in the article it should go.-- Pontificalibus ( talk) 15:05, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
I've made a start on an architecture section as has been previously requested (see above). Please add to it or edit as you see fit. I know the lead still needs to be expanded and I'm happy to tackle that, but is there anything else people feel is needed before this article will be ready for another GA nomination?— Rod talk 19:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
I notice the article has been put up for GA review. I must point out that the image captions do not comply per the criteria. Per WP:CAPTIONS, the reviewer may point out that the images do not explain their content fully. It's just that I've been this in a GA review I had last year. Hope this little bit helps. Jaguar ( talk) 20:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
That is, the 10th century. No it hadn't, though it had declined duriung the Viking period. Johnbod ( talk) 22:06, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
It should be "Bath Abbey" but "the abbey was built in XXXX". We only capitalize proper nouns like names, and the beginnings of sentences. -- John ( talk) 15:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: Jamietw ( talk · contribs · count) 15:54, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Rate | Attribute | Review Comment |
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1. Well-written: | ||
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. | Written well with spelling correct in British English. | |
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. | Good use of headings. | |
2. Verifiable with no original research: | ||
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. | All sources referenced. | |
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). | Good use of inline citations. | |
2c. it contains no original research. | No Original Research found in article. | |
3. Broad in its coverage: | ||
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. | This artice expresses all the main points about the history, architecture and uses of the abbey. | |
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). | This article explains about the abbey in an informative and comprehensive way without going off topic. | |
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. | This article is not biased towards any aspect of the Abbey. | |
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. | No edit wars, at least not in recent history. | |
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: | ||
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. | Images are all tagged with their copyright status. | |
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. | All images are on-topic and have suitable captions. | |
7. Overall assessment. | This article is a well balenced article with a good use of references and images and is well-formatted and written clearly and neutrally. I see no reason why I cannot pass it as a Good Article. To improve try reducing the amount of red links especially in the Organ Section. Jamietw ( talk) 17:11, 27 September 2011 (UTC) |
The image in the infobox has two people posing for the shot. I know its very difficult to get a daylight picture without people and obviously a lot of visitors to the abbey will submit their snaps to this site.
I would like to replace the infobox image for one without people. I had a look through the category and found nothing contemporary that didn't have people in. However there is a nice (circa) 1900 print that is available from the US Library of Congress and because of the quality of the image I'm going to directly display it here for you to view:
Due to this being an article about an abbey and with the contemplative quality of the image above I think that it would be a good idea to bring the two together. This is an encyclopedia and holiday photos should be avoided if possible. Also there are plenty of contemporary images already in the article. I'll swap the image out now and if you object or find a better image then feel free to revert my edit.
Thanks
Sluffs ( talk) 16:52, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I've just added fifteen images to Wiki Commons from a 1906 Oxford publication of The Works of Richard Sheridan and there was an image of Bath Abbey from 1750. I've added it to the category and here's a link to it:
Just in case anyone is interested. The Sheridan article also needs a bit of work but alas its not my field of interest on this site.
Thanks
Sluffs ( talk) 17:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Bath Abbey/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Needs in-line citations for GA. -- SECisek 20:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC) |
Last edited at 20:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 09:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello! This is to let editors know that the featured picture File:Bath Abbey Eastern Stained Glass, Somerset, UK - Diliff.jpg, which is used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for February 28, 2021. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2021-02-28. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! Cwmhiraeth ( talk) 11:26, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
Bath Abbey is an Anglican parish church and Grade I listed building in the English city of Bath, Somerset. This photograph shows the interior of the church, featuring the stained glass and the altar at the eastern end of the nave. The square-framed window of seven lights includes a depiction of the Nativity and was made by Clayton and Bell in 1872. The fan vaulting on the ceiling provides structural stability by distributing the weight of the roof down ribs that transfer the force into the supporting columns via flying buttresses. Photograph credit: David Iliff
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I've added a failed-verification template to the number of stairs to access the tower - the source does not give a figure, either in the archived form or the current page. The text is also a bit unclear. There are four staircases which give access to the roof of the nave and quire, each of 120 steps (though only one of them is regularly used and at least one is currently inaccessible as it has had amplification equipment installed in it). The tower is then accessible from the roof, through doors on either side. There is then another staircase in the south-western corner of the tower, giving access to the intermediate chamber, bellfry and tower roof. I can't remember how many steps are in this staircase but 92 would be plausible, giving a total of 212. I don't have a source for any of this - it's all from my own having climbed the stairs many times to ring the bells. 45.130.58.54 ( talk) 08:54, 2 August 2022 (UTC)