Reading Abbey

Important Visitors: Parliament

These matters of church organization and politics are discussed in the Chapter House, and it is in the Chapter House too that matters of state are debated by the Commons during meetings of Parliament at Reading. The Upper House meets on the other side of the Cloister in the Refectory. In all some 350 representatives peers, knights, bishops, burgesses gather in the two chambers to advise the king who calls them to him as suits his movements about his realm. The main Parliament at Reading is in 1453 when the Abbey is chosen as the official venue. Other meetings are the reconvening of Parliament at Reading, often after initial assembly at London dispersed through fear of the plague. The sun shining through the windows of the Refectory strikes oddly on the furs and finery of the nobility of Britain compared to the usual rows of black habits to be found here of the monks eating in silence. And outspoken exchanges of opinion freely fill the room compared with the reading of scripture during the monks' meals.

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