GLASSIUS, Solomon (1593–1656), theologian and Biblical critic, was born at Sondershausen, in the principality of Sch waerurg-Sondershausen, in 1593, received his school- elucation at the gymnasium of Gotha, and in 1612 entered the university of Jena, where, with the exception of some months spent at Wittenberg'in 1615, he paSSed the following nine years of his life. As a student of theology under John Gerhard he directed his attention especially to Hebrew and the cognate dialects ; in 1619 he was made an "adjunctus" of the philosophical faculty, and some time afterwards he received an appointment to the chair of Oriental languages. From 1625 to 1638 he discharged the duties of superintendent in Sondershausen ; but in the latter year, shortly after the death of Gerhard (1637), he was, in accordance with the last wish of that great'man, appointed to succeed him in the chair of theology at Jena. He did not, however, continue long at that university ; for in 1640, at the earnest invitation of Duke Ernest the Pious, he re- moved to Gotha, there to act as general superintendent in the execution of important reforms which had been initiated both in the ecclesiastical and in the educational establish- ments of the duchy. The delicate duties attached to this office he discharged with singular tact and energy; and when called upon to take part in what is known as the “syucretistic ” controversy, by which Protestant Germany was so lonrr vexed, he manifested a combination of firmness with liberajity, of loyalty to the past with a just regard to the demands of the present and the future, which unhappily have only too seldom been equalled in theological disputes. His principal work, the well known I’Itllologz'a Sacra, pub- lished originally in 16:25, was and still is regarded as a work of great value in biblical hermeneutic; and it has an his- torical importance as marking the transition from the earlier views on questions of biblical criticism to those of the school of Spener. It was more than once reprinted during the author’s lifetime, and appeared in a new and revised form, edited by Dathe and Bauer at Leipsic, towards the close of the century (1776—1797). Glassius succeeded Gerhard also in the editorship of the Weimar Bibel-werk, and he wrote the commentary on the poetical books of the Old Testament for that publication. A volume of his Opuscula was printed at Leyden in 1700. He died in 1636.
GLASTONBURY, a market town and municipal borough of England, is situated near the middle of Somer- satshire, about 2:3 miles SW. of Bath, on the great western road from London to Exeter. The spot occupied by the town is a sort of peninsula formed by the windings of the river Brue, which flows west through the valley between the Poldew and the Mendip Hills ; and in earlier times it was to all intents an island, as the country round was an extensive marsh, broken, however, by the Tor of St Michael to the of the town. Of the public buildings the most important, besides the ruins of the great abbey, are the church of St John the Baptist, in the Perpendicular style, with a tower of fine proportions; the church of St Benedict, dating from between 1493 and 1524; the hospital of St John, founded in 1246; and the George Inn, erected about the time of Henry VII. or Henry VIII. There was formerly in the town a remarkable cross, which is figured in \Varner’s Glastonbury; but it fell into decay, and was replaced by the present insignificant monument in 1846. Though Glastonbury has a station on the Somerset and Dorset Railway, and communicates with the estuary of the Severn by means of a canal for vessels of 70 or 100 tons burden, it has comparatively little trade. The woollen manufacture was introduced by the duke of Somerset in the first half of the 16th century, as may be seen at length in Strypc’s Life of Cranmer ; but neither that nor the manu- facture of silk, which was al<o carricl on to some extent during the 18th century, is now of any importance. There are tauneries, however, and tile-works. The population of the town in 1861 was 3496, and in 1871 it was 3670.
The abbey of Glastonbury is without doubt one of the Very earliest ecclesiastical foundations in England. In the words of M r Freeman (“ King Inc," Free. (y‘Smncrsctslu'rc Arch. Sea, 187-1), “it is on any showing a tie between the Briton and the Englishman, between the older Christianity of our island and the newer. thu- one church of the first rank which lived through the storm of ling- lish conqm st, which passed into the hands of our victorious fathers as a trophy of victory undcstroycd and unplundered." But unfor- tunately “ everything relating to its early history is so cnvclo red in legend that one has to tread onc's way with the greatest cautron at every step. " As Canon Stubbs remarks,[1] the extravagant claims of the monks in regard to the antiquity and celebrity of their church “ doubtless provoked criticism, and criticism forced on them tlu- need of a forged history to assert, and of forged monuments to sup- port these pretensions. The fabrication of such evidence must have gone on at Glastonbury on a scale proportioned to the claims ; and \Villiam of Malmesbury, it would almost sccin, undertook to erect the story out of materials which he distrusted. This did not content his cmploycrs, and they interpolated his work to a degree which makes it impossible to rely with confidence on any part of it.”
Though Glastonbury is not mentioned either by Bede or by the authors of the Saxon Chronicle as one of the early foundations, its existence (continues Prof. Stubbs) is proved by the incontrovertible authority of the letters of St Boniface and the life of the same by S. “Tillibald. The name of Glastonbury however is of compara- tively modern origin, being a corruption of the Saxon G/(cslingabm'li or town of the Gltcstings. By the Britons the spot seems to have been called Ynys yr Avallon (Latinizcd as Avallonia), the Island of Apples, or Ynyswitrin, the Gla.Ssy Island; and it became the local habitation of various fragments of Celtic romance.
According to the legends which grew up under the care of the monks, the first church of Glastonbury was a little wattlcd building erected by Joseph of Arimathca as the leader of the twelve apostles sent over to Britain from Gaul by St Philip. About a hundrcd years later, according to the same authorities, tht' two missionariu: Phaganus and Dcruvianus who came to king Lucius from l’opc Elcutherius established a fraternity of anchorites on the spot, and aftcr three hundred years more St Patrick introduced amongst them a regular monastic life. About 546 David of Menevia is said to have built a new church near the old one, and in the 7th century tln- old one was encased with boards and covered with lead by the can- of Paulinus of York. In the early part of the 8th century the great \Vcst Saxon king Inc (cf. charter in Kcmble, Codex (ltjll0711(llt'c1l.s (cci Sha‘om'cz', vol. i. No. lxvi.) built and endowed a monastery at. Glastonbury, which, in spite of the preceding cstablislnncnts, may almost be considered as a new foundation. From the dccadcnt statc into which, like other monastcrics, Glastonbury was brought by the Danish invasions, it was brilliantly recovered by the powerful hand of Dunstan who had been educated within its walls and was appointed its abbot about 946. The church and other buildings of his erection remained till the installation, in 1082, of the first Norman abbot, who inaugurated the new epoch by commencing a new church. Ilis successor Ilerlewin (1101–1120), however, dissatisfied with the meanness of the edifice, pulled it down to make way for a finer structure. Henry of Blois (1126–1172) added greatly to thr cxtcnt of the monastery, building a bell tower, a chapter-lionsc, cloistcr, a dormitory, a rcl'ectory, a palace, a brew-house, &c. In 1184 (on 25th May) the whole of the l uildings were laid in ruins by fire; but Henry II. of England, in whose hands the monastery then was, entrusted his chamber-lain Itudolphus with the work of rc- storation, and caused it to be carried out with much lllflglliilCCIlCl'. The great church of which the ruins still remain was then erected. In the end of the 12th century, and on into the following, Glastonbury was distracted by a strange dispute, caused by the attempt of Savaric the ambitions bishop of Bath to make himself master of the abbey. The conflict, carried on alternately by blows and bribes, was brought to a close by the decision of Innocent “L, that llu‘ abbaey should be merged in the new sce of Bath and Glastonbury, and that Savaric should have a fourth of the property. On Savari:-‘-. death his successor gave up the joint bishopric and allowed the monks to elect their own abbot. From this date to the Reforma- tion the monastery continued to flourish, the chit-f events in its history being connected with the maintenance of its claims to the possession of the bodies or tombs of King Arthur and St Dunstan. As early at least as the beginning of the 11th century the tradition that Arthur was buried at Glastonbury appears to have taken shape ; and in the reign of Henry Il., according to Giraldus Cambrcnsis and others, the abbot IIcnry de Blois, causing scarab to be made, discovered at the depth of 16 feet a massive oak trunk with an inscription “ I lie jacet scpultus inclitus rex Arthurus in insula Avalonia.” After the fire of 1184 the monks asserted that they wcrt-
- ↑ Introduction lo Jlt'morials of St Dunstan, Rolls Strive, 187-1.
