The Blessed Virgin Mary at Tintern and the Chapel Outside the West Door

The constitution of the Cistercian order was known as the Carta Caritatis, the Charter of Charity. In this it was decreed "that all our monasteries must be dedicated to the Queen of heaven and earth." The abbey at Tintern is described in early documents and drawings not as Tintern Abbey, as we know it today, but as St Mary's Abbey, Tintern.

Roof boss at Dore Abbey showing an abbot kneeling before the Virgin and Child

In the 12th century paintings and sculptures were forbidden in Cistercian churches. However, from the mid 13th century statues of Our Lady did begin to appear, as well as images of her in manuscript books and, in the 14th century, on seals. Locally, there are fine roof bosses preserved at Dore Abbey, one showing Christ crowning his mother and another (see opposite) showing an abbot kneeling before the Virgin and Child.

West Door

It appears that at Tintern there was a chapel, outside the Abbey on the West side, which housed a reputedly miraculous figure or painting of the Virgin and which became a place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages.

In 1414 Pope John, the Anti-Pope, issued an indulgence to those "who visit the chapel without the West door of St Mary the Virgin, Tintern, and give alms for the repair and decoration of its buildings and ornaments, in the chapel of which an image (ymago) of St Mary the Virgin has been fairly, honestly and devoutly placed, and although an attempt has more than once been made, has been unable to be placed elsewhere, on account of which miracle and because Mass is said daily by the monks at the altar of the said chapel, a very great number resort to the said chapel."

It has been suggested that the column bases, which are the only remains of the porch in front of the West door (shown on the left), may have supported such a chapel. A chapel in this elevated position would have blocked the blind tracery at the head of the central doorway, but this was not uncommon. Many monasteries had a 'galilee' or 'paradise' chapel in this position which would have blocked from external view the beauty of the original West doorway as can be seen, for example, at Maulbronn Abbey in Germany and at Pontigny Abbey in France.

Two foreshortened windows of the South wall

Dr D Robinson, however, puts forward a theory that the chapel at Tintern Abbey was a separate building alongside the two foreshortened windows of the South aisle (shown opposite), of which foundations were revealed during an excavation in 1904/5 (see Dr D Robinson. Tintern Abbey, Cadw 2002, official guidebook).