A royal church and a Christian monarchy each gained and grew in this association. But the roots of this medieval Benedictine abbey as a key site of English royal power and patronage were deeper, having begun under the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, Edward the Confessor (r. 1042–1066). Anglo-Saxon kings often founded or endowed minsters (Old English for monasterium) near their palaces. Around 960, a Benedictine Abbey was dedicated to Saint Peter by King Edgar (r. 959–975). He was an enthusiastic proponent of English Benedictine Reform, a process by which monasteries staffed by secular clergy (often married) were replaced by celibate monks following the Rule of Saint Benedict.
So, there was royal interest in this site, and in the Benedictines, before the reign of Edward the Confessor. However, it was under Edward that the abbey on the small island named Thorney, created by the Thames and the River Tyburn, began to gain its identity as an emphatically royal location, with his siting
