page_title: Jewel House
section_title: Pre-17th century
hierarchical_section_title: Jewel House / History / Pre-17th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Chamber of the Pyx, Westminster Abbey, London.
context_page_description: The Jewel House is a vault housing the British Crown Jewels in the Waterloo Block at the Tower of London. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 and refurbished in 2012. Regalia have been kept in various parts of the Tower since the 14th century after a series of successful and attempted thefts at Westminster Abbey.
context_section_description: A Keeper of the Crown Jewels was appointed in 1207. Over the subsequent centuries his title varied, from Keeper of the King's Jewels, Master of the Jewel House, Master and Treasurer of the King's Jewels and Plate, or Keeper of the Jewel House. He was also Treasurer of the Chamber, a division of the Royal Household of the monarch. In this position he was also called Keeper of the Court Wardrobe, Keeper of the Privy Wardrobe, or Receiver of the Chamber. In this capacity, he represented the Lord Treasurer's interests in the regalia, and the wardrobe and privy wardrobe. Because of this, the Receiver of the Chamber exercised delegated authority over the Crown Jewels, especially those kept at the Tower of London (these two positions were separated in 1485).
  Although a treasury had been located in the Tower of London from the earliest times (as in the sub-crypt of St John's Chapel in the White Tower), from 1255 there was a separate Jewel House for state crowns and regalia, though not older crowns and regalia, in the grounds of Westminster Abbey. This Jewel House stood by the now-demolished Wardrobe Tower.
  In 1378, the keeper gained control over at least a part of the royal jewels, and had a box in which he kept them, with two keys: one for himself and the other for the Lord Treasurer. This was the beginning of the Jewel House Department. The royal treasure was usually kept in the Tower of London, and at the Great Treasury, Westminster. Additionally, coronation regalia was, over the centuries, kept in the Chamber of the Pyx in Westminster Abbey. From the foundation of the abbey in c. 1050 until 1303, the Chamber of the Pyx also held the general royal treasury. Most crowns were kept in the Tower of London from the time of Henry III, as were coronation regalia from 1643, except for some items which were in the abbey during the time of James II.
  Following Richard de Podnecott's attempted robbery of the Chamber of the Pyx in 1303, some regalia were moved to the Tower of London for safekeeping. A new Jewel House was built near the White Tower in 1378, and by the 1530s the reserve of jewels and plate was brought together in the rebuilt Jewel House, on the south side of the White Tower. Regalia were kept on the upper floor and plate on the lower floor. The coronation regalia would remain at Westminster Abbey until the 17th century.
caption: The Chamber of the Pyx, Westminster Abbey
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