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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Vestiges of the supremacy of Mercia in the south of England during the eighth century - -Author: Thomas Kerslake - -Release Date: June 21, 2016 [EBook #52389] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VESTIGES OF SUPREMACY OF MERCIA *** - - - - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p class="transnote">Transcriber’s Note: Minor errors of punctuation -and printing have been repaired, but the transcriber does not fancy she -knows the writer’s meaning better than he knows it himself, and has -left the rest alone.</p> - -<div class="front-matter"> - -<p class="titlepage larger">VESTIGES OF<br /> -<br /> -THE SUPREMACY OF MERCIA<br /> -<br /> -IN THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND<br /> -<br /> -DURING THE EIGHTH CENTURY</p> - -<p class="top-margin right"><i>With T. Kerslake’s Compliments,<br /> -Bristol, 1879.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td>PAGES</td><td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_1">1-8-9, &c.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">St. Werburgh.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_2">2-14, &c.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Bristol.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_3">3-5.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Wiccia.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_6">6-7.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Anglo-Saxon.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_10">10.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Female National Saints.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_11">11, &c.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Æthelbald. Offa.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_11">11-12.</a> <a href="#Page_50">50.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">St. Boniface.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_13">13.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Avon Frontier.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_14">14.</a> <a href="#Page_56">56.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Bath. Henbury.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_15">15-17.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">North Devon.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_18">18.</a> <a href="#Page_22">22.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Cornwall.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_19">19-21.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">St. Cuthbert.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_23">23.</a> <a href="#Page_25">25.</a> <a href="#Page_36">36, &c.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Kentish Hoo.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_26">26-39, &c.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Cloveshoe.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_28">28-29, &c.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Cliffe at Hoo.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_40">40.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Higham Ferry.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_41">41-42.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Middlesex.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_43">43.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Cealchythe.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_44">44-45.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Acleah.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_46">46.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Parishes.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_47">47.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Werburghwick.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_49">49-51.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Haethfelth. Herutford. &c.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_53">53-58.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">St. Helen. Offa.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_56">56-58.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Hastings. Sussex.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_59">59.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">London.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_60">60-63.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Dedications.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_61">61.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Holy Rood.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><a href="#Page_62">62.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">St. Ethelbert. Marden. St. Mary.</span></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<h2>ERRORS.</h2> - -<ul> -<li>Pages 24, 25 in Notes; <i>for</i> p. 119-121, 125 <i>read</i> 15-17, 22.</li> - -<li><span class="ditto">”</span> 27. Note <i>for</i> 1565 <i>read</i> 1863.</li> - -<li><span class="ditto">”</span> 7, line 3, <i>for</i> “knut—” <i>read</i> “Knut—”.</li> - -<li><span class="ditto">”</span> 11, 12, 34, <i>for</i> Bonifatius <i>prefer</i> Bonifacius.</li> - -<li><span class="ditto">”</span> 47, <i>for</i> appanage <i>read</i> apanage.</li> - -<li>Various others, including some introduced after the proofs had been finally -revised by the writer, by some one who fancied he knew the writer’s -meaning better than he knows it himself.</li> - -</ul> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage">VESTIGES OF THE<br /> -<br /> -SUPREMACY OF MERCIA<br /> -<br /> -IN THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND<br /> -<br /> -DURING THE EIGHTH CENTURY.</p> - -<p class="titlepage">(<i>Reprinted from the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire -Archæological Society</i>).</p> - -<p class="noindent top-margin"><i>Bristol</i>, 1879.</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<h1>VESTIGES OF THE SUPREMACY OF MERCIA<br /> -IN THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND, DURING THE<br /> -EIGHTH CENTURY.</h1> - -<p class="center">By THOMAS KERSLAKE.</p> - -<div class="blockquote smaller"> - -<p>“… residual phenomena …, the small concentrated residues -of great operations in the arts are almost sure to be the lurking-places of -new chemical ingredients.… It was a happy thought of Glauber to examine -what everybody else threw away.”—<span class="smcap">Sir J. F. W. Herschell.</span></p> - -</div> - -<p>Having sometimes said that the date of the original foundation of -the lately-demolished church of St. Werburgh, in the centre of -the ancient walled town of Bristol, was the year 741, and that a -building so called has, from that early date, always stood on that -spot, I have been asked how I know it. I have answered; by the -same evidence—and the best class of it—as the most important -events of our national history, of the three centuries in which that -date occurs, are known. That is, by necessary inference from the -very scanty records of those times, confirmed by such topical monumental -evidence as may have survived. But this fact in itself is, -also, of considerable importance to our own local history; because, -if it should be realized, it would be the very earliest solid date -that has yet been attached to the place that we now call Bristol. -We are accustomed to speak, with a certain amount of popular -pride, of “Old Bristol,” and in like manner of “Old England,” -but without considering which is the oldest of the two. The -position here attempted would give that precedence to Bristol.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It need scarcely be mentioned that what we now call England -is no other than an enlargement of the ancient kingdom of the -West Saxons, by the subjugation and annexation of the other -kingdoms of the southern part of the island. A subjugation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -which the result is that our now ruling sovereign is the successor, -as well as descendant, of the Saxon Kings of Wessex, and of the -supremacy which they ultimately achieved. Of course this was -only the final effect of a long series of political revolutions. It -was preceded by others that had promised a different upshot: one -of which was the long-threatened supremacy of the Anglian -kingdom of Mercia; by Penda, a Pagan king, and afterwards, -during the long reigns of Æthelbald and Offa, his Christian successors -in his kingdom and aggressive policy.</p> - -<p>One of two fates awaits a supplanted dynasty: to be traduced, -or to be forgotten. Although this milder one has been the lot of -the Mercian Empire, yet it is believed that distinct, and even -extensive, traces can still be discerned, beyond the original seat -of its own kingdom, of its former supremacy over the other -kingdoms of England. In fact, this name itself of “England,” -still co-extensive with this former Anglian supremacy over the -Saxons, is a glorious monumental legacy of that supremacy, which -their later Saxon over-rulers never renounced, and which has -become their password to the uttermost parts of the earth.</p> - -<p>But it is with the encroachments of Æthelbald upon Wessex -that we are in the first instance concerned. South of Mercia -proper was another nation called Huiccia, extending over the -present counties of Worcester and Gloucester, with part of Warwickshire -and Herefordshire, and having the Bristol river Avon -for its southern boundary. It is barely possible that it may have -included a narrow margin between that river and the Wansdyke, -which runs along the south of that river, at a parallel of -from two to three miles from it; but of this no distinct evidence -has been found. Some land, between the river and Wansdyke, -did in fact belong to the Abbey of Bath, which is itself on the -north of the river, but that this is said to have been bought—“mercati -sumus digno praetio”—from Kenulf, King of the -West Saxons<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>, makes it likely that it was the river that had been -the tribal boundary.</p> - -<p>Until divided from Gloucester by King Henry VIII., the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -Bishopric of Worcester substantially continued the territory, and -the present name of Worcester = Wigorceaster = Wigorniæ civitas -(<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 789), no doubt transmits, although obscurely, the name of -Huiccia; and the church there contained (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 774) “pontificalis -Cathedra Huicciorum.” The name may even remain in -“Warwick,” and especially in “Wickwar” = Huiccanwaru; but -such instances must not be too much trusted, as there are other -fruitful sources of “wick,” in names. In Worcestershire names, -however, “-wick” and “-wich” as testimonials are abundant. -Droitwich = “Uuiccium emptorium” (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 715), almost certainly -is so derived, in spite of its ambiguous contact with the great -etymological puzzle of the “Saltwiches.”<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> - -<p>At all events, within a hundred years from Ceawlin’s first -subjugation of it, Saxon Wiccia had become entirely subject to -Anglian Mercia. But there can be no doubt that its earliest -Teutonic settlers were West Saxons. Even now, any one of us -West Saxons, who should wander through Gloucestershire and -Worcestershire, would recognise his own dialect. He would, -perhaps, say they “speak finer” up here, but he would feel -that his ears are still at home. If he should, however, advance -into Derbyshire, or Staffordshire, or Eastern Shropshire, he would -encounter a musical cadence, or song, which, though far from being -unpleasant from an agreeable voice, would be very strange to him. -He would, in fact, have passed out of Wiccia into Mercia proper: -from a West-Saxon population into one of original Anglian -substratum.</p> - -<p>What was the earlier political condition of Wiccia before it -fell under the dominion of Mercia: whether it was ever for any -time an integral part of the kingdom of Wessex, or a distinct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -subregulate of it, is uncertain. Two of the earlier pagan West-Saxon -inroads (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 577-584) were of this region, and happened -long before that race had penetrated Somerset. It is not to be -believed that any part of later Somerset, south of Avon, was -included in either of these two pagan conquests of Ceawlin; nor -even the south-west angle of Gloucestershire itself, that forms the -separate elevated limestone ridges between the Bristol Frome and -the Severn. There are some other reasons for believing that -these heights immediately west of Bristol—say, Clifton, Henbury, -and northward along the Ridgeway to about Tortworth—remained, -both Welsh and Christian, for nearly a century afterwards; and -that they were only reduced to Teutonic rule along with the subjection -of Saxon Wiccia itself to Anglian Mercia. The record in -the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of the conquest of <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 577 plainly -indicates the course of it, by the names of the places concerned—Bath, -Dyrham, Cirencester, and Gloucester. It was not any river -that was the instrument of advance; but, flanked and supported -by the ancient Foss-way, the continuous elevated table-land of the -southern limb of the Cotswolds, still abounding with remains of -military occupations of yet earlier peoples. This is separated from -the more western height by a broad belt of low land, then a weald -or forest, since known as Kingswood; which, the line of the -places named in the annal of the conquest, plainly indicates to -have been purposely avoided: the district west of it, therefore -still continued British. As to Ceawlin’s second expedition, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> -584, it most probably extended from Gloucester to the country -between Severn and Wye, as far as Hereford,<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and into the now -Saxon-speaking Worcestershire. But that Ceawlin followed the -Severn, and penetrated Cheshire to an unimportant place called -“Faddiley,” is not only unlikely, but rests entirely on a single -philological argument, concerning that name, too refined and unpractical -for the burden laid upon it<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>, and inconsistent with the -later associations of the name itself.</p> - -<p>But if Wiccia became West-Saxon in 577-584, it did not long -remain undisturbed by its Anglian northern neighbour. About<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -fifty years later (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 628), it is recorded in the Chronicle, that -the rulers of Wessex and Mercia, fought at Cirencester, “and -then compromised.” This shews that hitherto, for fifty years, all -Wiccia had been ruled by Wessex: also that, except what reduction -of territory may be represented by a Mercian inroad as far as -Cirencester, it still continued under Wessex. But although this -exception itself did not last many years longer, this is enough to -account for our finding a Saxon people under Anglian government. -In another fifty years, Wiccia is found to have become a subregulate, -governed by Mercian sub-kings, and constituted a separate -Bishopric, an offshoot from Mercian Lichfield; and from that -time the kings of Mercia and their sub-reguli are found dealing -with lands in various parts of Wiccia, even to the southern -frontier, as at Malmesbury and Bath; and by a charter of -Æthelred, King of Mercia, dated by Dr. Hickes, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 692, the -newly instituted cathedral in the city of Weogorna, is endowed -with land at a place well-known to us by what was, even then -said to be an “ancient name,” Henbury (“vetusto vocabulo nuncupatur -heanburg.”<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>)</p> - -<p>Much needless demur, if not excitement, has of late years been -stirred up by some of the learned,<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> at the name “Anglo-Saxon,” -for the oldest condition of English. They allege that this designation -is “a most unlucky one,” and that in the first half of this -century it was the cause of a “crass ignorance” of the true relations -of continuity in this nation before and after the Norman conquest. -Those who remember that time, well know that this imputed -ignorance did not prevail: that if the most ordinary schoolboy, -had then been asked, why William was called “the Conqueror,” -he would have at once, rightly or wrongly, answered “because he -conquered us,” and that he was only less detested than “Buonaparte,” -because he was at that time farther away. They have now -lived to be astonished to find that, by their own confession, the -higher scholars of this later age are terrified by a fear of confusion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -in this rudimentary piece of learning. So these learned men put -themselves into the most ludicrous passions, and—let us try to -humour them—King “knut”-like scoldings at the tide, and Dame -Partingtonian mop-twirlings, to cure us of such a dangerous old -heresy. For old it is, and deeply rooted. Those “Anglo-Saxon” -kings who assumed the supreme rule of the kingdoms of both races, -so called themselves: and the entire “Anglo-Saxon” literature has -been only so known in modern Europe, for the last three centuries; -not only at home, but in Germany, Denmark, France, and wherever -it has ever appeared in print. Yet another most learned and -acute and sober Professor has been lately tempted to join the -“unlucky” cry: saying that “It is like calling Greek, Attico-Ionian.”<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> -Why “Greek?” Why not “Hellenic?” Is not -“Greek” an exotic, and as barbarous as “Attico-Ionian” or -“Anglo-Saxon?”</p> - -<p>But in our concern with the Wiccians we are exempt from -this newly raised dispute. Here we have a great colony of a -Saxon people who very soon fell under the dominion of Anglian -kings, and so remained until a later revolution, the final supremacy -of Wessex, made them once more Saxon subjects. The Wiccians, -at any rate however, had become literally Anglo-Saxon: a Saxon -people under Anglian rule. Shakespear was a Wiccian, born and -bred—if one, who has taught us so much more than any breeding -could have taught him, can be said to have been bred amongst -us—at any rate he was born a Wiccian, and thereby an Anglo-Saxon, -in the natural and indisputable sense: a sense earlier, -stricter, and more real than that which afterwards extended the -phrase to the entire kingdom. Wiccia was no doubt colonized by -the Saxons, while the Saxons were yet pagan; and afterwards -christianized by their Anglian Mercian subjugators. Not so the -Saxons of Somerset, who were already Christians when they first -penetrated that province.<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> - -<p>Subsequent annals of the Chronicle shew that Wessex long -remained impatient of the loss of Wiccia. In <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 715, a battle -is shortly mentioned at a place, usually, and not impossibly, said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -to be Wanborough, a remarkable elevation within the fork of two -great Roman ways a few miles south of Swindon. But our -business is with three later entries in the Chronicle, for the three -successive years 741, 742, and 743; of which the first for <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> -741, will be first here submitted as the record of the final subjection -of Wiccia, and the establishment of the Bristol Avon as -the permanent southern frontier of Mercia. The other two -Annals will then be otherwise disposed of.</p> - -<p>These are the words of the Chronicle:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="hanging"><span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 741. Now Cuthred succeeded to the West-Saxon kingdom, -and held it sixteen years, and he contended hardly -with Æthelbald, King of the Mercians.</p> - -<p class="hanging"><span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 742. Now was a great Synod gathered at Cloveshou, and -Æthelbald, King of the Mercians was there, and Cutbert, -Archbishop [of Canterbury], and many other wise men.</p> - -<p class="hanging"><span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 743. Now Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, and Cuthred, -King of the West-Saxons fought with the Welsh.</p> - -</div> - -<p>We have in these three Annals a specimen of that condensed -form and style, that is common to this ancient text and still more -venerable primæval records; and which invites and justifies -attempts to interpret them by the help of any existing external -monuments.</p> - -<p>There are still known in England thirteen dedications of -churches or chapels in the name of St. Werburgh, although, -perhaps, not more than half of them are any longer above ground.<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> -Seven, however, out of the thirteen are within the counties of -Stafford, Chester, Shropshire, and Derbyshire: that is, they are -within the original kingdom of Mercia, wherein, as the posthumous -renown of the saint never extended beyond a nation, or rather a -dynasty, that long since has been extinct and forgotten, we might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -have expected to have found them all. But the other six are -extraneous, and three of them great stragglers. These must have -owed their origin to political and military extensions of the influence -of that kingdom, and these, it is intended to show, are found -in places where Æthelbald, one of the three Mercian aspirants -for English empire, has made good a conquest. This dedication -may, therefore, be believed to have been his usual method of -making his mark of possession.</p> - -<p>St. Werburgh was the daughter of Wulfhere, the second -Christian King of Mercia, who was the son of Penda, the last -pagan King. Æthelbald was the grandson of Eawa, a brother of -Penda, probably the Eoba, who, in the Annales Cambriæ, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 644, -is himself called “rex Merciorum;” so that Æthelbald and -Werburgh were what we should call second cousins.<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Wulfhere, -<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 675, was succeeded by his brother Æthelred, who placed his -niece Werburgh at the head of three great convents of women, -with a sort of general spiritual charge of the female portion of the -newly christianised kingdom. She is said to have died about <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> -700, for it is noted that on opening her coffin in the year 708, -her body, after eight years, was found unaltered, and her vestments -undefiled; and from this time, sealed by this reputed miracle, the -renown of her sanctity soon grew to beatification; and when, eight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -years afterwards, her kinsman Æthelbald began his reign, she had -achieved the reputation and precedence of the latest national -saint. She was, however, one of a family of whom many of the -women have transmitted their names, from immediately after their -deaths to our own times, attached to religious foundations. Among -these, that of her aunt, St. Audry, still lives in Ely Cathedral: -and this example may serve as a crutch to those who find it hard -to realise the unbroken duration of churches, with these names, -direct from the very ages in which the persons who bore them -lived; for the continuity of this name at Ely is a matter of open -and undisputed history, unaided by mere inference, such as our less -conspicuous case requires. There are some, also, who stumble at -finding all the female saints of particular provinces to have been -members of one royal family. But of this we have an analogy -pervading the entire area of our own every-day life, in the active -assistance in all benevolent purposes, received by the clergyman of -nearly every parish, from the leisured daughters of the more -wealthy families. In those missionary days, the kingdoms of the -newly-converted rulers were the only parishes, and the king and -his family were as the squire and his family are now; and the -greater lustre, which then shone out around the name of each, was -as that of a little candle, in their wider world, compared with what -would be its effect in a general illumination now. The earlier -British churches have presented us with the same phenomenon. -The numerous progeny, of children and grand-children, of Brychan -of Brecknock, have nearly all left their names in many churches -in South Wales, and even in the opposite promontory of Cornwall -and Devon.</p> - -<p>The historical facts of the name and local fame of this royal -personage are all that we are concerned with. Otherwise, in some -later times, it has been adorned with the usual amount of miraculous -fable. The most notable of the miracles credited to her is, -that one of her corn-fields being continually ravaged by flocks of -geese, at her mere command they went into voluntary exile. As -this is said to have happened near Chester, it is easy to refer the -story to the monks there, who alone were interested in gilding her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -shrine with it; and her relics were not translated there till nearly -two hundred years after her death. At any rate, the citizens of -Bristol are living witnesses that her name is no safeguard of her -heritage against the devastations of wasteful bipeds, who are not -only unwise, but also unfledged. This imputed miracle is more -transparent than is always the case with such embellishments of -the lives of those who were the first to accept the new faith, and -to promote it with active earnestness. In it may, at once, be discerned -an ordinary incident of her pastoral or predial economy, -exaggerated to a miracle in an age which preferred supernatural -to natural causes.</p> - -<p>The career of Æthelbald is, of course, more widely known, -holding, as it does, a prominent place in the general history of the -times. His reign extended from <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 716 to 755, and was chiefly -employed in extending his sovereignty by the subjugation of neighbouring -kingdoms, and by his munificent patronage of the church. -In the first year of his reign, he at once showed a disposition to -commemorate his own friends, by dedicating churches in their -names, by using this method of perpetuating, at Croyland, the -recent memory of Guthlac, his kinsman and protector in exile. -It seems, however, that the pagan manners of the northern mythology -are not purged for several generations after conversion: but, -as appears from another example, of the practical paganism of the -Dukes of Normandy, down to our William the Mamzer, unless -attended with more than the average cruelty and injustice of the -times, meet with only a qualified reproach, until they are in -conflict with church discipline and law. The celebrated severe, -but friendly and respectful epistolary rebuke from Bonifatius,<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -Archbishop of Mainz, contains a heavy indictment against both -Æthelbald and his predecessor Coelred, and their courts, while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -it acknowledges his prosperity, munificence to the church, and his -just administration.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Having these specially national or tribal circumstances in view, -it is thought that the six dedications of St. Werburgh that are -found beyond the original Mercia must have had special causes, -which it is believed can be found in the transactions that are -recorded in the three successive Annals of the Chronicle above -recited; and that the dedications and the Annals will therefore be -found to mutually account for each other. The seven churches -within Mercia, without any doubt each has its own history, -mostly connected with Æthelbald: perhaps all except the present -Chester Cathedral, which arose out of the translation, nearly two -hundred years later, of her relics to that place, from her original -shrine in one of her three convents. But these home dedications -do not fall within our purview, which is limited to the wanderers.</p> - -<p>When the Chronicle, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 741, says that Cuthred of Wessex -contended with Æthelbald of Mercia, it can only mean that he -attempted a reprisal of some portion of Wiccia: but it appears from -the Annal of 743, that in the two years the combatants had become -allies. The frontier between Mercia and Wessex had been finally -determined; and there we find the name of Æthelbald’s recently -beatified kinswoman, thrice repeated, along his own north bank of -the Avon—at Bath, at Bristol, and at Henbury. It should be -noticed that otherwise than these three, thus placed with an obvious -purpose, none whatever are found throughout the whole length and -breadth of Wiccia, the other seven being scattered within Mercia -proper.<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> It is hence inferred that these three dedications are contemporary -with each other, and the immediate result of the -transaction of <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 741. It may also be worth noting that one of -the still surviving dedications of St. Werburgh within Mercia, at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -Warburton, is similarly situated within the northern frontier, the -river Mersey; and probably records a similar result of Æthelbald’s -inroad of Northumbria, entered in the Chronicle at the earlier -date of 737: also, according to Bæda, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 740.<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> - -<p>The St. Werburgh at Bath is no longer in existence, but its -site is still on record. It was less than a quarter of a mile north of -the Roman town, and about a quarter of a mile from the departure -of the western Roman road, now called Via Julia, from the Foss -Way, and between them, and very near to both.<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> - -<p>What was the condition of the spot now occupied by Bristol, in -the centre of which, until yesterday, for nearly eleven hundred and -fifty years, the church with this name has stood, when it was first -planted there, this is not the place to discuss. A century-and-a-half -earlier (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 577), Bath, as we have seen, had been occupied -by the West Saxons, and had no doubt so continued, until this -advance southward of Æthelbald’s frontier also absorbed that -city, or certainly its northern suburb, into Mercia. A great -highway, of much earlier date than the times here being considered, -skirted the southern edge of the weald that we only know as -Kingswood; and at least approached the neck of the peninsula—projecting -into a land-locked tidal lagoon, not a swamp, flooded by -the confluence, at the crest of the tide, of Frome and Avon—upon -which stands Bristol, and which has been hitherto crowned with -Æthelbald’s usual symbol of Mercian dominion. As long ago as -ships frequented the estuary of the Severn—ages before the times -we are considering—it is inconceivable that the uncommon advantages -of this haven could have been unknown. A British city had, -no doubt, already existed for unknown ages on the neighbouring -heights west of the lagoon; and there is a reason, too long to set -forth here, to believe that the sheltered Bristol peninsula itself was -used, by the West-Saxons of Ceawlin’s settlement at Bath, as an -advanced frontier towards the Welsh of West Gloucestershire, long -before it was appropriated by Mercia. It was, perhaps, already a -town before Æthelbald planted upon it one of his limitary sanctuaries, -having, <i>more Saxonico</i>, a fortress on the isthmus, upon which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -the great square Norman tower of Robert the Consul was afterwards -raised.</p> - -<p>All that is known of the sanctuary at Henbury is, that it was -one of the chapels to Westbury, confirmed to Worcester Cathedral -by Bp. Simon (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 1125-50), and is described in his charter as -“capella sancte Wereburge super montem Hembirie sita.”<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> This -is in that south-western limb of Gloucestershire, bounded by the -Frome, Avon, and Severn, and separated by Kingswood Forest, -which it has already been suggested was never Saxon, but remained -Welsh until subdued by Mercia.</p> - -<p>So that as the only examples of this dedication to be found -south of Staffordshire and Derbyshire, are the three which line -the north shore of the Avon, the new frontier of Wessex and -Mercia; the entire district of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, -and all the intervening country, from east to west, being totally -without them; these three are manifestly arrayed in one line for a -special purpose. The record, of the contest of Wessex and Mercia, -contained in the Annal of <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 741, is thus accounted for in this -monument of its result. Three more distant St. Werburghs -remain, of which two will now be appropriated to that of <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 743. -The one for <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 742, passed over for the present, will afterwards -be shewn to involve the remaining sixth.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It will be remembered that, in the year 743, the Chronicle -shews Æthelbald and Cuthred, who two years earlier had been -fighting each other, now united, by perhaps an analogue of a -Russo-Turkish alliance, against an enemy who, while Cuthred had -been engaged with his Teutonic rival, had become troublesome in -his rear, and dangerous to both. Under this year, 743, it says -“Now Æthelbald King of the Mercians and Cuthred King of the -West Saxons fought with the Welsh.” It does not say which of -the then surviving three great bodies of the Welsh, who had been -pressed into the great western limbs of the island, that are geographically -divided from each other by the estuary of the Severn and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -the great bay of Lancashire; but none can be meant but the -Damnonian or Cornish Britons—the “Welsh” of the West Saxon -Cuthred. No more of Devon could then have been held by the -West Saxons than the fruitful southern lowlands, easily accessible -from Somerset and Dorset, and from the south-coast. Most or all -of Cornwall, and the highlands of Dartmoor and Exmoor, extending -into north-west Somerset, still remained British or Welsh; as -for the most part in blood, though not in speech, they do to -this day.</p> - -<p>Written history is silent as to the parts separately taken by -the allies in this contest; but other tokens of that of the Mercian -are extant; and the two dedications of St. Werburgh that will next -engage us are among the most significant. A glance at Mercia -and the extent of the provinces annexed thereto by conquest, -betrays a ruling political aim at obtaining access to the great -seaports. Besides the Humber with Trent, and the Mersey, and, -as we shall see below, the Medway, and the Thames itself; what -is more to our purpose, we have found it already in possession of -Bristol, added to Gloucester and the mouth of the Wye. An -aggressive kingdom, with this policy, needs no chronicle to -tell us that ships were abundant; and that at least it must -have been able to command the transport service of a large -mercantile fleet. It will readily be understood that one of -Æthelbald’s strategies, in aid of his ally against his Damnonian -insurgents, would be, to outflank the ally himself; and establish -a cordon across his rear. This was effected by transporting, from -his Wiccian ports on the Severn, to the north coast of Devon, a -large migration of his own people; who not only occupied the district -between the Dartmoor highlands and the north coast, not -yet Teutonized by Wessex; but possessed themselves of the entire -line across the western promontory, between Dartmoor and the -Tamar, as far as the south sea near Plymouth.</p> - -<p>Of this strategic movement several strong indications remain -upon the face of the district; which it is thought, mutually derive -increased force from their accumulation. One of them is the -existence, at the outposts of this expedition, of two of Æthelbald’s -favourite dedications of his kinswoman. One, at Warbstow, stands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -at the western extremity of an incroachment of about eight miles -beyond the Tamar, near Launceston, into Cornwall—still visible -in our county maps, in the abstraction of an entire parish from -the western side of the otherwise frontier river, by an abnormal -projection beyond it. The other is at Wembury, where the church -is finely situated on the sea-cliff of the eastern lip of Plymouth -Sound. These two examples of the dedication, which was the -favourite stamp of the conqueror’s heel, mark therefore the -western and southern extremities of the assumed invasion.</p> - -<p>Another trace of this great unwritten Mercian descent upon -Damnonia, may be discerned in the structure, as well as the constituents, -of the place-names that cover the invaded district. The -country, between the central highlands of Devon and the north-west -coast of Devon and north-east of Cornwall, is not only secluded into -an angular area bounded by the sea; but lies quite out of the course -of the torrent of West Saxon advance westward: which indeed -had been evidently checked by the Dartmoor heights. It might -have been expected, therefore, except for the explanation now -offered, that this district would have retained a strong tincture of -its original Celtic condition, in that lasting index of race-occupancy -its place-names. In this respect it might have presented the -appearance of having been conquered, but not of a complete replacement -of population. On the contrary, at the first glance of a -full-named map, or in a passage through it, the entire district is -surprisingly English. Besides this, the place-names have not only -conspicuous peculiarities of structure, that at once distinguish this -district from that of the West Saxons south and east of Dartmoor; -but these recur with such uncommon frequency and uniformity, -stopped by almost arbitrary limits, as to be manifestly due to a -simultaneous descent of a very large population, at once spreading -themselves over the whole of an extensive region.</p> - -<p>One of these notes of a great and simultaneous in-migration, is the -termination of names in “-worthy;” which literally swarms over -the entire tract of country between the Torridge and the Tamar. -It is continued with no less frequency into that abnormal loop of -the Devon frontier, which having crossed the Tamar stretches away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -towards the St. Werburgh dedication at Warbstow, and may be -assumed to have been afterwards conceded to a condensed English -speaking population already in possession; when, two hundred -years later, King Athelstan determined that frontier. Others of -these names are found scattered down southwards, over the -western foot of Dartmoor, towards the southern St. Werburgh at -Wembury, near Plymouth Sound. It is thought that this Devonshire -“-worthy” is a transplant of the “-wardine” or “-uerdin” -so frequent on the higher Severn and the Wye; changed during -the long weaning from its cradle. In Domesday Book the -orthography of the Devonshire “-worthys” and the “-wardines” -of Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire, was still almost -identical, and their orthographical variations flit round one centre -common to both. There is a “Hene<i>verdon</i>” at Plympton, close -to Wembury.</p> - -<p>Another ending of names, also noticeable on the score of -constant repetition over this large though limited area, is “-stow,” -found annexed to the names of church-towns as the equivalent of -the Cornish prefix “Lan-” and the Welsh “Llan-.” Another very -numerous termination is “-cot.” But, with regard to these two, -it should be mentioned, as a remarkable difference from the case -of “-worthy,” that “-worthy” almost ceases abruptly with the -Tamar boundary, except that it follows the Devon encroachments -above mentioned across that river; whilst the “-stow” and -“-cot” continue over the north-east angle of Cornwall itself to the -sea. Although this observation does not conflict with our Mercian -in-migration, it is not accounted for by it. It may indicate -successive expeditions or reinforcements, after Æthelbald’s; occurring -as they do beyond his Warbstow outpost. One incident of this -disregard of the frontier, occurs in a difference of the behaviour of -“-stow” on the two sides of it, and may be worth noting for its -own sake. On the Devon side of the Tamar is a “Virginstow,” -with a dedication of St. Bridget: on the Cornish side of the -boundary is “Morwenstow,” preserving “morwen,” understood -to be the Cornish word for “virgin.” So that this English “-stow” -is found added to both the English and the Cornish name, each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -derived from a pre-existent church, dedicated to a female saint. -The dedication of the present Morwenstow church appears to be -uncertain; but Dr. Borlase and Dr. Oliver have both found, in -Bishop Stafford’s Register, note of a former chapel of St. Mary -in the parish.</p> - -<p>It is not meant that these three name-marks are not to be -found in other parts of England: on the contrary, we shall hereafter -see Mercian operations in other counties sufficient to account -for a very wide sprinkling of them. What is here dwelt upon is the -unexampled crowding of them, showing simultaneous colonisation -upon a great scale. Another, but smaller, group of “-worthy” -and “-cot,” occurs on the Severn coast of Somerset, about Minehead, -indicating another naval descent of Mercia. In fact, although -the great swarm above described occurs between the Torridge and -the Tamar, two distinct trains flow from it: one, as before said, -over the west foot of Dartmoor to the south sea: another along the -Severn coast, eastward, ending with the Minehead or Selworthy -group; and does not crop up again until in Gloucestershire it is -found in its home midland form of Sheepwardine, and Miserden.</p> - -<p>Another example of this sort of connection of Mercia with -Cornwall and south-west England may be briefly cited. Among -the few—not more than six or eight—non-Celtic, but national or -non-Catholic, dedications in Cornwall, is one of St. Cuthbert; a -name that is also continued in “Cubert,” the secular name of the -town. It is situated in one of the promontories that so boldly project -into the sea on the north coast of Cornwall, but farther westward -than the English footsteps above noted. A very learned and -acute writer<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> could not make out how “St. Cuthbert has made his -way from Lindisfarn to Wells;” and says, perhaps truly, that it -“does not imply a Northumbrian settlement in Somerset.” But St. -Cuthbert at Wells, might reasonably be left to the cross-examination -of historians, or neighbours, of that place; and if judiciously -and reverently questioned, by the help of what is here said, would -possibly give a good account of himself.</p> - -<p>It is quite true, as might have been expected, that St. Cuthbert<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -is much more often found at his home in Northumbria than -in the south-west of England. In the south-eastern counties he -has not been found at all: but over the midland counties, and all -down through the western ones he is thinly sprinkled all the way. -Between Humber and Mersey, and Tweed and Solway, forty-three -can be named if required, and Bishop Forbes adds many from his side -of the border. Derbyshire has one at Doveridge, near the Mercian -royal castle of Tutbury; Warwickshire one at Shustoke, eight -miles south of another villa regia at Tamworth; Leicestershire, -Notts, Beds, have each one; Lincoln and Norfolk two each; -Worcestershire perhaps one in the name “Cudbergelawe;”<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Gloucestershire, -one at Siston by Pucklechurch, and probably a second -in the name “Cuberley;” Herefordshire two, or three? Somerset -one at Wells; Dorset one, or two? Devon one, Cornwall one.</p> - -<p>This condensed statement of a series of facts, constitutes one of -the phenomena of our argument; and shall here be accounted for -by an observation, to which there will, further on, be occasion to -revert. Whatever may have been the causes, there was a more -intimate earlier intercourse between the Anglian kingdoms of -Northumbria and Mercia, than between them and the more southern -or Saxon kingdoms; so that, in fact, the hagiology of Northumberland -is found to have infiltrated into that of Mercia. Sometimes -the intercourse was hostile, and of this St. Oswald’s prevalence in -Cheshire, Shropshire, &c., is an instance historically known. -Another cause might be collected from a study of any pedigree -tables of the rulers of the two kingdoms. A later action of this -mutuality appears in the dedications of the Northumbrian Alkmond, -found in towns built by Æthelfled, who, Amazon though -she be reputed, confessed her womanhood in her <i>cultus</i> of the -child-martyr, as at her town of Derby and Shrewsbury. When, -therefore, we find Northumbrian dedications in these unlikely -southern regions, we are not driven to “imply a Northumbrian -settlement,” but a sprout of Northumbrian hagiology, replanted -along with a Mercian settlement.</p> - -<p>Midway between Wells and Somerton is Glastonbury. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -Chronicle published by Hearne as John of Glastonbury, says that -Æthelbald “rex Merciorum,” <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 744, gave to Abbot Tumbert, -and the Familia at Glaston, lands at “Gassing and Bradelegh.”<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> -Bradley is known and plain enough, and adjoins the Foss Way, -near Glastonbury and Somerton; the other place is variously, and -very corruptly written: once “Seacescet.” But there is still better -evidence that at this time the supremacy of Æthelbald of Mercia -was acknowledged in this district of Wessex. A charter, also -dated <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 744, of a gift of land at “Baldheresberge et Scobbanuuirthe”—Baltonsburg -and, as some say, Shapwick—to Glastonbury, -by a lady called Lulla, with the licence of Æthelbald, “qui -Britannicæ insulæ monarchiam dispensat.” The first signature is -Æthelbald’s, followed by Cuthred of Wessex “annuens;” after -which other witnesses, including Herewald, Bishop of Sherborne. -It is printed in the Monasticon<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> and by Mr. Kemble,<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> both from -the same manuscript, but with many slight variations in orthography -which seem to be arbitrary in either. Mr. Kemble prints -“Hilla,” but John of Glastonbury has “Lulla,” and so have both -Dugdale and the new Monasticon. Mr. Kemble puts his star stigma -but, although not of contemporary clerkships, it must transmit, in -substance, a more ancient deed, and is at least an accumulative -ancient and written confirmation of the external evidence already -given of the supremacy of Mercia in this part of Wessex, and the -subordination of Cuthred, even within the territory allotted to him -at the contest of <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 741. Observe, in passing, an example, in the -name “Scobbanuuirthe,” of the Mercian—“-uuerdin”—in a -transition form towards the “-worthy” of North Devon.</p> - -<p>At all events, it is not to be wondered at that we should find -a St. Cuthbert on the north coast of Cornwall, among the other -symptoms that have been given of a Mercian settlement there. -But one in Devon deserves some particular notice; because it is -found identified with one of the examples of “-worthy” which -is an outlier, and far away from the crowd that has been so much -dwelt upon. These two tests of Mercian influence have indeed -travelled far away from their fellows, but travelled together. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -is at Widworthy, in the eastern corner of the county, between -Honiton and Axminster, where the dedication and the termination, -although compatriots, are both strangers together. No chronicle -explains this, though no doubt it has a story never yet written. -But it seems cruel to forsake the St. Cuthbert at Wells to account -for itself, unhelped. After all that has been lately said, and insisted -upon, to the contrary, what if it should turn out that the “Sumertun” -of the Annal of <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 733, was Somerton in Somersetshire, -twelve miles south of Wells, as our deprecated obsolete schoolbooks -used to teach us? Another twenty-five miles reaches Widworthy. -The then existing Foss-Way, which, even in its grass-grown -abandoned fragments, is still a broad and practicable travelling road, -passes within a very few miles of Wells, Glastonbury, Somerton, -and Widworthy.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>But a more substantial evidence, of a long continuance of -Mercian influence beyond the Tamar, is not wanting: and even of -its great extension farther westward, down to the time of King -Alfred. A large hoard of coins and gold and silver ornaments -was found near St. Austell in 1774; and a description and tabulation -was lately published, by Mr. Rashleigh of Menabilly, of -114 coins that were rescued from the scramble.<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Of these, no less -than 60 were of Mercian Kings (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 757-874), whilst only seventeen -belong to the then dominant West-Saxon sole monarchs (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> -800 to Alfred), and one to Northumbria.</p> - -<p>Add to these notes of the Anglian—and not Saxon—kinship -of the English population of north-east Cornwall, the recurrence in -that county of what, to uncritical ears, has a great likeness to the -song or musical cadence already mentioned as met with in Mercia -proper. West Saxons who had seen the first production of the -comedy of “John Bull,” used to tell us with much relish, how this -peculiarity was imitated upon the stage: and, in spite of the -friction of an active scholastic career, it is still occasionally discernible -in cathedral pulpits. It has even maintained, to recent -times, a feeling among the West Saxons of Devon that a Cornishman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -is, in some degree, a foreigner. What again about the “Cornish -hug” in wrestling?<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> so strongly contrasted with the hold-off grip of -the collar or shoulders, and the “fair back-fall” which is the -pride of the Devonshire champion. It has nothing to do with the -erudite difference of Celt and Teuton. The men of Devon—such -as Drake and Raleigh<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a>—have nearly as much Celtic blood as those of -Cornwall. Cornishmen are fond of saying that their English speech -is more correct than that of Devon: by which they mean, that -their dialect is nearer to the one that has had the luck to run into -printed books. Perhaps it is more Anglian and less Saxon. After -a neighbourship of nearly twelve hundred years, let them now -shake hands and be Anglo-Saxons: or Englishmen, if they prefer -it, and wish to include the super-critics in their greeting.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Five out of the six extraneous dedications of St. Werburgh -have now been referred to the active presence of Æthelbald, at the -places where they are found, especially in connection with his -exploits as they are obscurely recorded in the two Anglo-Saxon -Annals of the years 741 and 743. The sixth, and last, of -them remains, in like manner, to be brought into contact -with him, and with the other recited Annal of the intermediate -year, 742. We left three of the dedications as sentinels of their -founder’s conquest of his southern frontier of Wiccia. Two more -were at the more distant duty, of keeping guard over his strategic -settlement, on the western rear of Wessex. The one yet to be -dealt with is that of a church still known by the name of that -saint, yet more distant from her Mercian home; in the extreme -south-eastern county of Kent: and it only remains to enquire -what business it has had; not only so far away from its midland -cradle, but also from the abiding places of its fellow wanderers.</p> - -<p>Perhaps this would have been a much shorter task than either -of the others, but that, at this part of the enquiry, our path is -crossed by a controversy that began nearly three centuries ago, -and has been ever since maintained with more or less warmth; -and with so much learning, and variety of opinion, that the only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -point of approach, to unanimity among the contenders seems to be -an acknowledgment that they have each left it unsettled. Yet -this includes the question before us; whether or not the Annal 742 -of the Chronicle really concerns that part of the island wherein -the last of our outlying series of St. Werburghs has come to our -hands. It is, indeed, believed that the newly-imported fact itself, -of our finding this dedication where it is, may be a weighty contribution -to the settlement of the question; yet the controversy has -been so long carried on, and has involved so great an array of -authoritative and orthodox scholarship; that we can only presume -to pass it, by carefully and respectfully over-climbing it, and not -by a contemptuous Remusian leap.</p> - -<p>This remaining sixth St. Werburgh is situated within that -small peninsula of the north shore of Kent, which is insulated by -the mouths of the Thames and Medway. In fact, it is not unlike a -tongue in a mouth, of which Essex and the Isle of Sheppey are as -the teeth or gums. A line from Rochester bridge to Gravesend -would separate more than the entire district from the mainland: -indeed it is all of the county of Kent that is north of Rochester. -It consists of an elevated chalk promontory, about ten or twelve -miles from east to west, and four from north to south, inclosing -several small fertile valleys: added to which, on the north or -Thames front, is a broad alluvial level or marsh, within the -estuary of that river, of several miles in width. Camden says of -this peninsula, “HO enim vocatur ilia quasi Chersonessus.” It -is, accordingly, a large specimen of that sort of configuration of a -tract of land in its relation to water, of which the name is often -found to contain the descriptive syllable, “-holm,” “-ham,” or -“-hoe.” Whether or not these three are dialectic varieties of one -word, need not here be considered: it is certain, however, that -the names of such peninsular tracts are very often found to be -marked with “-hoe;” and “Hoo”<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> is the name of the hundred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -which still constitutes the largest and most prominent portion of -this peninsula. So it was already called, even before the early -time with which we shall find our own concern with it; for in a -charter, dated <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 738,<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> it is already mentioned as “regio quæ -vocatur Hohg.” In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 902, it is -mentioned as “Holme.” In Domesday,<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> the hundred which constitutes -the peninsular portion, is called “<i>HOV</i>;” the isthmus -portion having already, however, become a separate hundred, then -called “Essamele,” now “Shamwell.” The towns in the district -have their proper names added to “Hoo,” as “Hoo-St.-Mary,” -and “Hoo-St.-Werburgh:” and this last has the church above -referred to. This is situated on the southern or Medway shore of -the Hoo; but on the cliff of the northern side of the elevated -core of the peninsula, and over-looking the great reach of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -estuary of the Thames, and the broad alluvial level embraced by -it, is the town of “Cliffe;” of which the church has the dedication -St. Helen. The two churches are just four miles apart. -There are several other churches now in the peninsula, but the -others have been attributed to these two, of St. Werburgh and -St. Helen, as their mother churches, of which the other parishes -are ancient offshoots or chapelries.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Among the most famous names of places in England, during the -long aggressive reigns of Æthelbald and Offa, when, for the largest -part of the eighth century, the other kingdoms were more or less -threatened with the supremacy of Mercia, was that of a place -called Cloveshoe or Clovesham.<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Its celebrity has been, no doubt, -much enhanced by its intimate connection with the Church -History of that period; but it has shared, with many of the names -of the localities of the most important events of the history of -those times, in a great deal of uncertainty and controversy as to -the actual place.</p> - -<p>Few monuments of those ages are preserved to us in such -multitude as names of places, and in such apparent entireness; -but few are of such uncertain and doubtful appropriation. Although -we are living in the midst of the scenes of the greatest -events of our early history; yet one of the most surprising -circumstances is, that of the number of the names of the places -that have remained almost unaltered, during the interval of -twelve centuries, so few of them can, with any degree of -certainty, be identified: so that, although a Gazetteer or Index -Locorum of those times would be a most valuable help -it would be the most difficult to compile; and, judging from past -attempts at contributions to it, impossible to be done with any -reasonable approach to trustworthiness. The visible monuments -have almost entirely been swept from off the face of the earth. -Towns, then of importance and even magnitude, if not now -entirely subject to the plough, are only represented by the merest -villages; and religious institutions have had their identity drowned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -by the importation of later monastic orders; and generally by -more catholic, but less national or local, dedications. The names -of the places, in some few cases identified by immemorial traditions, -are often the only indications of the whereabouts of some of the -greatest events; but even the names themselves are obscured by -the different methods, used in that age and in ours, of distinguishing -them from other similar names; and the traditions, which -should have preserved them, are interrupted by the long interval, -between the events themselves, and the time at which the names -first come again into our sight.</p> - -<p>But this Clovesho = Clofeshoum = or Clobesham<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> had necessarily -retained its hold upon the public memory of the ages from -the eighth to the sixteenth centuries, from the importance to the -Church of the great acts of councils, both royal and pontifical, there -held; and the memory or tradition of the National Church, was, of -all others, the most vivid and tenacious of any, during that long -period—perhaps the only one which may be said to have bridged -it, unbroken by interruptions, such as dynastic revolutions. When -the tradition of the actual whereabouts of this famous place comes -first into our view, we find it attached to the “Hoo” of Kent -above described, and to the place called “Cliffe” there situated. -The name now current is “Cliffe-at-Hoo,” and this appears to have -been the form in which it came to Camden’s knowledge: at -any rate, in the earlier editions of Britannia (1587), he mentions -this place as “Cliues at Ho Bedæ dictum.”</p> - -<p>There is, however, extant a still earlier record, that the -tradition had not yet been doubted by the learned. The Rev. -Prebendary Earle, Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, has most -judiciously preserved some marginal notes of the 16th century, -that he found in that MS. of the Saxon Chronicle,<a name="FNanchor_29" id="FNanchor_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> which he -distinguishes as “C.;” which notes he considers to be “written in -an Elizabethan hand:” but as will be presently seen they must have -been of the reign of Henry VIII. One of these is written in the -margin against one of the occurrences of the name “Clofes hoo” -in the Chronicle, and reads “doctor Hethe’s benyffyce;” and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -Mr. Earle asks, “where may Dr. Hethe’s benefice have been?”<a name="FNanchor_30" id="FNanchor_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> -To this question of the Professor’s, two more may be added: Who -was Dr. Hethe? And who was—evidently his intimate acquaintance—the -writer of the marginal notes to the Chronicle?</p> - -<p>The answers to these three questions will shew what sort of -men these were whom we find in possession of this historical -tradition concerning the actual place of those famous synods; and -who, long before any question about it had been raised, by the -incipient critical scepticism of the 17th century, out of fancied -probabilities, are here seen treating it as an undoubted fact. -These answers will also shew what advantages, of time and local -associations, they had for judgment of the fact.</p> - -<p>The benefice, then, was the Rectory of the Cliffe above -mentioned, situated in the peninsula, or Hoo, north of Rochester. -This living was held, from 1543 to 1548, by Dr. Nicholas Heath:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -it was, therefore, during these years that the marginal notes were -written. He was afterwards Bishop of Rochester, and of Worcester, -and Archbishop of York, and Lord Chancellor; and during -the reign of Henry VIII., and to the accession of Elizabeth, took -leading parts in most affairs, both in Church and State. Wood -calls him “a most wise and learned Man, of great Policy, and of -as great Integrity.”</p> - -<p>As to Dr. Heath’s friend, the writer of the marginal notes, -there can be no doubt that he was Dr. Nicholas Wotton: one of -the small knot of revivers of Anglo-Saxon literature, and of those, -named by Mr. Earle,<a name="FNanchor_31" id="FNanchor_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> as a few persons who then had the handling -of Saxon MSS. It is found that the long active and distinguished -career, of each of these two men, ran both in the same groove:—through -the same period, in the same rank and line of affairs, and -locally together.<a name="FNanchor_32" id="FNanchor_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> They were both part authors of the well-known -Institution of a Christian Man, 1537. Wotton was the first -Dean of Canterbury, and so continued for more than twenty-five -years: also Dean of York. During two intervals he administered, -by commission, the Province of Canterbury; and was named, -along with Parker, as successor to that Primacy.</p> - -<p>These are the two men, who are first found in possession of the -historical tradition, that the famous place where the Mercian kings, -with the Archbishops, the Bishop of Rochester, and the Mercian and -other Bishops, held their councils; the acts of which must, in all ages, -have been most conspicuous to learned English Canonists, was no -other than this very Cliffe-at-Hoo; and it is evident, from the -directness of the marginal note, that they held it as an unquestioned -fact. So, about fifty years afterwards, when he published -Britannia, it was as we have seen, also without reserve, accepted -by Camden.<a name="FNanchor_33" id="FNanchor_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> Up to this time the tradition—not among men who -accept Geoffrey of Monmouth’s stories and the like, but among -the learned—was yet undisturbed. But twenty years later we -find Camden wavering; influenced only by speculations on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -nature of the district, and a then prevalent distorted perspective -of the remote historical circumstances of the time concerned. In -the edition of Britannia, which received his latest revision,<a name="FNanchor_34" id="FNanchor_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> he -qualifies his former statement, by saying that he no longer dares -to affirm, as others do, whether or not the Cliffe in the little -country called Ho, may be the “Cliues at Ho,” so celebrated -in the infancy of the Anglican Church; because the place seems -not to be a convenient one for holding the Synod; and that the -actual place seems to have been within the kingdom of Mercia, -rather than Kent. From that time to this present day the place, -indicated by this name, has ranked among the most disputed and -unsettled questions of early English topography.</p> - -<p>It also happened, that Camden, when treating of Berkshire, -had quoted from the Chronicle of Abingdon, a passage which set -forth, that, before the abbey was founded at, or removed to, that -place, its name had been “Sheouesham,” and was a royal residence. -This name, thus brought forward by Camden, struck the -fancy of Somner the learned compiler of the earliest Anglo-Saxon -Dictionary,<a name="FNanchor_35" id="FNanchor_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> who, collating it with Camden’s hesitation at the Cliffe-at-Hoo -tradition, thought he saw in “Sheouesham” a scriptorial -erroneous variation of “Clouesho or -ham;” Abingdon being, in -accordance with the conception of the greater constancy of the -frontiers of the “Heptarchy” then prevalent, more likely to be the -place of councils, at which the Mercian kings so often presided. -And this seemed to be the more likely; because the Abingdon -Chronicle also said, that Abingdon had hitherto been a royal residence, -when the abbey was founded, from which it got its new -name. The Abingdon Chronicle is, of course, good for its proper -uses, but where it says that “Seouescham civitas” had been a -“sedes regia,” although the name has an English colouring, it is -evidently speaking of British or ante-Saxon times. If a royal -residence during the reign of Æthelbald, it must have been of -the West Saxons, and not of the Mercians. It could not, therefore, -have been the Cloveshoe where Æthelbald presided.</p> - -<p>If this liberty of interpretation should be permitted, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -plain that it would be enough to shake almost any recorded -name. Indeed another example of its use, if also tolerated, would -reverse the one itself that had been proposed: would, if the other -was enough to carry it to Abingdon, be strong enough to bring it -back again to Hoo. In the charter, dated <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 738,<a name="FNanchor_36" id="FNanchor_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> four years -before the earliest recorded Cloveshoe Council, a piece of land is -called “Andscohesham.” This is certainly within the very Hoo -district itself, which is the site of the Cloveshoe of the tradition; -being described as “in regione quæ uocatur Hohg.” Mr. Kemble -prints the charter from the Textus Roffensis, but omits the title -or endorsement that fixes the very spot in the Hoo that it refers -to. This is, however, preserved in Monasticon Anglicanum:<a name="FNanchor_37" id="FNanchor_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> -“De Stokes, que antiquitus vocabatur Andscohesham;” and Stoke -is now a parish in the Hoo, and close to Cliffe. There can be no -doubt that the “And-” stands for, or is a corrupt reading of, -“aed-” or the preposition “æt,-” so continually carried, along with -vernacular Anglo-Saxon names, into Latin documents; and the -name of this “Scohesham” of the Kentish Hoo would thus be -practically identical with that of the “Scheouesham”—also written -“Seuekesham”<a name="FNanchor_38" id="FNanchor_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>—the alleged ancient name of Abingdon. -Not that it is intended here to say that “Andscohesham” is a -corruption of “Clovesham,” although it would have been just -as reasonable as Somner’s inference; but that Somner’s conjecture -for removing the place, might be retorted by one equally efficient -to bring it back again. But even this might be worth farther -scrutiny: for if this identity, of “Andscohesham” and “Clovesham,” -should prove to be the case, the ancient controversy would -be determined at once, without the further trouble here being -bestowed. This Andscohesham or Stoke is close also to Hoo-St.-Werburgh, -and probably identical with “Godgeocesham,” the place -where “Eanmundus rex,” or Eahlmund (= Alcmund, father of -Egbert of Wessex) was living, when he added his form of approval -to a gift,<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> of land at Islingham also close adjoining, by his co-rex -of Kent, Sigered, to Earduulf Bishop of Rochester, (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 759-765.)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> - -<p>The likeness of the name Clovesho and Cliff-at-Hoo, is not of a -sort likely to suggest identity, except first prompted externally, -such as by an actual independent tradition; but after having -been thus brought together by external evidence, the structure -of the old name can thoroughly justify the identity.</p> - -<p>But, however slender may have been this original philological -cause of disturbance, it served to carry the question, of the actual -place, out into the expansive region of conjecture; where it -has been ever since rolling and rebounding, from one end of the -land to the other, from that time to this. Every succeeding -writer treating the matter as if it had been commissioned to him -to choose the place of the synods, according to his own views of -the fitness of things. Bishop Gibson first accepted Somner’s -conjecture, and so adopting Abingdon, concludes that “no sane -man,” who admits the authority of the Abingdon Chronicle, “can -stick at it:”<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> the Abingdon Chronicle having never said it except -through Somner’s distortion. Smith’s gloss, on the name in Beda -is, “Vulgo Cliff, juxta Hrofes caester.” But he continues, in a -note, that Somner’s opinion in preferring Abingdon seems not -unworthy of observation. He recites Camden, but concludes, -“Sed in his nihil ultra conjecturam, & illam certe valde fluctuantem.”<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> -A conclusion which is even prophetic. In Dr. Geo. Smith’s -map to Beda it is, however, placed at Abingdon. Smith’s note is -transcribed as it stands by Wilkins;<a name="FNanchor_42" id="FNanchor_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> and again by Sir T. D. -Hardy.<a name="FNanchor_43" id="FNanchor_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> - -<p>Capt. John Stevens, in a note in his translation of Bede, -(<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 1723,) says, as to the true place being Cliffe, “Of this -opinion are the two great antiquarians, Spelman and Talbot, to -which Lambard likewise gives in, though with caution.” This -must be Dr. Robert Talbot, Canon of Norwich, another early -Saxon scholar, reign Henry VIII., who left transcripts of charters -of Abingdon,<a name="FNanchor_44" id="FNanchor_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> and is, therefore, another early learned witness of -the tradition. Spelman’s interpretation is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> “Cloveshoviæ (vulgo -Clyff).”<a name="FNanchor_45" id="FNanchor_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> The Rev. Joseph Stevenson<a name="FNanchor_46" id="FNanchor_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> recites the option of Cliffe -and Abingdon. Of the church historians, Fuller remonstrates -against Camden’s doubts, with his usual moderation. Collier -merely calls it “Clovesho, or Clyff, near Rochester.”</p> - -<p>By this time the Abingdon speculation had become strong -enough to carry double: to be able to be called in to the help of -other theories, on outside matters. The ingenious Welsh philologer, -William Baxter,<a name="FNanchor_47" id="FNanchor_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> gets from it an offspring <i>ergo</i>. He -makes Abingdon the “Caleva Attrebatum,” <i>because</i> it had been -“Clovesho:” upon which, by a sort of “To-my-love and from-my-love” -formula, Dr. W. Thomas<a name="FNanchor_48" id="FNanchor_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> completes the symmetry of a -logical circle, by citing “Calleva Attrebatum” as evidence that -Cloveshoe is near Henley-on-Thames, then thought to be Calleva.</p> - -<p>R. Gough, in Additions to Camden, leaves it at Abingdon on -Bp. Gibson’s argument: and, throughout the eighteenth century, -Abingdon seems to have been favoured; the writers being much -given to copy each other. Dr. Lingard, 1803, quoting Capt. -Stevens’s translation of Bede, says “probably Abingdon,” and so -also puts it in his Anglo-Saxon map; but Capt. Stevens had only -quoted both views, without adopting either.</p> - -<p>The later editors of the Saxon Chronicle, Dr. Ingram and Mr. -Thorpe, return to the tradition, contenting themselves with the -simple gloss “Cliff-at-Hoo, Kent,” “Cliff near Rochester.” Miss -Gurney, however, prudently says, “Cliff in Kent, or Abingdon.” -Professor Earle gives the valuable note and question about Dr. -Heath, before mentioned, but leaves the main question, of the -place, open. On the other hand, the Dictionaries, since Somner: -Lye says “fortasse Abbingdon,” and Dr. Bosworth follows with -“perhaps Abingdon,” quoting both Somner and Lye.</p> - -<p>But the nineteenth century took a fresh stride away from the start -of the seventeenth. Whilst accepting from the eighteenth the inheritance -of the doubt, it next renounced the claim itself for which -the doubt had been raised. It is no longer Abingdon, but wherever -it may be thought likely—Dr. Lappenberg<a name="FNanchor_49" id="FNanchor_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> places it in Oxfordshire;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -Mr. N.E.S.A. Hamilton<a name="FNanchor_50" id="FNanchor_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> “co. Berks.” Mr. Kemble more boldly -carries it to “the hundred of Westminster, and county of Gloucester, -perhaps near Tewksbury.”<a name="FNanchor_51" id="FNanchor_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> Next year,<a name="FNanchor_52" id="FNanchor_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> he more firmly -says “Doubts have been lavished upon the situation of this -place, which I do not share,” and concludes that it was “not far -from Deerhurst, Tewksbury, and Bishop’s Cleeve; not at all -improbably in Tewksbury itself, which may have been called -Clofeshoas, before the erection of a noble abbey at a later period -gave it the name it now bears.”</p> - -<p>Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs<a name="FNanchor_53" id="FNanchor_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> accept the objections of their forerunners -against Cliff-at-Hoo, thinking that this place “rests solely -on the resemblance of the name.” They say of the Abingdon = -Sheovesham theory, that it is also “the merest conjecture.” They -also reject Mr. Kemble’s Tewkesbury as founded on a mistaken -identity of Westminster hundred with another place sometimes -called “Westminster,” in the Mercian charters, (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 804-824). -This is, indeed, Westbury-on-Trym. But why was the minster -there called “west,” and where was the minster that was east of -it? At an earlier date (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 794) it had already got its present -name, “Uuestburg.” Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs leave the -question of the true place of Cloveshoe as they find it, neither -endorsing the original tradition, nor indulging in the freedom of -choice which had been established for them. In another work,<a name="FNanchor_54" id="FNanchor_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> -however, Mr. Haddan has said, “On the locality of Cloveshoo -itself, unfortunately, we can throw no more light than may be -contained in the observation, that St. Boniface invariably styles -the English synod, ‘Synodus <i>Londinensis</i>;’ and that … -the immediate vicinity of that city—in all other respects the most -probable of all localities—seems consequently the place where -antiquarians must hunt for traces of the lost Cloveshoo.” How -far Cliffe, situated near the mouth of the Thames, may satisfy or -contradict the “Londinensis” of S. Bonifatius must be left to be -judged. Dean Hook recites his fore-goers, but not quite understanding -them:—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>“Where Cloveshoo was it is impossible to say, -some antiquarians placing it at Cliff-at-Hoo, in Kent; some in the -neighbourhood of Rochester; others contending for Abingdon; -others again for Tewkesbury.”<a name="FNanchor_55" id="FNanchor_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> But Cliff-at-Hoo in Kent <i>is</i> in -the <i>near</i> neighbourhood of Rochester. The present state of the -question, therefore, seems to be, that it is given up as hopeless.</p> - -<p>But the most strenuous renunciator of the Kentish tradition, -in favour of the Berkshire conjecture, was a learned and distinguished -native of the Kentish locality itself: the Rev. John -Johnson. He is usually reckoned among the learned and suffering -body of the Nonjurors, but, by personal merits and some concessions, -he appears to have escaped their political ordeal; having -retained his preferments throughout a long life. He is commonly -distinguished, from the other Johnsons of literature, as “Johnson -of Cranbrook.” His remarks deserve all the more careful consideration, -because he was born at Frindsbury, immediately adjoining -Cliffe, and the intermediate parish between it and Rochester. At -Frindsbury, in fact, was the “Aeslingham” of the Textus Roffensis, -in one of the charters that concern the Hoo and the locality -now in question. He printed a Collection of Canons of the -English Church, in 1720.<a name="FNanchor_56" id="FNanchor_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> In his preface and notes to the Synod -at which was ratified the submission of the usurped primacy of -Lichfield to that of Canterbury, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 803, which is one of those -held at “clofeshoas;”<a name="FNanchor_57" id="FNanchor_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> he oddly brings it, as an argument that -Abingdon was the place, that the triumphant Archbishop of -Canterbury “was willing to meet” his reconciled insubordinant -rival, half way between Lichfield and Canterbury. Converting -what is a very strong presumption against Abingdon, into an act -of extreme humility on the part of the Archbishop. The learned -writer must have felt the difficulty, which he thus strove so hard to -liquidate into a virtue. After this, he goes on to allege that “there -is not a more unhealthy spot in the whole province, I may say in -all Christendom,” than this district of the Hoo. With deference, -however, to such a writer, and a native of the spot, this account -of it does, to a mere visitor, seem to be exaggerated. The Gads-Hill,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -of Falstaff, will bring the neighbourhood to the remembrance -of many; and it has become more widely known of late years, by -the last residence of another great master of humour and fiction, -which is less than four miles from the church of Cliffe, and the -outlook from which would be about identical with that from any -Mercian Villa Regia that may have existed here. An ungrateful -remembrance of the inflictions of schoolmasters, or other childish -griefs, is often observed to haunt the later career of those to whose -distinguished position they may have contributed.</p> - -<p>In his “Addenda,” Johnson afterwards says, “I find some -worthy gentlemen still of opinion, that Cliff … was not unhealthy -in the age of the Councils:” and he truly quotes charters from -the Textus Roffensis, to show that the northern marshes, or levels, -then already existed; and he urges that it “was, therefore, -altogether unfit for a stated place of synod.” That “As Cliff in -Hoo was never a place of great note itself, so it lies, and ever -did lie, out of the road to any place of note;” and he goes on to -recite Somner and Camden’s plea of the greater likelihood of -Abingdon, for synods limited to the times of Mercian domination.</p> - -<p>But the marshes are not in question, they are but an appendage -to the Hoo. This peninsula is formed of a large fragment -of the chalk at the eastern end of the North Kentish downs, -called by geologists an “inlier” into the Thames basin; upon the -heights, and in the valleys, of which the places concerned in this -enquiry were situated. The marshes are a broad fringe of level -pasture land,<a name="FNanchor_58" id="FNanchor_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> advanced into the Thames estuary, beyond its north -chalk cliff. In Kent the word “marsh” signifies the same as -“more” in Somersetshire: which, although even Dr. Jamieson -confounds the two, is a totally different word and thing, from the -“muir,” or “moor,” for waste lands of a highland character. It -is to such land as this that we owe the dairies of Cheddar; and if -this objection should be good, Glastonbury and Wells, not to -mention Ely and Croyland, must resign their venerable places in -history. A very similar projection of alluvial level pasture extends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -from Henbury and Shirehampton to the Bristol Channel, without -disparagement of their salubrity. Mr. Johnson, having suffered -much in health by a residence of a year or two at Appledore, in -Kent, obtained the vicarage of Cranbrook, where he lived for -eighteen years. It is likely that he was sensitive of climatal -influences, and shy of those breezes that reach this island after -passing over the great plains of central Europe: a tenderness, -which neither Æthelbald nor Offa can be supposed to have shared -with him.</p> - -<p>It is plain, however, that this broad alluvial margin, -extending from the northern edge of the heights, which are the -substantial constituents of the Hoo peninsula, already existed, -<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 779, at least a very large extent of it; for the first charter, -so dated,<a name="FNanchor_59" id="FNanchor_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> describes it as then “habentem quasi quinquaginta -iugerum.” In a later charter, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 789,<a name="FNanchor_60" id="FNanchor_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> the name of the projecting -level appears as “Scaga.”<a name="FNanchor_61" id="FNanchor_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> It must already have become land of -value to be granted in these charters; and its identity is certain -from the limits—Yantlet (“Jaenlade”) water to “Bromgeheg,” -now “Bromey,” on the higher land at Cooling. Does not the word -“jugeru,” used in the charter, indicate that this “marsh” was -already cultivated or pasture land? How it had been originally -caused is, however, not hard to discern. It is, evidently, a large -portion of the delta of the Thames, intercepted by the confluence -of the other great river, the Medway, and thrown back behind the -chalk promontory of the Hoo. Inside, and westward of this -deposit, the tidal estuary makes a bold reach southward; sweeping -the western side of this level, and approaching the heights, so as, at -Cliffe, Higham, and Chalk, to leave only a comparatively narrow -fringe of level; and it is on the heights at the southern bend of -this reach, that are situated these three villages, which will presently -be found, it is thought, to be interesting to us.</p> - -<p>As to the most substantial objection, which of course has -continued to be a constantly recurring ingredient of this controversy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -that the place of the synods must have been within the -kingdom of Mercia, it seems a little oblique of the mark aimed at. -They were royal councils, and these must be expected to have -followed the presence of the king and his court, as was the case in -much later times than those now under consideration. Most of -the remaining records of these synods at Cloveshoe, and of the -other national ones during the same period, show the king to have -presided; and it is true that it is the Mercian King, who is so -found, during both of the long reigns of Æthelbald and Offa; and -throughout the time of the domination of the Mercians in Kent. -The policy of the Mercian aggressors, during their long continued -contention for empire, to grasp the great estuaries of the island, -has already been referred to, and a glance at sheets I. and VI. of -the Ordinance survey will show how desirable was this Chersonesus -for the head quarters of a power, which made a chief point of the -possession of the Thames, and its only less valuable and smaller -sister, the Medway. The opposite coast of the East Saxons had -already, for several reigns, been subjected to Mercia. <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 704, -Suebræd, the regulus of the East Saxons, could not grant lands at -Twickenham, then in Essex, but “in prouincia quæ nuncupatur -middelseaxan,” to Waldhere, Bishop of London, except “cum -licentia Æthelredi regis” of Mercia.<a name="FNanchor_62" id="FNanchor_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Kent, less fortunate, was -still contended for by both Wessex and Mercia, as well as by -Sussex, and by all three it was successively ravaged; and it even -looks as if the three contending invaders maintained, as clients, -rival pretenders, as kings of the parts of Kent at the time under -their power. The division of Kent into Lathes may be a so-to-speak -fossil, or rather an archaic autograph upon the surface of -the county, of this state of it. It is, however, certain that Mercia -ultimately made good a permanent domination of Kent; and the -kings of Kent acknowledged that supremacy in their government, -by merely counter-subscribing the acts of the kings of Mercia.<a name="FNanchor_63" id="FNanchor_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p> - -<p>The mass of chalk, of which the body of the Hoo consists, is -said to pass under the Thames; and a small continuation of it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -reappears on the Essex side, directly opposite Cliffe and Higham and -Chalk, at East Tilbury; and having continued four miles westward, -behind the marsh marked by Tilbury Fort, dies out at Purfleet.<a name="FNanchor_64" id="FNanchor_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> It -forms an elevated promontory at East Tilbury, penetrating the levels -on that side to the river. The present chief traject of the river is -about three miles westward, from Gravesend to the fort: but the -chalk promontory is the terminus of an ancient straight chain of -roads, which, although in some places interrupted by later breaks -and divergencies, indicates a traffic of ages, from this terminus on -the river, in a north-western direction, striking the Iknield Street -at Brentwood, and apparently afterwards still continuing the -same line: probably to Watling Street; any rate to the heart of -the Mercian dominions: say, to Hertford, if you like.</p> - -<p>There are various other substantial evidences of great ancient -intercourse of Essex with the Hoo of Kent, by a trajectus at this -place, between East Tilbury and Higham; and Higham is only five -miles from Rochester bridge, by which the Watling Street entered -that city. Morant says, of the manor of Southall in East Tilbury, -“This estate goes now to the repair of Rochester bridge: when and -by whom given we do not find.”<a name="FNanchor_65" id="FNanchor_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> He also mentions the “famous -Higham Causeway” in connection with Tilbury.<a name="FNanchor_66" id="FNanchor_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> Until the -reign of Stephen, the church at Higham had belonged to the -Abbot and Convents of St. John, Colchester.<a name="FNanchor_67" id="FNanchor_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> The importance of -this Essex traject to the kingdoms north of the Thames, when -the domination of Mercia in Essex and Kent was beginning, may -be inferred from the fact that one of the two colleges, or capitular -churches, founded by Cedda, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 653, in Essex, was at Tilbury.<a name="FNanchor_68" id="FNanchor_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> -There is a place called Chadwell by West Tilbury. Some years -later, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 676, when Æthelred of Mercia first devastated Kent, -it is evident that he used this passage; for the destruction of -Rochester, five miles south of Higham and Cliffe, is the only one -of his exploits, on that expedition, specified by name.<a name="FNanchor_69" id="FNanchor_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> So late as -<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 1203, Giraldus Cambrensis passed from Kent to Essex by -Tilbury. These incidents, connecting Tilbury and Higham, may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -qualify the surprise that has hitherto troubled church historians at -finding that “Clofeshoch,” at so early a date as <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 673, was -appointed, at “Herutford,” as the place for future councils, even if -Herutford had been Hertford, as some say.</p> - -<p>The conclusion that the line of approach, and of the first -invasion of Kent by the Mercians, was by a passage from the -Essex coast to Higham or Cliffe; and that the peninsula of Hoo, -adjoining Rochester, had then and long after been the basis of -their domination of that kingdom; had been already formed, from -what has been already said. And it was at this point, that it was -thought worth while to see what the chief county historians say -about the two termini of the trajectus.</p> - -<p>This is Hasted’s statement:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“<i>Plautius</i>, the <i>Roman</i> General under the <i>Emperor Claudius</i>, -in the year of Christ, 43, is said to have passed the river -<i>Thames</i> from <i>Essex</i> into <i>Kent</i>, near the mouth of it, with -his army, in pursuit of the flying <i>Britons</i> who being -acquainted with the firm and fordable places of it passed it -easily. (Dion. Cass., lib. lx.) The place of this passage is, -by many, supposed to have been from <i>East Tilbury</i>, in -<i>Essex</i>, across the river to <i>Higham</i>. (By Dr. Thorpe, -Dr. Plott, and others.) Between these places there was a -<i>ferry</i> on the river for many ages after, the usual method -of intercourse between the two counties of Kent and -Essex for all these parts, and it continued so till the dissolution -of the abbey here; before which time Higham was -likewise the place for shipping and unshipping corn and -goods in great quantities from this part of the country, to -and from <i>London</i> and elsewhere. The probability of this -having been a frequented ford or passage in the time of -the <i>Romans</i>, is strengthened by the visible remains of a -raised causeway or road, near 30 feet wide, leading from -the <i>Thames</i> side through the marshes by <i>Higham southward</i> -to this <i>Ridgway</i> above mentioned, and thence across -the <i>London</i> highroad on <i>Gads-hill</i> to <i>Shorne-ridgway</i>, about -half-a-mile beyond which adjoins the <i>Roman Watling-street</i> -road near the entrance into <i>Cobham-park</i>. In the pleas -of the crown in the 21st year of K. Edward I., the -<i>Prioress</i> of the nunnery of <i>Higham</i> was found liable to -maintain a bridge and causeway that led from <i>Higham</i> -down to the river <i>Thames</i>, in order to give the better and -easier passage to such as would ferry from thence into -Essex.”<a name="FNanchor_70" id="FNanchor_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p> - -</div> - -<p>It may be added that the Hoo peninsula has other marks of -having been, at much earlier times, a district of great transit. There -is, perhaps, no other part of England, of so small an extent, -which has so many and clustered examples of “Street” in -names of secluded spots—including the almost ubiquitous “Silver -Street”<a name="FNanchor_71" id="FNanchor_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a>—quite disengaged from those that follow the line itself of -Watling-street. Yet Mr. Johnson of Cranbrook goes on to say, -“As Cliffe in Hoo was never a place of note itself, so it lies, and -ever did lie, out of the road to any place of note.” It is believed -that he has greatly under-rated the substantial results of such a -dynastic change as we are now considering; followed, for a -thousand years, by its sequential changes on the material surface -of the earth.</p> - -<p>At all events, this was, evidently, the earliest line of approach, -by which Mercia, with its contingents, the other Anglian nations -and the East Saxons, whom it had either subdued or otherwise -allied, invaded Kent; and this continued to be its chief or only -access for some years. A single glance, at the geography of the -Hoo, will show the value of such an advanced peninsula, as the -basis of such an incursion upon the centre of Kent; and as the -stronghold from which the subjection of that kingdom could -be maintained. We have other means of knowing that it was -probably, at least, thirty years before a second or optional approach -was secured by way of the east of Kent. This second access must -have been a much coveted one, and when it came into hand must -have been of great value; particularly in regard to the occasional, -or at least frequent, royal residence already established at the -Hoo. The Watling Street, the greatest and most frequented of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -all the highways then existing, led from the very heart of Mercia, -in a direct line through Middlesex, to the very isthmus of the peninsula -itself. Although Kent had been already invaded, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 676, -yet so late as <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 695,<a name="FNanchor_72" id="FNanchor_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> London remained subject to Essex; but, -as we have already seen, only nine years afterwards Twickenham, -in the province called “Middelseaxan,” had become subject to -Mercia.</p> - -<p>Some of our most learned historians describe the “Middle -Saxons” as a very small people, forming a part of the East -Saxons; but they are obliged to confess that they find very little -to say about them. It is believed that there never was a separate -people called Middle Saxons. They have been created out of a -snatched analogy, of the mere name “Middlesex,” with “Essex,” -“Sussex,” and “Wessex.” There can be little doubt that Middlesex -represents the original civitas, or territory, of the local -government, of its urbs or burgh of London, the capital of the kingdom -of Essex. Like other great commercial seaports or staples, -this already great mart had maintained much of the condition of a -free city; and, in passing, along with its territory from Essex to -the ascendant power of Mercia, it may not have been by conquest, -but by a voluntary exercise of that instinct, to unite in the -fortunes of an advancing supremacy, which is often associated -with, and perhaps closely allied to, commercial habits. At all events, -it is at this time that the name, Middlesex, first comes to light;<a name="FNanchor_73" id="FNanchor_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> -and it is believed that instead of being, like the names of the Saxon -nations, formed by the addition of an adjective; the “middle” of -this newer name is a preposition, and that it means, that Anglian -acquisition which had now thrust itself <i>between</i> the East Saxons -and the South and West Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon Dictionaries -produce an example, from one of the glossaries of Ælfric, of -“Middel-gesculdru” = the space <i>between</i> the shoulders.</p> - -<p>But although, in the existing records of the series of Councils -and Synods that were held during the ascendancy of Mercia, and -often presided over by the Mercian kings in person, the name of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -Cloveshoe is frequent, as the place of convention; other places, as -“Cealchythe” and “Acle,” are also frequent and continuous. And -the names of the councillors, who sign the acts as witnesses, have -a certain current identity, with only such changes as may be -expected by lapse of time, rather than of change of the region -where the assemblies had been convened. After the king, usually -follows the Archbishop of Canterbury; then the Bishop of Lichfield, -followed by the other Mercian Bishops; and then of the other -subject kingdoms.</p> - -<p>These two places, Cealchythe and Acle, have been as great -puzzles to enquirers as Clovesho itself; and they also have been -placed in very distant regions; the sounds of their names being -apparently thought to be the only consideration. Cealchythe was -thought by Archbishop Parker to be in Northumbria; but Alford -said Chelsea; Spelman that it was within the kingdom of Mercia.<a name="FNanchor_74" id="FNanchor_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> -Gibson suggests Culcheth in Lancashire, as although in Northumbria, -not far from Mercia. Miss Gurney also says “Perhaps -Kilcheth on the southern border of Lancashire.” Dr. W. Thomas -gives it to Henley-on-Thames, partly because he considered it -“near” Cloveshoe; Wilkins nor Kemble make any venture; -others, adopted by Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs, and, as far as -the name alone would have settled it, with a very great deal of -apparent reason, would have placed it at Chelsea. The ancient -forms of the name of Chelsea, of which examples are by no means -scarce, seem all directly to lead up to an identity with that of the -councils. One of these, of the baptism, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 1448, of John, son -of Richard, Duke of York, recorded in Will. Wyrcester’s Anecdota, -is, for example, at “Chelchiethe.” But the name of the -council seems to resolve itself into “Chalk-hythe,” and there is -no chalk at Chelsea. But even this has been got over by taking -the first portion of “Chelsey” for “chesil” or gravel; and this -favours the ancient forms of Chelsea = Chelchythe, rather more -than it does the variations in the name of the council; which on -the whole lean towards “chalk” or “Chalkhythe.” Dr. Ingram<a name="FNanchor_75" id="FNanchor_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> -adopts “Challock, or Chalk, in Kent;” and Mr. Thorpe repeats -that suggestion, with the addition of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> “?”</p> - -<p>As to this “Chalk,” it is also in the district of the Hoo, and -is the adjoining parish westward of Higham; on the same chalk -ridge, whereon both Higham and Cliff-at-Hoo are situated. The -village is two miles west of Higham church, and all three -are practically the same place, within a space of four miles; of -which the ancient trajectus above mentioned is at the centre. The -face of the cliff, upon which Cliffe stands, is still quarried for -chalk, which is shipped in a small creek that runs up to the cliff. -It will at once come to mind, how constantly such wharfs are -called “hythe,” throughout the navigable portion of the Thames; -and how frequently that word forms a part of the names of them. -That river has, indeed, almost—not quite—a monopoly of this -name-form. But the Ordnance Surveyors<a name="FNanchor_76" id="FNanchor_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> show an eastward -detachment of Chalk parish, within half a mile of Higham church, -and close to that point of the shore which would have been the -hythe of the traject. There can be little doubt that this detachment -is a survival of the “Chalkhythe” at which some of the -councils were dated, whilst others were at Cliffe-at-Hoo adjoining. -An endorsed confirmation,<a name="FNanchor_77" id="FNanchor_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> under Coenulf, has the formula, “in -synodali conciliabulo <i>juxta</i> locum qui dicitur caelichyth.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Another frequent name, of the place of convention of some of -this series of councils during Mercian ascendancy, is “Acle” or -“Acleah,” which has been as great a puzzle as the others. This -name may be expected to appear in any such modern forms as -Oakley, Okeley, Ockley, or Ackley, which are very numerous in -nearly every part of England; indeed, wherever the oak has -grown: and rather a free use of this wide choice has been made -in the attempts to find the place of the councils so dated. The -most accepted one seems to be Ockley, south of Dorking, near the -confines of Surrey and Sussex; apparently attracted by a battle -with the Danes there, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 851. But this happened in later and -Wessexian times. Lambarde (about <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 1577) thought it likely -to be somewhere in the Deanery of Ackley, in Leicestershire: -Spelman, in the Bishopric of Durham. Dr. Ingram says, “Oakley -in Surrey.” Professor Stubbs says of one act of Offa so dated that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -it “is unquestionably Ockley in Surrey,” and affords “a strong -presumption that the other councils of the southern province said -to be at Acleah, were held at the same place,” apparently because -the charter before him is a grant to Chertsey. But the substance -of these royal grants does not show the place where they were -executed. They are the Acts of the Supreme Court of Appeal. -Ingram and Thorpe give Ockley, Surrey. Miss Gurney, “Acley, -Durham?” Kemble, “Oakley or Ackley, Kent, or Ockley, -Surrey,” Sir T. D. Hardy says “in Dunelmia;” no doubt -adopting Spelman’s judgment.</p> - -<p>Turning again to the Ordnance Survey,<a name="FNanchor_78" id="FNanchor_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> at one mile-and-a-half -from the church at Cliff-at-Hoo, and rather nearer to it than -Higham church itself, will be seen a building marked “Oakly;” -or, in the six-inch scale, two: Oakley and Little Oakley. Reverting -to Hasted’s account of the parish of Higham,<a name="FNanchor_79" id="FNanchor_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> we also find that it -contained two manors, Great and Little Okeley; and he quotes -the Book of Knight’s Fees, K. John, where it is written, “Acle.”<a name="FNanchor_80" id="FNanchor_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> -Oakley lies in the direct way from the ancient traject to Rochester -bridge, and has been held liable to repair the fourth pier of it. -In Domesday it appears as “Arclei.” But the existence of this -very place can be realised at a date eight years earlier than the -first recorded Synod at Aclea. Mr. Kemble has printed<a name="FNanchor_81" id="FNanchor_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> a grant -of Offa, dated <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 774, to Jaenberht the Archbishop, of a piece of -land in a place called “Hehham,” now Higham; of which one -portion is conterminous with Acleag—“per confinia acleage”,—another -part touches “ad colling”—now Cooling with its -Castle,—afterwards bounded by “mersctun,” since Merston, and -other lands “Sc̄i andree,” <i>i.e.</i> of Rochester Cathedral. This piece -of land, although granted by Offa to the Archbishop of Canterbury, -is not only situated within the diocese of Rochester, but is -immediately surrounded by the demesnes of Rochester Church. -From a realization of the above three land-marks of the charter, it -is certain that, although Cliffe is not named, the site of the church -and town of Cliffe itself, as well as Higham, is included within<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -the land-marks of the grant; and that the granted manor is -identical with those parishes, as they have afterwards become. -Cooling adjoins the granted land to the east; Acleag, now Oakley, -to the south; Merston, is described by Hasted as a forgotten -parish, and no longer appears even in his own map of the -Hundred, but he identifies the ruined church among the buildings -of “Green Farm,” close to Gads-hill. From this he represents it -to have reached the Shorne Marshes; that is to the Thames -shore; forming, therefore, the western boundary of Cliffe and -Higham, and including the already mentioned detachment of -Chalk parish, and having Acleag named as one of its boundaries.<a name="FNanchor_82" id="FNanchor_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p> - -<p>In this charter of Offa, we see one of the examples of those first -separations of land, which afterwards became what we call a -parish. What we now call a parish, is not an invention or -institution by Archbishop Honorius, or Archbishop Theodore, nor -of any individual genius; any more than shires and hundreds -were invented by King Alfred. Our parishes are the natural and -exigent result of the variety of causes that have planted churches; -to the use of which, and to the privileges of the cures vested in -them, neighbours have acquired customary or other rights. -Territorial parishes are definitions and ratifications of these -emergent rights, that pre-existed, as other political results do pre-exist, -such confirmations of them. Their multiplication may -have been promoted, more or less, by different men in different -ages, including our own age. We shall presently see, that -it is most likely that Offa founded the church at Cliffe; and -this charter no doubt fixes the date of it. Higham must have -been separated from it, into another parish, at a later time. -The Archbishop of Canterbury continued to be the owner of -Cliffe until K. Henry VIII.; and the rectory is still in the gift -of the Archbishop, and exempt from Rochester which encompasses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -it. As Johnson of Cranbrook himself admits, “It is indeed a -parish most singularly exempt; for the incumbent is the Archbishop’s -immediate surrogate.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>But there is a much later Mercian council, which deserves to -be noticed; not for its intrinsic importance, but on account of the -place from which it is dated.<a name="FNanchor_83" id="FNanchor_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> It is a sale of two bits of land at -Canterbury to the Archbishop, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 823, by Ceoluulf, “rex merciorum -seu etiam cantwariorum.” The price seems to have been, a pot -of gold and silver money, by estimation five pounds and-a-half -(or ? four and-a-half); more portable and convenient to Ceoluulf -under Beornuulf’s usurpation of Mercia. This was just when -Mercia was waning, and Wessex ascendant. The date is “in -uillo regali, qui dicitur werburging wic.” It will be remembered -what was the business that first called us to the Kentish Hoo: -the finding one of our St. Werburgh dedications there.</p> - -<p>That this Werburghwick was in the Hoo, will become more -likely by comparison with another charter.<a name="FNanchor_84" id="FNanchor_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> This is, a grant of a -privilege to the Bishop of Rochester, by Æthelbald, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 734, which -has an endorsed confirmation, by Beorhtuulf “regi merciorū in -uico regali uuerbergeuuic,” which endorsement must have been -added about <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 844. Turn also to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, -<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 851 or 853, where it is said that the Heathen men having held -their winter in Thanet; in the same year came 350 ships into Thames -mouth, and broke Canterbury, and London, and made this same -Beorhtuulf King of the Mercians fly with his army, and went -south over Thames into Surrey.<a name="FNanchor_85" id="FNanchor_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> It is thought more likely that -he was at his villa regalis, in the Hoo, than at Tamworth; where -however he sometimes is also found.</p> - -<p>The truth seems to be, that, when Mercia relapsed into a mere -province or Ealdormanship, it still retained its hold in Kent as an -appanage. Thus we have seen Ceoluulf at our Werburghwick in -the Hoo, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 823; and Beorhtwulf in the same place, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 844, -and again, apparently disturbed by the Danes, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 853. In the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -paper, before referred to, Mr. Rashleigh has given an analytical -table of a hoard of about 550 Anglo-Saxon Coins found at or near -Gravesend in 1838, which must have been buried so late as <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> -874-5. Of these 429 are of Burgred king of Mercia <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 852-874, -and one of Ceoluulf (II.) of Mercia, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 874. Probably the -boundary of the latest holding of Mercians in Kent, answers to -that of the diocese of Rochester, as it came down to the middle -of the present century; somewhat abnormally consisting of only -a part of a county. Dioceses were originally identical with civil -provinces; and have been dormantly conservative of their boundaries, -during those very times when political revolutions have been -most active upon those of civil states.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It thus appears, that the three most frequent of the names, -from which the series of Mercian synods are dated, can be -accounted for as of places practically in the same locality; and -that, the one to which tradition, before it had been tampered with -by philological evolution, had already directly pointed; and on a -piece of land, exceptionally given to Canterbury, encompassed by -the lands of Rochester, for a purpose of which the circumstances -here adduced are the only explanation and index. It is not -inferred that all three names indicate the same building: probably -not; for, in a later synod, “ad Clobeham,” (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 825)<a name="FNanchor_86" id="FNanchor_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> a judgment -“prius at Cælchythe” is referred to. But so might, up to our -time, a judgment at Westminster, or at Guildhall, be quoted in -the Chancellor’s Court at Lincoln’s Inn; but all three would be at -London.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Although the synods of the series are most frequently dated -from Cloveshoe, Chalkhythe, and Acleah, other places have one or -two each. There is “Berhford,” <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 685, usually placed at -Burford, Oxon., for no other reason than the sound of the name, -connected with the old prejudice for that neighbourhood as central -for Mercia. “Baccanceld,” <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 798, was certainly in Kent, since -there was also a council of the still self-acting king of Kent held -there, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 694. Another name “Bregentforda,” very doubtfully,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -upon no better ground, placed at Brentford. All these deserve to -be closely re-considered; and if possible supported by some reason, -added to these guesses from the merest outside likeness in the -names.</p> - -<p>Already, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 680, Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, had -presided at a general Council of the Bishops of England, said by -Ven. Beda to be “in loco qui Saxonico vocabulo <i>Haethfelth</i> nominatur.” -Some have placed this at one of the various Hatfields -or Heathfields that may have struck the taste of either; whether -in Yorkshire, Herts, Essex, Sussex, or Somerset. But Archbishop -Parker<a name="FNanchor_87" id="FNanchor_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> says that it was “juxta Roffam,” apparently quoting -“Roff. Histor.” This, at any rate, shews that near Rochester was -at least not thought an unlikely place for a great general Council. -Collier also gives the marginal title “The synod at Hatfield <i>or</i> -Clyff, near Rochester.” So much for Heathfelth. But where, after -all, was “Herutford,” the place of the earlier synod (<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 673), -also convened by Archbishop Theodore? This may be looked upon -as the initial one of the long series of “Clofeshoch” synods: at -which that series was first appointed. Mr. Kemble says<a name="FNanchor_88" id="FNanchor_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> that it -was “presided over by Hlothari the sovereign of Kent,” and this -was probably the case, although Beda does not expressly say so. -Beda only adds, to his account of the decrees of the council, a -paragraph beginning with a statement that it was held <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 673, -the year in which king Ecgberct had died and been succeeded by -his brother Hlothere. Kent was still an independent kingdom; -and, not only in the primacy, but in its instrument, the series of -synods thus instituted, possessed within itself the heart of the -now established church; which, having become an active political -function of concentration, was a much coveted constituent of -empire; and invited the impending aggression of Mercia. Within -three years of the first institution and localisation of these councils, -Æthered made a direct swoop upon this quarry, when he -entered Kent at this very Hoo, the appointed place of the future -councils.</p> - -<p>The only reason for “Hertford,” as the usual interpretation -of “Herutford,” is again the mere likeness of the name; and is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -not a strong one even of its kind. Any place with “Rod-,” -“Reed-,” “Rote-,” and many the like initial syllable, would have -a better claim. It is very much suspected that the method, -hitherto practised of placing these old place-names, has been far -too hasty. It may fairly be expected that some of them are no -longer represented by any existing names. We have seen above -by how close a shaving several have survived. But of this name -“Herutford,” “Heorotford,” or “Heortford,” it might safely be -assumed that the initial “He-,” is no more than a prefixed -aspirate: that it is not of the essence of the name. And so Beda -himself evidently thought; for when<a name="FNanchor_89" id="FNanchor_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> he mentions a name, almost -identical with this one, in Hampshire; he gives it with a Latin -explanation, “<i>Hreutford</i>, id est <i>Vadum harundinis</i>,” evidently -taking it for Reed or Rodford.<a name="FNanchor_90" id="FNanchor_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> We might also expect to find -such a name represented by a modern name beginning with “Wr-;” -but an inconsiderable “Redham,” a farm, in Gloucestershire, is -found written “Hreodham” in the tenth century.</p> - -<p>The above had already been written, when it seemed to be at -least a formal obligation to test this principle, by a direct application -of it to the district under consideration; which has -unexpectedly yielded, what is at any rate, an example of the -principle. Whether or not it indicates an actual trace of the place -“Herutford” itself, shall not at present be ventured to say. -However,<a name="FNanchor_91" id="FNanchor_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> in the charter, dated 778, already quoted, in which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -level land north of Cliffe is called “Scaga;” the land-marks begin -with the words “Huic uero terrae adiacent pratae ubi dicitur -Hreodham.” The land itself, to which it is adjacent, is called -“Bromgeheg;” a name which now remains as “Broomey,” a -house only, at Cooling; and the chief land-limits are “Clifwara -gemære” and “Culinga gemære.” The land is granted to the -Bishop of Rochester, but evidently adjoins the eastern side of -that including Cliffe itself, which had already been given to the -Archbishop, as above quoted.</p> - -<p>Even at first sight it would seem unaccountable, that, at a -synod held at Hertford; what appears to amount to a periodical -series of repetitions or continuations, or in fact adjournments of it -should have been determined upon at so distant a place as -Clofeshoch,—wherever that may prove to have been—must have -been from Hertford. It would seem more likely, that the future -place of assembly in view, would have been practically in the same -place. This initial council was under the presidency of the -Primate; and so were those that followed, except that when the -King of Mercia was present the Primate yielded the first place to -him. The permanently appointed place would also be likely to -have in view the convenience of access, to the Primate, of his -suffragans, from all the sub-kingdoms; and to this the Watling-street -contributed, not only his own ready approach from Canterbury, -to the very place where tradition has fixed it; but also, for -those who were to meet him there; the most perfect road from -London, and the entire north-west of the island; whilst immediate -access from East Saxony, East Anglia, and the northern dioceses, -has been shewn in the well frequented ferry, also to this very -place. The Church of England is seen to have had an earlier -approximation towards political unity than the Kingdom of -England. The former was, in fact, contributory to the latter as, -perhaps, one of its most efficient causes. This was not lost sight -of by those who aimed at the supremacy; whose policy, therefore, -was to have the Primate at his right hand in his councils; and to -cultivate an identity of interest with him. Offa’s attempt to set up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -an Archbishop at Lichfield, only seven miles from his home-court -at Tamworth, was in this direction.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>This attempt to determine the true place of these synods, -during the continuance of Mercian supremacy in England; was -intended to confirm the statement, that wherever extraneous -dedications of St. Werburgh are found, traces are also found of the -energetic or active presence of Æthelbald. It may seem to be -rather an elaborate implement for so small a purpose. It has -been more extensive than was contemplated: but, if once successfully -constructed, it may serve a greater purpose of its own: the -setting at rest of a long dispute. And this purpose of its own -will itself receive back all that it gives to ours: for if the presence -of Æthelbald, accounts for our having found a St. Werburgh in -this now secluded peninsula; the presence of that dedication, is a -weighty confirmation of the much disputed fact, that he was busy -and much resident there; and that we might reasonably expect his -most important acts to be dated thence. At all events, it is -hoped that our sixth and last remaining of the wandering dedications -of St. Werburgh, in the Kentish Hoo, has been thus -discovered to have been in the immediate company of Æthelbald; -when, as it is said in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="hanging">“<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 742. Now was a great synod gathered at Cloueshou, -and there was Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, and -Cutbert, Archbishop, and many other wise men.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>But something more is to be said concerning this passage itself -of the Chronicle. It appears to be only contained in one manuscript; -consequently in the five-column edition, this year is only -filled in in the fifth column; the other four being blank. Sir T. D. -Hardy says of this solitary manuscript, that it is “apparently of -the twelfth century;” and that it contains “various peculiar -additions, chiefly relating to Kentish ecclesiastical affairs.”<a name="FNanchor_92" id="FNanchor_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> Professor -Earle also says of it:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> “There is no external tradition -informing us as to what home it belonged, but the internal -evidence assigns it to Christ Church, Canterbury.”<a name="FNanchor_93" id="FNanchor_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> This is -much more to our purpose than if it had been in all the manuscripts: -for if it had been a part of the usual and received text -of the Chronicle, it would have here been a mere retranscription, -for ages, with an indefinite locality. As it is, standing only in a -Chronicle of Canterbury; it had evidently claimed the special -attention of the Annalist, from its direct local Kentish interest; -and especially its concern with a piece of land, which, we have -seen, was owned by the Cathedral Church to which the writer -belonged. What has been already said about the “Dr. Hethe” -note<a name="FNanchor_94" id="FNanchor_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> applies with still greater force to this; which is indeed the -same Canterbury tradition; only that it is in hand-writing of -four hundred years earlier date.</p> - -<p>But “Hoo-St.-Werburgh” is a parish adjoining to Cliffe; and -our argument is, that when, as recorded in the Canterbury copy of -the Chronicle, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 742, there was a synod at Cloueshou, and that -“Æthelbald was there;” he founded and dedicated this church, -as we have found him to have done elsewhere. Added to this, we -have seen reason, and shall presently see more, that the neighbouring -church of Cliffe itself was founded by his great successor -Offa, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 774. It has been said, and with great likelihood, that -Cliffe and Hoo-St.-Werburgh were the two most ancient churches -in the Hoo; and that they are the mother churches of the five or -six others in the peninsula, that have sprung up at some later -times; their segregated portions, which, in due course, have consolidated -into separate parishes.</p> - -<p>As before said, the church at Cliffe-at-Hoo itself, has the -dedication of St. Helen; and it is believed that, by a similar -foretaste of chivalry, to that of Æthelbald’s for St. Werburgh; -Offa habitually planted his standard under the name of this other -female saint. It is, therefore, no wonder that we find these two, -close together, in that very district wherein, during two long -reigns, Æthelbald and Offa are recorded as constantly performing -acts of sovereignty. Of this there are many evidences, besides -the councils about which we are engaged, in the accounts of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -dealings, in this district, and along the Medway, and throughout -Kent, in the manner in which conquerors usually deal with -newly-acquired land; as shewn in their numerous charters.</p> - -<p>The reputed British-Roman nativity of St. Helen in Deira, -appears to have given her name a prevalence in that province, -with which the Anglian successors of the northern Britons were -infected; like that of St. Alban, and the Kentish St. Martin, -with his prolific eastern grafts.<a name="FNanchor_95" id="FNanchor_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> And they accepted and improved -the legacy. But the remains, of this acceptance, of a local aspect -of religion, are the most conspicuous in Deira; and in Lindisse or -Southumbria, a constituent of that kingdom. It did not extend -to Bernicia. Of the known existing dedications of St. Helen, -Durham contains only two, Northumberland one, Westmoreland -and Cumberland none; and we learn from Bp. Forbes, that the -name thinly re-appears beyond the border in Scottish Northumbria. -But in Yorkshire we find twenty-two, and in Lincolnshire -thirty; and these last, except two a little south of it, are all in -Lindsey proper: Nottinghamshire also has ten. Lancashire has -four or five. The tendency of Northumbrian hagiology to spread -into Mercia proper, has been already mentioned; and a still -pretty free, but reduced, scattering of St. Helens is found in that -kingdom. Derbyshire has 5, Cheshire 3, Northants 6, Leicestershire -4, but Staffordshire none, Salop one—being near to -[H]Elle[n]smere. Bedfordshire one at [H]El[len]stow. Herts one -at Wheathampstead—near Offa’s St. Alban, and Essex (Colchester) -one. The Wiccian counties, Warwick two, Worcester (city), and -Gloucestershire (north) each one.</p> - -<p>The above examples, of this dedication in England—about -96—have been recited, chiefly for the purpose of exhaustion. The -residual seven or eight, still more scattered over the more southern -counties, are what our lesson must be chiefly read from; that they -are found in the footsteps of Offa, as marks of new possession; in -a similar manner to the St. Werburghs in the tract of Æthelbald. -No doubt each of the ninety six has its own story to tell, but it -does not now concern us.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> - -<p>As we have already seen,<a name="FNanchor_96" id="FNanchor_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 774, Offa granted the land at -Higham in Hoo, which includes the site of the church and town -of Cliffe, to Jaenberht, Archbishop of Canterbury; exceptionally -surrounded by lands of the Bishop of Rochester. At the -same time, there can be no doubt, he founded and dedicated the -church, which still bears the name of St. Helen. Again, in the -Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 777, it is written, “Now Cynewulf”—of -Wessex—“and Offa fought around Bensington, and Offa -took that town.” The church at Bensington on the left—or Offa’s—shore -of the Thames is also a St. Helen at this day. At -Albury, also in Oxfordshire, about nine miles north of Bensington, -on the smaller river Thame, the church is St. Helen. Also, on the -Thames, at Abingdon, as is well known, there is a St. Helen. -With regard, however, to this last, the local monastic tradition -gives an earlier origin, founded on a miraculous discovery of a -Holy Rood. This must stand, against our use of this example, for -whatever the tradition may be worth. Perhaps a fourth “Sancta -Helena” is recorded,<a name="FNanchor_97" id="FNanchor_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> as the sanctuary of a fugitive who had -stolen a bridle, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 995. The land, given in conciliation, must -have been close to the chalk ridge south of the White Horse -Vale, Berks; as, among the boundaries, is “Cwicelmes hlæw,” -well known to be on this ridge; and the “grenanweg,” still called -by the neighbours “the Green Way;” being a part of what is -called “the Drover’s Road,” by which, until outdone by the rail, -cattle from the west were driven, for many miles, turnpike free, -and with peripatetic grazing. The St. Helen here referred to may, -however, have been Abingdon itself.</p> - -<p>At any rate, here are three, out of the few existing southern -St. Helens, in the line of frontier then realised by Offa against -Wessex. The same line of St. Helens, both eastward and westward, -is also extended across the island, from the extreme north of -Kent, as we have seen; by the well-known one in London; and -another formerly at Malmsebury, and another at Bath. These last -three—making six—also probably resulted from the same campaign -of Offa as the Berkshire and Oxfordshire ones.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> - -<p>That at Bath, however, has a special claim to our attention; -having been in that same suburb outside the north gate, where -also was found the St. Werburgh, within the fork of the Foss-way -and that now called Via Julia. Here then, as already in the -Hoo of Kent, we once more find a St. Werburgh and a St. Helen -in immediate companionship. The seal of Æthelbald endorsed by -that of Offa, the inheritor of his policy.<a name="FNanchor_98" id="FNanchor_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> But what is the significance -of these emblems of Mercian territory, being both found -outside the Roman walled town on the north side? Did this -suburb become specially a Mercian quarter? The monastery, of -which Offa was a reputed founder or re-founder about this very -time, must have been a chief occupant of the area within the -walls; and its possessions extended, in the opposite direction, -beyond the river, on the Wessex side. We have already seen<a name="FNanchor_99" id="FNanchor_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> -signs of Æthelbald’s further south-west progress along the Foss-way -as far as into East Devon.</p> - -<p>Besides this line of St. Helens, along the frontier, which was -the result of the campaign recorded in the Chronicle, under <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> -777; there are still three outlying southward, along the south coast: -the extreme natural limit of the Saxon nations. Although not -recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, an earlier excursion of -Offa is mentioned by others. <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 771, Simeon of Durham<a name="FNanchor_100" id="FNanchor_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> says -“His diebus Offa, rex Merciorum, Hestingorum gentem armis -subegerat.” Dr. Lappenberg, in relating this feat of Offa’s, calls -“the Hestingas, a people whose locality, like that of so many -others among the Saxons, is not known with certainty. They -have been sought for about Hastings in Sussex, and most probably -inhabited the district around that town to which they gave their -name.”<a name="FNanchor_101" id="FNanchor_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> Roger of Wendover, however, reads “Anglorum gentem.”<a name="FNanchor_102" id="FNanchor_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> -Upon this, Sir F. Palgrave had already noted:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> “It is -not easy to ascertain what people are meant. The name has -inclined many writers to suppose that they were the inhabitants -of Hastings, but they could scarcely be of sufficient importance. -Perhaps we should read <i>East Anglorum</i>.”<a name="FNanchor_103" id="FNanchor_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> Other recent historians, -with or without hesitation, adopt the present town of Hastings -as the scene of the conquest.</p> - -<p>Here then we have another fully ripe historic doubt; so evenly -balanced in the judgments of the most specifically learned, that -after what has already been shewn, of the local coincidences of -dedications of St. Helen with the feats of Offa; if the like -should be found also to apply to the one here recorded, would be -sufficient to give a considerable bias to the scale. And this is -what we do find.</p> - -<p>About a mile north of the town, which still bears a name that -has since acquired other claims to places in history, Hastings; is a -village called Ore; of which the church has another of our southern -outlying dedications of St. Helen. If Offa’s conquest, as recorded -by Simeon of Durham, refers to Sussex, it needs only to say so -much, in order to account for this one; and to fulfil the promise -of our theory; that the name of this saint and the written witnesses -of Offa’s progress, shall be found to mutually confirm each other as -evidence of his active presence. This village is situated on an -elevation commanding the town itself; and on the southern edge -of a ridge, along which, and close to the village, runs one of those -great roads, of which the straight line is significant of a long, -ancient, and arterial use. In fact it must have been always the -almost sole approach to the town, whether from Kent or from the -centre of England. Moreover, at whatever point of the neighbouring -beach, at a later time, William landed; this road must -have been his principal means of reaching Battle. Here, therefore, -upon the door itself of the town, still remains the usual seal -of Offa’s conquests. Sir Francis Palgrave’s objection, of the -insufficient importance of the Gens Hestingorum, would not, it is -thought, have been raised, if he had remembered that the large -territory, called the “Rap de Hastings” of Domesday, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -Rape of Hastings of our own time, most likely had already existed -from the first settlement of the South Saxons. Two or three -years later, Offa is still found busy in that part of Kent which -adjoins this most eastern of the Rapes of Sussex.</p> - -<p>But although the Hæstingas only are mentioned, as the people -first encountered, there are other evidences that he extended his -conquests westward throughout Sussex. One of his St. Helens -remains on the foot of the South Downs, between the peninsulated -stronghold called The Devil’s Dike and the sea; and, within -actual eyeshot, is another, on the opposite eastern coast of the -Isle of Wight. Moreover he has, as was his practice in many parts -of England, also left his own name along the line, in Offham, near -Lewes, Offington, near Worthing, Offham, close to Arundel Park.</p> - -<p>There are also one or two St. Helens or Elens, both in Cornwall -and Wales: which would be in accordance with what otherwise -has been said above, but as several local Celtic saints have names -liable to become more familiar by corruption into this one, they -will not be here called into evidence.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>For the series of synods of which the acts are dated from -Cloveshoe did not cease with the reign of Æthelbald. These, -interspersed with occasional dates of Cealchythe and Aclea, continued -throughout the other long and dominant Mercian reign of -his successor Offa. Indeed they continued as long as Mercia -remained supreme, and far into the ninth century: the date of -“Clofeshoe” being last met with for a synod under Beornuulf, -<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 825: about the time when both Kent and Essex are found to -have been annexed by Wessex.</p> - -<p>It may seem difficult to realise that what is a small detached -region—almost practically an island—now containing only four or -five villages or decayed towns; was, for about a century and a -half, the seat of one of the royal residences, where a succession -of powerful kings held so many of their courts to which were -convened the magnates of their own and of subject kingdoms. -The truth is, that political centrality is not coincident with -geographical; and is only partially dependent upon natural aspect -or condition. London is very far from a geographical centre; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -if we could bring into view its original natural aspect; London, -with its marshes would be as incredible as the place here concerned. -Its present greatness is the outgrowth of the later -supremacy of Wessex; and London was as much an outpost of -Saxony into Mercia, as the Hoo had been of Anglia into Centland.</p> - -<p>Those who expect a confirmation of this regal occupation of -the Hoo, from substantial remains there, may remember that a -thousand years of desertion have passed over it. As Fuller said, -when writing of this controversy about Cloveshoe, already warm in -his day:<a name="FNanchor_104" id="FNanchor_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> “Nor doth the modern Meanness of the Place make anything -against it; it might be a Gallant in that Age, which is a -Beggar now-a-dayes.” Geographical and natural conditions have -much to do with the choice and permanence of the seats of governments; -but political needs and fortunes often over-rule or reverse -them. The rise of Wessex turned the preference to other centres; -and the exposure of this peninsula to the ravages of the Danes, -just then becoming active, is sufficient to have brought desolation -upon it. The site of New York seems very much like this; but -its growth was not prevented by such a constant peril as this last -in its front, nor by the ascendancy of a rival power in its rear. -It is political causes that have surrounded the circular mound at -Windsor with the regal associations, which have forsaken that of -Tamworth; and the same political causes have covered with -houses and palaces, not only the elevated spot upon which London -was first planted, but the many miles of swamp that encompassed -it. When cities, or settlements upon elevations, take to growing -great, they no longer despise the alluvial levels which skirt them; -but cover even these with buildings. This is the case with London -itself, where even the supreme Aula Regia of the Saxon empire, -that has inherited the “England” of Æthelbald and Offa; stands -upon a similar alluvial appendage of the higher ground of the -original settlement; to that which, projecting from the chalky heights -of the Hoo, has been declared to be inconsistent with its history.</p> - -<p>Again, are there preserved, anywhere at all, any fragments -whatever, of masonry of the time of Æthelbald and Offa, even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -under the most favourable circumstances? We have seen that -many churches were founded in that age, that have continued in -vital existence to this day. In these, if anywhere, remains of the -first structures might have been found. Instead of this, the few -præ-Norman relics that do exist can scarcely be said to approach -that date; and when, later, they do crop up; they seem to bring with -them an indication, why they are the earliest. They are found in -places where stone is as plenty and as easily hewn as wood; and -they appear to be worked and constructed by hands and heads that -had been accustomed to work and construct in wood; and often -with adze-like tool marks. The angry question whether the word -“timber” was, by birth, a verb or a noun—a question of which -some of the most eminent Anglo-Saxon scholars seem, on waking, -to have found themselves on the wrong side—shall not here be -roused; but the absence of earlier remains may be accounted for, -by taking for granted, wood to have been, at the earlier time, the -material mostly used. What then can we expect to find in a -tract of land, ever since abandoned to its ordinary rural and -pastoral condition? The cartular evidence of the importance of -this small territory, during the time in question, is most abundant; -and the many traces of antiquity, in the names of now inconsiderable -spots, has been already referred to.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As the inferences, from the surviving examples of these dedications, -and their topographical distribution, may have assumed -the tone of exact or statistical inductions; it is but right that -they should be qualified by an admission that, from that point of -view, they are subject to some elements of discount. It has been -already admitted that more extinct St. Werburghs may come to -light; and of course it is impossible to foresee to what extent the -inferences may be thereby disturbed; although it is not expected -that they can be substantially over-balanced. Indeed, there are -not wanting other spots which have names with a suspicious -possibility of being corruptions of the name of Werburgh, similar -to those that we have seen, where they are confirmed by the -actual survival of the dedication itself; as in the cases of Warburton -and Warbstow. Of these are two eminences, the situations of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -which are strikingly similar to that at Wembury, as if chosen by -the same eye. They are close to the sea shore, but in other parts -of the south coast. These are a hill, called “Warberrys,” close to -Torquay; and another called “Warbarrow,” in the isle of -Purbeck. But neither of these have traces of the dedication, and -both names are quite likely to have had other causes; nor can -the places be directly connected with any known record of -Æthelbald. Therefore they shall not be enlisted into the present -enquiry. There is also a Wareberrewe near Wallingford, with -the present dedication of S. Laurence.</p> - -<p>The indications, that have been above induced, however, from -the occurrences of the dedications of St. Werburgh in south -England, as well as those of St. Cuthbert in Wessex, are very -distinct and definite as guide-posts in historical topography; being -strictly national or dynastic. But St. Helen, as compared with -them, has the great disadvantage of being catholic and illustrious; -and the possibility, of course, exists, for a catholic dedication to -have had sometimes other causes besides that here attributed—the -personal veneration of a conqueror. It is, however, thought that -the comparative numbers in the different provinces, that have been -offered, may help any judgment upon this point. One cause of -aberration, in the case of the St. Helens may be, that some -examples may have been “St. Helen and Holy Rood;” and, as -often happens to a joint dedication, one half may have been worn -off by grinding time: sometimes the first, sometimes the last; so -that some of what are now only known as Holy Rood, or Holy -Cross, may have been originally St. Helens. On the other hand, -the dedication of Holy Rood may, in some cases, have been -independently attached to churches, that have arisen where there -had already been a cross of a martyr, which had brought a great -resort to a spot of reputed eminent sanctity.<a name="FNanchor_105" id="FNanchor_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> Or, as in the legend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -of Abingdon, where a cross, or a piece of the True Cross has been -said to have been miraculously found: or a wonder-working -Crucifix, as at Waltham Abbey. The local distribution of Holy -Roods does not shew any estimable counter-balance of that of -the St. Helens; and the Holy Roods themselves are believed to -have had a tendency to pass into St. Saviour, or Christchurch.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>One very general agent in the obliteration of those dedications -that are national, or otherwise capable of rendering historical -indications, has been particularly active in the English part of -this island. This is the tendency to depose them, in favour of -the greater saints, who are recognized and honoured throughout -Christendom. This, as might have been expected, is more particularly -the case of St. Mary. It is likely that many of the -churches with this dedication are amplifications of sanctuaries of -the more ancient and national kind. So strong was this tendency -that, where it did not drown out the original tutelar name of a -church; it must at least be satisfied by the addition of a “Lady -Chapel.” Such a process of change may often be seen actually -at work. The fine large church at Marden, Herefordshire, is said, -both by Leland and Browne Willis, to have the dedication of St. -Ethelbert; and so no doubt it has: but the present officers of -the church, if asked, pronounce it to be of St. Mary. A glance at -the building accounts for this. Within the church, at, perhaps, -about twenty feet from the western wall, is preserved an uncommon -relique, the well of St. Ethelbert; murdered by Offa, about a mile -off, but whose shrine was at Marden, until translated to Hereford -Cathedral. There can be no doubt that the well occupied the -focus of the original small sanctuary that was first raised over the -reliques of the martyr; and which was on the brink of the river, -that flows near the western front of the church, and so prevented -enlargement in that direction. The large increase of the church -eastward, in accordance with the practice of the later age, having -been devoted to the name of St. Mary. Another similar case, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -Middleham in Richmondshire, has been kindly brought to notice -by Mr. W. H. D. Longstaffe. The original dedication is St. -Alkelda, whose martyrdom, being strangled by two female servants, -is represented on glass. Her traditional altar-tomb, is westward -of the chancel arch of the collegiate choir of St. Mary, founded by -King Richard III. The only other traces of St. Alkelda is a -church in her name at Giggleswick, some miles westward.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>That sort of conviction, which arises from a gradual accumulation -of facts, upon what had at first started as a suspicion or a -guess; cannot be so vividly imparted to a reader. But even if -what has been said above should have been successful; it will be -very far from having exhausted the materials of this kind of -enquiry: will only have served, by one or two examples, to shew -the value of a neglected class of monuments, which, it is thought, -have not yet been made to yield up their teaching. At the best, -what has here been done, can be no more than the exposure of two -or three fragments of a vast ruin, co-extensive with the land; of -which the plan should be restored by a comparative registration or -cartography of the whole. In the Celtic portions of these islands, -the dedications of the churches retain much of their original or -primitive topical distribution; shewing, as they have sometimes -already been made to do, the maternity of missionary centres to -offshoot churches. In the Teutonized portions of England, it is -likely that they have another and greater lesson. They are here, -in addition, believed to be able to shew, to a certain extent, what -may be called an ethnical stratification; which, if carefully -observed, would often mark out the extension of revolutions or -conquests: more especially in those early times, of which written -history is scanty or altogether wanting.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Cod. Dip. <span class="smcapuc">CXLIII.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Dr. Lappenburg (I. 38) describes the people of Warwickshire and -Worcestershire as the “Gewissi.” But the “Gevissæ” was the ancient -name of the southern main stem of the West Saxons, who made their way -into Somerset and Devon (Bæda. H. E. III. 7), and plainly a name of distinction -from the Huiccii. All the pre-Christian pedigrees of the West Saxon -leaders have an early name “Gewis,” which has been, with great likelihood, -supposed to have been the origin of the name of the Gevissæ. In some -only of the pedigrees, this name is next preceded by “Wig.” This seems -to point to a division of the leadership between two kinsmen, perhaps -brothers; and the Wiccii or Wigornians to be derived from the latter.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> A.S. Chron., “Feathan leag”—Welsh Chronicles, “<i>Ffery llwg</i>.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Dr. Guest in Archæological Journal, vol. xix., p. 197.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Thesaurus, I. 169.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Dr. Guest and Mr. Freeman, and their followers, as the Saturday -Review, and the various school histories, which, having adopted the innovation, -are lauded in that journal.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Prof. W. W. Skeat, Macmillan, Feb. 1879, p. 313.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See “A Primæval British Metropolis,” Bristol, 1877, pp. 45-80.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> One of the obsolete ones was brought to mind by a paper read by Mr. -C. E. Davis, at Bath, in 1857: another is printed from the Register of -Worcester Cathedral in Thomas’s Survey, kindly pointed out by Mr. John -Taylor; so that others, unreckoned, may possibly be brought to light.</p> - - -<p>There is one, in addition to all those above mentioned, at Dublin; but, -as the dedications in Strongbow’s Dublin are no more than a post-Norman -colonisation of those at Bristol, it does not enter into our reckoning.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The genealogical relation of St. Werburgh and Æthelbald will be -seen in this extract from Dr. Lappenberg’s Pedigree of the Kings of Mercia:</p> - -<div class="monospace"> - Wybba.<br /> - |<br /> - +--------+--------------------------------+<br /> - | |<br /> - Penda, last Pagan King of Eawa, died <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 642.<br /> - Mercia, reigned <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 626-655. (Called “Rex Merciorum.”?)<br /> - | |<br /> - +--------------+------------+ +-------+-----+<br /> - | | | | |<br /> - Peada, K. of M. | Æthelred, K. of Alweo. Osmod.<br /> - <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 655-656. | M. <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 675-704, | |<br /> - | died <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 715. | |<br /> - | | | Eanwulf.<br /> - Wulfhere, K. of M. | | |<br /> - <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 656-675. | | |<br /> - | | | Thingferth.<br /> - +---------------+----+ | | |<br /> - | | | | | |<br /> -Cenred, K. of M. | Beorhtwald, | | |<br /> -<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 704-709. | Sub-King of | | |<br /> - | Wiccia <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> | | |<br /> - | 636. | | <span class="smcap">Offa</span>,<br /> - | Coelred, K. <span class="smcap">Æthelbald</span>, K. of M.<br /> - St. <span class="smcap">Werburgh</span>, of M., <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> K. of M. <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 757-798.<br /> - died about 709-716. <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 716-757<br /> - <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 700. -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The birth, in the West of England, of this assiduous propagator of -the great mediæval embodiment of civilisation, zealous devotee of the -Church, and prominent European statesman, is so important a fact in our -ethnical topography as to deserve a passing, though attentive, glance. -On the authority of those who personally knew him, he was born near -Exeter, about the year 680; but, although no Saxon Conquest had yet -extended so far westward, he bore a Saxon name, although in the midst of -a Celtic people. From this, and from other circumstances also mentioned -of his early life, it may be inferred that his father was a peaceful Saxon -colonist, in advance of conquest, and still a pagan; and that his mother was -a British Christian. He is, therefore, the earliest recorded example of that -irrepressible compound of the two races that has since made so many deep -and broad marks upon the outer world. This fact, of a pacific international -intercourse antecedent to conquest, was so directly in conflict with evolved -history, that it has provoked an ineffectual attempt to subvert the testimony -of it, by questioning the undoubted reading of the name as being -that of Exeter. (E. A. Freeman, Esq., in Archæol. Journal, vol. xxx., or -Macmillan M., Sep. 1873, p. 474).</p> - - -<p>Another, but later, testimony gives us the name of the place near -Exeter where he was born: Crediton, in a deep and most fertile valley of -that middle district in Devon which is the interval between the highlands -of Dartmoor and Exmoor, but rather to the south-west of that district. -Here there is reason to believe Christianity had already been established -at a much earlier time, by Croyde, or Creed, an Irish missionary -virgin, who has left her name at other places throughout both Devon and -Cornwall. The incredulity, that Crediton was the birthplace of S. Bonifatius, -was vindicated by saying that it has “no <i>ancient</i> authority whatever.” -It has not contemporary authority like that for “near Exeter,” which, -however, it strongly confirms, and which, for English topography of so -early a date, is almost unique in its explicitness, but it has an authority as -ancient as we are obliged to be content with for nearly all we know of those -times, and far more respectable than most of it. The authority is a church-service -book, still preserved in Exeter Cathedral, compiled by Bp. Grandisson -(died <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 1366), and attested by his autograph. If this had been a -mere outdoor tradition, and had rested upon no more than the personal -authority of this most distinguished man, it would even then have been the -very highest evidence of its kind. But it does no such thing. Bp. Grandisson -is not the <i>author</i> of the book any more than St. Osmund is the -author of the Usages of Sarum. He is the codifier of the immemorial observances -of the church, at which the contemporary biographer of St. Boniface -attests that he received his earliest teaching; and of the very existence -of which church their irreproachable attestation is by a long interval the -earliest record.</p> - - -<p>But there is another evidence that this great man of his age was -known, to his compatriots in his own province, as one of themselves. Of -this they have left a substantial monument in the dedications of two -churches still remaining in Devon, not in his ecclesiastical name, by which -the rest of the world knew him, but in his birth-name of “Winfrid” by -which they had remembered him. The two more distant extant dedications -of Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, and Banbury, Cheshire, on the contrary, in -their dedications of “St. Boniface” are mere reflections of his realised -continental greatness back upon his own island.</p> - - -<p>Winfrith, near Lulworth, in Dorset, probably had a third western example -of the dedication, for although the present church is of Norman structure, -and with a different dedication (St. Christopher), most likely, as in many -other cases, an earlier sanctuary existed in Winfrid’s name.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> What may be presumed to be another dedication of St. Werburgh -has since been traced to its place, and may be reckoned as an eighth of -those in the home kingdom, at its southern frontier. Among the land-marks -(<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 849) of a place called “Coftun,” is Werburgh’s cross (“in -Wærburge rode”) Cod. Dip. <span class="smcapuc">CCLXII.</span> This has been found to be Cofton -Hackett, in that north point of Worcestershire that abuts upon Staffordshire -and Shropshire.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Lib. v.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> See Warner p. 228. Collinson’s Som., vol. I. Bath, p. 53.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Thomas, Worc. Cath., 1736, Append. No. 9. p. 6. It might be worth -while to search for remains of it in plantations thereabout. It is distinct -from the chapel of St. Blaise, and on a different eminence.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Saturday Rev., Ap. 24, 1875, p. 533.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Reg. Worc. Priory, Camden Soc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Page 105.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> 1846. Glaston. No. <span class="smcapuc">LXXXV.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Cod. Dip., No. <span class="smcapuc">XCII.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> An account of A.S. Coins, &c. Communicated to the Numismatic -Society of London, by Jonathan Rashleigh, Esq., 1868.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Wessexonicè</i> “vvrasseling.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> No matter about their names. Their ethnical pedigree is distinctly -blazoned in their portraits.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> A remarkable cluster of four or five names, with the form “-hoe,” -occurs on the coast of North Devon, in that part where we have already -pointed to the unrecorded Mercian descents upon the Damnonian Britons -(see before pp. <a href="#Page_15">119-121</a>). This is very faraway from the much more numerous -assemblages of it, which are in the Anglian parts of England. It has been -contended that this name-form is a vestige of the Danes, and, on this North -Devon coast, the Danes might quite as likely have left their mark, as the -Mercians. But one of them, “Martinhoe,” is formed by the addition of -“-hoe” to the Christian dedication of the church: not likely, therefore, to -have been named by a pagan colony. Another place, in East Devon not -many miles from the Mercian Widworthy-St. Cuthbert already mentioned, -(<a href="#Page_22">p. 125</a>), called “Pinhoe,” is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> -1001, to have been burnt <i>by</i> the Danes in revenge of a Saxon defeat. Would -this revenge have fallen upon their own countrymen? Also, close to the -South Devon dedication of St. Werburgh (<a href="#Page_17">p. 121</a>), at Wembury, before -mentioned, are two examples of this name-form. One, the well-known -“Hoe,” of Plymouth; another, the village of “Hooe,” in the promontory -itself, where Wembury stands. Again, we have seen above that this very -“regio,” in Kent, which now engages us, was so named “Hogh” so early -as <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 738. Very early for the Danes. Add to this: contemporary with -the first appearance of the Danes in Northumbria, at Lindisfarne, there was -already a place called “Billingahoh,” now “Billing<i>ham</i>,” near Stockton.</p> - - -<p>It is, therefore, evident that “-hoe” was here before the Danes, and -can be no other than an Anglian peculiarity. It is, therefore, an additional -evidence, and very strong confirmation, of what has been already said of -the great Mercian descent upon Devon, that this Anglianism is found -strewed in the very path of it.</p> - - -<p>It will presently be seen that, besides Simeon of Durham, and other -early chroniclers, both Somner and Camden took it for granted that “-hoe” -is only another form, or dialect of “-ham.” It is however not unlikely, -that, as in many other cases, a second mark of names “-haw” or “-haugh,” -said to be Danish, has been concurrent with and undistinguished from this.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Cod. Dip., No. <span class="smcapuc">LXXXV</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> 8<i>b</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> First mentioned by Beda as “Clofeshoch,” and in K. Alfred’s -translation “Clofeshooh.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> See Cod. Dip. <i>passim</i>, for other varieties of the name.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Two S. Chronicles, Oxford, 1565.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> It is to be regretted that editors of ancient texts, have not more -generally extended their care to the preservation of marginal and other -adventitious notes, even when they are of comparatively much later date -than the texts, which of course are their chief care. Such valuable fragments -are in imminent peril at the present day; for whenever a new -discovery of ancient books or records is now brought to the notice of the -most distinguished experts, the very first piece of advice is that they -shall be “cleaned,” “repaired,” and “skilfully” rebound. See, among -others, examples in the Historical Manuscripts Commission, <i>passim</i>. Why -the binding, and even the <i>status quo</i> itself, is a part of the essence of -such things, as monuments. But manuscripts, with far less excuse, are -following the churches on the broad way to refaction, as it may be mildly -called.</p> - - -<p>When the fanciers of books, especially in London, as well as experts -in manuscripts, make a fortunate acquisition of anything, both fine and -unique; after the usual notes of admiration, such as “truly marvellous,” -etc., they go on to say, “but it deserves a better jacket.” And at once -order it to be stripped of its monumental covering, and scoured of the -autumnal tints of many ages; its pedigree, contained in ancient shelf-marks, -and autographs, is discarded; often valuable notarial records of -events that have for safety, like monuments in churches, been entered on -the covers and fly-leaves, are lost; and it is finally converted into a monument -of nineteenth century skill in smooth morocco, “antique style,” &c. -All that is really wanted, however, is either a box-case, or other apparatus -for protection. Keep charters or papers nearly as you do Bank of England -Notes. These are never bound for safe-keeping. On the outsides of these -unattached bindings, or other provisions for safe-keeping, can be lavished -whatever munificence, or luxury of modern art, may be thought to be -a sufficient tribute of admiration to the object contained.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Introd. <span class="smcapuc">LXVIII.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> See Strype’s Works <i>passim</i>, where above 100 transactions of -Heath are referred to, and above 50 of Wotton.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Edn. 1587, p. 196.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> 1607, folio.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Oxon, 1659.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Cod. Dip., No. <span class="smcapuc">LXXXV.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Rochester, Num. IV.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Chron. of Abingdon.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Cod. D., No. <span class="smcapuc">CXIV.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Chron. Sax. Oxon. 1692.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Bæda H. E., cura Jo. Smith, Cant. -722, p. 1748.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Concilia, I., 161.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Monumenta Hist. Brit.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Tanner Bibl. Brit., p. 703.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Concilia, 1639, p. 242.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Beda, 1838, p. 200.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Gloss. Ant. Brit., 1733.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Account of Worc. Cath., 1736, p. 120.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> A.S.K., I. 225.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Will. Malm., G.P. 1870.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Cod. Dip., 1848.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Saxons in E., -1849, I, 191. The <i>name</i>, of Tewkesbury is, however, apparently older -than even this ancient monastery.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_53" id="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Councils, Vol. <span class="smcapuc">III.</span>, Oxf., 1871, -p. 122.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_54" id="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Remains, p. 326.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_55" id="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> A-B. C., I., 224.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_56" id="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> New edition, by Rev. J. Baron, Oxford, 1850.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_57" id="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> C.D. <span class="smcapuc">CLXXXV.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_58" id="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> “Bercaria” is a synonym for the East Marsh at Cliffe.—Monasticon -Angl. V.I., p. 177, No. 52.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_59" id="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Cod. D. <span class="smcapuc">CXXXV.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_60" id="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Cod. D. <span class="smcapuc">CLVII.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_61" id="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> See Cleasby and Vigfusson, v. “Skaga.” The northern pagans, -afterwards such pests of Rochester, must have already landed here.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_62" id="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Cod. D., No. <span class="smcapuc">LII.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_63" id="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> For example, Cod. D. No. <span class="smcapuc">CXI.</span>, which grants lands in the Hoo itself, -viz.: Islingham in Frindsbury, adjoining Cliffe, to Rochester Cathedral.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_64" id="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Geol. Surv. of E. & W., vol. <span class="smcapuc">IV.</span>, London Basin, 1872, pp. 34, 35.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_65" id="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> H. of Essex, I., 235.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_66" id="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> P. 236.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_67" id="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Mon. Anglic. Lillechurch (alias -Higham), Nos. <span class="smcapuc">IV.</span> and <span class="smcapuc">V.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_68" id="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Beda, H. E. <span class="smcapuc">III.</span>, 22.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_69" id="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Beda, H. E., <span class="smcapuc">IV.</span>, 12.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_70" id="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Hist. Kent, <span class="smcapuc">I.</span>, p. 528.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_71" id="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> See Dr. J. H. Pring, in the Somerset Arch. Soc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_72" id="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Cod. Dip., No. <span class="smcapuc">XXXVIII.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_73" id="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> One copy of the A.-S. Chronicle has “Middelseaxe” as early as <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> -653, the other four testify this to be miswritten for “Middelengle.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_74" id="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Conc. pp. 291, 313, 314.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_75" id="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> A. Sax. Chron.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_76" id="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> 6-inch scale.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_77" id="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> C.D., No. <span class="smcapuc">CXVI.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_78" id="Footnote_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Sheet 1.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_79" id="Footnote_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Hist. of Kent, vol. I., p. 526-7.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_80" id="Footnote_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> See also “Willelmus de Cloeville duas partes decime de Acle.” (Mon. -Angl., vol. I., 169.)</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_81" id="Footnote_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Cod. Dip. <span class="smcapuc">CXXI.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_82" id="Footnote_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Hasted (vol. I. p. 531.) quotes a charter of Æthelred, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 1001, -granting to the Priory of Canterbury “Terram Clofiæ.” That is, apparently, -regranting to his newly instituted monks, this very piece of land -which Offa had earlier granted to the secular church. If so, the orthography -“Clofia,” points to its identity with “Cloveshoe.” The nature of -the document quoted by Hasted, may be gathered from a contemporary -one of the same kind, printed in the Monasticon. Vol. I. p. 99. No. V.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_83" id="Footnote_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> Cod. Dip., No. <span class="smcapuc">CCXVII.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_84" id="Footnote_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> C. D., No. <span class="smcapuc">LXXVIII.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_85" id="Footnote_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> There is some difference of this statement among the six texts. -Some include London, and some do not.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_86" id="Footnote_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Cod. Dip., No. <span class="smcapuc">MXXXIV.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_87" id="Footnote_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> De Ant. Brit. Eccl., ed. Drake., p. 81.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_88" id="Footnote_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> C.D., vol. I., Int. p. cvii.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_89" id="Footnote_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Lib. <span class="smcapuc">IV.</span>, ch. 15.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_90" id="Footnote_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Looking at this again, a fresh and interesting association arises. -This must have been at or close to “<i>Red</i>bridge,” at the head of the -Southampton estuary. Beda is telling the story of the two young pagan -Jutish princes, from the Isle of Wight, being baptised, preparatory to their -martyrdom, by Cyniberet abbot of Hreutford. Close to Redbridge is -Nutshalling, the monastery to which the young Winfred, afterwards St. -Bonifatius, passed from Exeter to the care of the abbot “Wynbert.” -There can be no doubt that Beda’s monastery of Hrentford is identical -with the Nutschalling of the biographers of Winfred; and that Beda’s -“Cyniberet” is the same as their “Wynbert.”</p> - - -<p>If this identification, both of a place and a person, that have both been -known by different names for above a thousand years, should be justified; -it will be all the more remarkable, because Beda’s text has been in English -keeping; whilst that of the biographers of Bonifatius has been chiefly in -foreign literary custody.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_91" id="Footnote_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Cod. Dip., No. <span class="smcapuc">CXXXII.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_92" id="Footnote_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> M.H.B., Pref. 77.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_93" id="Footnote_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> Two Chron., Introd., lii.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_94" id="Footnote_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> <a href="#Page_28">P. 28.</a></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_95" id="Footnote_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Kent has 15 extant St. Martins, Lincoln 14, Norfolk 14, Suffolk 7, -Essex 4, Middlesex 8.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_96" id="Footnote_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> <a href="#Page_45">P. 45.</a></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_97" id="Footnote_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Cod. Dip., No. <span class="smcapuc">MCCLXXXIX.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_98" id="Footnote_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> These were both in that suburb, still called “Ladymead.” But it -would be one of the rash things, that are so often committed in these -matters, to connect this name with the two Lady dedications. In fact -there is a tolerable alternative. It may have been a mead that belonged to -one “Godric Ladda,” a witness to an Anglo-Saxon manumission of a -Bondsman, in Bath Abbey. (Hickes, Dissert., 8 Epist., p. 22).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_99" id="Footnote_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> <a href="#Page_21">P. 124-5.</a></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_100" id="Footnote_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Mon. Hist. Brit., p. 664.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_101" id="Footnote_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> A.-S. K., I., 229-30.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_102" id="Footnote_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Flores Hist., 1601. p. 143.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_103" id="Footnote_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Eng. Com., Proofs, cclxxix.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_104" id="Footnote_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Ch. H., 1655, II., <span class="smcapuc">VIII.</span>, 21.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_105" id="Footnote_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> The contemporary authoress of the life of St. Willibald, says that -(about <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 703), it was the custom among the Saxons—<i>i.e.</i> Willibald’s -compatriots in Wessex—for some noble or substantial men, not to erect a -church upon their estates, but to hold in honour a lofty Holy Cross. This -seems a strong confirmation of a recent suggestion of Prof. Earle, that the -English word “Church” is a transliteration, and scarcely that, of the word -“crux.” It seems to be a more likely word for the churches of Augustine -and Birinus, than the usual one more distantly derived. Leland in one -place has “curx” for “crux.” In planting these crosses, these old -Lords of Manors were sowing the seeds of what are to us parishes.</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="adpage"> - -<h2>ALSO ALREADY PUBLISHED.</h2> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">A Primæval British Metropolis.</span> With Notes on the Ancient -Topography of the South-Western Peninsula of Britain. 1877.</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><i>Bristol: Thomas Kerslake & Co.</i> (1<i>s.</i>, <i>postage</i> 2<i>d.</i>)</p> - -<p class="smaller"><i>Contents</i>: The Pen-Pits and Stourhead. Cair Pensauelcoit. Penselwood. The -Nennian Catalogue of Cities. Totnais or Talnas, of the Welsh “Bruts.” Æt Peonnum, -<span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 658 and 1016. Pointington Down, near Sherborne. Celtic Hagiography of Somerset. -Vespasian’s Incursion, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 47. Alauna Sylva. Dolbury and Exeter. Sceorstan, <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> -1016, &c.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Celt and the Teuton in Exeter.</span> <i>With Plan.</i> <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 927.</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><i>Printed in the Archæological Journal (Institute)</i>, <i>Vol.</i> xxx. 1874.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Saint Ewen. Bristol and the Welsh Border.</span> Circiter <span class="smcapuc">A.D.</span> 577-926. -1875.</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><i>Bristol: Thomas Kerslake & Co.</i> (1<i>s.</i> <i>Post free</i>.)</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Ancient Kingdom of Damnonia.</span> In Remains of the Celtic -Hagiology.</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><i>Printed in the Journal of the British Archæological Association.</i> 1876. -<i>Vol.</i> xxxiii.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">What is a Town</span>?</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><i>Printed in the Archæological Journal (Institute)</i>, <i>Vol.</i> xxxiv. 1877.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Various Papers, Notes</span>, &c.</p> - -<hr class="r15" /> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Sanctus Vedastus = Saint Foster.</span></p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Athelney</span> (Before Alfred.)</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Antiquarian Legislation.</span></p> - -<p class="hanging"><span class="smcap">Catherine Bovey</span>, of Flaxley, Gloucestershire, the “Perverse Widow” -of Sir Roger de Coverley. With Notes on the Correspondence of -<span class="smcap">Alexander Pope</span>. (1856.)</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Property in Old Manuscripts.</span></p> - -<hr class="r15" /> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Perhaps may follow</span>:</p> - -<hr class="r15" /> - -<p class="center">Notes on the Place, “<span class="smcap">Augustine’s Oak</span>,” of Ven. Beda.</p> - -<p class="center">Perhaps also:</p> - -<p class="hanging">The <span class="smcap">Dedications</span> of the Churches and Chapels in <span class="smcap">Bristol</span> and -<span class="smcap">Gloucestershire</span>.</p> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vestiges of the supremacy of Mercia in -the south of England during the eighth, by Thomas Kerslake - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VESTIGES OF SUPREMACY OF MERCIA *** - -***** This file should be named 52389-h.htm or 52389-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/3/8/52389/ - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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