Part 7

As it was, King Oswy, mindful of his vow, erected a monastery at Streoneshalh, on the bank of the Esk, where it falls into the sea in Whitby Bay. It was placed on a lofty headland, with a steep ascent from the little fishing hamlet at its foot and a precipitous escarpment to the sea. It was formed for both male and female recluses, and the fame of Hilda for piety and judicious government was such that she was selected by the King as the most fitting for the government of the establishment. Under her rule Streoneshalh became not only a model monastic house, but a great school of secular and theological learning. During her superintendence, not less than five of her scholars attained the mitre, all of them illustrious prelates of the Saxon Church--St. John, of Beverley; St. Wilfrid, of Ripon; and Bosa, Archbishops of York; Hedda, Bishop of Dorchester; and Oftfor, Bishop of Worcester. "Thus," says Bede, "this servant of Christ, whom all that knew her called 'mother,' for her singular piety and grace, was not only an example of good life to those that lived in her monastery, but afforded occasion of amendment and salvation to many who lived at a distance, to whom the fame was brought of her industry and virtue." Fuller observes, "I behold her as the most learned female before the Conquest, and may call her the she-Gamaliel at whose feet many learned men had their education." During her Abbacy, the famous Synod, convened by King Oswy, was held within the walls of Streoneshalh, to settle the vexed questions of the time for the celebration of Easter, and of the tonsure, which were subjects of warm dispute between the ancient British Church and that of Rome, the Northumbrians adhering to the former, as inculcated by the missionary monks of Iona, who had been brought hither by Oswald, and who now occupied the sees of York and Lindisfarne. The King, who had been educated in Scotland, and consequently held to the British modes, presided, whilst his son, Prince Alfred, who had been in Rome, supported the Romanist views.

On the British side were ranged the Abbess Hilda, Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, and the venerable Cedd, Bishop of the East Saxons; on the Romanist, Agilbert, Bishop of the West Saxons, Wilfrid of Ripon, then a priest, Romanus, and James the Deacon. The dispute was settled in favour of the Romish rule, chiefly through the eloquence and force of argument of Wilfrid, who afterwards made so conspicuous a figure in the Northumbrian Church; and Colman, with his British clergy returned to Iona. The Abbess was as famous for miracles as for her other qualities. On the coast of Whitby are found great numbers of specimens of the petrified Cornu Ammonis, commonly called snake stones, resembling as they do coiled-up snakes, without heads. This is how their origin is accounted for. When the Abbey was first built, the neighbourhood was infested by snakes, which were a great annoyance to the brethren and sisters of the monastery, and the Abbess, by means of prayer, caused them all to be changed into stone.

"And how, of thousand snakes, each one Was changed into a coil of stone When holy Hilda prayed: Themselves, within their holy bound, Their stony folds had often found, They told how sea fowls' pinions fail, As over Whitby's towers they sail, And, sinking down, with flutterings faint, They do their homage to the saint."

The Abbess founded some cells in divers places dependant on the Abbey, one of which was at Hackness, near Scarborough, which she made use of as a retreat from the bustle and cares of Streoneshalh, where she could, undisturbed, devote her time more strictly to the exercises of fasting, prayer, and meditation, returning to her duties at the Abbey refreshed and invigorated spiritually, and the better enabled to undergo the distractions incident to her position as head of a community of differing and often perplexing temperaments. To these cells also she frequently sent her nuns, to give them an opportunity for cultivating closer communion with God, for their spiritual edification.

For the last six years of her life the Abbess suffered greatly from severe indisposition, which frequently laid her prostrate for weeks together, "Yet during all this time she never failed to return thanks to her Maker, or publicly and privately to instruct the flock committed to her charge, admonishing them to serve God in health, and thank Him for adversity or bodily infirmity."

Among the nuns under her care was one from Ireland named Bega, who was most exemplary in her attention to the duties of her religious calling, eminently endowed with spiritual grace, and conspicuous for her humility, self-abnegation, and all the virtues which adorn a Christian life; which qualities endeared her to the venerable Abbess, and they came to regard each other as mother and daughter rather than as Lady Superior and ordinary nun of a religious establishment.

During the long illness of the Abbess, Bega was her constant attendant and nurse, and accompanied her in her occasional retreats at Hackness. One afternoon they were seated together in the Abbess's private room, when the invalid seemed to be rallying in health and entering upon one of her alternate periods of comparative convalescence. Bega had been reading to her a new paraphrase of a portion of the Bible, the composition of Cædmon, the cow-boy poet of Streoneshalh. She laid down the manuscript at the conclusion, expressing a hope that the Abbess had not been wearied by her imperfect reading, and that in spite of defective knowledge of the characters on the part of the reader, she had been enabled to follow the sense and appreciate the beauty of the rendering.

"Nothing from the pen of Cædmon," said the Abbess, "ever wearies me; on the contrary, his compositions are so redolent of spiritual beauty that they seem to refresh my soul, and invigorate my body as well. Indeed, at this moment I feel so much better in health that if no relapse occurs in the interval, I propose on the morrow relieving our good Prioress from the duties which I have delegated upon her during my sickness."

"Happy am I," replied Bega at hearing this, "and I trust that God, if he sees fit, may preserve you for many years to come, in the superintendence and guidance of this holy house. But, mother dear, your restoration of bodily strength emboldens me to solicit a boon."

"What is it my dear child? Anything that I can grant shall be yours. I promise this without knowing what you wish, feeling assured that you will solicit nothing that is inconsistent either with your maidenly character or with your altar-made vows."

"I pray for nothing unbeseeming my character in such respects; but, holy mother, of late I fear I have experienced some spiritual declension, and that I have become more carnally minded than becomes one whose thoughts should be centred on Christ alone, and I pray you, mother dear, to permit me to retire into more entire seclusion from the world, that I may by abstinence, prayer, and close communion with God, be restored to a more wholesome frame of soul."

"Your boon is granted, my child, gladly; repair at once to Hackness, and may God shed his blessing upon your pious aspiration for a higher life of holiness."

The following day Bega was escorted to the cell, where the Abbess, with an almost Cistercian eye for sylvan beauty, had planted it, that in the midst of a natural Paradise it might bloom as a spiritual Eden, and there she at once commenced a season of wholesome asceticism and religious exercises.

A week passed away, and Bega, absorbed in her devotional exercises, had become emaciated by the rigour of her fasting without heeding it; and as is usual in such cases, her spirit had become more etherealised and more susceptible of supernatural influences. After vespers one evening she returned to her lonely sleeping apartment, a bare and scantily furnished room, and lay down on her bed, consisting of a thin layer of straw on a hard, wooden pallet, with nothing more than a coarse rug for her coverlet. She slept for a short space, then awoke and rose to repeat the nocturnes, kneeling on the rough flooring stones. She then lay down again and composed herself to sleep, and was in the half-conscious state between sleeping and waking when she was aroused by hearing a passing-bell boom forth, which sounded like that of Streoneshalh, which was miles beyond earshot, and was the more remarkable as the bell of Hackness was much smaller and altogether different in tone. She listened with soul-thrilling awe, and thought, "Can it be that the holy mother is departing at this moment to her heavenly rest, and that the sound of the passing-bell is miraculously brought to mine ears?" Scarcely had the thought flashed across her mind, when, looking upward, the vaulted roof seemed to be melting away, like a mist under the influence of the morning sun. In a very short space of time it disappeared altogether, and there was presented to the eye of the gazer the expanse of sky studded with stars, sparkling like clusters of diamonds. Presently the knell of the passing-bell ceased. And there broke upon her ear the sound of distant vocal music. As it came nearer, it seemed different from any music she had ever heard; unearthly; heavenly; so ravishingly sweet was the melody. The words she was unable to comprehend, but there was something about them which seemed to declare them of celestial origin. With raptured ears she listened as the choir, which appeared to be floating in the air, came on and on until it sounded as if immediately overhead. All this while, too, a constantly increasing effulgence of supernatural light was diffusing itself over the firmament, and when the music came into close proximity to the cell, there burst upon her sight a vision, the glory of which she could have hitherto formed no conception of. It was that of a convoy of angels, fairer and more lovely in form and feature than anything ever conceived by artist or poet, or than ever trod the earth. It was they who were chanting the divine melody as they floated along overhead with an upward tendency; and in their midst was the beautified soul of the sainted mother of Streoneshalh, which they were escorting to the everlasting realms of purity and peace; of eternal rest, and an endless duration of unalloyed happiness. The rapt eyes of Bega were not allowed to rest long on this celestial vision; the group ascended higher and higher; the voices became fainter and fainter, until they were altogether lost; and Bega overcome with emotion, fell into an ecstatic trance, and when she awoke from it there was nothing to be seen but the glimmer of the moonshine on the walls and roof of her cell.

The next day a messenger arrived announcing the death of the Abbess, which he stated occurred immediately after nocturnes on the preceding night.

Bega remained a little while at Streoneshalh, and then went into Cumberland, and provided a religious house, called after her, St. Bees, where she spent the remainder of a most holy life.

A Miracle of St. John.

Two thousand years ago, what is now the East Riding of Yorkshire was chiefly forest land, with the exception of the Wold uplands, which were pastures, almost destitute of trees, having some semblance to the swelling and rolling waves of the ocean, where the Brigantes fed their flocks and herds, where they dwelt in scattered hamlets, and where they now sleep in their multitudinous tumuli. In the lowlands at the foot, the forest was very dense, and was the home of wolves, boars, deer, and other wild animals, which were hunted by the natives, who fed upon their flesh and clothed themselves with their skins. This was called the forest of Deira, and in one spot by the river Hull, a few miles distant from the Humber, was a cleared space, with an eminence in the midst, and at its foot, extending westward, a pool of water, afterwards a marsh or moor, and since drained, forming now a portion of the town of Beverley, its former condition being indicated by two parallel streets--Minster-moorgate, the place of the moor by the Minster; and Keldgate, the place of springs. This was a Druidical open air temple, where the mystical rites of Druidism were performed.

When the primitive Christian religion was introduced into Britain, it is presumed that a Christian church was established here, on the rising ground by the lake, as the early Christians built their churches, where practicable, on spots held sacred by the people, which supposition seems to be confirmed by the express statement that St. John rebuilt, not built, the church in Deira Wood. This early church, doubtless a very rude affair of timber and thatch, was destroyed or allowed to fall into ruin when the Saxons and Angles overspread the land and replaced the religion of Christ by that of Odin. It might possibly be repaired during the short period after the second introduction of Christianity by Paulinus and the conversion of King Eadwine, but, if so, would be again destroyed a few years after, under the desolating hands of Penda of Mercia, and Cadwalla, as it lay in ruins until the beginning of the eighth century, when it was restored on a grander scale by John, Archbishop of York.

St. John, the learned and pious prelate, one of the brightest luminaries of the Saxon Church, was a member of a noble Saxon family, a native of Harpham on the Wolds. He was born in the year 640, studied in the famous Theological School of St. Hilda at Streoneshalh, and became successively Bishop of Hagulstat (Hexham) and Archbishop of York, which latter see he held, with unblemished reputation and great usefulness, for a period of more than thirty-three years.

He was almost incessantly employed in going about his vast diocese, rectifying abuses, regulating disordered affairs, exhorting the lax, and commending the faithful. In one of these visitations he came to the place in the forest of Deira which had been, half a millennium previously, the Llyn-yr-Avanc of the Celts, and, according to some antiquaries, the Peturia of the Romans, a conjecture which is supported by the discovery of a tesselated pavement and other Roman remains, where he found the ruins of the old primeval British Church. The beauty and seclusion of the spot struck him as being eminently fitted for the establishment of a monastery, and probably the thought flashed across his mind that hither he would like to retire, in his declining years, to finish his life, after the cares and anxieties of his prelateship, in the calm of cloistered existence and in the company of a pious brotherhood.

He did not allow the idea to pass away from his thoughts, but soon after made arrangements for carrying it out. He rebuilt the choir of the old church, founded a monastery of Black Monks, of the order of St. Columba, and an oratory for nuns, south of the church, which afterwards was converted into the parish church of St. Martin; erected the church of St. Nicholas, in the manor of Riding; placed seven secular priests and other ministers of the altar in the head church, and appointed Brithunus the first Abbot of the monastery, with superintendence over the other establishments. In 717, he resigned his see, being then feeble and oppressed by the infirmities of age, and retired to his monastery, where he died in 721, and was buried in the porch at the eastern end of the church.

After St. John, the next greatest benefactor to the church and town of Beverley was Athelstan the Great, King of Saxon England. Indeed, he may be considered the founder of the secular, as St. John was of the ecclesiastical, town. The town and church had been destroyed by the Danes in 867, but a few years after the dispersed canons and monks returned, and repaired, as far as they could, their ruined buildings, so as to be able to continue the celebration of the services; but they remained in a dilapidated state for nearly half a century, when Athelstan laid the foundations of the future grandeur of the church, and of the commercial importance of the town. He had heard of the sanctity of St. John, and the wonderful series of miracles he had performed, both during his life and after his death, and having occasion to chastise Constantine, King of Scotland, for abetting the Danish Anlaf of Northumbria in an invasion of that portion of his dominions--for he had by conquest added northern England to his government, and was in truth the first King of England, rather than Egbert--he visited Beverley on his march to Scotland, and implored the aid of the Saint, leaving his dagger on the altar as a pledge that, if successful, he would bestow princely benefactions on the church and town. By the assistance of St. John, who appeared to him in a vision, he was the victor in the decisive battle of Brunnanburgh, and nobly he kept his word. He made the church a college of secular canons; endowed it with four thraves of corn from every plough in the East Riding; and made it a place of sanctuary, as a refuge for criminals, with a stone frid-stool, still in the Minster. He granted a charter to the town, constituting it the capital of the East Riding, with many privileges and extraordinary rights; in consequence of which opulent merchants flocked to the town, and it soon began to flourish mightily, and became one of the wealthiest and most important of the trading towns of the realm. He also assigned the manor to the Archbishops of York, who built a palace there on the south of the church; vied with each other in their patronage of the town, and in adding to and endowing the collegiate church.

In the beginning of the eleventh century Archbishop Puttock added a chancellor, a precentor, and a sacrist to the establishment, and erected a costly shrine for the relics of St. John, to which they were translated with great pomp in 1037. Archbishop Kinsius erected a western tower to the church, and Aldred, who held the see at the time of the Conquest, rebuilt the choir, and ornamented it with paintings and other decorative work, completed the refectory and dormitory of the monastery, and increased the number of canons from seven to eight, changing them at the same time from canons to prebendaries.

At this time--the period of the Conquest and of the legend--we may assume from the usual characteristics of the church architecture of the time, that the church was an oblong building of two stories, divided into a nave and chancel, with a low tower at the western end. There would probably be a lower and an upper range of circular-headed windows, with doorways of the same character, decorated with zigzag mouldings, and in the interior would be a double row of massive stunted columns, supporting semi-circular arches, and at the eastern end, in the chancel, the superb shrine of St. John, which was attracting pilgrims from all parts, and was beginning to be encrusted with the silver and the gold and the gems, bestowed for that purpose by the pilgrims in grateful remembrance of wonderful cures effected upon them by the miracle working of the saint. Such would most probably be the church in which occurred the incidents narrated in our legend.

When the Norman Duke William had won the battle of Hastings, and subdued southern and mid England, and had been crowned King in the place of the slain Harold, he discovered that he was not really King of England, but of a part only--that portion north of the Humber, forming the old Saxon kingdom of Northumbria of the Heptarchy, and one of the Vice-Royal Earldoms of Saxon England, continuing to maintain its independence with stubborn tenacity; and it was not until after much bloodshed that he overcame the sturdy Northumbrians of a mixed Anglian and Danish race, and garrisoned York, the capital, with a Norman garrison to keep the province in subjection. No sooner, however, was his back turned than the people, under Gospatric, Waltheof, and other Danish and Saxon leaders, broke out afresh in insurrection, massacred the Norman garrison at York, and vowed to drive that people and their Duke, the usurper of Harold's throne, from Northumbria at least, if not from England altogether. It was after one of the most formidable risings that the Conqueror swore that "by the splendour of God" he would utterly destroy and exterminate the Northumbrians, so that no more rebellions should rise to trouble him in that quarter of his dominions; and with this view he marched northwards, crossed the Humber--probably at Brough--and encamped at a spot some seven miles westward of Beverley, purposing to proceed henceward to York on the morrow.

On his road from the Humber to his encampment he had burnt the villages and crops, and slain the villagers who came in his way, but the majority, taking the alarm, fled to Beverley, hoping to find safety within the limits of the League of Sanctuary, thinking that even so merciless a soldier as Duke William would respect its hallowed precincts. But he, godly in a sense, and superstitious as he was, entertained no such scruples, and he had no sooner seen his army encamped than he despatched Thurstinus, one of the captains, with a body of Norman soldiers to ravage and plunder the town.

The people of Beverley and the fugitives who had fled thither deemed themselves safe under the protection of their patron saint; nevertheless they felt some alarm when the news was brought that the ruthless Conqueror lay so near them, and still more when they heard that a detachment was marching upon the town with hostile intentions. The church was filled with devotees, who prostrated themselves before the saint's shrine, imploring him not to abandon his church and town in this extremity. The day had been gloomy and downcast, but when they were thus supplicating the holy saint the sun came shining through one of the windows directly upon the shrine, and lighted it up with a brilliance that seemed supernatural, which was looked upon as a favourable response to the prayers of the supplicants.

Thurstinus and his followers had by this time entered the town, but had, so far, done no injury to either person or property. As they approached the church, they perceived before them a venerable figure, clad in canonical raiment, with gold bracelets on his arms, moving across the churchyard, towards the western porch. The sight of the golden bracelets excited the cupidity of one of the subalterns of the corps, who darted after him, sword in hand, and overtook him just as he was passing through the portal. The soldier had but placed his foot within the church, when the aged man turned towards him and exclaimed, "Vain and presumptuous man! darest thou enter my church, the sacred temple of Christ, sword in hand, with bloodthirsty intent? This shall be the last time that thine hand shall draw the sword," and instantly the sword fell from his grasp, and he sank down on the ground, stricken by a deadly paralysis. Thurstinus, not witting what had happened to his officer, came riding up, with drawn sword, with the intent of passing into the church to despoil it of its valuables; but on entering the doorway he was confronted by the aged man with the bracelets, who stretched forth his arm, and said to him, "No further, sacrilegious man; wouldst thou desolate my church? Know that it is guarded by superhuman power, and thou must pay the penalty of thy impious temerity!" and immediately he fell from his horse to the pavement with a broken neck, his face turned backward, and his feet and hands distorted "like a misshapen monster." At this manifest interposition of Heaven the Normans fled back to the encampment with terror-stricken countenances, and the people in the church looked round for their deliverer, but he had vanished, and they then knew that it was St. John himself, who had come down from heaven to protect his town and church from the insult and ravages of Norman ferocity.