Part 21

Some reference may properly be made to the individual activity of Nottingham citizens. The religious work of the town is mainly dependent upon voluntary contributions, and in medical matters the various hospitals of the town form a striking testimony to this principle; while voluntary education is well represented by the High School and the Blue Coat School. Even the University College owes its origin to the anonymous gift of £10,000, and it is a matter of common knowledge that the great religious and social organisation known as the Salvation Army, which is based wholly upon volunteer work, was founded by a native of Nottingham. The literary activity of the town has not been small. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Dr. Standfast, the rector of Clifton, founded the professional library known by his name, which is merged in Bromley House Library, established in 1816. But even in much humbler ranks of life the value of books was recognised. Few perhaps realise what the working classes of Nottingham did before rate-supported libraries were started. Seventy years ago there were at least six operatives’ libraries supported by the weekly pence of working men, and the remarkable point about them--surprising perhaps to modern philanthropists--is, that they were situated at obscure taverns in some of the poorest parts of the town. That at the Rancliffe Arms, founded in 1835, had 2200 volumes; another at the Seven Stars owned about 1800 volumes, and the one at the Alderman Wood possessed 2150 volumes, while the Oddfellows’ Library had 2300. There was another at the People’s Hall, and in 1836 was founded the Mechanics’ Institution, which, with its library, lectures, and classes, has done such valuable work for the intellectual advancement of the town, and is a centre of great literary activity. Even the rate-supported Public Library was based upon the old Artisans’ Library, which was founded as long ago as 1824.

At Nottingham is one of the ancient crossing places of the river Trent, the history of which dates back about a thousand years, for the building of a bridge here has been ascribed to Edward the Elder. The large expanse of alluvial land between the town and the present bed of the Trent necessitated in fact more than one bridge, as is hinted at in the colloquial plural form, not perhaps yet obsolete, of the Trent bridges, instead of merely Trent bridge. Passing the meadows from the foot of St. Mary’s rock, a series of bridges carried the London road to the narrow stone bridge of eighteen or twenty arches, which, forty years ago, was superseded by the present bridge of stone and iron.

Medieval records have much to tell us of the building of the Trent bridge. Then, as now, the maintenance of the bridge was provided for without calling upon the townsmen for enforced contributions in the shape of rates. Seven hundred years ago the care and maintenance of the bridge was undertaken by the Hospital of St. John, in Nottingham, and in 1231 we have the record of “indulgences” of thirteen days given to those aiding in the building of the bridge of Hoybel at Nottingham--doubtless the structure known in later times as the Hethbeth bridge, a name of which the origin has not been satisfactorily determined.

Bridges, then, were largely maintained with ecclesiastical support by voluntary gifts, as is shown by various episcopal records granting “indulgences” for their benefit. A chapel was commonly associated with a bridge, and the Trent bridge, with the chapel of St. Mary at the north end, was no exception to the rule. In 1303 John le Paumer of Nottingham, and Alice his wife, settled property in Nottingham amounting to the substantial annual value of £6, 13s. 5d. for the endowment of two chaplains for a daily service in the chapel of St. Mary at Hethbeth bridge, “for the souls of them, their ancestors, and all Christians who assign their goods or part of them for the maintenance of the bridge.” John le Paumer died within the next few years, but his widow, Alice le Paumer, continued the good work, and in 1311 she obtained a grant of pontage, or the right of levying tolls on wares brought over the bridge, in order to provide the necessary funds, and provision was made for auditing the proceeds and the expenditure which she incurred. For fifteen or sixteen years the work seems to have continued under her care, for there exists in the Patent Rolls record of various grants to this lady in connection with the bridges. In 1314 occurs the specific statement that she was then building the bridge of Hethbeth, and four years later that the right to take pontage is extended for a further period of four years to provide also for the repair of any bridge to be built between Hethbeth bridge and the land towards “Gameleston,” now Gamston. This second bridge seems to have been built within the space of two years, for in July 1321 it was still spoken of as “to be built,” and in November 1323 it is stated to be “newly built.” In 1324 Alice le Paumer received a further grant of pontage for three years for the repair of Hethbeth bridge and “the bridge of the new breach by the said bridge.”

It is not altogether easy to determine what these two bridges were. Between our modern Trent bridge and the land towards Gamston there could not have been any bridge, and the situation of the two bridges must be sought for somewhere in the London road between the town and West Bridgford. The Hethbeth bridge has been assumed to be, and probably correctly, the southern part of that series of arches which carry the roadway over the meadows to the south of the Leen. From the alluvial conformation of the land it is not unlikely that the Trent may have altered its course, or that it may have become divided here. If so the old stone bridge demolished some forty years ago would be that built by Alice le Paumer about 1321–1323, and described as the bridge of the “new breach,” an expression perhaps indicative of some new course then made by the Trent.

The ancient stone bridge, which the older inhabitants of the city well remember, stood a little to the west of the present iron structure. One or two of the arches at the southern end have been left standing, and they indicate its width, or perhaps one might rather say its narrowness, in medieval times, though at some later period the bridge was widened, but not sufficiently to permit of a footpath on either side, and the only refuge from the traffic available for pedestrians was to be found in the angular recesses which surmounted the buttresses. Most of the arches of the bridge were pointed and narrow, dating probably from the time of Alice le Paumer, but those at the northern end had been rebuilt in the seventeenth century in a wider and rounded style. It was a picturesque and interesting structure, and as far as traffic was concerned at the time of its demolition, amply sufficed for the needs of the district. Only on market days was the foot passenger troubled by the traffic across the bridge--a great contrast to the present time, when the bridge has to serve the requirements of the populous suburb which has taken the place of the little country village of West Bridgford. It was in 1870 that the present Trent bridge was opened to traffic, and shortly after the ancient structure, which for so many centuries had served the needs of the men of Nottingham, was removed, all save the arches, which serve as the entrance to the riverside walk to Wilford. Those who are curious about relics of the past may like to know that some of the stonework of the old Trent bridge was utilised in building a new aisle to Plumtree Church.

The Trent bridge is richly endowed, and out of the revenues of the bridge estate were provided the funds needed to build the present structure, without recourse to the ratepayer. These endowments are of ancient standing, and in an extension of this system of voluntary endowment followed by our ancestors may yet be found the way to relieve the ratepayer of the ever-increasing burden of local taxation.

Half a century ago there were in the county but two bridges across the Trent--at Nottingham and Newark. Now we have in addition those at Wilford and Gunthorpe, besides the two railway bridges at Nottingham. As against this must be set the recent discontinuance of the ancient ferry which from Roman times or even earlier had existed at Littleborough.

This sketch of the history and character of a great city is imperfect, as such attempts must be when limited to the space of a few pages. Perhaps it will suffice to show that Nottingham is no mean city, but one of which the inhabitants are rightly proud. Those who have settled there by choice, and those who are natives of the town, alike pride themselves upon it with good reason.

SOUTHWELL

BY W. E. HODGSON,

_Priest-Vicar of Wells Cathedral, and late Assistant-Curate of Southwell Minster_

Hidden in a hollow amidst the undulating downs which skirt the vale of Trent, Southwell has escaped the notice which it deserves from both the antiquary and the historian. Its annals are not wildly exciting, for the streets of the little township have not often resounded to the clash of arms, nor its halls been the scene of statesmen’s high debate; but its history is really interesting to the serious student, for in some ways it is unique. And above all, the lover of our church architecture finds in the stones of the Minster a majesty of conception, mixed with an extreme delicacy of detail, which it is not easy to excel.

The best way to approach Southwell is to travel by the road from Nottingham which passes through Thurgarton, the low road the natives call it, for when the pilgrim has breasted Brackenhurst Hill, he is greeted by a truly artistic view: the sight of Southwell Minster nestling in the valley below, framed in a plentiful surrounding of trees, and banked with a pleasing profusion of red-tiled roofs. It is the south side of the church which is thus seen, and the picture of the cathedral standing in the midst of green fields, once the Archbishop of York’s park, seems the very ideal of peace and tranquillity. It is indeed a true epitome of the whole story of the church and town.

The history of Southwell is known to reach back to the year 956, but like many other places whose origins are uncertain, that history has been extended still further back into the past, till it rests on the very weakest of foundations. The mistake arose partly, no doubt, from a desire to attach to the church the well-known name of some pioneer of Christianity in this land, and partly from the mistaken identity of the locality of Tiovulfingacester, the place near which, so Bede tells us, Paulinus baptized large numbers of converts in the Trent. Camden, who is followed by all the local historians, describes Paulinus as the founder of the first church at Southwell, but there is no real evidence to support this assertion, and we must be content to admit that the origin of the place is unknown. The locality, however, was inhabited during the Roman occupation of Britain, for undoubted Roman remains have been discovered. A piece of pavement can be seen beneath some old wooden stalls in the south limb of the transept of the Minster, and when some digging was in progress a few years ago in the garden of the Residence House, to the east of the Minster, the remains of a Roman wall were discovered. These remains were photographed before they were covered up again, and it is quite possible in the summer to trace the course of the masonry beneath the lawn by the lighter shade of green which it causes the grass above it to assume. Experts, to whom the fragments of pottery and other things which have been dug up in the garden have been shown, are convinced of their genuineness. Whether the Roman occupation took the form of a villa or an encampment we cannot tell; but the sheltered hollow in which Southwell lies is one that would have taken the fancy of some magnate seeking a site for his country house, for it would have been easily accessible from the Trent, and was also within a few miles of the Fosse way. But this is all conjecture, and though at any time the spade may reveal direct evidence of earlier history, yet at present we can only start with certainty at the year 956 A.D.

There is no direct evidence to show in what diocese Southwell lay before 956, for it is uncertain whether that part of Nottinghamshire belonged to Lindsey or Mercia. If the boundary lay to the west of Southwell, then it was in Lindsey and in the diocese of Sidnaceaster,[52] and the province of York, but if to the east, it was in Mercia, and so in the diocese of Lichfield and the province of Canterbury. Nottingham itself was in Mercia,[53] but Newark seems always to have belonged to the Archbishops of York, and so was probably in Lindsey.[54] There is ample evidence to suppose that the boundary lay between Southwell and Newark, a supposition to which the connection of the former with St. Eadburg lends weight. This connection of St. Eadburg is unfortunately not at all clear. In a tractate on the burial-places of English saints, which was apparently a kind of pilgrims’ guide to famous shrines (the oldest extant copy is assigned to the year 1015), there is the following entry: “There resteth St. Eadburg in the Minster near the water which is called Trent.” St. Eadburg, abbess of the monastery of Repton, died at the beginning of the eighth century; she was a lady of Mercian royal descent, and the friend of St. Guthlac, the founder of Croyland, to whom on one occasion she sent a coffin and a winding-sheet, with a request that he should use them when the proper time arrived. These strange gifts St. Guthlac is said to have ordered to be used after his death.[55]

St. Eadburg of Repton is generally considered to be the saint of that name whose shrine was mentioned in the pilgrims’ guide as being at Southwell. But why was she buried at Southwell? It has been conjectured that she founded a monastery there; but there is no evidence of this, and as far as we have any certain knowledge there does not seem to have ever been a time when any regular Order was established at Southwell. Tradition also is silent on the point. Before 956 Southwell was probably a royal estate, and perhaps one of the least disturbed parts of Mercia. Besides, in those days, the peregrinations of the bones of saints were not infrequent, and St. Eadburg’s must have been moved to Southwell some time after her death, as it appears that St. Eadburg’s body lay at the Monastery of Limming or Lyminge in Kent for over 150 years. For there are references to her in two charters in Birch’s _Cartularium Saxonicum_.

(1) A grant of land in Canterbury, A.D. 804, by Coenulph, King of the Mercians, and Cuthred, King of the Cantuarii, to Selethryth, Abbess of the Convent at Limming, “ubi pausat corpus beatæ Eadburgæ.” (B.C.S. 317, Cod. Dip. 188.)

(2) A grant by Athelstan to the church of St. Mary, Lyminge, of land at Vlaham or Elham in Kent, A.D. 964. In this charter Lyminge is described as the place “ubi sepulta est sancta Eadburga.” (B.C.S. 1126.)

If these charters are genuine, an interesting question is raised. What was the connection of St. Eadburg with Lyminge, and why was her body moved, so long after her death, to Southwell? A possible answer to the second question is that her bones were moved to Southwell by order of King Edgar, to enhance by their presence, the gift of land at Southwell, which King Eadwig had made to Oskytel of York in 956.[56] If this was so, the body was probably moved to Southwell very shortly after 964. This grant of land by King Eadwig to Archbishop Oskytel of York, in 956, is the first real fact in the history of Southwell. The genuineness of the charter which embodies this gift has been called in question, but the balance of evidence seems distinctly in favour of its authenticity. The extent of the lands granted to the archbishop, as far as can be made out from the charter,[57] corresponds roughly to the territory now belonging to the two parishes of Southwell, St. Mary and Holy Trinity.[58]

It is not meant to infer that there was no church at Southwell before 956, but that up till then it had most probably been one of the numerous minsters or parochial churches distributed over the county. Some people still think, because the church at Southwell is called “the Minster,” that it was once served by monks. Such was not the case, and it is a noticeable fact that the churches to which this name has clung were none of them monastic--York, Lincoln, Beverley, and Southwell. The word “Monasterium,” the Bishop of Bristol[59] says, “is used in the Middle Ages for a parish church in the country. ‘Minster’ has always been a special Yorkshire word, York Minster, Beverley Minster.”

An interesting fact about this grant of land by Eadwig to Oskytel is that it seems to be the first recorded instance of a grant of private jurisdiction, the archbishop being given sac and soc over his new estate. Oskytel did not, in all probability, leave the church purely parochial, but established a college of Secular Canons there, whose duty it was to serve the Minster, and also to look after the neighbouring churches. If he founded the college he would also most likely rebuild and enlarge the church to make it more worthy of its higher position. Though at this period the history of Southwell seems to consist only of probabilities, yet we do know for certain that by the Norman Conquest there was a College of Canons there who were prebendaries, for Domesday Book, in speaking of the lands which the archbishop possessed at Southwell, describes two bovates as being “in a prebend.” This is very interesting, for very few, if any, other canons held their land as prebendaries before the Conquest, those of the great church at York not reaching that status till the episcopate of Thomas of Bayeux[60] (1070–1100). Also Archbishop Ealdred (1060–1070) is recorded as having bought land to “found prebends” at Southwell.

This College of Secular Canons had a remarkable career. At the time of the Conquest they were seven in number, and by the end of the thirteenth century they had grown to sixteen, at which number they remained until the dissolution of the Chapter seventy years ago. The history of this college may not be exciting, but its career is most interesting, for it lasted from before the eleventh century until the year 1840. No other ecclesiastical corporation in the country had such a long existence, surviving the storms of the Reformation to be swept away by the almost fanatical wave of reform which raged over England during the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

But we must return to earlier days. Even after the first real fact of 956 the history of Southwell remains very incomplete, nothing but a few scraps of information rewarding the most diligent search, and the reader must bear in mind that the meagre scraps that are to be picked up are almost entirely ecclesiastical, for the history of Southwell consists simply of the history of the Chapter and their church.

Ælfric Puttoc, Archbishop of York (1023–1050), is said, like many of his successors, to have lived at Southwell, and to have died there. He was a very worldly-minded prelate and bears a bad reputation, though he is said to have been a great benefactor to Southwell; which is quite likely as he particularly favoured the great secular churches of his diocese, and among other things organised the College of Canons at Beverley. He was, however, a magnificent patron of the abbey of Peterborough where he was buried. His successor Kinsi (1050–1060), gave some large bells to Southwell, and Ealdred, who succeeded him, bought lands to found prebends there, and also built, both at Southwell and York, a refectory.[61] Ealdred was fated to be the last Saxon archbishop, and he seems to link the Saxon and Norman races together by the fact that he crowned both Harold and William the Conqueror. We know of little intercourse between Thomas of Bayeux, the first Norman Archbishop of York, and Southwell, but his successor Gerard, a man of great learning, and one who played a curious part in the political and ecclesiastical life of William II.’s reign, is supposed to have rebuilt the palace. He is a man who has not had justice done him in contemporary history. He held very advanced views on Church matters, and was in great disfavour because his studies were far too secular for those days, being devoted to mathematics and astronomy. His zeal for these subjects only drew down on him the suspicion of dabbling in magic and evil practices, and he was verily believed to have sold himself to the devil for the sake of forbidden knowledge.[62] Gerard spent much time at Southwell, where he died, and the story of his death is worth recording. On May 21, 1108, the archbishop had been dining and went for a walk in the garden “near the dormitory.” Lying down to rest on a bank with his head on a cushion he not unnaturally fell asleep, but it was, in the words of the chronicler,[63] “a fatal sleep,” for he never woke again. His end was regarded as most shocking, not so much for the way of his death, but because underneath the cushion on which his head had rested was found a book by Julius Firmicus, a writer on mathematics and astrology. His last moments had thus been given to the study of the black arts, and his sudden end was regarded as the righteous judgment of Heaven for indulging in such a sin. His body was carried from Southwell to York by an “unfrequented road,” and on its arrival was not met, as was usual, by the citizens and clergy of the cathedral, but by noisy boys who irreverently pelted the bier with stones. He was buried outside the cathedral without any funeral rites, and it was left to his successor to transfer his body from this unhallowed grave to a more fitting resting-place within the Minster church. Perhaps it was not only his secular studies and untimely end that caused the canons of York to treat his body with such disrespect, for it is probable that they bore him no good will because he had zealously tried to reform their morals and discipline, which were very lax. Another reason why Gerard’s body was treated with such indignity, and which made his contemporaries feel so sure that his life beyond the grave would be anything but happy, was the fact that he had died without making a will, and so had made no bequests to the Church or to the poor which might have atoned for his evil life.