Part 42

[31] In 1696, the castle was garrisoned by the royal troops, the daily expense of which may be estimated by the following examples:--The governor, in addition to six captains’ pay, had 2s. a day; the gunner, 20d.; a mathorse, 10d.; fire and candle for the guard, 8d.; a company of foot, consisting of a captain, 8s.; a lieutenant, 4s.; two sergeants, at 1s. 6d. each, 3s.; three corporals and a drummer, at 1s. each, 4s.; sixty-two soldiers, at 8d. each, 41s. 4d. = £3. 5s. 6d.--_Hist. of Chepstow._

[32] Fosbroke--Local History and Guide.

[33] His history is short and melancholy. In the course of the American war, he was appointed governor of the island of St. Vincent, where he expended a large sum from his own private resources in its fortification. Upon its fall, the minister of the day disavowed his claim for compensation. His creditors became clamorous, and he was cast into the King’s Bench prison, where he languished for twelve years. When released from his confinement, he was broken in health and spirits--suffering most of all from the domestic calamity which his fallen fortunes had produced in the insanity of his wife; and shortly after he died at the house of a relative in London. He was a generous and benevolent man, as the poor of his neighbourhood could well testify. On his departure for the West Indies, they came in troops to bid him a tearful farewell; and the muffled bells of the neighbouring church rang a funeral knell as he left the home of his love, and the scenes which he had embellished both by his taste and his life.--_Roscoe’s South Wales._

[34] Chepstow Guide.

[35] “It may almost be said,” remarks the same writer, “that the last happy moments Gray knew in this world were spent upon the Wye; for, a few months after, we find him a prey to ill health and despondency--complaining of an incurable cough, of the irksomeness of his employment at Cambridge, and of ‘mechanical low spirits.’ He died in the course of the following summer, æt. 55.”--P. M. August, 1835.--See his Life by Mason.

[36] The historian of the abbey here quoted has probably made some mistake in the name; as it was to _Neath_ Abbey, not Tinterne, that King Edward retreated.--_See Append._

[37] In 1210, when King John summoned all the ecclesiastics and religious orders to meet him at London, he levied fines, which were computed to amount to £100,000. The White or Cistercian Monks alone paid £40,000 of silver additional; and their order, for a time, became so much reduced, that it was dispersed throughout all the other monasteries of England. From this condition, however, they speedily recovered; and of the seventy-five religious houses of this order that flourished at the Dissolution, _thirty-six_ were superior monasteries.--_Ecclesiast. Hist._

[38] 1287.--Conventus Ecclesiæ Beatæ Mariæ de Tynterna intravit dictam ecclesiam ad celebrandum in _nova_ ecclesia. Et quinto nonas Octobris in anno sequenti Conventus intravit in choro, et prima missa celebrata fuit ad magnum altare. Dedicacio Ecclesiæ Tynterniæ, 28 die Jullii. F. littera.--_Will. de Worc._

[39] Citeaux--now Gilly-les-Citeaux--so famous for its abbey. “L’abbaye de Citeaux,” says a French tourist, “chef d’ordre d’où dependaient 3,600 couvents de deux sexes, fut fondée par Saint Robert, Abbé de Molesme en 1098. Saint Bernard y prit l’habit en 1113, et y jeta la même année, les fondements de l’abbaye de la Ferté sur Gròne; de celle de Pontigny en 1114; de celles de Clairvaux et de Morimont en 1115, appelées _les quatre filles de Citeaux_.” Yet Citeaux, afterwards so famous, was a miserable desert at the arrival of St. Robert and his disciples:--“Qui locus (_Cistercium_) et pro nemorum, et spinarum tunc temporis opacitate accessui hominum insolitus, a solis feris inhabitabatur. Ad quem Viri Dei venientes locumq. tantó religione quam animo jamque conceperant et propter quam illuc advenerant, habiliorem quanto secularibus despicabiliorem et inaccessibilem intelligentes, nemorum et spinarum densitate prescissa et remota, Monasterium ibidem construere cœperunt.--_Mon. Angl. art. Cister._ v. iv. 695.

[40] Quia etiam beatum Benedictum non in civitatibus, nec in Castellis aut in villis, sed _in locis à frequentia hominum et populi semotis_, Cœnobia construisse sancti viri illi sciebant, idem se æmulari promittebant. Et sicut ille monasteria constructa per _duodenos monachos adjuncto patre_ disponebat, sic se acturos confirmabant.--_Monast. Angl. ii.; art. Cisterc._

Exuti ergo veterem hominem, novum se induisse gaudent: et quia nec in regula nec in vita Sancti _Benedicti_ eundem doctorem tegebant possedisse ecclesias, vel altaria seu oblationes aut sepulturas vel decimas aliorum hominum seu furnos vel molendinos aut villas aut rusticos, nec etiam fæminas monasterium ejus intrâsse, nec mortuos ibidem excepta sorore sua sepelisse, ideo _hæc omnia abdicaverunt_, dicentes--ubi beatus _Benedictus_ docet ut monachus à secularibus actibus se faciat alienum, &c., &c.--_Monast. Angl. iv._ 699.

[41] It is added that, when Cœur-de-Lion was about to start for the Holy Land (A.D. 1191), Folgius, a bold confessor of the church, exhorted the monarch to dismiss his three daughters before joining the Crusade. “Hypocrite!” said the king, “well thou knowest that I have no daughters.” “My liege,” rejoined the confessor, “you have three--Pride, Avarice, and Luxury.” “Aha!” exclaimed Richard, “why, then, the Templars shall have Pride--the Cistercians, Avarice--and as for Luxury, let my bishops and clergy share her among them, and then they will all be well provided for until my return.”--_Thomas’s Tinterne._

[42] They became so powerful at last, that they were said to “govern all Christendom;” but, if they did not govern, they had at least an influence in every government and kingdom of Europe. Cardinal de Vetri says, they neither wore skins nor shirts; never ate flesh, except in sickness; and abstained from fish, eggs, milk, and cheese; lay on straw-beds in tunics or cowls; rose at midnight to prayer; spent the day in labour, reading, and prayer; and in all they did, exercised a continual silence.--_See Monast. Angl._

[43] In quo _regula_ sine ulla mitigatione ad apicem servaretur.--_Mabillon_, quoted by Fosbroke.

[44] _Brit. Monachism_, p. 69.

[45] Dev. Vie Monastique.--Brit. Monachism, _note_, page 70.

[46] De Orig. et Progr. Monach., p. 313, quoted by Fosbroke, p. 70.

[47] “Critics who censure the west window as too broad for its height, do not consider that it was not intended for a particular object, but to harmonize with the general plan; and had the architect diminished the breadth in proportion to the height, the grand effect of the perspective would have been considerably lessened.”--_Coxe._

[48] The following are the ancient admeasurements of the church and cloisters:--

Longitudo ecclesiæ _Sanctæ Maria Tynterniæ_ continet 75 virgas. _Item_, in dicta ecclesia sunt ex parte australi 10 archus, et inter quamlibet columnam sunt 5 virgæ longitudinis cujuslibet dictorum 10 arcuum: item sunt in parte inferiori dictæ ecclesiæ ex parte australi 10 fenestræ de consimili operatione. Et 10 fenestræ principales ex parte boreali ecclesiæ, et quælibet fenestra continet duas magnas panellas fenestratas. _Item_, in _le ovyrhistorye_ sunt consimiliter 10 fenestræ principales, et quælibet fenestra continet duas panas vitratas secundum proportionem, quamvis non secundum quantitatem fenestrarum totius ecclesiæ Westmonasterii apud Londoniam.--_Will. de Worc._

[49] Latitudo _orientalis fenestræ_ ante magnum altare, continet 8 pannas _glasatas_ cum armis ROGERI BYGOT, fundatoris. Et in orientali parte duarum elarum orientalium, in earum duabus fenestris, quælibet fenestra constat ex tribus panis vitreatis sine armis. Item longitudo _Chori_ constat ex iiii. arcubus ultra quantitatem areæ quadratæ campanilis principalis in medio Chori qua; continet ... virgas. Sic in toto longitudo Chori cum area campanilis continet virgas. _Item_, altitudo _voltæ_ totius ecclesiæ ab area ecclesiæ continet xi. Anglicè _vetheyms_, et quilibet vetheym constat, &c.... pedibus seu ... virgis. Longitudo de le _Crosseyle_, id est brachiorum ecclesiarum, tam ex parte meridionali quam boreali continet 50 virgas, id est 150 pedes. _Item_, quadrature spacia areæ campanilis in medio _Chori_ ecclesiæ scitæ continet in longitudine 12 virgas. _Item_, dicta quadratura campanilis continet in latitudine 12 virgas. _Item_, _fenestra_ principalis _meridionalis_ atque _Septentrionalis_ vitrea continet vi. pannas glasatas magnæ altitudinis.--_Will. de Worc. ed. 1778, Cantab._ [with various blanks.]

Cloisters. --Ecclesiæ de Tynterna: Memorand.--_The Cloyster_ is 37 virgæ in longit. et in lat. 33 virg. _Item_, tota eccles. continet 14 archus in una parte et 14 archus in altera parte. _Item_, pars fenestra borealis principalis 14 panellas glasatas. _Item_, latitudo dietæ fenestræ tam ex boreali quam oppositæ fenestræ ex parte meridionali continet iii. virgas. _Item_ the _fermarge chyrch_ continet in longitudine 34 virgas, id est 60 steppys meas--quæ sunt 34 virgæ--et in latitudine viii. virgas. _Item_, capitulum in longitudine continet 18 virgas, in latitudine 9 virgas. _Memorand._, quod 24 steppys, sive gressus mei, faciunt 12 virgas. _Item_, 50 virgæ faciunt 85 gradus, sive steppys meas.--_Will. de Worc._ 83.

In all its parts, according to Dugdale, this church is a copy of Salisbury Cathedral, built only a few years previously.

[50] Paper on the Abbey. Tinterne, which is coeval with Westminster Abbey, has a remarkable similarity in its whole plan and style of architecture, and was, in fact, a _repetition_ in miniature.--_Dallaway’s Arts_, p. 36.

[51] A barge-builder at Tinterne severed the head from the trunk, and defaced the features, legs, and shield, leaving it in its present mutilated state.--_Tinterne and its Environs._

[52] In the early Church, “a fish was generally used by Christians as a symbol of the Great Founder of their faith, the letters of the Greek word, ιχθυς (a fish), forming the _initials_ of the most important titles of our blessed Lord:”--Ι.Χ.Θ.Υ.Σ.--_Pompeïana._

Ίησους Χριστὸς Θεου Ύιὸς Σωτηρ

[53] The naturalist will not leave the area of the Abbey without noticing an alder-tree in the northern transept, covered with _aphides_, to which a long train of black ants have for some years been observed continually coming and departing through the sacristy door, and pacing along the pediment of one of the lofty columns to the root of the tree. This is the only _procession_ now visible in the Abbey, and is formed, not for devotion, but for a lowlier, yet not less imperative purpose--the alder-tree is their _refectory_, and the sweet _exuviæ_ of the plant-lice form their food.--_Thomas’s Tinterne_, p. 26.

_b_ He enumerates the following as indigenous in the fruitful vale of Tinterne:--Delphinium consolida, Aquilegia vulgaris, Saponaria officinalis, Eriophorum polystachion, Galanthus nivalis, Narcissus pseudo-narcyssus, Allium Carinatum, Ornithogalum Pyrennaicum, Acorus calamus, Euphorbia Cyparissias, Anemone pulsatilla, A. Appenina, A. nemorosa.

[54]

If thou would’st view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight; For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild but to flout the ruins gray.... Then go--but go alone the while-- And view St. Mary’s ruin’d pile; Then, home returning, soothly swear Was never scene so sad and fair!

[55] Beauties, Harmonies, and Sublimities of Nature.

[56] Prædictus conquestor dedit manerium de Wolleston et manerium de Tudenham in parte; et similiter dedit ei licentiam conquerendi super Wallenses postea, &c.--_Monast. Angl._ iv. 725.

[57]

Is bruder Sir Gileberd , that eir was of the londe, He bitoke mid gode wille the eritage an hond. --_Robert of Gloucester._

[58] Baronage, 208.

[59] “He died untimely,” says the historian, “on the nones of April, 1176, and was buried in the Chapterhouse at Gloucester.”

[60] Bar. Monast.

[61] In the “_New Temple_” or Temple Church, as recorded by Robert of Gloucester:--

And Willam Marchal deide tho, that longe worth in mone, And atte _nywe temple_ was iburied at Londone.--Vol. ii. p. 518.

[62] Mat. Paris, 1245.

[63] Bp. of Fernis, a Cistercian monk, and an Irishman by birth.

[64] William, eldest son of the above-named Earl Marshall, gave a charter to the Abbey of Tinterne, dated March 22, A.D. 1223. Pro salute animæ meæ et pro animabus bonæ memoriæ Walteri filii Ricardi, filii Guilberti Strongbow, avi mei, et Willielmi Mariscalli, patris mei, et Ysabellæ Matrisque meæ et antecessorum, hæredum et successorum nostrorum.

[65] Dugdale’s Baronage.

[66] His deeds, assassination, and burial, are thus recorded by Robert of Gloucester:--

“As noble bodi in he smot, he nolde longe abide, He slou to ground her and ther, vaste on either side, More prowesse ne mizte of bodi be, Than me mizte of Richard the marschal there ise.”

Then describing the nature of the wound given him by an assassin--“in aboute the fondement as he vnarmed was,” adds--

“At Kildar he was aslawe that in Yrlonde is, And at the frere prechors ibured, at Kilkenni, iwis. Tho vr Kyng Henry hurde of is deth telle, And of the prowesse that he dude, ar me him mizte quelle, And he vnderstod of his wit, and of is wisdom, Him thozte it was a gret love to al is kinedom, Vor is deth he made deol inou, and for is soule he let do Almes dede mani on, and mani masse al so.”

[67] Baronage. Mat. of Paris. Mat. Westm. “Being suspected of overmuch gallantry towards the wife of Llewellyn, Prince of Wales (sister of King Henry), he was by him subtilely invited to an Easter feast, but after the entertainment was over, he was charged therewith, and cast into prison, where he suffered death by a barbarous murder. Some say he was hanged, and the princess with him.”--_Dugdale. Bar._ 419.

[68] Rogerus Bygod , Comes Norfolciæ, dedit ecclesiæ de Tynterna dominium de Eccle ac ecclesiam S. Edwardi de Halbergate ē omnibus eorum pertinenciis.

[69] The hospitaler was allowed to drink with any orderly person, for the sake of sociality, at the direction and request of that person, without asking leave.--_Licet hostilario, etc._

[70] St. Bernard induced all his brothers, five in number, to follow his example of retirement. His only sister still remained in the world; but coming to visit the monastery in the dress, and _with the attendance of a lady of quality_, she found herself treated with so much neglect, that, bursting into tears, she said, “True it is, I am a sinner, yet, nevertheless, it was for such that JESUS died.” Moved by expressions so truly evangelical, Bernard remitted his severity, gave her directions suitable to the taste of the age, and probably still better advice; but all that _Gulielmus_, the writer here quoted, has thought fit to record, is, that Bernard’s sister became a nun, and resembled her brother in piety.--_Life of St. Bernard._

[71] BRIT. MONACH.: art. _Guest-Hall_.

[72]

“From due oblation, at the vaulted door, The entering monks stood, each one with his mate, At the two tables of the lowest floor, Their looks directing to the spiry state Of chair much sculptured, where the Prior sate; To this, where transversely, a board was spread, Inferior lordlings of the convent ate; As passed the Prior, all depressed the head; Loud rang a tinkling bell, and wonted grace was said.”

[73]

“The Prior gave the signal word; aloud The reader ’gan the love of God reveal; At the first stated pause, the holy crowd Turned to the board in instantaneous wheel, And solemn silence marked their instant meal; The Prior to the reader bow’d, again They turned; the Sacrist rang a tinkling peal, Last grace was said; and, carolling a strain Of David, two and two withdrew the hooded train.” BRIT. MONACH.--_Monastic Æconomy_, 401.

[74]

“At noon-hour--did no fleshless day betide-- On posied trenchers the plain cates were spread, The snow-white egg, the fish’s corned side, Domestic fowl, by barn-door plenty fed, And, best of nutriment, fermented bread; No thirst was theirs but what that juice could pall, The sugar’d ears of bearded barley shed; An aged monk was marshal of the hall, There walking to and fro, the servitours to call.” --_Poem quoted._

[75]

Pinguia concedens quæ sunt _affinia carni_, Sic tamen ut nunquam sit _manifesta_ caro. --_Spec. Stultor._ BRIT. MON.

[76] “Nullus et monachus habeat colloquium cum maliere cognata aut extranea, in temporibus indebitis, sicut, prandii, et coenæ, et horæ meridianæ, aut tempore potûs assiguati.”--_MS. Cott. Jul. II. 2. f. 159._ Quoted by Fosbroke, p. 220.

[77] See _ante op. cit._

[78] Brit. Monach. new Ed. p. 287.

[79] Hutchinson, ii. 67.

[80] Usus Cistercienses.

[81] These rules, however, proved very ineffectual in the end, and were only observed until the temptation to break them had become sufficiently strong.--See _ante_, pp. 33, 36.

[82] See _ante_ pages 35, 36, 37.

[83] See note in this vol. _ante_ page 35.

[84] Annales Cistercienses.

[85] Morton, 200.

[86] Morton’s Monastic Annals, quoting Bibl. Cotton. Nero A. 121.

[87] Nicolson’s Engh. Hist. lib. quoted by Morton.

[88] West’s Furness, 1774.

[89] Mores Catholici, xi. 77.

[90] Ibid.

[91] Mores Catholici.

[92] Mores Catholici.

[93] See Account of the _Schism_ already given.

[94] Hist. Monast. Villar. apud Mor. Cath.

[95] Mores Cathol., quoting Epist. lib. iv. p. 17.

[96] Annales Cistertienses, quoted by Morton, 209.

[97] _Annales Cisterc._ 1154, iv. 6. This varies but slightly from the original. See also Monast. Annals, p. 210.

[98] In the grounds at Hawkestone, the seat of Lord Hill, and in those of Fountains Abbey, some extraordinary hunters’-leaps are pointed out, as having been taken in the heat of the chase; but that given in the tradition of Lancaut, is one that will never be repeated.

[99] These objections, it is to be hoped, are no longer applicable to Tinterne Parva. The “desecration,” so justly yet playfully complained of, is a practice which cannot be too strongly reprobated; but to such instances of negligence or “economy,” nothing but the progress of Archæology can apply a final check.

[100] From the time of Henry the Second, to whom the land of Gwent submitted, the royalty of Wentwood Chase was vested in the crown, and its privileges were ascertained in the Charta Forestæ of Henry the Third; but the rights of lords of manors, and free tenants, in times of general confusion, became involved and disputable. In the assumption of the Chase of Wentwood by the house of Somerset, after the Restoration, the recognition of ancient customs and privileges involved it in numerous controversies and processes of law.--_County History._ See also Letter from Cromwell, supra.

[101] Striguil, or Strigul Castle, is quite distinct from that of Chepstow, with which it has been often confounded, under the common name of _Striguil_, or _Estrigoel_.

[102] Thomas, p. 62.

[103] Ibid. 63.

[104] Hard by are seene Wondy and Penhow, the seats in times past of the noble family of Saint Maur, now corruptly named Seimor. For G. Mareshall, Earle of Pembrock, about the yeere of our Lord, 1240, was bound for the winning of Wondy, out of the Welshmen’s hands, to aide William Seimor. From him descended Roger de Saint Maur, knight, who married one of the heires of L. Beauchamp of Hach, a very noble baron, who derived his pedigree from Sibyl, heire unto William Mareshall, that puissant Earle of Pembrock, from William Ferrars, Earle of Derby, from Hugh de Vivon, and William Mallet, men in times past highly renowned. The nobility of all these, and of others besides, as may be evidently shewed, hath met together in that right honourable personage, Edward Saint Maur, or Seimor, now Earle Hertford, a singular favourer of vertue and good learning, worthy in that behalfe to be honoured and commended to posterity.--_Camden Silures_, 634.

[105] Rupis Aurea, eò quod aurei coloris saxa sole repercussa miro fulgore sunt rutulantia: nec mihi de facili persuasio fieri posset, quod frustratum dederit natura nitore saxis, quodque suo fuerit flos hic sine fructu, si foret qui venas ibidem, et penitima terræ viscera arte prævia transpenetraret.--_Gyraldus Cambrensis._

There is a hill near famed Caerleon, Which, if the sun but dart a ray on, It shines like gold; hence Goldcliffe hight, But if there’s gold, ’tis not in sight. --_Wonders of Wales._

[106] With regard to this tract Camden relates:--Beneath this lieth spred for many miles together a _Mersh_, they call it the _Moore_, which, when I lately revised this worke, suffered a lamentable losse; for when the Severn sea, at a spring tide in the change of the moone, what being driven back for three daies together, with a south-west winde, and what with a verie strong pirrie from the sea troubling it, swelled and raged so high, that with surging billowes it came rolling and inrushing amaine upon this tract lying so low, as also upon the like flates in Somersetshire over against it, that it overflowed all subverted houses, and drowned a number of beasts and some people withal. _Camden_, 635. See also _Note supra_, page 5. Neere to this place there remaine the reliques of a _Priorie_, that acknowledge those of _Chandos_ for their founder and patron.--_Ibid._

[107] County Hist. vol. ii. p. 57.

[108] Ibid.

[109] Neere Throgos, where we saw the wall of a castle that belonged to the high-constables of England, and was holden by the service of high-constableship.--_Camden Silures_, 634.

[110] See _ante_, page 32.

[111] _Mathern_ is “derived from Merthern Tuderic--or Martyrdom of Theodoric.” When a Christian chief, who, like Theodoric, fell in conflict with the Saxons, then pagans, he was admitted to the honours of martyrdom.

[112] For the avouching and confirming of the antiquity of this place, I think it not impertinent to adjoin here those antique inscriptions lately digged forth of the ground, which the Right Reverend Father in God, Francis Godwin, Bishop of Llandaffe, a passing great lover of venerable antiquity, and of all good literature, hath of his courtesie imparted unto me. In the year 1602, in a meadow adjoining Mathern, there was found by ditchers a certain image of a personage, girt and short-trussed, bearing a quiver--(but head, hands, and feet were broken off)--upon a pavement of square tile in checkerworke; also a fragment of an altar, with this inscription engraven in great capital letters three inches long, erected by _Haterianus_, the lieutenant-general of Augustus, and proprietor of the province of Cilicia--HATERIANUS LEG. AUG. PR. PR. PROVINC. CILIC.--The next yeere following hard by, was this table also gotten out of the ground, which proveth that the foresaid image was the personage of _Diana_, and that her temple was repaired by Titus Flavius Posthumius Varus, an old soldier, haply of a band of the Second Legion--T. FL. POSTUMIUS VARUS V. C. LEG. TEMPL. DIANÆ RESTITUIT. Also, a votive altar, out of which Geta, the name of Cæsar, may seeme then to have been rased, what time as he was made away by his brother Antonine Bassianus, and proclaimed an enimie; yet so as by the tract of the letters it is in some sort apparent. PRO SALUTE AUGG. N. N. SEVERI ET ANTONINI [ET GETÆ CÆS.] P. SALTIENUS P. F. MÆCIU THALAMUS HADRI. PRÆF. LEG. II. AUG. C. VAMPEIANO ET LUCILIAN.--_Camden. Silures. Britan._ pp. 637, 638.

[113] Hist. of Engl. quoting Bishop Godwin.

[114] See Speed’s Chronicle.