Chapter 19

_The Forest and Vale in Saxon Times_

A.D. 418 to 1066

There seems little doubt that the British remained a barbarous people throughout the four centuries of their contact with Roman influences, for had they progressed in this period they would have understood in some measure the great system by which the Imperial power had held the island with a few legions and a small class of residential officials. Having failed to absorb the new military methods, when left to themselves, there was no unifying idea among the Britons, and they seem to have merely reverted to some form of their old tribal organisation. The British cities constituted themselves into a group of independent states generally at war with one another, but sometimes united under the pressure of some external danger. Under such circumstances they would select some chieftain whose period of ascendency could be measured only by the continuance of the danger.

From Bede's writings we find that the Scots from the west and the Picts from the north continually harassed the Britons despite occasional help from Rome, and despite the wall they built across the north of England. In these straits the British invited help from the Angles and Saxons, who soon engaged the northern tribesmen and defeated them. The feebleness of the Britons having become well known among the continental peoples, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes began to steadily swarm across the North Sea in powerful, armed bands. Having for a time assisted the Britons they began to seek excuses for quarrels, and gradually the Britons with brief periods of success were beaten and dispossessed of their lands until they were driven into the western parts of the island. The Angles occupied most of northern England, including the kingdom of Northumbria, of which Yorkshire formed a large part. These fierce Anglo-Saxon people, with an intermixing of Danish blood, a few centuries later were the ancestors of a great part of the present population of the county. Sidonius Apollinaris, a Bishop of Gaul, who wrote in the fifth century, says, "We have not a more cruel and more dangerous enemy than the Saxons: they overcome all who have the courage to oppose them; they surprise all who are so imprudent as not to be prepared for their attack. When they pursue they infallibly overtake; when they are pursued their escape is certain. They despise danger; they are inured to shipwreck; they are eager to purchase booty with the peril of their lives. Tempests, which to others are so dreadful, to them are subjects of joy; the storm is their protection when they are pressed by the enemy, and a cover for their operations when they meditate an attack. Before they quit their own shores, they devote to the altars of their gods the tenth part of the principal captives; and when they are on the point of returning, the lots are cast with an affectation of equity, and the impious vow is fulfilled."

Gradually these invaders settled down in Britain, which soon ceased to be called Britain, and assumed the name Angle-land or England. In A.D. 547 Ida founded the kingdom of Northumbria, one of the divisions forming the Saxon Heptarchy, and among the villages and families that owed allegiance to him were those of the neighbourhood of Pickering. The first fortifications by the Anglo-Saxons were known as _buhrs_ or _burgs_. Some of them were no doubt Roman or British camps adapted to their own needs, but generally these earth works were required as the fortified home of some lord and his household, and there can be little doubt that in most instances new entrenchments were made, large enough to afford a refuge for the tenants as well as their flocks and herds.

Pickering itself must have been an Anglo-Saxon village of some importance, and the artificial mound on which the keep of the castle now stands would probably have been raised during this period if it had not been constructed at a much earlier date. It would have palisades defending the top of the mound, and similar defences inside the entrenchments that formed the basecourt. These may have occupied the position of the present dry moat that defends the castle on two of its three sides. If Pickering had been founded by the Anglo-Saxons we should have expected a name ending with "ton," "ham," "thorpe," or "borough," but its remarkable position at the mouth of Newton Dale may have led them to choose a name which may possibly mean an opening by the "ings" or wet lands. It is, however, impossible at the present time to discover the correct derivation of the name. It probably has nothing whatever to do with the superficial "pike" and "ring," and the suggestion that it means "The Maiden's Ring" from the Scandinavian "pika," a maiden, and "hringr," a circle or ring, may be equally incorrect. The settlements in the neighbourhood must have occupied the margin of the marshes in close proximity to one another, and most of them from the suffix "ton" would appear to have been the "tuns" or fortified villages named after the family who founded them. Thus we find between Pickering and Scarborough at the present time a string of eleven villages bearing the names Thornton, Wilton, Allerston, Ebberston, Snainton, Brompton, Ruston, Hutton (Buscel of Norman origin), Sawdon, Ayton and Irton. In the west and south there are Middleton, Cropton, Wrelton, Sinnington, Appleton, Nawton, Salton, Marton, Edston or Edstone, Habton, (Kirby) Misperton, Ryton, Rillington, and many others. Other Anglo-Saxon settlements indicating someone's ham or home would appear to have been made at Levisham, Yedingham and Lastingham. Riseborough seems to suggest the existence of some Anglo-Saxon fortress on that very suitable elevation in the Vale of Pickering. Barugh, a little to the south, can scarcely be anything else than a corruption of "buhr" or "burg," for the Anglian invaders, if they found the small Roman camp that appears to have been established on that slight eminence in the vale would have probably found it a most convenient site for one of their own fortifications. Names ending with "thorpe," such as Kingthorpe, near Pickering, also indicate an Anglo-Saxon origin. Traces of the "by" or "byr," a single dwelling or single farm of the Danes, are to be found thickly dotted over this part of England, but in the immediate neighbourhood of Pickering there are only Blansby, Dalby, Farmanby, Aislaby, Roxby, and Normanby. To the east near Scarborough there are Osgodby, Killerby, Willerby, Flotmanby, and Hunmanby, so that it would appear that the strong community of Anglo-Saxon villages along the margin of the vale kept the Danish settlers at a distance.

Goathland, which was often spelt Gothland, has a most suggestive sound, and the family names of Scoby and Scoresby seem to be of Danish origin. The "gate" of the streets of Pickering is a modification of the Danish "gade," meaning a "way," for the town was never walled. The influence of the Danes on the speech of this part of Yorkshire seems to me apparent in the slight sing-song modulation so similar to that of the present day people of Denmark.

In A.D. 597 Augustine commenced his missionary work among the Saxons, and King Ethelbert of Kent was baptised on June the 2nd of that year. Twenty-seven years later Edwin, the powerful king of Northumbria, married Ethelburga, daughter of Ethelbert. When she accompanied her husband to his northern kingdom she took with her Paulinus, who was ordained bishop of the Northumbrians. "King Aldwin, therefore," Bede tells us,[1] "together with all the nobles of his nation, and very many of the common people, received the faith and washing of sacred regeneration, in the eleventh year of his reign, which is the year of the Lord's incarnation, 627, and about the year 180 from the coming of the Angles into Britain. Moreover, he was baptised at York, on the holy day of Easter, the day before the Ides of April, in the church of the holy apostle Peter, which he himself built of wood in that place with expeditious labour, while he was being catechised and prepared in order to receive baptism." The Northumbrians from this time forward were at least a nominally Christian people, and the seventh century certainly witnessed the destruction of many of the idols and their shrines that had hitherto formed the centre for the religious rites of the Anglo-Saxons. Woden or Odin, Thor and the other deities did not lose their adherents in a day, and Bede records the relapses into idolatry of Northumbria as well as the other parts of England. There can be no doubt that fairies and elves entered largely into the mythology of the Anglo-Saxons, and the firmness of the beliefs in beings of that nature can be easily understood when we realise that it required no fewer than twelve centuries of Christianity to finally destroy them among the people of Yorkshire. In Chapter XI. we see something of the form the beliefs and superstitions had assumed at the time of their disappearance.

[Footnote 1: Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation," translated by Gidley, Rev. L., 1870, p. 152.]

In the seventh century most of the churches erected in Yorkshire were probably of wood, but the example of King Edwin at York, who quickly replaced the timber structure with a larger one of stone, must soon have made itself felt in the country. Nothing, however, in the form of buildings or inscribed stones for which we have any evidence for placing at such an early date remains in the neighbourhood of Pickering, although there are numerous crosses and traces of the masonry that may be termed Saxon or Pre-Conquest.

The founding of a monastery at Lastingham is described by Bede, and with the particulars he gives we can place the date between the years 653 and 655. Bishop Cedd was requested by King Oidilward, who held rule in the parts of Deira, "to accept some possession of land of him to build a monastery to which the king himself [Æthelwald] also might frequently come to pray to the Lord, and to hear the Word, and in which he might be buried when he died." Further on we are told that Cedd "assenting to the king's wishes, chose for himself a place to build a monastery among lofty and remote mountains, in which there appeared to have been more lurking places of robbers and dens of wild beasts than habitations of men." This account is of extreme interest, being the only contemporary description of this part of Yorkshire known to us. "Moreover," says Bede, "the man of God, studying first by prayers and fastings to purge the place he had received for a monastery from its former filth of crimes, and so to lay in it the foundations of the monastery, requested of the king that he would give him during the whole ensuing time of Lent leave and licence to abide there for the sake of prayer; on all which days, with the exception of Sunday, protracting his fast to evening according to custom, he did not even then take anything except a very little bread and one hen's egg, with a little milk and water. For he said this was the custom of those of whom he had learnt the rule of regular discipline, first to consecrate to the Lord by prayers and fastings the places newly received for building a monastery or a church. And when ten days of the quadragesimal fast were yet remaining, there came one to summon him to the king. But he, in order that the religious work might not be intermitted on account of the king's affairs, desired his presbyter Cynibill, who was also his brother, to complete the pious undertaking. The latter willingly assented; and the duty of fasting and prayer having been fulfilled, he built there a monastery which is now called Læstingaeu [Lastingham], and instituted rules there, according to the customs of the monks of Lindisfarne, where he had been educated. And when for many years he [Cedd] had administered the episcopate in the aforesaid province, and also had taken charge of this monastery, over which he set superiors, it happened that coming to this same monastery at a time of mortality, he was attacked by bodily infirmity and died. At first, indeed, he was buried outside, but in process of time a church was built of stone in the same monastery, in honour of the blessed mother of God, and in that church his body was laid on the right side of the altar." Cedd's death took place in 664, and Ceadda or Chad, one of his brothers, succeeded him as he had desired.

Nothing remains of the buildings of this early monastery, and what happened to them, and what caused their disappearance, is purely a matter of conjecture. We can only surmise that they were destroyed during the Danish invasions of the ninth century.

At Kirkdale church, which is situated close to the cave already described, there was discovered about the year 1771 a sundial bearing the longest known inscription of the Anglo-Saxon period. The discoverer was the Rev. William Dade, rector of Barmston, in the East Riding, and a letter of great length, on the stone, from the pen of Mr J. C. Brooke, F.S.A. of the Herald's College, was read at the Society of Antiquaries in 1777.

The sundial, without any gnomon, occupies the central portion of the stone, which is about 7 feet in length, and the inscription is closely packed in the spaces on either side.

It reads as follows, the lines in brackets having the contractions expanded:--

[Transcriber's Note: The "|"s below are my best rendition in plain ASCII of a Saxon ampersand, which is a long vertical bar with a short horizontal bar at the top, pointing to the left.]

+ ORM · GAMAL · SVNA · BOHTE · SC[=S] [ + ORM · GAMAL · SUNA · BOHTE · SANCTUS]

GREGORIVS · MINSTER · ÐONNE HIT [GREGORIUS · MINSTER · THONNE HIT]

PES ÆL TOBROCAN · | TOFALAN · | HE [WES ÆL TOBROCAN · & TOFALAN · & HE]

HIT IET · MACAN · NEPAN · FROM GRVNDE [HIT LET · MACAN · NEWAN · FROM GRUNDE]

XPE: | SCS GREGORIVS · IN EADPARD [CHRISTE: & SANCTUS GREGORIUS · IN EADWARD]

DAGVM C[=N]G | N TOSTI DAGVM EORL + [DAGUM CYNING & IN TOSTI DAGUM EORL +]

Completed under the dial.

+ | HAPARÐ ME PROHTE · | BRAND P[=RS] [+ & HAWARTH ME WROHTE · & BRAND {PRÆPOSITUS] {PRESBYTERS]

The modern rendering is generally accepted as: "Orm, the son of Gamal, bought St Gregory's minster (or church) when it was all broken and fallen, and caused it to be made anew from the ground for Christ and St Gregory in the days of King Edward, and in the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wrought me and Brand the Prior, (priest or priests)."

Along the top of the dial and round the perimeter the inscription reads:--

+ PIS IS DÆGES SOL MERCA THIS IS DAY'S SUNMARKER

ÆT ILCVM TIDE AT EACH TIDE OR HOUR.

It is interesting to know that the antiquaries of a century or more ago rendered this simple sentence as: "This is a draught exhibiting the time of day, while the sun is passing to and from the winter-solstice." They also made a great muddle of the words: "& HE HIT LET MACAN NEWAN," their rendering being "CHEHITLE AND MAN NEWAN," the translation being supposed to read: "Chehitle and others renewed it, etc." With Mr Brooke's paper is given a large steel engraving of the stone, but it is curiously inaccurate in many details. At Edstone church there is another sundial over the south doorway as at Kirkdale, and there is every reason to believe that it belongs to the same period. The inscription above the dial reads:--

OROLOGI VIATORUM.

On the left side is the following:--

LOTHAN ME WROHTE A.

From the drawing given here the inscription is palpably incomplete, as though the writer had been suddenly stopped in his work. Nothing is known of Lothan beyond the making of this sundial, so that the fixing of the date can only be by comparative reasoning. At Kirkdale, on the other hand, we know that Tosti, Harold's brother, became Earl of Northumbria in 1055, we know also that the Northumbrians rose against Tosti's misgovernment and his many crimes, among which must be placed the murder of the Gamal mentioned in the inscription, and that in 1065 Tosti was outlawed, his house-carles killed, and his treasures seized. After this we also know that Tosti was defeated by the Earls Edwin and Morcar, and having fled to Scotland, submitted himself to Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, who had arrived in the Tyne with his fleet early in September 1066, that they then sailed southwards, and having sacked Scarborough defeated Edwin and Morcar at Fulford near York only eight days before the landing of William the Norman at Pevensey. Harold having made forced marches reached York on September the 24th, and defeated his brother and the Norwegian king, both being slain in the battle which was fought at Stamford Bridge on the Derwent. Harold was forced to take his wearied army southwards immediately after the battle to meet the Frenchmen at Hastings, and the great disaster of Senlac Hill occurred on October the 14th. This stone at Kirkdale is thus concerned with momentous events in English history, for the murder of Gamal and the insurrection of Tosti may be considered two of the links in the chain of events leading to the Norman Conquest.

A great deal of interest has centred round an Anglo-Saxon cross-slab built into the west wall of Kirkdale church. At the time of its discovery the late Rev. Daniel H. Haigh[1] tells us that a runic inscription spelling _Kununc Oithilwalde_, meaning "to King Æthelwald," was quite legible. This would seem to indicate that the founder of Lastingham monastery was buried at Kirkdale, or that the site of Bede's, "Læstingaeu" was at Kirkdale if the stone has not been moved from its original position.

[Footnote 1: _Yorkshire Archæological Journal_, v. 134.]

The inscription has now perished, but Bishop Browne tells us[1] that when he had photographs taken of the stone in 1886 "there was only one rune left, the 'Oi' of the king's name." "I have seen, however," he says, "the drawing made of the letters when the stone was found, and many of them were still legible when the Rev. Daniel Haigh worked at the stone." There seems little doubt that this most valuable inscription might have been preserved if the stone had been kept from the action of the air and weather.

[Footnote 1: Browne, Rt. Rev. G.F.: "The Conversion of the Heptarchy," p. 151.]

There are several other pre-Norman sculptured stones at Kirkdale. They are generally built into the walls on the exterior, and are not very apparent unless carefully looked for. In the vestry some fragments of stone bearing interlaced ornament are preserved.

Not only at Kirkdale are these pre-Norman stones built into walls that appear to belong to a date prior to the Conquest, but also at Middleton there is a fine cross forming part of the fabric of the church tower. The west doorway now blocked up is generally considered to be of Saxon work, but the quoins of the tower, though bearing much resemblance to the pure "long and short" work that may be seen at Bradford-on-Avon, are composed of stones that are almost equal in height.

The Rev. Reginald Caley has suggested that the original Saxon tower of Brompton church may have been incorporated into the present structure whose walls are of unusual thickness, the stone work in some places showing characteristics of pre-Norman workmanship. At Ellerburne the curious spiral ornaments of the responds of the chancel arch have also been attributed to pre-Norman times, but in this case and possibly at Middleton also, the Saxon features may have appeared in Norman buildings owing to the employment of Saxon workmen, who did not necessarily for several years entirely abandon their own methods, despite the fact that they might be working under Norman masters. There is a very roughly hewn font in the little chapel of Ease, in the village of Levisham. It bears a cross and a rope ornamentation, and may possibly be of pre-Norman origin, although it was being used as a cattle trough in a neighbouring farmyard before the restoration in 1884. The parish church of Levisham, standing alone in the valley below the village, has a very narrow and unadorned chancel arch. This may possibly belong to Saxon or very early Norman times, but Mr Joseph Morris[1] has pointed out that a similar one occurs at Scawton, which is known to have been built in 1146, and the evidence of a Saxon stone built into the south-east corner of the chancel of Levisham church supports my belief in the later date. On the south wall of the chancel of Lockton church I have seen a roughly shaped oblong stone bearing in one corner the markings of a very rude sundial, and I find that there is another on the wall of a cottage in the same village.[2] I am unable to give its position, but from a drawing I have examined, it appears to be of more careful workmanship than the one built into the church wall. At Sinnington church another of these very crude sundials has been discovered, and what may be part of a similar one is high up on the east wall of the chancel of Ellerburne church. At Kirby Moorside a fine cross with interlaced work is built into the porch of the vicarage. At Wykeham there is a very plain cross of uncertain age, and Ellerburne, Lastingham, Sinnington, Kirkdale, Kirby Misperton, and Middleton are all rich in carved crosses and incised slabs. Pickering church only possesses one fragment of stone work that we may safely attribute to a date prior to the Conquest. It seems to be part of the shaft or of an arm of a cross, and bears one of the usual types of dragon as well as knot or interlaced ornament. The font, which has been thought by some to be of Saxon origin, seems to be formed from part of the inverted base of a pillar, and though composed of old material, probably dates in its present form of a font from as recent a period as the restoration of Charles II., the original font having been destroyed in Puritan times (Chapter X.). It would appear that when it was decided to build a large Norman church at Pickering the desire to put up a building that would be a great advance on the previous structure--for we cannot suppose that Pickering was without a church in Saxon times---led to the destruction of every trace of the earlier building.

[Footnote 1: Morris, J.E.: "The North Riding of Yorkshire," p. 33.]

[Footnote 2: Illustrated, facing p. 209, "Associated Architectural Societies' Reports," vol. xii. 1873.]

Hinderwell mentions a curious legend in connection with the cave in a small conical hill at Ebberston, that has since been destroyed. The country people called it Ilfrid's Hole, the tradition being that a Saxon king of that name took shelter there when wounded after a battle. An inscription that was formerly placed above the cave said: "Alfrid, King of Northumberland, was wounded in a bloody battle near this place, and was removed to Little Driffield, where he lies buried; hard by his entrenchments may be seen." The roughly built stone hut with a domed roof that now crowns the hill is within twenty yards of the site of the cave, and was built by Sir Charles Hotham in 1790 to preserve the memory of this legendary king. In the period that lay between the conversion of Northumbria to Christianity in 627, and the ravages of Dane and Northman in the ninth and tenth centuries, we know by the traces that survive that the Saxons built a church in each of their villages, and that they placed beautifully sculptured crosses above the graves of their dead. The churches were small and quite simple in plan, generally consisting of a nave and chancel, with perhaps a tower at the west end. Owing to the importance of Pickering the Saxon church may have been a little in advance of the rest, and its tower may have been ornamented as much as that of Earl's Barton, but we are entering the dangerous realms of conjecture, and must be reconciled to that one fragment of a pre-Norman cross that is now carefully preserved in the south aisle of the present building.