CHAPTER XIII.

CHRISTCHURCH.

I have determined to give a chapter to Christchurch, not because it contains more than many another town, but because it is a fair representative of the generality of small English boroughs. There is not a town in England, dating from even the Middle Ages, which is not full of interest peculiarly its own, and which does not possess memorials of the past which no other place can show. It has been proposed, by a no mean authority, to teach history by paintings and cartoons. But history is already painted for us on our city walls, and written for us upon our gates and crumbling castles. Our towns are in themselves the best texts upon history. For what we have seen with our eyes, and touched with our hands, leaves a more vivid and more lasting impression than the closest study of libraries of histories.

Further, the picture of a mediæval town, as given in its own archives, with its own legislation, its peculiar manufacture, or import, forms, to some extent, the true social picture of the times. Its history reflects—and not faintly—the history of the day. Christchurch was never a town of sufficient importance to show all this in its municipal records. Yet, too, we shall see that they in another way are, like the town itself, full of interest. From a modern point of view there is nothing to be seen beyond three or four straggling streets and its manufactory of fusee watch-chains—the only one in England. All its interest and associations lie with the past. The country round it, too, is equally bound up with that same past. To the north rises St. Catherine’s Hill, which we saw from the valley of the Avon, with its oval and square camps, and rampart and double vallum, crested with the mounds of its Roman watch-towers. The river Stour winds along between rows of barrows. Hengistbury Head is still fortified by its vast earthworks, and entrenched by deep ditches from the Avon to the sea.[156] Here the Britons saw the first swarm of fugitive Belgæ land and spread themselves along the rich valleys of Dorsetshire.[157] Here, centuries afterwards, the West-Saxons watched the raven—standard of the Danes scouring down the Channel, and knew their course along the coast, at night, by the blaze of burning villages, and, in the day, by the black trail of smoke.[158]

But to return to the town. Its Old-English names, Tweonea and Twinham-burn, were given to it from its situation between the rivers Avon and Stour. They were afterwards corrupted into the Norman Thuinam; which was lost in the name of its Priory, overshadowing the town with its magnificence.

Here, in 901, came Æthelwald the Ætheling, son of Æthered, in his rebellion against his cousin Edward the Elder, and seized the place. From Christchurch he fell back upon Wimborne, which he fortified, exclaiming he would do one of two things, “Either there live, or there lie.” That same night he fled to Northumberland.[159]

From _Domesday_ we find that its manor was held in demesne by the Conqueror, as also by Edward the Confessor, with a mill renting for 5_s._, whilst another, belonging to the Church, was worth but 30_d._, and that thirty-one tenements in the borough paid a rent of 16_d._ Its woods, only, were inclosed in the Forest.

The manor remained in the hands of the Crown till Henry I. bestowed it on his friend and kinsman Richard de Redvers, Earl of Devon, the ruins of whose castle still overlook the Avon. Here his son Baldwin de Redvers in vain fortified himself against Stephen. Here, too, lived his grandson William de Vernon, who helped to bear the canopy at Richard’s second coronation at Winchester. Afterwards, the manor passed into the hands of Isabella de Fortibus, who, on her death-bed, sold it, with all her possessions, to Edward I., who well knew the value of such a stronghold. Though Edward II. bestowed the estate on Sir William Montacute, yet the castle still remained in the hands of the Crown.

It was standing, though no longer a fortification, in the Commonwealth period. Nothing, however, now remains but the mere shell of the keep, whose walls are in places four yards thick.[160]

Below it stands what was, perhaps, the house of Baldwin de Redvers, also in ruins, and roofless, but still a capital specimen of what is so rarely seen, the true domestic architecture of the twelfth century. Like all the other remaining houses of this period, it is a simple oblong, seventy-one feet by twenty-four broad, and only two stories high, placed for defence on a branch of the Avon, which serves as a moat. On the south-east it is flanked by a small attached tower, now in ruins, under which the stream flows. The ground floor was divided in half by a wall, whilst the outer walls, thicker on the east and south sides, where more exposed to attacks than on the north and west, are pierced with deeply-splayed loopholes looking out on the stream. On this side was the hall, where lord, and guest, and serf, alike ate and drank, and slept on the floor. The other western half was divided into chambers and cellars, the kitchen probably standing in the courtyard.

Above, approached by two stone staircases from within, and not, as in most cases, from without, was the principal dwelling-room, the solar, lighted on each side by three double lights, carved on their outer arches with zig-zag and billet mouldings, and on the south by a circular, and on the north by a fine double window, once richly ornamented, but now nearly destroyed. The fire-place, the only one in the house, is set nearly in the centre of the east wall; and above it still stands, in the place of the old smoke-vent, the beautiful round chimney, one of the earliest in England, like the fire-place, hid in ivy.

There seems, however, as in the case of the still older Norman house at Southampton, to have been no wall-passage connecting the building, as we might have expected, with the castle; but like it, its entrances, of which there were three, one opening out upon the stream, were on the ground floor.[161]

Coming down to later times, the great Lord Clarendon here possessed large property, and one of his favourite schemes was to make the Avon navigable to Salisbury. For this purpose it was surveyed by Yarranton, the hydrographer, who not only reported favourably of the idea, but proposed to make the harbour an anchorage for men-of-war, bringing forward the great natural advantages of Hengistbury Head, as also the facilities of procuring iron in the district, and wood from the New Forest.[162] All, however, fell to the ground with Clarendon’s exile, and the harbour is now silted up with sand and choked with weeds.

Nothing else is there to be mentioned, except the visit by Edward VI. to the town, from whence he wrote a letter to his friend Barnaby Fitz-Patrick, far superior to most royal letters. The lazar-house, which stood in the Bargates, has long since been destroyed. The old market-place has been lately taken down; but in the main street, not far from the castle keep, remains, lately-restored, one of those timbered houses so common in the Midland counties and the Weald of Kent, with their dormer windows and richly-carved bressumers and barge-boards, but rarer in the West of England.[163] The glory, however, of the town, the Priory Church, still stands. Before describing it let us give some account of its history. Its earliest buildings were founded by some of the secular canons of the order of St. Augustine, probably on a spot used for worship by the Romans.[164] Mention of it is made in _Domesday_ as existing in Edward the Confessor’s reign, and as possessing five hydes and one yardland in Thuinam, as also its tithes, and the third of those of Holdenhurst.[165] The present building, however, dates only from the time of Flambard, who rebuilt the church, pulling down the earlier building with its nine cells.[166] And in Henry I.’s reign, Baldwin de Redvers brought in the regular instead of the secular canons, and placed them under the first prior, Reginald.

With this change new privileges and grants were made. Riches flowed in on every side. Not only were the Redvers benefactors, but the Courtenays, and Wests, and Salisburys, into whose hands the manor of Christchurch came.[167]

Like most other ecclesiastical buildings, we hear but little of it till its dissolution. From its state we may be able to judge of the general condition of the monasteries, and how imperative was the change.

Leland[168] tells us that the Priory possessed but one volume—a small work on the Old-English laws. Their own accounts show us that the rules of St. Augustine had long been forgotten. Drunkenness had taken the place of fasting; and instead of giving they now owed.[169] Tradition, too, adds that the brethren were known in the town as the “Priory Lubbers.” To this had the Austin Canons sank. So it was throughout England. Abbot and poorest brother were alike steeped in sensuality, and benighted in ignorance.

Of the last prior, John Draper, we catch some faint glimpse in a letter from Robert Southwell and four other commissioners to Cromwell, dated from Christchurch, the 2nd of December. He appears to have been a man who trimmed his course with the breath of authority, utterly selfish, utterly despicable. Not one word does he appear to have raised on behalf of his priory. Not one sigh did he utter for the old, nor one aspiration after the new religion. Thus the commissioners write:—“Our humble dewties observyd unto y^r gudde Lordeschippe. It may lyke the same to be advertised that we have taken the surrender of the late priorye of Christ Churche twynhm̄, wher we founde the prior a very honest, conformable p̄son, And the howse well furnysshede w^t Jewellys and plate, whereof som be mete for the King^s majestie is use as A litill chalys of golde, a gudly lardge crosse doble gylt, w^t the foote garnyshyd w^t stone and perle, two gudly basuns doble gylt having the Kings armys well inamyld, a gudly great pyxe for the sacramēt doble gylt, And ther be also other things of sylv̄, right honest and of gudde valewe as well for the churche use as for the table resyvyd, and kept to the Kings use.”[170] Before the Dissolution came, whilst matters still trembled in the balance—whilst still there was hope that Protection would, for a little time longer, be given to hypocrisy, and Authority to sloth, he pleaded with Henry.[171] Now, when all hope was lost, when the end had arrived, the commissioners compliment him as the “very honest, conformable person.” Had he previously been in earnest they must have written very differently. By his conformity he purchased his peace. And so, after giving up his priory, he was allowed to depart with a pension, to finish his life as he pleased, at the Prior’s Lodgings at Sumerford Grange. There he died; and was buried in front of what had been his own choir; and his chantry still remains in the south choir aisle. Of the conventual buildings, which stood on the south side of the church, nothing remains except the fragments of the outer wall and the entrance lodge, built by Draper, with his initials still carved on the window label. A modern house stands on the site of the Refectory; and in digging its foundations, some tombs of the fourth century were found.[172] Other traces remain only in the names of the places, as Paradise Walk, by the side of the mill stream, and the Convent meadows, where, in an adjoining field, are the sites of the fishponds of the brethren.

The church stands at the south-west of the town, on a rising ground between the two rivers, its tower alike a seamark to the ships and a landmark to the Valley. But the first thing which strikes the visitor is not so much the tower, as the deep, massive north porch, standing right out from the main building, reaching to its roof, with its high-recessed arch, and its rich doorways dimly seen, set between clusters of black Purbeck marble pillars, and ornamented above with a quatrefoiled niche.

Standing here, and looking along the north aisle, the eye rests on the Norman work of the transept, the low round arches interlacing one another, their spandrels rich with billet and fishscale mouldings; whilst beyond rises the Norman turret, banded with its three string-courses, and enriched with its arcades, the space between them netted over with coils of twisted cables.

This is true Norman work, such as you can see scarcely anywhere else in England. And imagine what the church once was—a massive lantern-tower springing up from the midst, the crown of all this beauty.

Beyond all this lovely Romanesque work, rises the north choir aisle, with its quatrefoiled parapet, whilst above gleam the traceried windows of the choir, with their flying buttresses; and beyond them again stands the Lady Chapel, surmounted by St. Michael’s loft, ugly and vile.

Entering, and standing at the extreme south-west end, we shall see the massive Norman piers rise in long lines, lightened by their columns, and relieved by their capitals, the spaces above each arch moulded with the tooth ornament. Above springs the triforium with its double arches, some of their pillars wreathed with foliage, the central shafts chequered in places with network, and woven over with tracery. Above that again runs the clerestory, now spoilt, whilst an open oak roof, hid by a ceiling, but once rich with bosses and carved work, encloses all.

To go into details. The porch and north aisle are Early-English, whilst a Norman arcade runs the whole length of the south aisle. The tower, and choir, and Lady Chapel, are Perpendicular, and the nave, as far as the clerestory windows, Norman.

Passing through the rich rood-screen, which, however, sadly blocks up the way, we reach the choir, with its four traceried windows on either side, and clustered columns, from which springs its groined roof with bosses of foliage and pendants bright with gold, whilst the capitals of the shafts and the quatrefoils of the archivolts are rich with colour. The stalls are carved with grotesque heads and figures, like those in the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Before us now stands the lovely reredos, illustrating the words of Isaiah,—“There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.” Jesse sleeps at the bottom, his hand supporting his head, whilst David, with his fingers on his harp-strings, and Solomon, sit on each side, the vine spreading upwards, bearing its leaf and full fruit in Mary, to whose Son the Wise Men are offering their presents. Such is the screen, and had the execution been equal to the design, it would have been the finest in England. The carving seems, however, never to have been finished, and certainly in parts only to have been roughly cut by some inferior hand, and never to have received the last touches of the master-artist. Even now, in its present condition, it stands before those of Winchester and St. Alban’s, inferior only to that of St. Mary’s Overie.[173]

Passing on we come to the Lady Chapel, with its traceried roof. Under the east window are the remnants of another rich screen. The high altar, too, with its slab of Purbeck marble cut with five crosses, remains, whilst two recessed altar tombs to Sir Thomas West and his mother stand in the north and south walls.

But what we should especially see, both for its beauty and its interest, is the Chantry Chapel, built for her last resting-place by Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, mother of Cardinal Pole. It stands in the north choir aisle, its roof rich with arabesque tracery and carved bosses, telling a curious story in our English history. Attainted of treason the Countess was confined two years in the Tower before she suffered. When the day of execution came, she walked out on the fatal Tower Green; and still firm—still to the last resolute—refused to lay her head on the block. “So should traitors do,” she cried, “but I am none;” and the headsman was obliged to butcher her as best he could.[174]

In the same letter before quoted from the Commissioners for the Suppression of Monasteries, dated from Christchurch, occurs this passage:—“In thys churche we founde a chaple and monumēt curiosly made of cane [Caen] stone ̄paryd by the late mother of Raynolde pole for herre buriall, wiche we have causyd to be defacyd, and all the armys and badgis clerly to be delete.”[175] To this day the vengeance of Henry’s commissioners is visible, her arms being broken, and the bosses defaced, though her motto, “_Spes mea in Deo est_,” can still be read.

At the end of this aisle, under the east window, lie the alabaster effigies of Sir John Chydioke and his wife. The knight, who fell in the wars of York and Lancaster, wears his coat of mail, his head resting on his helmet, and his hands clasped together in prayer. At the western end, adjoining the north transept, stand two oratories with groined roofs, enriched with foliated bosses, whilst the capitals, from which the arches spring, are carved with heads.[176]

In the south choir aisle stand more monuments, amongst them the mortuary chapel of Robert Harys, with his rebus sculptured on a shield; and the chapel of Draper, the last prior, noticeable for its rich canopied niche over the doorway.[177]

And now that the reader has seen each part, let him go back to the west end, and sweep out of sight the whole thicket of pews, and break down the rood-screen blocking up the view, and looking through and beyond it, past the long line of Norman bays, with their sculptured tables, and past the chancel, imagine the stone reredos, as it once was, shining with gold and colour, all its niches filled with statues, and the windows above blazing with crimson and purple, through which the sunlight poured, staining the carved stalls and misereres,—and then he will have some faint idea of the former glory of the church.[178]

Most interesting is it, too, from another point of view. Since the Austin canons were more especially concerned with man’s struggle in daily life, their churches assumed a parochial character. Hence we here have the spacious nave, so different to that of the old Nunnery Church of Romsey, the west tower and doorway—absent at Romsey—and the lovely north porch looking out to the town.

The whole building, I am sorry to add, is sadly out of repair. Restoration has been going on for some time past; but here, as in all similar cases, money is much needed. Surely men might give something, if from no higher motive than of keeping up a memorial of the piety of a past age. We inveigh against Cromwell and the Puritans—against the sacrilege of horses stabled in the choir, and the stalls turned into mangers;—against the sword which struck down the sculptured images, and the fire which consumed the carved woodwork. But the harm which the Puritans wrought is little compared with ours, in allowing the loveliness of our churches to rot by our negligence, and their sacredness to perish by our apathy.