Part 6

It may seem difficult to realise that what is a small detached region--almost practically an island--now containing only four or five villages or decayed towns; was, for about a century and a half, the seat of one of the royal residences, where a succession of powerful kings held so many of their courts to which were convened the magnates of their own and of subject kingdoms. The truth is, that political centrality is not coincident with geographical; and is only partially dependent upon natural aspect or condition. London is very far from a geographical centre; and, if we could bring into view its original natural aspect; London, with its marshes would be as incredible as the place here concerned. Its present greatness is the outgrowth of the later supremacy of Wessex; and London was as much an outpost of Saxony into Mercia, as the Hoo had been of Anglia into Centland.

Those who expect a confirmation of this regal occupation of the Hoo, from substantial remains there, may remember that a thousand years of desertion have passed over it. As Fuller said, when writing of this controversy about Cloveshoe, already warm in his day:[104] “Nor doth the modern Meanness of the Place make anything against it; it might be a Gallant in that Age, which is a Beggar now-a-dayes.” Geographical and natural conditions have much to do with the choice and permanence of the seats of governments; but political needs and fortunes often over-rule or reverse them. The rise of Wessex turned the preference to other centres; and the exposure of this peninsula to the ravages of the Danes, just then becoming active, is sufficient to have brought desolation upon it. The site of New York seems very much like this; but its growth was not prevented by such a constant peril as this last in its front, nor by the ascendancy of a rival power in its rear. It is political causes that have surrounded the circular mound at Windsor with the regal associations, which have forsaken that of Tamworth; and the same political causes have covered with houses and palaces, not only the elevated spot upon which London was first planted, but the many miles of swamp that encompassed it. When cities, or settlements upon elevations, take to growing great, they no longer despise the alluvial levels which skirt them; but cover even these with buildings. This is the case with London itself, where even the supreme Aula Regia of the Saxon empire, that has inherited the “England” of Æthelbald and Offa; stands upon a similar alluvial appendage of the higher ground of the original settlement; to that which, projecting from the chalky heights of the Hoo, has been declared to be inconsistent with its history.

Again, are there preserved, anywhere at all, any fragments whatever, of masonry of the time of Æthelbald and Offa, even under the most favourable circumstances? We have seen that many churches were founded in that age, that have continued in vital existence to this day. In these, if anywhere, remains of the first structures might have been found. Instead of this, the few præ-Norman relics that do exist can scarcely be said to approach that date; and when, later, they do crop up; they seem to bring with them an indication, why they are the earliest. They are found in places where stone is as plenty and as easily hewn as wood; and they appear to be worked and constructed by hands and heads that had been accustomed to work and construct in wood; and often with adze-like tool marks. The angry question whether the word “timber” was, by birth, a verb or a noun--a question of which some of the most eminent Anglo-Saxon scholars seem, on waking, to have found themselves on the wrong side--shall not here be roused; but the absence of earlier remains may be accounted for, by taking for granted, wood to have been, at the earlier time, the material mostly used. What then can we expect to find in a tract of land, ever since abandoned to its ordinary rural and pastoral condition? The cartular evidence of the importance of this small territory, during the time in question, is most abundant; and the many traces of antiquity, in the names of now inconsiderable spots, has been already referred to.

* * * * *

As the inferences, from the surviving examples of these dedications, and their topographical distribution, may have assumed the tone of exact or statistical inductions; it is but right that they should be qualified by an admission that, from that point of view, they are subject to some elements of discount. It has been already admitted that more extinct St. Werburghs may come to light; and of course it is impossible to foresee to what extent the inferences may be thereby disturbed; although it is not expected that they can be substantially over-balanced. Indeed, there are not wanting other spots which have names with a suspicious possibility of being corruptions of the name of Werburgh, similar to those that we have seen, where they are confirmed by the actual survival of the dedication itself; as in the cases of Warburton and Warbstow. Of these are two eminences, the situations of which are strikingly similar to that at Wembury, as if chosen by the same eye. They are close to the sea shore, but in other parts of the south coast. These are a hill, called “Warberrys,” close to Torquay; and another called “Warbarrow,” in the isle of Purbeck. But neither of these have traces of the dedication, and both names are quite likely to have had other causes; nor can the places be directly connected with any known record of Æthelbald. Therefore they shall not be enlisted into the present enquiry. There is also a Wareberrewe near Wallingford, with the present dedication of S. Laurence.

The indications, that have been above induced, however, from the occurrences of the dedications of St. Werburgh in south England, as well as those of St. Cuthbert in Wessex, are very distinct and definite as guide-posts in historical topography; being strictly national or dynastic. But St. Helen, as compared with them, has the great disadvantage of being catholic and illustrious; and the possibility, of course, exists, for a catholic dedication to have had sometimes other causes besides that here attributed--the personal veneration of a conqueror. It is, however, thought that the comparative numbers in the different provinces, that have been offered, may help any judgment upon this point. One cause of aberration, in the case of the St. Helens may be, that some examples may have been “St. Helen and Holy Rood;” and, as often happens to a joint dedication, one half may have been worn off by grinding time: sometimes the first, sometimes the last; so that some of what are now only known as Holy Rood, or Holy Cross, may have been originally St. Helens. On the other hand, the dedication of Holy Rood may, in some cases, have been independently attached to churches, that have arisen where there had already been a cross of a martyr, which had brought a great resort to a spot of reputed eminent sanctity.[105] Or, as in the legend of Abingdon, where a cross, or a piece of the True Cross has been said to have been miraculously found: or a wonder-working Crucifix, as at Waltham Abbey. The local distribution of Holy Roods does not shew any estimable counter-balance of that of the St. Helens; and the Holy Roods themselves are believed to have had a tendency to pass into St. Saviour, or Christchurch.

* * * * *

One very general agent in the obliteration of those dedications that are national, or otherwise capable of rendering historical indications, has been particularly active in the English part of this island. This is the tendency to depose them, in favour of the greater saints, who are recognized and honoured throughout Christendom. This, as might have been expected, is more particularly the case of St. Mary. It is likely that many of the churches with this dedication are amplifications of sanctuaries of the more ancient and national kind. So strong was this tendency that, where it did not drown out the original tutelar name of a church; it must at least be satisfied by the addition of a “Lady Chapel.” Such a process of change may often be seen actually at work. The fine large church at Marden, Herefordshire, is said, both by Leland and Browne Willis, to have the dedication of St. Ethelbert; and so no doubt it has: but the present officers of the church, if asked, pronounce it to be of St. Mary. A glance at the building accounts for this. Within the church, at, perhaps, about twenty feet from the western wall, is preserved an uncommon relique, the well of St. Ethelbert; murdered by Offa, about a mile off, but whose shrine was at Marden, until translated to Hereford Cathedral. There can be no doubt that the well occupied the focus of the original small sanctuary that was first raised over the reliques of the martyr; and which was on the brink of the river, that flows near the western front of the church, and so prevented enlargement in that direction. The large increase of the church eastward, in accordance with the practice of the later age, having been devoted to the name of St. Mary. Another similar case, of Middleham in Richmondshire, has been kindly brought to notice by Mr. W. H. D. Longstaffe. The original dedication is St. Alkelda, whose martyrdom, being strangled by two female servants, is represented on glass. Her traditional altar-tomb, is westward of the chancel arch of the collegiate choir of St. Mary, founded by King Richard III. The only other traces of St. Alkelda is a church in her name at Giggleswick, some miles westward.

* * * * *

That sort of conviction, which arises from a gradual accumulation of facts, upon what had at first started as a suspicion or a guess; cannot be so vividly imparted to a reader. But even if what has been said above should have been successful; it will be very far from having exhausted the materials of this kind of enquiry: will only have served, by one or two examples, to shew the value of a neglected class of monuments, which, it is thought, have not yet been made to yield up their teaching. At the best, what has here been done, can be no more than the exposure of two or three fragments of a vast ruin, co-extensive with the land; of which the plan should be restored by a comparative registration or cartography of the whole. In the Celtic portions of these islands, the dedications of the churches retain much of their original or primitive topical distribution; shewing, as they have sometimes already been made to do, the maternity of missionary centres to offshoot churches. In the Teutonized portions of England, it is likely that they have another and greater lesson. They are here, in addition, believed to be able to shew, to a certain extent, what may be called an ethnical stratification; which, if carefully observed, would often mark out the extension of revolutions or conquests: more especially in those early times, of which written history is scanty or altogether wanting.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Cod. Dip. CXLIII.

[2] Dr. Lappenburg (I. 38) describes the people of Warwickshire and Worcestershire as the “Gewissi.” But the “Gevissæ” was the ancient name of the southern main stem of the West Saxons, who made their way into Somerset and Devon (Bæda. H. E. III. 7), and plainly a name of distinction from the Huiccii. All the pre-Christian pedigrees of the West Saxon leaders have an early name “Gewis,” which has been, with great likelihood, supposed to have been the origin of the name of the Gevissæ. In some only of the pedigrees, this name is next preceded by “Wig.” This seems to point to a division of the leadership between two kinsmen, perhaps brothers; and the Wiccii or Wigornians to be derived from the latter.

[3] A.S. Chron., “Feathan leag”--Welsh Chronicles, “_Ffery llwg_.”

[4] Dr. Guest in Archæological Journal, vol. xix., p. 197.

[5] Thesaurus, I. 169.

[6] Dr. Guest and Mr. Freeman, and their followers, as the Saturday Review, and the various school histories, which, having adopted the innovation, are lauded in that journal.

[7] Prof. W. W. Skeat, Macmillan, Feb. 1879, p. 313.

[8] See “A Primæval British Metropolis,” Bristol, 1877, pp. 45-80.

[9] One of the obsolete ones was brought to mind by a paper read by Mr. C. E. Davis, at Bath, in 1857: another is printed from the Register of Worcester Cathedral in Thomas’s Survey, kindly pointed out by Mr. John Taylor; so that others, unreckoned, may possibly be brought to light.

There is one, in addition to all those above mentioned, at Dublin; but, as the dedications in Strongbow’s Dublin are no more than a post-Norman colonisation of those at Bristol, it does not enter into our reckoning.

[10] The genealogical relation of St. Werburgh and Æthelbald will be seen in this extract from Dr. Lappenberg’s Pedigree of the Kings of Mercia:

Wybba. | +--------+--------------------------------+ | | Penda, last Pagan King of Eawa, died A.D. 642. Mercia, reigned A.D. 626-655. (Called “Rex Merciorum.”?) | | +--------------+------------+ +-------+-----+ | | | | | Peada, K. of M. | Æthelred, K. of Alweo. Osmod. A.D. 655-656. | M. A.D. 675-704, | | | died A.D. 715. | | | | | Eanwulf. Wulfhere, K. of M. | | | A.D. 656-675. | | | | | | Thingferth. +---------------+----+ | | | | | | | | | Cenred, K. of M. | Beorhtwald, | | | A.D. 704-709. | Sub-King of | | | | Wiccia A.D. | | | | 636. | | OFFA, | Coelred, K. ÆTHELBALD, K. of M. St. WERBURGH, of M., A.D. K. of M. A.D. 757-798. died about 709-716. A.D. 716-757 A.D. 700.

[11] The birth, in the West of England, of this assiduous propagator of the great mediæval embodiment of civilisation, zealous devotee of the Church, and prominent European statesman, is so important a fact in our ethnical topography as to deserve a passing, though attentive, glance. On the authority of those who personally knew him, he was born near Exeter, about the year 680; but, although no Saxon Conquest had yet extended so far westward, he bore a Saxon name, although in the midst of a Celtic people. From this, and from other circumstances also mentioned of his early life, it may be inferred that his father was a peaceful Saxon colonist, in advance of conquest, and still a pagan; and that his mother was a British Christian. He is, therefore, the earliest recorded example of that irrepressible compound of the two races that has since made so many deep and broad marks upon the outer world. This fact, of a pacific international intercourse antecedent to conquest, was so directly in conflict with evolved history, that it has provoked an ineffectual attempt to subvert the testimony of it, by questioning the undoubted reading of the name as being that of Exeter. (E. A. Freeman, Esq., in Archæol. Journal, vol. xxx., or Macmillan M., Sep. 1873, p. 474).

Another, but later, testimony gives us the name of the place near Exeter where he was born: Crediton, in a deep and most fertile valley of that middle district in Devon which is the interval between the highlands of Dartmoor and Exmoor, but rather to the south-west of that district. Here there is reason to believe Christianity had already been established at a much earlier time, by Croyde, or Creed, an Irish missionary virgin, who has left her name at other places throughout both Devon and Cornwall. The incredulity, that Crediton was the birthplace of S. Bonifatius, was vindicated by saying that it has “no _ancient_ authority whatever.” It has not contemporary authority like that for “near Exeter,” which, however, it strongly confirms, and which, for English topography of so early a date, is almost unique in its explicitness, but it has an authority as ancient as we are obliged to be content with for nearly all we know of those times, and far more respectable than most of it. The authority is a church-service book, still preserved in Exeter Cathedral, compiled by Bp. Grandisson (died A.D. 1366), and attested by his autograph. If this had been a mere outdoor tradition, and had rested upon no more than the personal authority of this most distinguished man, it would even then have been the very highest evidence of its kind. But it does no such thing. Bp. Grandisson is not the _author_ of the book any more than St. Osmund is the author of the Usages of Sarum. He is the codifier of the immemorial observances of the church, at which the contemporary biographer of St. Boniface attests that he received his earliest teaching; and of the very existence of which church their irreproachable attestation is by a long interval the earliest record.

But there is another evidence that this great man of his age was known, to his compatriots in his own province, as one of themselves. Of this they have left a substantial monument in the dedications of two churches still remaining in Devon, not in his ecclesiastical name, by which the rest of the world knew him, but in his birth-name of “Winfrid” by which they had remembered him. The two more distant extant dedications of Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, and Banbury, Cheshire, on the contrary, in their dedications of “St. Boniface” are mere reflections of his realised continental greatness back upon his own island.

Winfrith, near Lulworth, in Dorset, probably had a third western example of the dedication, for although the present church is of Norman structure, and with a different dedication (St. Christopher), most likely, as in many other cases, an earlier sanctuary existed in Winfrid’s name.

[12] What may be presumed to be another dedication of St. Werburgh has since been traced to its place, and may be reckoned as an eighth of those in the home kingdom, at its southern frontier. Among the land-marks (A.D. 849) of a place called “Coftun,” is Werburgh’s cross (“in Wærburge rode”) Cod. Dip. CCLXII. This has been found to be Cofton Hackett, in that north point of Worcestershire that abuts upon Staffordshire and Shropshire.

[13] Lib. v.

[14] See Warner p. 228. Collinson’s Som., vol. I. Bath, p. 53.

[15] Thomas, Worc. Cath., 1736, Append. No. 9. p. 6. It might be worth while to search for remains of it in plantations thereabout. It is distinct from the chapel of St. Blaise, and on a different eminence.

[16] Saturday Rev., Ap. 24, 1875, p. 533.

[17] Reg. Worc. Priory, Camden Soc.

[18] Page 105.

[19] 1846. Glaston. No. LXXXV.

[20] Cod. Dip., No. XCII.

[21] An account of A.S. Coins, &c. Communicated to the Numismatic Society of London, by Jonathan Rashleigh, Esq., 1868.

[22] _Wessexonicè_ “vvrasseling.”

[23] No matter about their names. Their ethnical pedigree is distinctly blazoned in their portraits.

[24] A remarkable cluster of four or five names, with the form “-hoe,” occurs on the coast of North Devon, in that part where we have already pointed to the unrecorded Mercian descents upon the Damnonian Britons (see before pp. 119-121). This is very faraway from the much more numerous assemblages of it, which are in the Anglian parts of England. It has been contended that this name-form is a vestige of the Danes, and, on this North Devon coast, the Danes might quite as likely have left their mark, as the Mercians. But one of them, “Martinhoe,” is formed by the addition of “-hoe” to the Christian dedication of the church: not likely, therefore, to have been named by a pagan colony. Another place, in East Devon not many miles from the Mercian Widworthy-St. Cuthbert already mentioned, (p. 125), called “Pinhoe,” is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1001, to have been burnt _by_ the Danes in revenge of a Saxon defeat. Would this revenge have fallen upon their own countrymen? Also, close to the South Devon dedication of St. Werburgh (p. 121), at Wembury, before mentioned, are two examples of this name-form. One, the well-known “Hoe,” of Plymouth; another, the village of “Hooe,” in the promontory itself, where Wembury stands. Again, we have seen above that this very “regio,” in Kent, which now engages us, was so named “Hogh” so early as A.D. 738. Very early for the Danes. Add to this: contemporary with the first appearance of the Danes in Northumbria, at Lindisfarne, there was already a place called “Billingahoh,” now “Billing_ham_,” near Stockton.

It is, therefore, evident that “-hoe” was here before the Danes, and can be no other than an Anglian peculiarity. It is, therefore, an additional evidence, and very strong confirmation, of what has been already said of the great Mercian descent upon Devon, that this Anglianism is found strewed in the very path of it.

It will presently be seen that, besides Simeon of Durham, and other early chroniclers, both Somner and Camden took it for granted that “-hoe” is only another form, or dialect of “-ham.” It is however not unlikely, that, as in many other cases, a second mark of names “-haw” or “-haugh,” said to be Danish, has been concurrent with and undistinguished from this.

[25] Cod. Dip., No. LXXXV.

[26] 8_b_.

[27] First mentioned by Beda as “Clofeshoch,” and in K. Alfred’s translation “Clofeshooh.”

[28] See Cod. Dip. _passim_, for other varieties of the name.

[29] Two S. Chronicles, Oxford, 1565.

[30] It is to be regretted that editors of ancient texts, have not more generally extended their care to the preservation of marginal and other adventitious notes, even when they are of comparatively much later date than the texts, which of course are their chief care. Such valuable fragments are in imminent peril at the present day; for whenever a new discovery of ancient books or records is now brought to the notice of the most distinguished experts, the very first piece of advice is that they shall be “cleaned,” “repaired,” and “skilfully” rebound. See, among others, examples in the Historical Manuscripts Commission, _passim_. Why the binding, and even the _status quo_ itself, is a part of the essence of such things, as monuments. But manuscripts, with far less excuse, are following the churches on the broad way to refaction, as it may be mildly called.