m im^M i-^" yf /iV^^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES PETERBOROUGH. • DIOCESAN HISTORIES, PETERBOROUGH. BY GEO. AYLIFFE POOLE, M.A. RECTOR OF WINWICK, NEAR RUGBY, AND RURAL DEAN. PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. LONDON : SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, S.W. ; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. ; 48, PICCADILLY, \V. ; AND 13s, NORTH STREET, BRIGHTON. New York : E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. PREFACE, The Church of Saxulf at Medeshamsted had already numbered some four centuries when Remigius, the first Norman Bishop of the diocese, founded the minster which crowns the heights of Lincoln, and thither transferred his episcopal throne from Dor- chester in Oxfordshire. Ours, therefore, is the more ancient Cathedral^ though the mother Diocese is the more illustrious. Our earliest annals are neither obscure nor unin- teresting. The legend of Wolfade and Rufine, — the characters and work of Saxulf and his royal companions, — the destruction of the church by the Danes, and its re- storation by Edgar and Ethelwold, could not well be spared from the history of the Church and Kingdom. And in later times it is remarkable how many events belong, locally or personally, to the Diocese of Peter- borough, which claim, from their intrinsic importance, a place in general history. The struggles of Anselm, for instance, with Rufus, and of Becket with Henry II., cannot be told cir- cumstantially without reference to Rockingham and to Northampton. The names of Richard Coeur de Lion and of Archbishop Baldwin are indelibly in- 1031893 VI PREFACE. scribed on the roll of Pipewell Abbey. Katharine of Arragon and Mary Stuart have left memorials to be rehearsed over their graves in Peterborough Cathe- dral, and the story of the gunpowder treason is deeply scored upon the face of Northamptonshire and Rut- land. Events like these do not cease to be local history when they are transcribed on a wider page. The first name in our list of local historians re- minds us that there is a romance of books and authors, as well as of life and action. Early in the twelfth century there was in the mon- astery of Burgh a child named Hugh, of whom his brother had already made a monk. As he grew up Hugh became subject to attacks of haemorrhage, which left him with a complexion so bloodless that they called him (and we still call him) Candidus. After an attack of unusual severity his life was des- paired of, and they were about to perform the last religious offices for him when Egelbrith, a man of singular holiness, persuaded them rather to go to- gether into the church, and join in prayer for his recovery ; for God, said he, would not deny them the life of one man. Hugh recovered, as if by miracle, and lived long after, beloved by the brethren, and honoured by the successive abbots, John, Henry, Martin, and Watcrville. At his death he was sub- l^rior, and his brother Rcmaldus, prior. It had been the loving labour of Hugh's life to write the history of his house, a labour wliich was taken up by Rol^ert Swapham, who completed llie volume. It need hardly be said that "Swapham," for thus was the manuscript called, was reckoned one of the PREFACE. Vll chief treasures of the Church. So at the sacking of the cathedral by Cromwell's troopers, it was hid for security by the precentor, Humfrey Austin, under his seat in the choir. There it was found by one of the rebels, but Mr. Austin redeemed it for ten shillings, for which sum the fellow gave the following receipt : — " I pray let this scripture book alone, for he hath paid me for it, and therefore I would desire you to let it alone. By me, Henry Topcliffe, souldier under Captain Cromwell, Colonel Cromwell's son, there- fore I pray let it alone." But the fortunes of " Swapham " are not all told. It has since been delivered out of the limbo of danger and obscurity, being printed in " Sparkes' Collection." To " Swapham," as chronicler of the abbey, suc- ceeds Abbot John of Calais, and after him we have the anonymous author of the Chronicon Petroburgeiise. Of equal authority and of the deepest interest are the letters of the commissioners under Thomas Cromwell, for the suppression of monasteries, pub- lished by the Camden Society. These local chronicles owe a part of their interest to their antique form and character. Not so " The History of the Church of Peterborough," by Symon Gunton, late prebendary of the church, who was ejected from the first stall in the great rebellion. Gunton's volume was republished, with a preface and appendix, by Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, after- wards Bishop of Ely. One other book we must mention with due honour — "The Church History of Britain, endeavoured by Thomas Fuller." Fuller's contributions to our dio- viii PREFACE. cesan history are, of course, only occasional ; but he was born in the diocese, and lived and suffered in it, and his cheerful, impulsive, and somewhat egotistical garrulity, together with his quickness to note the interesting side of his surroundings, make him an amusing as well as a valuable racotiteiir. We should be sorry indeed to lose his stories, be they grave or gay- PART I. Saxon Period. CHAPTER I. FOUNDATION OF MEDESHAMSTED. The Kingdom of Mercia — The Bishopric of Lincoln — Heathen State of Mercia — Saxulf founds the Monastery of Medes- hamsted — Legend of Wulfade and Rufine. " The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them." The kingdom of Mercia consisted of the present counties of Lincoln, Northampton, Rutland, Hunting- don, Buckingham, Oxford, Worcester, Warwick, Derb)-,. Nottingham, Leicester, with part of Hereford and of Salop. Extensive as the kingdom was, it had, ac- cording to the usual arrangement of Saxon times, but one bishop, whose home (if he can be said to have had a home) was successively at Leicester,^ Lichfield, Dorchester in Oxfordshire, and Lincoln. But our early bishops might very well say of themselves that ' So that Leicester is in a sense more ancient than Peter- borough as a bishop's see. B 2 PETERBOROUGH. "here ihey had no conliniung city." Their dioceses were subject to violent disturbances, and their home was wherever they could find one. At the first coming of Christian missionaries of whom there is any authentic history, the condition of the people of Mercia was one of barbarous heathenism. The Christianity of Apostolic times, and with it the civilisation which must have followed the Roman arms, had been crushed out by the Saxon invaders ; and Mercia, with the rest of Eng- land, had sunk into such unmitigated heathenism, that each region successively reached by missionaries from Ireland, from lona, or from Northumbria, was as truly a field of severe and laborious Christian enterprise as any country at this day in Africa or in the South Pacific. At the time at which our history begins, Penda, a cruel and barbarous idolater, was king of Mercia ; but whether himself secretly favouring the Christians or caring for none of those things, he placed no obstacle in the way of the missionaries, but rather openly expressed his contempt for those who professed the faith of Christ but despised his laws. Finan, a saintly bishop of Northumbria, ordained, with Penda's sanction, a bishop to rule over the infant church of Mercia. Pcada, too, Penda's eldest son, and asso elated with him on the throne, had wooed and won Alflcda, (laughter of the Christian king of North innbria, on condition that he would embrace the Christian faith. He was i)aptiscd, therefore, by Finan, and returned into Mercia with his Christian wife and our priests. Penda survived the marriage of his son FOUNDATION OF MEDESHAMSTED. 3 only about two years, and was slain (655) by Oswi, leaving five children : three sons — Peada, Wulfere, and Ethelred ; and two daughters — Kyneburg and Kyne- swith. In 658 Peada also died, — slain, as was rumoured, at the instance of Alfleda. We have now learned the sound of many names with which we shall meet hereafter, but we have not yet given a local habitation to our episcopal city. At the extreme north-east angle of Northampton- shire was a tract of marsh land, running up between the Nen and the Welland as far as Croyland, and forming a part of " Holland," as this fen country of Lincoln is still called. This part of the fens was inhabited by the Gyrvii, or fen-men : a race rude and quaint as their country ; little disposed, in all probability, to welcome any form of civilisation.^ In this district was a spot certainly one degree removed from utter desolation, for it was known as Medeshamsted, "The home in the meadows." It occupied a slightly rising ground on the north bank of the Nen, just where the river pours its swollen flood into what is still sometimes a waste of water?. Perhaps, however, its first occupation, its subsequent history, and its present importance have grown, not indirectly, out of its original repulsiveness. There were no such humanisers of rude races, no such fer- tilisers of waste lands, no such reclaimers of places to ' Even in the eighteenth century their descendants violently resented all plans for enclosing and draining their marshes. They were content still to stalk on stilts over the fens, and to give all their energies to fishing and fowling. B 2 PETERBOROUGH. dwell in as the monks of old ; and the kings of Mercia had had sufficient intercourse (albeit not always of the friendliest kind) with their neighbours in Yorkshire and Northumberland, to form a pretty correct estimate of the value of a Christian element in their people. It was here, then, that Saxulf, a nobleman high in the favour of Penda, and of his son and successor, Peada, fixed on a site for a Christian church. And indeed, unpromising as it might appear, it would not have been easy to find a place more likely to be at the disposal of Saxulf or more acceptable to the Church. The prince who devoted to Christian uses an extensive tract of unreclaimed land, knew full well that while he earned the thanks of a grateful Church, he conferred an essential and a permanent benefit upon his people, and that at a comparatively small cost. The new tenants, too, were not easily disheartened by the rude aspect of the proffered possession. The religious of primitive times rather sought than avoided a home in such wild, inhospitable regions as made their very residence in it a penance, and their daily life a struggle and a warfare. Hcre,^ then, Saxulf commenced the erection of ' The neighbourhood of the IJarn.ick quarries was certainly not overlooked by Saxidf in choosing a site for his abbey. "Inine(li:vval times the well-known Bainack rag was very extensively worked, and was carried by water to all parts of Lincolnshire and the fen covmtries for the erection of many noble (Jotliii: structures. The working, however, of this stone seems to have been almost entirely abandoned before the begin- ning of the Hfiecnth century. At the vill.agc of Barnack a FOUNDATION OF MEDESHAMSTED. J what became in due time the great Abbey of Medes- hamsted, now the cathedral church of Peterborough. And it was not long before a series of startling events raised up a munificent patron to the church thus courageously commenced. At Peada's death his next brother, Wulfere, succeeded to the throne. Wulfere professed himself a Christian, and he had married Ermenild, daughter of Egbert, the Christian king of Kent. But his character and conduct little harmonised with his profession, or with the wishes of his queen. He had two sons, Wulfade and Rufine, whom he had not even brought to Holy Baptism. Wulfade, so says the legend, was one day hunting, when the stag of which he was in pursuit took refuge in a cell of St. Chad, — an incident which led to the conversion of the young prince, and afterwards of his brother Rufine. Their father, enraged at the youths for their profession of Christianity, slew them both with his own hand in their private oratory, a retreat in which they were betrayed by his steward, Werbode. The story relates that Werbode was strangled by the devil before the palace ; which, together with the godly counsel of his wife Ermenild, so wrought upon the king that he, too, repaired to St. Chad, confessed his crime, and vowed, by way of expiation, to restore statue of evident Roman workmanship has been found carved out of the easily- recognised 'rag.' In the parish church tlie Saxon, Norman, Early English, and Decorated portions are of the same material ; but in the fine mortuary chapel, which is of the Perpendicular age, stone from another locality has been employed."— Judd's "Geology of Rutland." These quarries were a permanent source of income. 6 PETERBOROUGH. the Christian rehgion, to rebuild the churches which Peada had suffered to perish, and to found several monasteries in his dominions. Where shall we place the scene of this strange tragedy ? Bcde does not tell us, and we are so nearly on the edge of prehistoric times that when one authority fails we have nowhither to turn. The monks of Peterborough naturally inclined to place the oratory in which the martyrs fell within the precincts of their church. They even invented visible vouchers of their story, planting a bay-tree in the place where they would have it that St. Chad preserved the heart of Wulfade, and around it they built magnificent cloisters, and filled the windows with painted glass, in which the whole story was depicted.^ First Window, I. King Penda, a Taynim, as writi-ng seytli, Gate ycse five children of Christen fcyth. II. The noble King Peada, by God's grace, Was the first founder of this place. III. By Queen Ermenyld had King Wulfere These twey sons that ye see here. IV. Wulfade ridcth, as he was wont, Into the forest the hart to hunt. ' These windows, which woukl luiw be beyond all price, were destroyed in the Great Rebellion, but the subjects and inscriptions arc preserved in Gunton's "History of Peter- borough." They give what the brethren of Peterborough themselves accepted as their veritable history. FOUNDATION OF MEDESHAMSTED, Second Window. I. Fro all his men Wulfade is gone And suyth himself the hart alone. II. The hart brought Wulfade to a well That was beside Seynt Chaddy's cell. III. Wulfade askyd of Seynt Chad, Where is the hart that me hath lad ? IV. The hart that hither thee hath brought Is sent by Christ that thee hath bought. Third Window. I. Walfade prayd Chad, that ghostly leech,' The faith of Christ him for to teach. II. Seynt Chad teacheth W^ulfade the feyth. And words of Baptism over him he seyeth. III. Seynt Chad devoutly to mass him dight, And hoseled* Wulfade Christy's knight. IV. Wulfade wished Seynt Chad that day For his brother Rufine to pray. Fourth Window. I. Wulfade told his brother Rufine That he was christned by Chaddy's doctrine, II. Rufine to Wulfade said again, Christned also would I be fain. III. Wulfade Rufine to Seynt Chad leedeth. And Chad with love of faith him feedeth. IV. Rufine is christned of Seynt Chaddys, And Wulfade his brother his godfather is. Fifth Window. I. Werbode, steward to King Wulfere, Told that his sons christned were. Physician of souls. " Gave him the Lord's Supper.. 8 PETERBOROUGH. II. Toward the chappel Wulfere gan goe, By guiding of Werbode, Christy's foe. III. Into the chappel entred the King, And found his sons worshipping. IV. Wulfere in woddness' his sword out drew, And both his sons anon he slew. Sixth Window. I. King Wulfere with Werbode yoo Burying gave his sons two. II. Werbode for vengeance his own flesh tare, The Devil him strangled and to hell bare. III. Wulfere for sorrow anon was sick, In bed he lay a dead man like. IV. Seynt Ermenyld, that blessed Queen, Counselled Wulfere to shrive him clean.'' Seventh Window. I. Wulfere, contrite, hyed him to Chad, As Ermenyld him counselled had. II. Chad bade Wulfere for his sin Abbeys to build his realm within. HI. Wulfere in hast performed than r.nnigh, that I'eada his brother began. IV. Wulfere endowed, with high devotion, The Abbey of Brcjugii whh great |X)ssession. Eighth Window. I. Till' lliird brother, King iMlieldrcil, Confirmed i)oth ins brethren's deed. II. .Saxulf, that here first Abbot was, For ftnkerys' at Thorney made a place. ' Madness. ' To make full confession. •• Anchorites, monks duelling in seclusion. I'OUNDATION OF MEDESHAMSTED. 9 III. After came Danes, and Broiigh brent, And slew the monkys as they went. IV. Fourscore years and sixteen Stood Brough, destroyed by Danes teen. Ninth Window, I. Seynt Athelwold was bidden by God's lore. The Abbey of Brough again to restore. II. Seynt Athelwold to King Edgar went And prayed him to help him in his intent. III. Edgar bade Athelwokl the work begin. And him to help he would not lyn. IV. Thus Edgar and Athelwold restored this place, God save it and keep it for His grace. However the monks of Peterborough may have been disposed to suggest it, no one will suppose that this was really the scene of the events thus com- memorated. That it was in Mercia there can be no doubt, and that it was at some place in Mercia where there was a royal residence seems equally clear. ^Vas it at Weedon, where Wulfere is said to have had his chief abode, and where his daughter, St. Werburg, had a nunnery dedicated to her? Was it at Stowe, in Staffordshire, where a nunnery was founded by Wulfere, and where there are still remains, supposed to be on the site of the ancient Mercian capital ? Or was it at Lichfield, as the mention made of St. Chad, and of the part which he had in the conversion of the two princes, may lead us to suppose? Certainl)-, though we may believe that St. Chad was engaged in his missionary work in the rudest possible districts, lO PETERBOROUGH. the last place where we should look for a royal resi- dence would be in a swamp, in the midst of the Gyrvii. The erection of the Abbey was prosecuted with renewed zeal by Wulfere and his brother Ethelred, his sisters Kyneburgh and Kyneswith rendering their aid. In due time the church was so far completed as to be dedicated to St. Peter, and it was presently endowed with vast possessions and privileges ; and so rapidly did the establishment increase, that Saxulf was induced to found a cell for the better retirement of some of the brethren at Brixworth, where his Saxon church still remains, and another at Ancarig, now Thorncy. Nor was it very long before this forbidding marshland became the site of a cluster of churches, associated by a brotherhood of destinies and interests as well as by neighbourhood. Their names are thus strung together in an old epigrammatical jingle, of which we can hardly be wrong in supposing that a monk of Sawtry, " that poor Abbaye," was the author: — ' ' Ramsey, the bounteous of gold and of fee, Croyland as courteous as courteous may be, Spalding the rich, and Peterborough the proud : — Sawtry, by the way, That poor Abbaye, Cave more alms in one day Than all they ! " In the year 7 1 6, within half a century of the founda- tion of Medeshamsted, followed that of Croyland. Since the dismemberment of Lincoln these sister churches are no longer in the same diocese, but they are near neighbours, and so intimately associated in FOUNDATION OF MEDESHAMSTED. II their history, that it would be difficult to relate the fortunes of either without more than a passing men- tion of both. The character of Guthlac, the founder and patron saint of Croyland, was more distinctly ascetic than that of Saxulf, who was the more practical, perhaps we may say the wiser man, of the two. While Guthlac planted his cross in a waste of waters — or worse than waters, a mere of reeds and rushes — Saxulf did not disdain to appropriate to his pious uses a spot already habitable. Saxulf must have had at least some converse with the inhabitants of the marshland homestead ; Guthlac's disordered imagination left him no better companions than monster forms of beasts and demons. While Guthlac tortured him- self with the flagellum, which is his symbol to this day, Saxulf ruled both himself and his companions with a more genial sway. They were, however, alike in this, that they left a busy and an honoured career in the world- to adopt the seclusion and discipline of a religious life. Nicholls, in his " Leicestershire," has given engravings from a very curious MS. in the Cot- tonian Library, in which the life of Guthlac is made the subject of several illuminations, the series begin- ning with the retirement of Guthlac from the com- pany of his military companions, and ending with his death and burial. It must in fairness be noted that the illuminations to which we refer are not contem- porary with the foundation of Croyland, any more than the windows described in the note to this chapter are contemporary with Penda and Wulfere, but they itre pictured stories, and as such a part of our eccle- siastical history, and very valuable as proof of the 12 PETERBOROUGH. hold which such stories long retained upon the people, and as examples of Christian art.^ Kept as they must have been within the archives of the church, and valued as well for their real beauty as for the story that they tell, these drawings must have been studied again and again by the monks of Croyland, and by such of their visitors as were deemed worthy to behold them : and it would be difficult to estimate their wilue, as ministering to the esprit de corps of the brethren of the abbey. The subjects of this highly interesting series of historic drawings are arranged in roundels which succeed one another in the order of the events depicted. In the first roundel Guthlac is seen in the company of his military friends and companions. — He breaks away from them and retires to Rcpton, where Ebba presides over the abbey church. — He receives holy orders and the tonsure at the hands of a bishop. — He departs in a boat to the site of his proposed habitation in the fens of Lincolnshire. — He builds a church, working with his own hands. — He administers the flagellum, much after the matter-of-fact manner of a master dealing with an impertinent schoolboy, to a demon who presumes to icm])t him. — He casts an evil spirit out of a demoniac. — A legion of devils surround him, and carry him to the very jaws of hell ; ' TIic wimiows in Canterbury Cathedral in uliich tin- mar- tyrdom of Ik'ckct is painted are pcrlia|)s tlie nearest to con- temjiorary [)ictiires in i;lass. The story of Leofric and Godiva ap)>cars in like manner in much more recent glass, in St. Mary's linll, Covcntr; . FOUNDATION OF MEDESHAMSTED. 1 3 but he is rescued by St. Bartholomew, his patron ssLinO — His death and burial complete the series. Perhaps the most interesting subject of all is one which we have purposely reserved till the last. It is, in fact, a subscription list of the foundation of Croy- land Abbey ; but, as might be assumed, it appears in a very different form from any modern document of the same character. At the right of the design appears a man in handcuffs, with an evil spirit escaping from his mouth, representing the deliverance of each noble donor from the fatal influence of wealth and possession, until they are consecrated to a holy ser- vice. Before him kneel thirteen figures holding each a scroll in his hand describing his gift. First comes King Ethelbald in his crown, with the scroll inscribed (£qo Bcv (Stijclbaltlu^ Uo tibt ^etitm Hbbat rum pav tiiuntiis" ^ni^, i^olutam ct libcram ab omni stculnn t>"actiouc. The Abbot Turketul, with his crozier in one hand and his scroll in the other, follows, with the gift of the sixth part of his inheritance. Earl Algar, Thorold, and the rest make their donations in like form. A reasonable estimate of the value of the gifts thus recorded would make the amount as strange in our eyes as the form of the roll of contributors. It is often said that pictures and painted windows were the books and homiUes of the middle ages, and we shall find few happier illustrations of the saying than these manuscript illuminations of Croyland, and painted windows of Medeshamsted. ' The medixval diablery of these compositions fairly antici- pates the fantastic figures of Peter Brueghel. 14 PETERBOROUGH. CHAPTER II. CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. ' ' Our holy lives must win a new world's crown." The spirit of ancient rtarrative concerns itself but little with the out\vard expression of popular interest in the great and good deeds which it relates. But of this at least we may be certain, that the remote Gyrvii must have been startled into something of interest and wonder, and have halted on their stilts to watch the companies of workmen with their yokes of oxen,^ their wains and rafts, and all their appliances for the carriage of stone and timber from the Barnack and Ketton quarries, and from the Rockingham and still more distant forests, just as in these later days the country folk line the railway banks or crest the bridges to see " steam navvies " at work, or to watch the first train passing on a new line. But there was a yet more striking spectacle before them now. There was the courtly luarl, not a mere lordly master of a servile vassalage, but himself the active and intelligent leader of the work, with com- panions of his own rank, putting their hands to the spade or the workman's hammer, to the line and to the compass ; and there were the royal sisters with • Canilidus, the oldest I'dcrboiough historian, tells us that he had .seen in the foundations of Mcdcshamstcd stones which would require eight yoke of oxen to draw them. CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. 1 5 their brother Ethelred encouraging the workmen with their smiles, and with equal spirit devoting themselves to the common purpose, separating themselves from the frivolities and dissipations of the world that they might join in the religious labour; and there were holy men of God (not in person only, but in office also), with prayer and psalm, and eucharist never interrupted, for it was a work of devotion and devo- tion only ; and in those days devotion was not ashamed of being devout. Such was this band of enthusiasts— not dreamers ; of recluses — not idlers, busy all ; nay, not so much busy as active, not so much active as laborious, in a work altogether un- selfish, and raised above worldly interests and associations. Such a company so employed might justify the old mystical picture of Paradise, as a garden hedged with roses, and inhabited by saintly denizens — angels and glorified spirits. And we can the better enter into this view of the matter, because the spirit is not dead yet among men, and we trust never may be. It is only the realisation of the vow which David made so many ages past,— " I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep, nor mine eyelids to slumber, neither the temples of my head to take any rest until I find out a place for the temple of the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob." It is a vow which many a Churchman of to-day has made and has performed, though with different appliances, so as to be one still, and one in the same church too, with Saxulf and his pious fellow-labourers, Ethelred, Kyneburg, and Kynes- with. 1 6 PETERBOROUGH. Do not then let us question the reality or the substantial truth of the story told by such historians as Venerable Bede of the missionary and other religious workers of their day. Let us for a moment consider what historical value is to be conceded to such narratives, and ask how far they lay open the history and character of the Church and her children. In the first place, we can form no just estimate of the work and influence of our 'church in the seventh century, unless we bear in mind that it was then as truly a missionary church, and its bishops and clergy as truly working missionaries, as are our own bishops and clergy now among any heathen and savage people ; or even as the church of the apostles in their first efforts among Jews and Gentiles. There is an instinct of reverence which will not let us compare them personally with St. Peter and St. I'aul ; but we need not hesitate to place Taulinus and Finan and Aidan and Saxulf and Chad in the ranks of the noble army of apostles and evangelists and their fellow workers in all ages of the Church. They went forth without scrij) and purse, with their lives in their hands, and preached to violent and ignorant heathens. But just as with the Brahmins of India, to whom St. Thomas preached the Gospel, these pagans were not without priests and tcnijjlcs and religious doctrines and rites of their own, to which they clung with the affection and prejudice of long habit, and with the force of imjjetuous tcmiiers ; and which they de- fended, in many cases, with the ingenuity of an acute intellect, stinnilaled by ])ersonal interests. Read alternately with sonic modern missionary reports, the CHARACTERISl'ICS OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. 1 7 history of the conversion of Kent by Augustine, or of Northumbria by PauHnus, each will add very consi- derably to the interest of the other, and their general resemblance will impart an air of probability to scenes so far removed from us in time and place and habits of thought, that they seem lo us almost beyond belief. We may take Bede's account of Aidan as a descrip- tion of a missionary life in those days. Having accepted the episcopate, he was sent from lona into England, and there he set a most perfect example of virtue and moderation in all things ; his own conduct being exactly in accordance with his most holy pre- cepts. He taught his clergy to seek no worldly advantages, to love no worldly possessions. What- ever he received as alms from prince or noble he gave to the poor. He travelled everywhere on foot, except when he was actually obliged to go on horse- back ; and on his journeys, all whomsoever he met, whether rich or poor, he accosted ; and if they were pagans he exhorted them to receive the faith, or if they were Christians he confirmed them in their profession, and stirred them up to works of faith and charity. He was so far removed from the sloth and self-indulgence ^ of our generation (it is Bede who speaks), that he taught all with whom he sojourned, lay or cleric, to give diligent heed to the reading of the Holy Scriptures ; - and if ever (which was but ' Is this only the ordinary complaint of each generation, or had the faithful really so early as the time of Bede fallen beliind their fathers in zeal and good works ? ' Then, at all events, the laity were not discouraged in tlie study of Scripture. C 1 8 PETERBOROUGH. seldom) he was invited to the king's table he brought one or two clerics with him, and having himself dined moderately, retired with them, as soon as he could with propriety, to join them in study or in prayer. Bede gives us a missionary picture. He justly calls it pulcherimu7n spectacubim (a goodly sight), for it is worthy of any painter or poet. Aidan, the Celtic apostle of Northumberland, is preaching to the princes and courtiers of Oswald, and the king, to whom the language of the bishop had been familiar in his exile, is acting the part of interpreter. The result was soon apparent. Other preachers came into Oswald's country, and preached with great fervour, and holy Baptism was administered to the converts. Churches and nionasteries rapidly sprang up, for Oswald fur- nished sites and the requisite endowment, and the children of the English were brought up in the nurture and discipline of their Christian teachers. The story of Augustine, and the incidents con- nected with the conversion of the Saxons of Kent, belong to the history of the diocese of Canterbury ; and that of the conversion of Northumbria and its princes and nobles, to those of York and Durham. The conversion of Penda and his fiamily we have already related. We may ask, Do not these and the like stories, compared with our own missionary reports, confirm and illustrate one another by a general resemblance running through them, — an absolute sameness of i)urpose, a general resemblance in the character of the events related, and of the persons described ? Iwen the sounds, equally unaccustomed to our modern English tongue and cars, of the names CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. IQ of persons and places will add to the resemblance of missionary stories in both cases ; and if we ask whether there is any lower authority to be assigned to the histories themselves, it is enough to answer, that in each case the same persons whose apostolic acts are rehearsed, were themselves, or their nearest and dearest associates were, the very actors in the scenes that they describe. It is scarcely conceivable that there shall be any history which can claim a higher place than that of "Venerable Bede," a near con- temporary of the events he narrates, himself a witness of some of them, and for personal authority such as no historian can surpass. Still there is to us a strangeness in these old-world ecclesiastical stories, especially in the mythical spirit and miraculous tone with which some of them are deeply imbued. They do certainly seem to abound in signs and wonders ; in prophecies, and other transcendental features by which we are justly or unjustly repelled at the present day. The bare nar- rative, however, will seldom exceed the bounds of reasonable belief. It is the spirit in which it is told that converts it in our case into a myth or a legend. There is a very present sense of divine interference running through all. The voice of Heaven seems to speak everywhere. The divine justice is always vin- dicated as by the finger of God. There are meanings, spiritual meanings, even in common things, which we do not look for, and for want of looking for them cannot see. They seem to make all events an outer expression of the word and will and attributes of the Creator. The Old Testament authors are exactly so PETERBOROUGH. the same in this respect ; but then they sj>aie as the Spirit gave them ntterafice. They must have resisted or quenched the Spirit to have spoken otherwise. But with the chief of our old chroniclers, — Venerable Bede, for instance, — it was far otherwise. He was no discerner of spirits ; he proclaimed with no special authority the connexion between a sublunary fact and a Divine purpose. He was as honest in his evidence as a prophet or an evangelist ; but he was not so trustworthy in the inferences and reflections and interpretations with which he accompanied his narrative. He recognised the finger of God in some things which we should refer to the ordinary sequence of events. He heard a very plain voice where our ears are dull of hearing. We need not hesitate to say that he was sometimes, perhaps often, mistaken ; but we clnnot deny him faith and piety and reverence and an understanding not naturally inferior to our own. In a word, we accept his testimony, but we venture sometimes to demur to the inferences which he seems to deduce from his facts. There is, besides, a difference to be observed between history and legend. Not that what pretends to be history is always more actually true than what is confessedly legend. "// ivas said by them of old time" which is the voice of legend, is sometimes as trustworthy as the direct assertion of a contemporary historian ; — nay, far more trustworthy, for the contem- porary has his own weaknesses and prejudices ; — [)0ssibly even a disingenuousness which disguises /acts, which abounds in the siipprcssio vcri, or in CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. 2 1 the suggestio falsi ; but the aim of the legend is ingenuous and true. The legend of Wulfere and Rufine exactly confirms these remarks. A son of the Pagan Wulfere is accidentally guided to St. Chad's Oratory, where he is converted, and whither he brings his brother ; and he too embraces the faith. Wulfere's steward discovers the brothers at their devotions, and informs the king, who is so enraged that he slays them both. The Devil strangles the treacherous steward ; and Wulfere is so shocked with the whole incident that he too becomes a Chris- tian. Such is the story. That the Devil, propria manu, strangled the steward, we shall not certainly believe ; but that the steward, in a fit of remorse, and ifistigante Diabolo, hanged himself, cannot be called improbable. Alore than this was doubtless believed by those who found the body ; but if we believe a little less than this, we may, at all events, excuse their telling the story as they believed it. Then, again, the stories which we receive from the olden records may sometimes be accepted rather as parables than as exact histories. There is one such by no means remotely connected with the history and fortunes of Peterborough. The most valued relic belonging of old to this church was the uncorrupted right arm of St. Oswald. A precious relic indeed it was, even in the lowest sense ; for it was a great source of wealth to its possessors. King Stephen came to Peter- borough on purpose to see it, offered his ring to St. Oswald on the occasion, and remitted to the monas- tery a debt of forty marks. We must turn to Bede fc* 2 2 PETERBOROUGH. the origin and spirit of the story. St. Aidan is keeping Easter with Oswald, king of the Deiri. He comes to a table right royally provided, and adorned with a .splendid silver salver. He is stretching out his hand to bless the provisions when the king's almoner comes in, and begs relief for a crowd of hungry people at the door. The king sends out the food provided for himself and his guests, and presents the silver salver with his own hand to the almoner, to be broken up for the hungry suppliants. The bishop, delighted with such an instance of unhesitating bounty, takes Oswald by the right hand, with the words, " Nu7igz4am inveterascat hac manus .-'" " May this right hand never perish ! " And so it happened indeed, for when Oswald fell in fight his body was barbarously dis membered, but his right arm was reverently i")reserved and put into a silver casket, and was still, in Bede's day, kept at Bamburgh. From Bamburgh it found its way to Peterborough ; and at the sacking of that church and monastery by the Danes it was rescued by the prior, and carried to the Isle of Ely, and at last restored to Peterborough. As the mythical legend of a relic this would, of course, be far too common- place ; but nothing can deprive the story of its true .significance. In that sense, at all events, we may echo the benediction " Nwujuavi inveterascat hire 7>mnus!" even yet this right hand has not waxed feeble. It has preached charity at Hamburgh, at ICIy, at Peterborough ; and to us at this day, if we have eyes to penetrate below the husk, the story is still a parable. It is perhaps worth notice, that the reverence with which the arm was recovered CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. 23 from the battle-field, and afterwards so. carefully pre- served, is a recognition of the holiness both of Aidan and of Oswald, of the bishop and of the king ; and as such it may stand as historic truth. These few remarks on the character of our eccle- siastical annals may serve as an apology for their authors, and for those by whom for many centuries they were accepted with undoubting faith. Surely they should modify, in some degree, the suspicion and distaste with which they are now generally received, though they can hardly induce us to credit those stories which carry with them the evidence of actual, if not of conscious falsehood, and of which Fuller quaintly remarks, " He needs a hard plate on his face that reports them, and a soft place in his head that believes them." And yet the evil that crept into this devotion to relics, — the too ready acceptance of wonderful stories, — should teach us reverence for truth, and loyalty to common-sense ; without which we shall certainly be led into folly, and even into actual falsehood and wrong. There is, for instance, a story of a child who found his cradle and his grave in this diocese, which can only be characterised as childish and impertinent. St. Romwald was a king's son, who immediately on his birth ^ spoke certain holy words, professed himself a Christian, was baptised, and immediately expired. He was buried at King's Sutton, and removed, first to Brackley and afterwards to Buckingham, where an aisle in the church was dedicated to him.^ Such ' At King's Sutton. * Bridge's "Northamptonshire," vol. i., p. 143. 24 PETERBOROUGH. senseless folly as this must have brought its own curse with it, in an utter disregard for truth. And the collection of relics also, which was part of the same system, led to actual robbery and wrong (St. Oswald's arm was stolen again and again); as, indeed, all collecting of trifles, from old coins to cancelled postage-stamps, does at the present day. It is a diseased development of the organ of acquisi- tiveness. There is, at all events, one thing which should teach us to accept the history of our Christian fore- fathers in good part. AVe and they are one church. We owe them not only a fair and candid judgment, l)ut the love and charity of brethren in Christ. We are not, indeed, bound to believe all that they say, because they who believed it relate it as truth. With our habits of closer observation we may almost be said to see with other eyes. Certainly, with our greater knowledge of natural science, we account very differently even for tlic things which wc sec alike. With our altered habits of thought wc arrive at different conclusions even from the same premisses. But we are one with them in the Body of Christ, and the honour that we give to them we gain ourselves ; the honour wc deny to them we wilfully forego. We cannot if we would dissociate ourselves from Columba and Aidan and Finan and Chad and Saxulf; and certainly, if we rightly understand their place in the history of the Church, we would not if we could. THE ABBEY DESTROYED BY THE DANES. 25 CHAPTER III. THE ABBEY DESTROYED BY THE DANES : REFOUNDED BY EDGAR. Saxulf— Wilfrid — The Controversy about Easter and tlie Ton- sure— Medeshamsted sacked by the Danes; restored by Edgar — Succession of Abbots — Leofric — Esjelric — Saxon Churches — Dedications of Churches. "Approach with reverence. There are those within Whose dwelling-place is Heaven." The church and monastery thus happily couipleted, furnished amply with brethren, and placed under the rule of Saxulf as its first abbat, increased so rapidly that, in a few years, several cells and subordinate churches were erected within its jurisdiction. Among these was Ancarig, which became afterwards the Abbey of Thorney, and Brixworth, in which, perhaps, we still look upon the handiwork of the founder of Medes- hamsted. Saxulf ruled with the entire confidence and good-will of his brethren, until he was called to yet greater dignity. He succeeded Wilfrid at his de- position from the see of Lichfield. Wilfrid was the most accomplished churchman of his day, and an important question was before him. At this time, as there had been a century before in the southern counties, there were north of the Hum- ber also, certain disastrous differences in the Church, 26 PETERBOROUGH. which we shall find it \-ery difficult to understand without going back to the re-establishment of Chris- tianity in England, by Augustine in the southern, and by the disciples of the school of Columba in the northern provinces. Of course, each missionary bishop and his clergy brought with them their own faith and usages. In their faith, happily, they were agreed ; but there were some ceremonial usages in which they differed, and chief among them was the season of keeping Easter.^ The churches of the south, following the custom brought by Augustine from Rome, and pleading the authority of St. Peter, kept their Easter^ as we do still, on the Sunday after the full moon next after the vernal equinox. The northern provinces, following St. Columba, and, as they believed, the example of St. John and of the Eastern Church, kept their Easter from the fourteenth day of the moon until the twentieth. The whole dispute might seem to concern nothing but external order, or at most a sentimental difference in the kalendar ; but in reality it involved also principles of authority and obedience, and it occasioned no little social and religious dis order and discomfort. The church in a city or a kingdom, nay, in a single household, might be di- vided in the keeping of the great Christian feast of ' Tlic form of the clerical tonsure was .aiiollier, but less im- portant question. The Western Cliurchcs, tlien as now, sliaved the loj) of the head, leaving a circle of hair in imitation of Our Saviour's crown of thorns. The Eastern Churches shaved the forehead, and high up to the crown. THE ABBEY DESTROYED BY THE DANES. 27 peace and charity. So it was, in fact, with Oswi, king of Northumberland, and his wife and family. Oswi himself obeyed the use of York, his queen and household that of Canterbury ; and so the husband's Holy Week might be the wife's Easter Festival. The Mercians in general, owing their Christianity to Finan and Aidan, and other disciples of the school of St. Columba, adhered to the northern use ; and with them we might naturally have expected to find Wilfrid, a native of Ripon and a student of Lin- disfarne. But Wilfrid had gone to study at Rome, and returned, as we should now speak, a decided ultramontane. When the dispute was settled at the Council of Whitby, therefore (a.d. 664), in presence of Oswi, king of Northumbria, Wilfrid maintained the Roman use with great vigour, and through the more yielding disposition of Colman, bishop of York, and others on that side, with success. The decision of the Council was doubtless just, but it was not the less certain that it was given on very insufficient grounds. Wilfrid had contrived to base his argu- ments on the comparative authority of Columba and of St. Peter : to whom Christ had committed the keys of the kingdom- of Heaven. " Then," said the king, " I tell you all plainly I shall not stand opposed to the doorkeeper of the kingdom of Heaven, lest, when I come to the gate, I should find no one to open it to me." We are, perhaps, equally indebted to the quaint decision of the king, to the yielding disposition of Colman, and to the persistence of Wilfrid, for the final determination of the matter as it now stands. It 28 PETERBOROUGH. is just conceivable that, but for this tardy agreement, we might still be keeping Easter at two different seasons within our one church ; or, perhaps, which would be still worse, the Church in England might have been rent in twain, and might have been at this day two rival bodies. Wilfrid has another claim on the gratitude of the Church in Mercia. He founded a monastery at Oundle, where, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, he died (a.d. 711). Having bestowed his blessing on his faithful attendants, he turned his face to the wall and calmly fell asleep. So, under the roof of his own abbey, the busiest, perhaps, and the most combative of our ecclesiastics (Becket not excepted), closed his useful but tempestuous and ambitious career in peace. When Saxulf was made bishop of Mercia, Cuthbald, with his consent and good-will, was elected to succeed him as abbot of Medeshamsted. Under Cuthbald the abbey still nourished, and increased in wealth and importance, as it continued to do under Egbald, Pusa, Beonna, and Ceolred ; but in the succeeding abbacy of Hedda, a frightful desolation fell, not on Medeshamsted only, but on a great part of the khig- doni. Since the year 837 the Danes had ravaged a great part of the island, first attacking the southern provinces. After a few years they turned their atten- tion northward, took York, invaded Mercia, and in 866 wintered at Nottingham, 'i'hree years after (869) they wintered at York, and in 870, landing on the coast of Einc (iliishiie, destroyed tlic monastery of liardney, slaying all the monks, and moved south- ward to Croyland. There they repeated their work THE ABBEY DESTROYED BY THE DANES. 29 of carnage and destruction, slaughtering all the monks except the few who were sent away by the Abbot Theodore with their most precious relics and trea- sures. Theodore himself was slain on the altar, and several others in various parts of the church ; and one only boy-monk, named Turgar, was compassion- ately preserved by Sidroc, one of the leaders of the Danes, who concealed him under a Danish cloak. From Croyland the barbarians proceeded to Medes- hamsted, where they found defences of such strength that they were obliged to attack it with engines, and to cover their approaches with archers. Lubba, the brother of Hubba, the Danish leader, fell desperately wounded by a stone in the very gateway ; and Hubba, enraged at this, slew all the monks with his own hand, — the Abbot Hedda among the rest. All the altars were torn up, every monument was broken. The relics of Saints Kyneburg, Kyneswith, and Tibba were trampled under foot, the library was destroyed, and the fire which destroyed the church and the monastic buildings continued to burn for fifteen days. Meanwhile a miserable remnant of the monks of Croyland having returned to their desolated home, first did what they could to re-establish themselves, and then extended their pious care to Medeshamsted. Getting together, with great pains, the bodies of the slaughtered monks, which lay exposed to the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, they buried no fewer than eighty-four, with the abbot in the midst, in one grave, which they dug in the churchyard, just eastward of the church. Over this grave Godric, the abbot of Croyland, placed a stone, sculptured ■30 PETERBOROUGH. with standing figures of the deceased abbot and his brethren ; and thither came Godric once a year so long as he lived, and having erected a tent over the stone, celebrated masses for two days for the souls of the departed. Thus perished Medeshamsted, to rise again after a desolation of a hundred years, under another name, and to better fortunes. For about a hundred years the church and monas- tery remained desolate, the very ruins being turned into stalls for cattle. But in the year 970 Edgar, now king of all England, and Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, became its restorers and second founders. This was but a part of a revolution extending far beyond the Abbey of Medeshamsted. Under the influence of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, the king had thrown himself entirely into the interest of the Benedictine monks against the secular clergy, and he was very active in converting all the religious houses they could lay their hands on to the order of St. Benedict. A singular incident came very opportunely to their aid. The queen hap])cncd one day to overhear a prayer of Ethelwold that Almighty God would be l)lcased to incline the licarts of the king and cjueen and of tlie nobles of this kingdom to assist in so great a work. She was struck with the earnestness of the petition, and, coming forward, assured Ethelwold that for her part at least God had already heard and granted liis prayer. '1 henceforward she ceased not THE ABBEY DESTROYED BY THE DANES. 3 1 to solicit the king most earnestly for his consent and help, and the king and queen with their court were soon actively engaged in the work. Ethelwold was directed in a dream (so says the story) to go to the monastery of St. Peter in the Mercian province in search of a monastery which awaited their fostering care. He went, in obedience to the vision, first to Oundle, where Wilfrid had already dedicated a house to St. Peter. But Oundle was not destined to be their place of rest. They were directed to go still farther eastward, and so went on to Medesharasted, which they found better suited to their purpose. Thither therefore came Edgar and Ethelwold, with Dunstan, and Oswald, archbishop of York, and a great company of nobility and clergy, who all agreed in approving both the place and the work. And when Edgar read the charters of the house, he wept for joy that he had a second Rome in his dominions. In the presence of that assembly he confirmed the former privileges and possessions of the abbey, and offered with his nobles so large obla- tions, some in land, some in gold and silver, that this place, already called Burgh, came to be known as Gildenburgh, or Goldetiburgh, though from its ancient dedication it was more properly designated Peter- borough. And it is said that in those days this monastery was held in such reverence that whoever came thither, though he were king, bishop, or abbot, put off his shoes at the gate and entered barefoot. From this time, then, the abbey was no longer known as Medeshamsted, but as Peterborough. 32 PETERBOROUGH. The first abbot of this new regime was Adulf, chancellor to King Edgar, who was moved by the sad death of his eldest son to visit Rome as a peni- tent ;^ but was told that he would better consult his soul's health by aiding the renewed foundation of this church. So he came to Peterborough, and there, in the presence of the king and the assembled nobles and clergy, offered all his wealth, laid aside his costly robes, and, putting on the habit of a monk, became (972) abbot of the church which he had thus bene- fited. In 992, Adulf was made archbishop of York, and was succeeded by Kenulf first, and then by Elsin, a diligent collector of relics, with which the monastery was enriched for many generations. Elsin died in 1055, having been abbot fifty years. He was suc- ceeded by Arwin, and he again by Leofric, a near relative of that great Sa.xon Earl of Mercia, who, for love of his wife Godiva, made Coventry toll-free. We cannot resist the temptation to imagine the great earl, with his noble wife, and their almost royal retinue of lords and knights and esciuires, gracing the installation of the abbot in his monastery. At all events, we may infer that the carl and the abbot were one, not only in kin, but in friendship ; for the abbot held no fewer than five - alibeys, among which was Coventry, all within the jurisdiction of the carl. It is strange how often Lcofric's name occurs in ' Tlic cliiM's death was (jccasioned hy the intemperate Iialiits of its parents. He was smotliered in llieii l)e