ABBEYS OF GREAT BRITAIN

“The monasteries,” says Mr Wakeman when writing on the subject of Saxon monasticism, “were not all of one type, nor did they owe their origin all to one ideal. Some, like those at Winchester, Dorchester and Selsey, were chiefly adjuncts to the cathedral, and maintained the cathedral services and institutions. Some, like St Hilda’s great foundation at Whitby and those of Coldingham, Ely, Barking, and Repton, were double foundations for men and women, who lived apart in separate buildings, but used the chapel in common and owed a common obedience to the same superior. Some, like the Benedictine houses of Wilfrid at Ripon and of Benedict Biscop at Wearmouth and Jarrow, were especially devoted to learning.... Hardly second to them, in the veneration of Englishmen, came the foundation of Malmesbury among the Wilsætas, which trained the poet, the musician, and the preacher StAldhelm to be the first Bishop of Sherborne and one of the first English men of letters.“In this use of monasteries as the nursery of Church life we see the practical spirit which is ever characteristic of Englishmen. They were not to be hermitages, nor the abode of recluses, but centres of active usefulness as well as of spiritual growth.”

“In this use of monasteries as the nursery of Church life we see the practical spirit which is ever characteristic of Englishmen. They were not to be hermitages, nor the abode of recluses, but centres of active usefulness as well as of spiritual growth.”

The names, too, of other writers, namely, Caedmon and the Venerable Bede, add their lustre at this period to those of Church dignitaries. Daily growing more prosperous, the Anglo-Saxon Church reached its golden age in the early part of the 8th century. But we read that—

“Intemperance, impurity and greed of gold soon became rampant. The mixed company of worldly-minded and criminal persons, whose professed penitence gained them admission to those once pure homes of Christian life, defiled the monastic abodes which sheltered them. Many still more worthless men, with no knowledge nor care for the religious life, obtained grants of land from kings on the pretence of founding monasteries, so as to have the estate made over to them and their heirs for ever, gathering together in the buildings they erected all sorts of worthless persons; much scandal and vice resulting,”—English Church History(Rev. C. A.Lane).

The Nemesis soon came in the shape of the Danish invasions which swept away practically all the monasteries in the land—Lindisfarne, Whitby, Wearmouth and Sheppey, in particular, suffering greatly from the marauders. St Edmund endured martyrdom at their hands; Peterborough, Ely, Winchester, London, Canterbury, Rochester, etc., all were pillaged, and the inhabitants massacred; while the whole country became a scene of desolation. Temporary peace was gained in the reign of Alfred the Great, King ofWessex—the Danes being permitted to settle in Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia, and the process of reviving religious life went hand in hand with the rebuilding of the monastic houses. Cardinal Newman gives a wonderful description of this restoration of monastic life—

“Silent men were observed about the country, or discovered in the forest, digging, cleaning and building; and other silent men, not seen, were sitting in the cold cloisters tiring their eyes and keeping their attention on the stretch, while they painfully deciphered, then copied and recopied the manuscripts which they had saved. There was no one that contended or cried out, or drew attention to what was going on; but by degrees the woody swamp became a hermitage, a religious house, a farm, an abbey, a village, a seminary, a school of learning and a city. Roads and villages connected it with the abbeys and cities which had similarly grown up. And then, when these patient, meditative men had in the course of many years gained their peaceful victories, perhaps invaders came, and with fire and sword undid their slow and persevering toil in an hour. Down in the dust lay the labour and civilisation of centuries—churches, colleges, cloisters and libraries—and nothing was left to them but to begin all over again; but this they did without grudging, so promptly, cheerfully and tranquilly as if it were by some law of nature that the restoration came; and they were like the flowers and shrubs and great trees, which they reared, and which, when ill-treated, do not take vengeance or remember evil, but give forth fresh branches, leaves and blossoms, perhaps in greater profusion or with richer quality, for the very same reason that the old were rudely broken off.”

Dunstan, the great Church reformer and statesman, built and restored as many as forty monasteries; established several schools, and is supposed to have exercised jurisdiction over at least 3000 parish churches. He and Archbishop Odo reinstated the rules of St Benedict in the monasteries which hadpreviously become relaxed. Dunstan had many dealings with the Danes. He allowed them to settle in the north but did not compel them to accept English laws and customs. Had Ethelred the Unready treated these northern people as judiciously, there had perhaps been no such dreadful invasion as that which followed the massacre of the Danes in 1002, and which, under the leadership of Sweyn, ravaged the country for years. Sweyn, after being acknowledged King of England, died in 1014, and after his death many were the battles fought between those who upheld the right of Canute, Sweyn’s son, against that of Edmund Ironside, son of Ethelred. Eventually, as is known, Canute became first “sole King of the English” and in the course of time embraced the Christian faith. He founded Bury St Edmunds Abbey and promoted much missionary work in Norway and Denmark. At the close of the 10th and the early part of the 11th century many churches were built by the converted Danes. These pre-Norman structures had more massiveness, combined with greater elegance, than those of the earlier Saxon and Romanesque period—the latter buildings being chiefly built of wood—and were copies of continental churches with which the Danes were familiar through their intercourse with the Normans. At the English restoration, the cause of Christianity gained a great supporter in that saintly king, Edward the Confessor, who upheld and furthered all Christian works in the land, and was persuaded by the monks to build and endow, at enormous expense, the abbey of Westminster. Harold, his brother-in-law, advanced the cause of the secular clergy by building Waltham as a collegiate foundation, and was buried ultimately there after thebattle of Senlac. The Norman Conquest was the means of yet another abbey being founded—that of Battle, built and endowed by William I.

The Conquest did much to promote church interests and introduced a higher standard of religious thought throughout the country. Cathedrals and abbey churches were rebuilt. Norman landowners founded and endowed new monasteries, and monasticism, as a whole, was extended and reformed. New orders sprung up at the latter end of the 11th century, including the military orders, formed in response to the Crusaders and known as the Knights Templar and Knights of St John; also regular orders representing reforms of the Benedictine order. In 1077 the Cluniacs came, but being entirely dependent on the Mother house at Clugny, were regarded as foreigners and did not meet with much encouragement. On the other hand, the Cistercians, or “white monks,” in spite of their rigid rules and extreme austerity, found favour with the people and set up their first English house at Waverly in Surrey in 1129. The rules of the Carthusian monks were not popular—absolute silence, among other severities, was observed by the brethren, and only nine houses of the order were erected in this country. The Black Canons Regular of St Augustine with their branches of the Præmonstratensian and Gilbertine orders established many monasteries which flourished throughout the land. This extension of monasticism, which reached its culminating point in the middle of the 12th century, is thus vividly pictured by Mr Wakeman:—

“The monasteries sprang up all over England with a life of their own, concentrated and exclusive, but rich and vigorous, bringing into the stagnant waters of rural society a profusionof high thoughts and noble aspirations previously inconceivable. Art, worship, devotion, learning often in the highest form at that time attainable, were brought to man’s very doors. If he had in him anything which would correspond to their magnetic touch, and would submit himself to the chastening of discipline, the open portals of the nearest monastery set him upon the lowest rung of the ladder which would lead, did he choose it, to heaven.... There was hardly a district in England where monastic influence was unknown and its power unfelt.... For a century and a half after the Conquest all the best men in the English Church came from the monasteries.”

Deterioration in monastic life, however, set in at the opening of the 13th century.

“From the end of the 12th century until the Reformation the monasteries remained magnificent hostelries; their churches were splendid chapels for noble patrons; their inhabitants were bachelor country gentlemen, more polished and charitable, but little more learned or pure in life than their lay neighbours, their estates were well managed.... But with a few noble exceptions there was nothing in the system that did spiritual service. Books were multiplied, but learning declined; prayers were offered unceasingly but the efficacious energy of real devotion was not found in the homes that it had reared.”—BishopStubbs.

But the coming of the Dominicans and of the Franciscans later in the 13th century brought new light into the Church. These orders differed from the earlier orders in that they had at first no settled homes of their own. The Dominicans inspired the desire of learning, and becoming teachers at the Universities, trained up many of the future clergy of the Church. The Franciscans, though at first professing to despise learning and devoting themselves more to evangelistic work among the poorer classes, soon followed the example set them by the Dominicans andeventually became the most learned body of men in England, greatly extending their influence over political matters. But unfortunately, as time went on, the Friars succumbed to temptation in its various forms, and degeneration set in amongst them as it had in the older orders. The reforms of Wycliffe and his party, known as the Lollards, in the 15th century, are too familiar to need description. In 1416 the alien Priories—houses dependent on foreign monasteries, having sprung up as a result of the Norman Conquest—were suppressed, and as it was deemed politic in the following reign to use the property and money thus gained for religious purposes, Henry VI. founded Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge. University life grew and prospered in the 15th century, and the introduction of printing into England greatly furthered the advance of knowledge.

Public opinion being against monastic life in the 16th century Wolsey’s proposals for the suppression of some of the smaller monasteries were supported by the people. The Cardinal appealed to Henry VIII. saying that there were many “exile and small monasteries wherein neither God is served nor religion kept,” with the result that he was permitted to suppress forty monasteries in various counties, and particularly those of the Benedictine and early orders. The Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536-1540, on the cause and effect of which so much controversy has arisen, and about which difficult subject it is consequently wise not to expatiate, took place in two divisions. In 1536, 375 small houses were dissolved, provision being made for the monks, either by pensioning them or by removing them to other monasteries “where good religion is observed as shallbe limited by the King” (27 Henry VIII., c. 28). Unlike Wolsey, who at least used the money gained by the first suppression for the furtherance of Church work in other forms, it is not evident that Henry did anything of the kind. The Pilgrimage of Grace, a movement in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in 1536-37 against Henry’s new laws, led to the final suppression of the monasteries, and by the end of 1538 few religious houses flourished. Many abbots surrendered their houses to the commissioners, and those who did not do so were accused of many offences—the truth of which charges was not critically examined at the time. Of the greater monasteries suppressed, 370 followed the Benedictine, Cluniac and Augustinian rules, whilst 276 belonged to the Cistercian, Carthusian and minor orders. It is said that the annual income of the greater monasteries amounted to £131,607 in the money value of that time, and the capital value of the buildings, etc., was over £400,000—which sums should be multiplied by twelve to find the modern value. Whatever the sins and faults of monastic establishments, there is no doubt their loss was greatly felt by the people generally. The distribution of the monastic estates took various forms. Henry VIII. squandered much of the ready money on personal matters, and the bulk of the real estate passed into the hands of temporal peers, among whom were Lord Russell (the founder of the Earldom of Bedford), the Duke of Norfolk, and Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk. Sir John Byron, among men of lesser note, received Newstead Abbey, and wealthy merchants, in becoming possessed of monastic estates, formed a new landed gentry, many of whose familieshave since been credited with misfortunes of every kind.

“They tell us that the Lord of Hosts will not avenge His own,They tell us that He careth not for temples overthrown;Go! look through England’s thousand vales and show me, he that may,The Abbey lands that have not wrought their owner’s swift decay.”Neale.

At the Parliament held in 1537, the Pope’s jurisdiction was terminated for ever in England, but it must be remembered that the

“Seven years’ Parliament did not pass a single statute, nor clause of a statute, which had for its object the annihilation of the old religious body of the land or the formation of a new religious body; and that all changes received the prior assent of the old national church, through its representative assembly of convocation.”—English Church History(Rev.C. Arthur Lane).

The Dissolution brought about the creation of six new Bishoprics—Westminster, Chester, Gloucester, Peterborough, Oxford and Bristol—the old abbey churches of which became cathedrals. Other monastic churches were made collegiate and some parochial—in the latter case the parishioners frequently purchased the church from the King’s Commissioners. There are many instances of the nave only being saved out of the general wreck, and these, to this day, form the bodies of churches so rescued from the wholesale destruction of monastic houses. It must be remembered that though these perhaps salutary changes were going on in the Church, none of the property taken from the monasteries was given to the Bishop or parochial clergy; and “in no one instance were theappropriated tithes restored to the parochial clergy” (Hallam), but, passing into laymen’s hands, have been bought and sold, willed and inherited, like other property, with the result that many parochial rectorial tithes are now in the possession of lay impropriators. During Mary’s reign a great effort was made to restore monasticism—Westminster being placed again in the hands of Benedictine monks, only to be crushed by Elizabeth, in whose reign the English Reformation was finally established by the ratification of the Thirty-Nine Articles, and the Scottish Reformation accomplished by John Knox, the reformer, to whose influence the destruction of the northern monasteries is due. Religious revival under Charles I. in like manner was swept away by the Puritans, who, following the dire example of the Tudor King, laid desecrating hands on cathedral and parish church, extending their destruction to the Crown itself. But the desire for more devotional life again asserted itself later in the 17th century and steadily grew and developed as time went on. During this period the loss of monastic life was keenly felt. In the present day a decided movement is on foot to restore monasticism—many thinkers indeed regard it as the saving and rebuilding of a Church, which, since its earliest times, has been the object of many vicissitudes.

A revival of religious life for women took place in England in 1845, when a few women banded themselves together under certain rules to devote themselves to charitable works. In 1850 Dr Pusey laid the stone of the first house for Anglican sisters since the Reformation, at St Saviour’s, Osnaburg Street. Communities increased and the outcome of Dr Pusey’s “large conceptions and constructive force ofmind,” was the subsequent Oxford Movement, which, as is known, resulted in men taking once more the monastic vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. Under the leadership of the Rev. R. Meux Benson, societies were formed, and in these days the Cowley Fathers, the Community of the Resurrection, and the Benedictine House on the Isle of Caldey are familiar names to many.

The spirit of monasticism is the same to-day as in the days of Augustine—the growing need of the Church that the few should sacrifice themselves for the many, and, by their self-effacement, further the spiritual and material work of Christ on earth. Undoubtedly the civilisation of England from the earliest times is largely due to monastic influence. The monks promoted the love of architecture and art in every form; they achieved great things in literature, philanthropy, and agriculture, and furthered the prosperity of the country by their pioneer efforts in trading in wool. Wide-spread relief was extended to the poor, their hospitality to visitors and strangers being well known.

In nearly every instance Dugdale’sMonasticonis the authority used for dates of foundation, monetary value of revenues, etc., and every care has been taken to mention the names of the authors from whose writings many valuable quotations have been drawn.

LINDISFARNE.LINDISFARNE.

St Aidan, in the 7th century, builds a church and monastery on the island of Lindisfarne; land given to him for this purpose by Oswald, King of Northumbria; the rules of St Columba observed—875, Entirely destroyed by the Danes—1093, Priory church built on site of St Aidan’s church and monastery established by monks from Whitby—15—, Dissolved—1887, 3000 pilgrims visit the ruined abbey—1888, Excavations undertaken which result in revealing some of the foundations.

’MIDSTthe wild breakers and the thundering sea, an oasis in the desert of water, lies Holy Island, not far separated from the rude coast of Northumberland; and in this island rise the remains of a once stately edifice, the Abbey of Lindisfarne. It must not be supposed that the remains now standing are those of the original Celtic monastery, established by St Aidan, for, when the Danes, with irresistible force, invaded our island in 875, almost without warning, the old Abbey of Lindisfarne was utterly destroyed and the body of the saintly Cuthbert borne across the narrow waters by the monks, mid the glare of conflagration. Not one single stone ofthis monastery remains; the present ruins are those of a Benedictine priory, founded in the 11th century by a band of holy fathers from Whitby, who, eager to possess themselves of the land made sacred by the names of St Aidan, St Cuthbert, and those men who died at the hands of the Viking Invaders, determined to raise yet another stately building, and to make it their home.

For three and a half centuries, since the last prior, Thomas Sparke, was ejected at the bidding of Henry VIII., desolation has reigned supreme; but Lindisfarne, though small, is well preserved. It was built of strong red sandstone carried laboriously from the mainland. It was, moreover, built especially to withstand the fury of the gale and the ferocity of the invader. The insatiable greed, however, of much more modern vandals, who despoiled it of the lead from the roofs, and the roofs from the walls, until all stood bare and desolate, compassed its destruction. This, coupled with years and years of neglect and petty stealing, has brought the abbey to its present state. The mighty red walls have crumbled and fallen away, the tower lies a heap of little more than dust, the vaults have completely disappeared, but much yet remains to bear witness to the self-sacrifice and devotion of these early communities. As regards architecture, Lindisfarne is strongly in the English-Norman style. There is none of the Saxon here, as Scott would have us believe—“In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,” he says. Lindisfarne, if we except the sanctuary—which belongs to the 15th century—is perhaps the most perfect example of 11th century architecture in England. The abbey does not receive the patronage it deserves, for it is a spot with unrivalled historical and sacred memories—a place full of melancholy splendour and barren grandeur.

674, A religious institution founded in Hexham by St Wilfrid—821, Church destroyed by the Danes—1113, Church rebuilt and endowed by Thomas II. Archbishop of York, and dedicated to St Andrew; Augustine Canons placed there—1296, The nave burnt down—1297, Unsuccessful attempts made to restore the nave—1537, Monastery surrendered to Henry VIII.—1706, St Wilfrid’s crypt discovered under the nave of the choir—1907, The foundation stones of the new nave laid.

The town of Hexham, picturesquely situated on the southern bank of the river Tyne, 19 miles north of Newcastle, was once the centre of Border warfare and at one time a Roman station. To the west of the old market-place, one of the most interesting in England, stands the ancient abbey—a type of Early English architecture. Of the original Saxon structure the crypt alone remains, under the nave of the choir, consisting of a central and an ante-chamber, with two passages to the west and south. The Roman stones of which it is built were probably brought from the ancient Roman station of Corstopitum (3½ miles distant from Hexham). Unfortunately very little remains of the 12th century church—only, in fact, the greater part of the choir (with the exception of the Early English chapel) and both transepts. Of the conventual buildings we have still the refectory, some portions of the cloisters and the precinct gate. The greater part of the old woodwork was destroyed in the so-called restoration of the present church in 1858; but an exquisitely carved rood screen, and, on the south side of the altar, the Frith stool (supposed to have been St Wilfrid’s chair), may still be seen. Among the many monuments in the present church of special interest is a peculiar slab on which is depicted a Roman horseman, discovered beneath the south entrance in 1881.

Until the time of Henry I. the Bishop of Durham exercised ecclesiastical jurisdiction over this monastery,but in this reign it was included in the See of York. The church was then rebuilt and Thomas II. of York founded a priory of Augustine Canons. “It was found by inquisition taken in the four and twentieth reign of Edward I. that Thomas the Second, Archbishop of York, did found and endow this Priory—the lands by him given, and by many other Benefactors, were all found and set forth in particular.”

In the following century the nave of the church was destroyed by the Scots, and with the exception of some unsuccessful attempts at restoration, was not rebuilt until last year (1907), when the foundation stones of the new nave were laid on June 29th.

Hexham Abbey does not stand alone as a religious house owing its origin to the self-sacrifice and piety of a woman. Queen Etheldreda, the wife of Ecgfrid, King of Northumbria, gave land, which formed part of her dower (including the parishes of Hexham, Allendale, and St John Lee), to St Wilfrid. A monastery was founded in 674, and a church built, which, according to Richard, prior of Hexham, must have been one of the largest and most sumptuously equipped in England at that time. Hexham came, after nearly a century and a half, under the jurisdiction of York, and its church attained the dignity of a cathedral with right of sanctuary. The sanctuary extended for a mile in all directions—one boundary being in mid-stream. Discreditable stories are told of a certain Walter Biwell, chaplain to Bernard de Baliol, who made attacks on people and their property while crossing the river. Subsequently, and owing to these depredations, the boundary was placed on the northern bank of the stream. After the destruction of the cathedral by the Danes (about the year 821) and until after the Norman Conquest, only a shattered fragment of the building remained. Poverty was for years the lot of the canons regular of St Augustine, or Black Canons as they were called.In time, however, they acquired wealth, land, and many privileges, until at the close of the 13th century, Hexham was among the most important of the monastic houses in the Borderland.

The story of the surrender of Hexham to Henry VIII. is full of dramatic and romantic happenings. An appeal from Archbishop Lee to Mr Secretary Cromwell on the plea that the abbey served as a house of call and entertainment for north-bound travellers proved of no avail. Four commissioners were empowered to suppress the abbey, but before reaching Hexham they received tidings of the determination of the canons to garrison the abbey and to resist to the last. Two commissioners decided to remain behind while the two more venturous rode on to find the town full of people, many of them armed, the gates of the abbey shut, and the canons in warlike array standing on the steeple and on the leads of the church. From their point of vantage, the canons defied the commissioners to the death, but were advised by them to take counsel together. After consulting for some time in the abbey they once more refused to surrender, upon which the commissioners returned to Corbridge. The canons had a wily and unscrupulous adviser in John Heron, sometimes called Little John, a Border robber, who persuaded them to maintain their defiant position, hoping by this means to bring about a general rising in the northern counties and to profit in the consequent plunder and robbery. His infamous scheme was attended with success, and shortly afterwards the prior of Hexham and six of the canons were hanged at Tyburn, while the site of the abbey was granted to Sir Richard Carnaby, a devoted royalist, who died without an heir in 1843.

As recently as March 1907 some interesting excavations have been made at Hexham. The Reverend E. Sidney Savage, Rector of Hexham, writes toThe Timesgiving particulars of discoveries ofarchæological interest made on the site chosen for a nave in the Hexham abbey church.

“Several lengths of enriched cornices have been found, with various ornaments of late Roman character, the forerunners and dictators of many of the ornamental details of a subsequent Saxon and Norman period. Two great arch stones are from a grand ornamental arch fully 20 Roman feet across, and can hardly have come from a lesser structure than the entrance gate was into the town from the main road, such as Watling Street. The upper part of a well-finished altar, a stone hypocaust pillar, and a number of smaller stones with various ornaments are amongst the architectural vestiges. A part of what was apparently a sculptured panel has a finely cut bust of a Roman Emperor, probably Severus; and a portion of a Legionary stone has the remains of two panels divided by pilasters with pediments. It is much shattered, but the sculpture is of the best class. The gem of the yield is another and important portion of the well-known and Imperial Inscription, built into the covering of the north passage of the crypt.”

674, Ecgfrid King of Northumbria gives land to the Holy Abbot Benedict Biscop for the building of a religious House—679, Bede becomes a student of the Monastery—685, Benedict Biscop builds the first church—793, The Monastery burnt by the Danes—1069, After restoration again burnt down by William the Conqueror—1074, Monastery rebuilt—15—, Dissolved. Annual revenue, £25, 8s. 4d.

The history of Jarrow Abbey is intimately associated with the revered name of Bede, for here this wonderful writer and thinker spent his days and accomplished his life’s great work—a work for which his fellow-countrymen have reason to be grateful to this day. Born in 672, Bede was, at the youthful age of seven years, placed by Benedict Biscop in the care of the monks at Jarrow Abbey, where, with the exception of an occasional visit to Wearmouth, he spent all thedays of his useful life. His writings include commentaries on the Scriptures, translations, biographies of his contemporaries, treatises on many learned subjects, and also poetry, whilst in ecclesiastical matters he is the most reliable authority of the time. One of his scholars has given the following account of the characteristic ending of Bede’s strenuous and devout life:—

“It was the eve of Ascension Day 735 that Bede in his last hours was translating the Gospel of St John, and some scribes were writing from his dictation. They reached the words ‘What are these among so many’ when Bede felt his end approaching. ‘Write quickly,’ he said, ‘I cannot tell how soon my Master may call me hence.’ All night he lay awake in thanksgiving, and when the festival dawned he repeated his request that they should accelerate their work. ‘Master, there remains one sentence.’ ‘Write quickly,’ said Bede. ‘It is finished, master,’ they soon replied. ‘Aye, it is finished,’ he echoed. ‘Now lift me up and place me opposite my holy place where I have been accustomed to pray.’ He was placed upon the floor of his cell, bade farewell to his companions, to whom he had previously given mementoes of his affection, and, having sung the doxology, peacefully breathed his last.”

“How beautiful your presence, how benign,Servants of God! who not a thought will shareWith the vain world; who, outwardly as bareAs winter trees, yield no fallacious signThat the firm soul is clothed with fruit divine!Such priest, when service worthy of his careHas called him forth to breath the common air,Might seem a saintly image from its shrineDescended—happy are the eyes that meetThe apparition, evil thoughts are stayedAt his approach, and low-backed necks entreatA benediction from his voice or hand;Whence grace, through which the heart can understand;And vows, that bind the will in silence made.”Primitive Saxon Clergy(Wordsworth).

Standing on a green hill near the river Slake, the grey walls of Jarrow Abbey (now the Church of St Paul) contrast markedly with the general sense of everyday work conveyed by the active life of Shields, not far distant. Past and present, ancient and modern, are brought into close proximity, suggesting to one that were it possible to infuse some of the contemplative and quiescent frame of mind of Bede and his scholars into the toilers of this progressive 20th century, less might be heard of brain fag and other attendant evils of the high pressure of modern life. Of the Abbey church, the tower and chancel alone remain and are now used as the parish church. In the vestry is a chair said to have belonged to the Venerable Bede. Many visitors (as visitors will) have chipped off pieces of the old oak, the tradition being that a splinter, if placed under a damsel’s pillow, would invoke pleasant dreams of the ever prospective husband.

Of the domestic part of the establishment, which was situated on the south side of the church, there still stand some walls and a gable end which may possibly have formed part of the refectory.

1100, Godricus de Finchale, a hermit, spends his old age in devotion in a cell in this place—1196, Hugh, Bishop of Durham, founds and endows the Abbey—1536, Dissolved. Annual revenue, £122, 15s. 3d.

Engirt by trees and surrounded by wooded heights, this abbey on “Finches Haigh” (“low flat ground”) still retains a few old grey walls on the banks of the river Wear. Following the road from Durham, the “city on a hill,” one obtains the first view of the ruins from the west—where the long lane that leads from the high road dips towards the Priory. The church is of the Early English period, and until 1665 itretained its original stone spire. On each side of the nave are four piers, alternately round and hexagonal, supporting the exquisitely moulded arches which were built up during the 14th century—John of Tickhill being prior at the time. At this period, too, the aisles of the church were completely blocked up and Decorated windows were inserted—the south aisle becoming the northern alley of the cloister. These architectural alterations, which spoiled the beauty of a church originally perfect in its proportions, were probably inspired by the constant dread of Scottish invasion to which the Border counties were so peculiarly liable. Two beautiful lancet-windows light the north transept in which is an eastern chantry—while in the south transept may be seen an altar to St Godricus the Hermit, erected in the year 1256. The east wall of the choir has fallen, but the south-east turret still holds itself aloft.

The site of Finchale Abbey has been identified by some with Pincanhale—the meeting-place of the synods of the Saxon clergy in the 8th and 9th centuries. Tradition records that even further back this spot was inhabited by men who were eventually forced to abandon the place owing to the number of venomous snakes which abounded there. In the time of Godricus, however, it was a forest, and to the finches, which among other birds may have found their home there, some credit for the name Finchale may possibly be given. The story of the peddler Godricus, of his repeated pilgrimages to the Holy Land, his determined and successful search for knowledge, and his sixty years of solitary meditation at Finchale, was written by the monk Reginald, who after constant attendance on the aged hermit during his last illness was placed in charge of the hermitage. During the thirty or forty years following the death of Godricus, his tomb at Finchale was much visited by pilgrims, attracted thither by the fame of his virtues. The hospitality and resources of the monks wouldhave been sorely taxed during these years had it not been for the benefactions of one Henry Pudsey who granted all his belongings “To the Durham monks serving God and the Blessed Mary, and St Godric, at Finchale,” directing that the gifts should be applied, firstly, in hospitality and alms-giving and for maintaining the service of God, etc., and secondly, for the spiritual welfare of himself and of his kith and kin.

The religious community at Finchale varied in number. Early in the 15th century the number was fixed at nine, four of whom with the prior were to live there permanently and relays of four others to be sent from the mother house at Durham. These visitors made a stay of three weeks, spending every alternate day in liberty and recreation, the remaining time being devoted to choir singing and other religious duties. The office of prior was in much repute, and served in more than one instance as a stepping-stone to promotion—Priors Strehall and de Insula attaining the Bishopric of Durham. The last prior, William Bennet, surrendered the priory in 1536, and his monks were cast adrift. He, however, was made Prebendary of the fourth stall in Durham Cathedral, and took to himself a wife “as soon as he was discharged from his vow.”

THEprecise date of the introduction of Christianity into Lancashire is not known, but it is an established historical fact that the Christians in Britain were persecuted at the beginning of the 4th century by the Emperor Diocletian and that the death of the first recorded martyr, St Alban, took place in 304 near the city which now bears his name. In 311 Constantine the Great was converted to Christianity and this illustrious Emperor exercised a powerful influence over the spiritual affairs of Lancashire. In 627, Edwin, King of Northumbria, became converted through the agency of his wife Ethelburga. This conversion led to war between Edwin and the King of Mercia, when the King of Northumbria was killed at the battle of Hatfield. By the end of the 7th century, Northumbria had become a Christian and powerful kingdom and the “literary centre of the Christian world in Western Europe. The whole learning of the age seemed to be summed up in a Northumbrian scholar—Baeda, the Venerable Bede later time styled him.”—Green’sHistory of the English People.

Between the 7th and 9th centuries several monasteries are believed to have been established in Lancashire. The invasion of the Danes during the 8th and 9th centuries disturbed the existing order of things, and for many years before and after the event the ecclesiastical history of the kingdom is almost a blank. The new occupiers of Northumbria were mostlyfrom Denmark—a great point of difference between the conquered and the conquerors being that, whilst the settlers in Britain had to a great extent adopted the new religion and devoted themselves to peaceful pursuits, the Danes continued to worship Odin and other kindred gods, and were still a lawless set of pirates, distinguished for courage, ferocity, and hatred of Christianity. Persecution followed as a natural consequence, and the religious progress of the previous two centuries was almost wholly annihilated. Between this period and the election of Edward the Confessor, Christianity made some progress, a bishop of Danish blood actually occupying the Episcopal chair of York, in which diocese Lancashire was at that time included. The Doomsday book gives positive evidence of at least a dozen churches in Lancashire.

1127, Founded by Stephen, Earl of Morton and Boulogne (afterwards King of England)—1240, The abbey receives benefactions from William de Lancaster—1539, Surrendered by Roger Pyke, last abbot. Annual revenue, £805, 16s. 5d.

To realise fully the important position Furness Abbey held, both in things spiritual and temporal, it must be remembered that the abbot of this monastery possessed not only the power of jurisdiction over the monks, but governed also the wild and rugged region of Lancashire which is divided by an arm of the Irish Sea from the rest of the country and known as Furness. Many viceregal privileges were vested in his high office, and to some extent even the military were under his orders. He held a court of criminal jurisdiction in Dalton Castle, where also he had a gaol; issued summonses by his own bailiffs; while the Sheriff with his officers was prohibited from entering the territory of the abbey under any pretext whatever. The diversity of his offices and responsibilities entailed akeeping of a numerous retinue of servants and armoured followers, a certain number of his vassals being at the service of the Crown according to the feudal system. As in the case of other monasteries, and as time went on, numerous benefactors arose. Many of the wealthy bestowed lands and further privileges on the monks—not a few in consideration of the favour of obtaining a last resting-place in the abbey. They—

“Loved the church so well and gave so largely to’tThey thought it should have canopied their bonesTill doomsday—but all things have their end.”

The evidence in a petition made in the Duchy Court in 25 Elizabeth (1582) by the tenants of Walney disclosed a curious system of barter carried on between the abbots and their tenants. In return for certain “domestical” provisions, such as calves, sheep, wheat, barley, etc., the tenants received from the abbey, “great relief, sustentation and commodities for themselves and their children.” All the tenants had weekly one ten-gallon barrel of ale, also a weekly allowance of coarse wheat bread, iron for their husbandry, gear and timber for the repair of their houses. In addition to these grants, all men who owned a plough could send two men to dine at the monastery once a week—from Martinmas to Pentecost. The children of tenants who had found the required provision were educated free, and allowed every day a dinner or a supper, so that as far back as the 6th or 7th centuries, the responsibility for feeding and educating children was considered to go hand in hand. The question at issue between the tenants and Attorney-General in the petition referred to was that while he claimed the “domestical” provisions, he refused the recompenses, alleging that these were merely bounties given by the abbots out of their benevolence and for the good of the neighbourhood. The result of the petition was in favour of the tenants.

The ruins of this once important and richly endowed religious house stand in a fertile district watered by an estuary of the sea, and are surrounded by the romantic and wild country so characteristic of the northern counties. In this Bekangs-Gill, or vale of deadly nightshade, the extensive remains of Furness, built of red sandstone, now covered by luxuriant foliage, occupy a very beautiful position. Gently rising in the distance stand the hills of Low Furness, and, overlooking the Abbey and all the surrounding district, is a commanding hill on which the monks erected a watch-tower, enabling them, if surprised by an enemy, to give warning to the neighbouring coast. The nave of the church is of nine bays, divided from its aisles by eight massive columns. The roof, as in many of these early churches, was composed of wood. A beautiful Norman door in the north transept formed the entrance to the church. This, as well as the great north window, has unfortunately been crookedly set, producing an unsymmetrical and unpleasing effect. In this same transept are three eastern chapels or chantries. The south transept has an aisle of two bays, but the north-eastern chapel—of the three corresponding with those in the north aisle—has been prolonged into a sacristy. This adjoins the south wall of the choir and is of the same length. Though the choir was begun in 1127 the church was not finished for many years. Part of the work is excellent Norman. In the middle of the 15th century the east end and the transepts were rebuilt, the whole edifice strengthened in many ways, and the western tower erected over the site of the original west front. The cloisters are on the south side of the church, and, adjoining the south transept, stands the chapter-house, a building of three compartments, above which was the scriptorium, a staircase to which still remains in the south transept. The refectory of thirteen bays is to the south of the chapter-house, the dormitory being formerly above the monks’ dining hall. Over thealley of the cloisters and joining the western angle of the cloister garth was the guest house. Besides the great guest hall (130 feet by 50 feet—built at the beginning of the 14th century) some further conventual buildings remain to the south of the refectory and fratry, and are fortunate in still retaining some of their groining. These buildings include a Decorated chapel which may perhaps have belonged to the infirmary, standing as they do at a considerable distance from the cloisters.

The suppression of Furness Abbey must have been severely felt by the inhabitants of the district, not only on account of the hospitality which emanated from it, but also because the natives looked to it for the education of their children. Two years before its final surrender, the total income equalled £5000 a year at the present monetary value. Roger Pyke, the last abbot of Furness, elevated to that dignity in 1532, surrendered the abbey to the King, April 9th, 1537.

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