Capt. John Stevens, in a note in his translation of Bede, (A.D.1723,) says, as to the true place being Cliffe, “Of this opinion are the two great antiquarians, Spelman and Talbot, to which Lambard likewise gives in, though with caution.” This must be Dr. Robert Talbot, Canon of Norwich, another early Saxon scholar, reign Henry VIII., who left transcripts of charters of Abingdon,[44]and is, therefore, another early learned witness of the tradition. Spelman’s interpretation is“Cloveshoviæ (vulgo Clyff).”[45]The Rev. Joseph Stevenson[46]recites the option of Cliffe and Abingdon. Of the church historians, Fuller remonstrates against Camden’s doubts, with his usual moderation. Collier merely calls it “Clovesho, or Clyff, near Rochester.”
By this time the Abingdon speculation had become strong enough to carry double: to be able to be called in to the help of other theories, on outside matters. The ingenious Welsh philologer, William Baxter,[47]gets from it an offspringergo. He makes Abingdon the “Caleva Attrebatum,”becauseit had been “Clovesho:” upon which, by a sort of “To-my-love and from-my-love” formula, Dr. W. Thomas[48]completes the symmetry of a logical circle, by citing “Calleva Attrebatum” as evidence that Cloveshoe is near Henley-on-Thames, then thought to be Calleva.
R. Gough, in Additions to Camden, leaves it at Abingdon on Bp. Gibson’s argument: and, throughout the eighteenth century, Abingdon seems to have been favoured; the writers being much given to copy each other. Dr. Lingard, 1803, quoting Capt. Stevens’s translation of Bede, says “probably Abingdon,” and so also puts it in his Anglo-Saxon map; but Capt. Stevens had only quoted both views, without adopting either.
The later editors of the Saxon Chronicle, Dr. Ingram and Mr. Thorpe, return to the tradition, contenting themselves with the simple gloss “Cliff-at-Hoo, Kent,” “Cliff near Rochester.” Miss Gurney, however, prudently says, “Cliff in Kent, or Abingdon.” Professor Earle gives the valuable note and question about Dr. Heath, before mentioned, but leaves the main question, of the place, open. On the other hand, the Dictionaries, since Somner: Lye says “fortasse Abbingdon,” and Dr. Bosworth follows with “perhaps Abingdon,” quoting both Somner and Lye.
But the nineteenth century took a fresh stride away from the start of the seventeenth. Whilst accepting from the eighteenth the inheritance of the doubt, it next renounced the claim itself for which the doubt had been raised. It is no longer Abingdon, but wherever it may be thought likely—Dr. Lappenberg[49]places it in Oxfordshire;Mr. N.E.S.A. Hamilton[50]“co. Berks.” Mr. Kemble more boldly carries it to “the hundred of Westminster, and county of Gloucester, perhaps near Tewksbury.”[51]Next year,[52]he more firmly says “Doubts have been lavished upon the situation of this place, which I do not share,” and concludes that it was “not far from Deerhurst, Tewksbury, and Bishop’s Cleeve; not at all improbably in Tewksbury itself, which may have been called Clofeshoas, before the erection of a noble abbey at a later period gave it the name it now bears.”
Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs[53]accept the objections of their forerunners against Cliff-at-Hoo, thinking that this place “rests solely on the resemblance of the name.” They say of the Abingdon = Sheovesham theory, that it is also “the merest conjecture.” They also reject Mr. Kemble’s Tewkesbury as founded on a mistaken identity of Westminster hundred with another place sometimes called “Westminster,” in the Mercian charters, (A.D.804-824). This is, indeed, Westbury-on-Trym. But why was the minster there called “west,” and where was the minster that was east of it? At an earlier date (A.D.794) it had already got its present name, “Uuestburg.” Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs leave the question of the true place of Cloveshoe as they find it, neither endorsing the original tradition, nor indulging in the freedom of choice which had been established for them. In another work,[54]however, Mr. Haddan has said, “On the locality of Cloveshoo itself, unfortunately, we can throw no more light than may be contained in the observation, that St. Boniface invariably styles the English synod, ‘SynodusLondinensis;’ and that … the immediate vicinity of that city—in all other respects the most probable of all localities—seems consequently the place where antiquarians must hunt for traces of the lost Cloveshoo.” How far Cliffe, situated near the mouth of the Thames, may satisfy or contradict the “Londinensis” of S. Bonifatius must be left to be judged. Dean Hook recites his fore-goers, but not quite understanding them:—“Where Cloveshoo was it is impossible to say, some antiquarians placing it at Cliff-at-Hoo, in Kent; some in the neighbourhood of Rochester; others contending for Abingdon; others again for Tewkesbury.”[55]But Cliff-at-Hoo in Kentisin thenearneighbourhood of Rochester. The present state of the question, therefore, seems to be, that it is given up as hopeless.
But the most strenuous renunciator of the Kentish tradition, in favour of the Berkshire conjecture, was a learned and distinguished native of the Kentish locality itself: the Rev. John Johnson. He is usually reckoned among the learned and suffering body of the Nonjurors, but, by personal merits and some concessions, he appears to have escaped their political ordeal; having retained his preferments throughout a long life. He is commonly distinguished, from the other Johnsons of literature, as “Johnson of Cranbrook.” His remarks deserve all the more careful consideration, because he was born at Frindsbury, immediately adjoining Cliffe, and the intermediate parish between it and Rochester. At Frindsbury, in fact, was the “Aeslingham” of the Textus Roffensis, in one of the charters that concern the Hoo and the locality now in question. He printed a Collection of Canons of the English Church, in 1720.[56]In his preface and notes to the Synod at which was ratified the submission of the usurped primacy of Lichfield to that of Canterbury,A.D.803, which is one of those held at “clofeshoas;”[57]he oddly brings it, as an argument that Abingdon was the place, that the triumphant Archbishop of Canterbury “was willing to meet” his reconciled insubordinant rival, half way between Lichfield and Canterbury. Converting what is a very strong presumption against Abingdon, into an act of extreme humility on the part of the Archbishop. The learned writer must have felt the difficulty, which he thus strove so hard to liquidate into a virtue. After this, he goes on to allege that “there is not a more unhealthy spot in the whole province, I may say in all Christendom,” than this district of the Hoo. With deference, however, to such a writer, and a native of the spot, this account of it does, to a mere visitor, seem to be exaggerated. The Gads-Hill,of Falstaff, will bring the neighbourhood to the remembrance of many; and it has become more widely known of late years, by the last residence of another great master of humour and fiction, which is less than four miles from the church of Cliffe, and the outlook from which would be about identical with that from any Mercian Villa Regia that may have existed here. An ungrateful remembrance of the inflictions of schoolmasters, or other childish griefs, is often observed to haunt the later career of those to whose distinguished position they may have contributed.
In his “Addenda,” Johnson afterwards says, “I find some worthy gentlemen still of opinion, that Cliff … was not unhealthy in the age of the Councils:” and he truly quotes charters from the Textus Roffensis, to show that the northern marshes, or levels, then already existed; and he urges that it “was, therefore, altogether unfit for a stated place of synod.” That “As Cliff in Hoo was never a place of great note itself, so it lies, and ever did lie, out of the road to any place of note;” and he goes on to recite Somner and Camden’s plea of the greater likelihood of Abingdon, for synods limited to the times of Mercian domination.
But the marshes are not in question, they are but an appendage to the Hoo. This peninsula is formed of a large fragment of the chalk at the eastern end of the North Kentish downs, called by geologists an “inlier” into the Thames basin; upon the heights, and in the valleys, of which the places concerned in this enquiry were situated. The marshes are a broad fringe of level pasture land,[58]advanced into the Thames estuary, beyond its north chalk cliff. In Kent the word “marsh” signifies the same as “more” in Somersetshire: which, although even Dr. Jamieson confounds the two, is a totally different word and thing, from the “muir,” or “moor,” for waste lands of a highland character. It is to such land as this that we owe the dairies of Cheddar; and if this objection should be good, Glastonbury and Wells, not to mention Ely and Croyland, must resign their venerable places in history. A very similar projection of alluvial level pasture extendsfrom Henbury and Shirehampton to the Bristol Channel, without disparagement of their salubrity. Mr. Johnson, having suffered much in health by a residence of a year or two at Appledore, in Kent, obtained the vicarage of Cranbrook, where he lived for eighteen years. It is likely that he was sensitive of climatal influences, and shy of those breezes that reach this island after passing over the great plains of central Europe: a tenderness, which neither Æthelbald nor Offa can be supposed to have shared with him.
It is plain, however, that this broad alluvial margin, extending from the northern edge of the heights, which are the substantial constituents of the Hoo peninsula, already existed,A.D.779, at least a very large extent of it; for the first charter, so dated,[59]describes it as then “habentem quasi quinquaginta iugerum.” In a later charter,A.D.789,[60]the name of the projecting level appears as “Scaga.”[61]It must already have become land of value to be granted in these charters; and its identity is certain from the limits—Yantlet (“Jaenlade”) water to “Bromgeheg,” now “Bromey,” on the higher land at Cooling. Does not the word “jugeru,” used in the charter, indicate that this “marsh” was already cultivated or pasture land? How it had been originally caused is, however, not hard to discern. It is, evidently, a large portion of the delta of the Thames, intercepted by the confluence of the other great river, the Medway, and thrown back behind the chalk promontory of the Hoo. Inside, and westward of this deposit, the tidal estuary makes a bold reach southward; sweeping the western side of this level, and approaching the heights, so as, at Cliffe, Higham, and Chalk, to leave only a comparatively narrow fringe of level; and it is on the heights at the southern bend of this reach, that are situated these three villages, which will presently be found, it is thought, to be interesting to us.
As to the most substantial objection, which of course has continued to be a constantly recurring ingredient of this controversy,that the place of the synods must have been within the kingdom of Mercia, it seems a little oblique of the mark aimed at. They were royal councils, and these must be expected to have followed the presence of the king and his court, as was the case in much later times than those now under consideration. Most of the remaining records of these synods at Cloveshoe, and of the other national ones during the same period, show the king to have presided; and it is true that it is the Mercian King, who is so found, during both of the long reigns of Æthelbald and Offa; and throughout the time of the domination of the Mercians in Kent. The policy of the Mercian aggressors, during their long continued contention for empire, to grasp the great estuaries of the island, has already been referred to, and a glance at sheets I. and VI. of the Ordinance survey will show how desirable was this Chersonesus for the head quarters of a power, which made a chief point of the possession of the Thames, and its only less valuable and smaller sister, the Medway. The opposite coast of the East Saxons had already, for several reigns, been subjected to Mercia.A.D.704, Suebræd, the regulus of the East Saxons, could not grant lands at Twickenham, then in Essex, but “in prouincia quæ nuncupatur middelseaxan,” to Waldhere, Bishop of London, except “cum licentia Æthelredi regis” of Mercia.[62]Kent, less fortunate, was still contended for by both Wessex and Mercia, as well as by Sussex, and by all three it was successively ravaged; and it even looks as if the three contending invaders maintained, as clients, rival pretenders, as kings of the parts of Kent at the time under their power. The division of Kent into Lathes may be a so-to-speak fossil, or rather an archaic autograph upon the surface of the county, of this state of it. It is, however, certain that Mercia ultimately made good a permanent domination of Kent; and the kings of Kent acknowledged that supremacy in their government, by merely counter-subscribing the acts of the kings of Mercia.[63]
The mass of chalk, of which the body of the Hoo consists, is said to pass under the Thames; and a small continuation of itreappears on the Essex side, directly opposite Cliffe and Higham and Chalk, at East Tilbury; and having continued four miles westward, behind the marsh marked by Tilbury Fort, dies out at Purfleet.[64]It forms an elevated promontory at East Tilbury, penetrating the levels on that side to the river. The present chief traject of the river is about three miles westward, from Gravesend to the fort: but the chalk promontory is the terminus of an ancient straight chain of roads, which, although in some places interrupted by later breaks and divergencies, indicates a traffic of ages, from this terminus on the river, in a north-western direction, striking the Iknield Street at Brentwood, and apparently afterwards still continuing the same line: probably to Watling Street; any rate to the heart of the Mercian dominions: say, to Hertford, if you like.
There are various other substantial evidences of great ancient intercourse of Essex with the Hoo of Kent, by a trajectus at this place, between East Tilbury and Higham; and Higham is only five miles from Rochester bridge, by which the Watling Street entered that city. Morant says, of the manor of Southall in East Tilbury, “This estate goes now to the repair of Rochester bridge: when and by whom given we do not find.”[65]He also mentions the “famous Higham Causeway” in connection with Tilbury.[66]Until the reign of Stephen, the church at Higham had belonged to the Abbot and Convents of St. John, Colchester.[67]The importance of this Essex traject to the kingdoms north of the Thames, when the domination of Mercia in Essex and Kent was beginning, may be inferred from the fact that one of the two colleges, or capitular churches, founded by Cedda,A.D.653, in Essex, was at Tilbury.[68]There is a place called Chadwell by West Tilbury. Some years later,A.D.676, when Æthelred of Mercia first devastated Kent, it is evident that he used this passage; for the destruction of Rochester, five miles south of Higham and Cliffe, is the only one of his exploits, on that expedition, specified by name.[69]So late asA.D.1203, Giraldus Cambrensis passed from Kent to Essex by Tilbury. These incidents, connecting Tilbury and Higham, mayqualify the surprise that has hitherto troubled church historians at finding that “Clofeshoch,” at so early a date asA.D.673, was appointed, at “Herutford,” as the place for future councils, even if Herutford had been Hertford, as some say.
The conclusion that the line of approach, and of the first invasion of Kent by the Mercians, was by a passage from the Essex coast to Higham or Cliffe; and that the peninsula of Hoo, adjoining Rochester, had then and long after been the basis of their domination of that kingdom; had been already formed, from what has been already said. And it was at this point, that it was thought worth while to see what the chief county historians say about the two termini of the trajectus.
This is Hasted’s statement:—
“Plautius, theRomanGeneral under theEmperor Claudius, in the year of Christ, 43, is said to have passed the riverThamesfromEssexintoKent, near the mouth of it, with his army, in pursuit of the flyingBritonswho being acquainted with the firm and fordable places of it passed it easily. (Dion. Cass., lib. lx.) The place of this passage is, by many, supposed to have been fromEast Tilbury, inEssex, across the river toHigham. (By Dr. Thorpe, Dr. Plott, and others.) Between these places there was aferryon the river for many ages after, the usual method of intercourse between the two counties of Kent and Essex for all these parts, and it continued so till the dissolution of the abbey here; before which time Higham was likewise the place for shipping and unshipping corn and goods in great quantities from this part of the country, to and fromLondonand elsewhere. The probability of this having been a frequented ford or passage in the time of theRomans, is strengthened by the visible remains of a raised causeway or road, near 30 feet wide, leading from theThamesside through the marshes byHigham southwardto thisRidgwayabove mentioned, and thence across theLondonhighroad onGads-hilltoShorne-ridgway, about half-a-mile beyond which adjoins theRoman Watling-streetroad near the entrance intoCobham-park. In the pleas of the crown in the 21st year of K. Edward I., thePrioressof the nunnery ofHighamwas found liable to maintain a bridge and causeway that led fromHighamdown to the riverThames, in order to give the better and easier passage to such as would ferry from thence into Essex.”[70]
“Plautius, theRomanGeneral under theEmperor Claudius, in the year of Christ, 43, is said to have passed the riverThamesfromEssexintoKent, near the mouth of it, with his army, in pursuit of the flyingBritonswho being acquainted with the firm and fordable places of it passed it easily. (Dion. Cass., lib. lx.) The place of this passage is, by many, supposed to have been fromEast Tilbury, inEssex, across the river toHigham. (By Dr. Thorpe, Dr. Plott, and others.) Between these places there was aferryon the river for many ages after, the usual method of intercourse between the two counties of Kent and Essex for all these parts, and it continued so till the dissolution of the abbey here; before which time Higham was likewise the place for shipping and unshipping corn and goods in great quantities from this part of the country, to and fromLondonand elsewhere. The probability of this having been a frequented ford or passage in the time of theRomans, is strengthened by the visible remains of a raised causeway or road, near 30 feet wide, leading from theThamesside through the marshes byHigham southwardto thisRidgwayabove mentioned, and thence across theLondonhighroad onGads-hilltoShorne-ridgway, about half-a-mile beyond which adjoins theRoman Watling-streetroad near the entrance intoCobham-park. In the pleas of the crown in the 21st year of K. Edward I., thePrioressof the nunnery ofHighamwas found liable to maintain a bridge and causeway that led fromHighamdown to the riverThames, in order to give the better and easier passage to such as would ferry from thence into Essex.”[70]
It may be added that the Hoo peninsula has other marks of having been, at much earlier times, a district of great transit. There is, perhaps, no other part of England, of so small an extent, which has so many and clustered examples of “Street” in names of secluded spots—including the almost ubiquitous “Silver Street”[71]—quite disengaged from those that follow the line itself of Watling-street. Yet Mr. Johnson of Cranbrook goes on to say, “As Cliffe in Hoo was never a place of note itself, so it lies, and ever did lie, out of the road to any place of note.” It is believed that he has greatly under-rated the substantial results of such a dynastic change as we are now considering; followed, for a thousand years, by its sequential changes on the material surface of the earth.
At all events, this was, evidently, the earliest line of approach, by which Mercia, with its contingents, the other Anglian nations and the East Saxons, whom it had either subdued or otherwise allied, invaded Kent; and this continued to be its chief or only access for some years. A single glance, at the geography of the Hoo, will show the value of such an advanced peninsula, as the basis of such an incursion upon the centre of Kent; and as the stronghold from which the subjection of that kingdom could be maintained. We have other means of knowing that it was probably, at least, thirty years before a second or optional approach was secured by way of the east of Kent. This second access must have been a much coveted one, and when it came into hand must have been of great value; particularly in regard to the occasional, or at least frequent, royal residence already established at the Hoo. The Watling Street, the greatest and most frequented ofall the highways then existing, led from the very heart of Mercia, in a direct line through Middlesex, to the very isthmus of the peninsula itself. Although Kent had been already invaded,A.D.676, yet so late asA.D.695,[72]London remained subject to Essex; but, as we have already seen, only nine years afterwards Twickenham, in the province called “Middelseaxan,” had become subject to Mercia.
Some of our most learned historians describe the “Middle Saxons” as a very small people, forming a part of the East Saxons; but they are obliged to confess that they find very little to say about them. It is believed that there never was a separate people called Middle Saxons. They have been created out of a snatched analogy, of the mere name “Middlesex,” with “Essex,” “Sussex,” and “Wessex.” There can be little doubt that Middlesex represents the original civitas, or territory, of the local government, of its urbs or burgh of London, the capital of the kingdom of Essex. Like other great commercial seaports or staples, this already great mart had maintained much of the condition of a free city; and, in passing, along with its territory from Essex to the ascendant power of Mercia, it may not have been by conquest, but by a voluntary exercise of that instinct, to unite in the fortunes of an advancing supremacy, which is often associated with, and perhaps closely allied to, commercial habits. At all events, it is at this time that the name, Middlesex, first comes to light;[73]and it is believed that instead of being, like the names of the Saxon nations, formed by the addition of an adjective; the “middle” of this newer name is a preposition, and that it means, that Anglian acquisition which had now thrust itselfbetweenthe East Saxons and the South and West Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon Dictionaries produce an example, from one of the glossaries of Ælfric, of “Middel-gesculdru” = the spacebetweenthe shoulders.
But although, in the existing records of the series of Councils and Synods that were held during the ascendancy of Mercia, and often presided over by the Mercian kings in person, the name ofCloveshoe is frequent, as the place of convention; other places, as “Cealchythe” and “Acle,” are also frequent and continuous. And the names of the councillors, who sign the acts as witnesses, have a certain current identity, with only such changes as may be expected by lapse of time, rather than of change of the region where the assemblies had been convened. After the king, usually follows the Archbishop of Canterbury; then the Bishop of Lichfield, followed by the other Mercian Bishops; and then of the other subject kingdoms.
These two places, Cealchythe and Acle, have been as great puzzles to enquirers as Clovesho itself; and they also have been placed in very distant regions; the sounds of their names being apparently thought to be the only consideration. Cealchythe was thought by Archbishop Parker to be in Northumbria; but Alford said Chelsea; Spelman that it was within the kingdom of Mercia.[74]Gibson suggests Culcheth in Lancashire, as although in Northumbria, not far from Mercia. Miss Gurney also says “Perhaps Kilcheth on the southern border of Lancashire.” Dr. W. Thomas gives it to Henley-on-Thames, partly because he considered it “near” Cloveshoe; Wilkins nor Kemble make any venture; others, adopted by Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs, and, as far as the name alone would have settled it, with a very great deal of apparent reason, would have placed it at Chelsea. The ancient forms of the name of Chelsea, of which examples are by no means scarce, seem all directly to lead up to an identity with that of the councils. One of these, of the baptism,A.D.1448, of John, son of Richard, Duke of York, recorded in Will. Wyrcester’s Anecdota, is, for example, at “Chelchiethe.” But the name of the council seems to resolve itself into “Chalk-hythe,” and there is no chalk at Chelsea. But even this has been got over by taking the first portion of “Chelsey” for “chesil” or gravel; and this favours the ancient forms of Chelsea = Chelchythe, rather more than it does the variations in the name of the council; which on the whole lean towards “chalk” or “Chalkhythe.” Dr. Ingram[75]adopts “Challock, or Chalk, in Kent;” and Mr. Thorpe repeats that suggestion, with the addition of a“?”
As to this “Chalk,” it is also in the district of the Hoo, and is the adjoining parish westward of Higham; on the same chalk ridge, whereon both Higham and Cliff-at-Hoo are situated. The village is two miles west of Higham church, and all three are practically the same place, within a space of four miles; of which the ancient trajectus above mentioned is at the centre. The face of the cliff, upon which Cliffe stands, is still quarried for chalk, which is shipped in a small creek that runs up to the cliff. It will at once come to mind, how constantly such wharfs are called “hythe,” throughout the navigable portion of the Thames; and how frequently that word forms a part of the names of them. That river has, indeed, almost—not quite—a monopoly of this name-form. But the Ordnance Surveyors[76]show an eastward detachment of Chalk parish, within half a mile of Higham church, and close to that point of the shore which would have been the hythe of the traject. There can be little doubt that this detachment is a survival of the “Chalkhythe” at which some of the councils were dated, whilst others were at Cliffe-at-Hoo adjoining. An endorsed confirmation,[77]under Coenulf, has the formula, “in synodali conciliabulojuxtalocum qui dicitur caelichyth.”
Another frequent name, of the place of convention of some of this series of councils during Mercian ascendancy, is “Acle” or “Acleah,” which has been as great a puzzle as the others. This name may be expected to appear in any such modern forms as Oakley, Okeley, Ockley, or Ackley, which are very numerous in nearly every part of England; indeed, wherever the oak has grown: and rather a free use of this wide choice has been made in the attempts to find the place of the councils so dated. The most accepted one seems to be Ockley, south of Dorking, near the confines of Surrey and Sussex; apparently attracted by a battle with the Danes there,A.D.851. But this happened in later and Wessexian times. Lambarde (aboutA.D.1577) thought it likely to be somewhere in the Deanery of Ackley, in Leicestershire: Spelman, in the Bishopric of Durham. Dr. Ingram says, “Oakley in Surrey.” Professor Stubbs says of one act of Offa so dated thatit “is unquestionably Ockley in Surrey,” and affords “a strong presumption that the other councils of the southern province said to be at Acleah, were held at the same place,” apparently because the charter before him is a grant to Chertsey. But the substance of these royal grants does not show the place where they were executed. They are the Acts of the Supreme Court of Appeal. Ingram and Thorpe give Ockley, Surrey. Miss Gurney, “Acley, Durham?” Kemble, “Oakley or Ackley, Kent, or Ockley, Surrey,” Sir T. D. Hardy says “in Dunelmia;” no doubt adopting Spelman’s judgment.
Turning again to the Ordnance Survey,[78]at one mile-and-a-half from the church at Cliff-at-Hoo, and rather nearer to it than Higham church itself, will be seen a building marked “Oakly;” or, in the six-inch scale, two: Oakley and Little Oakley. Reverting to Hasted’s account of the parish of Higham,[79]we also find that it contained two manors, Great and Little Okeley; and he quotes the Book of Knight’s Fees, K. John, where it is written, “Acle.”[80]Oakley lies in the direct way from the ancient traject to Rochester bridge, and has been held liable to repair the fourth pier of it. In Domesday it appears as “Arclei.” But the existence of this very place can be realised at a date eight years earlier than the first recorded Synod at Aclea. Mr. Kemble has printed[81]a grant of Offa, datedA.D.774, to Jaenberht the Archbishop, of a piece of land in a place called “Hehham,” now Higham; of which one portion is conterminous with Acleag—“per confinia acleage”,—another part touches “ad colling”—now Cooling with its Castle,—afterwards bounded by “mersctun,” since Merston, and other lands “Sc̄i andree,”i.e.of Rochester Cathedral. This piece of land, although granted by Offa to the Archbishop of Canterbury, is not only situated within the diocese of Rochester, but is immediately surrounded by the demesnes of Rochester Church. From a realization of the above three land-marks of the charter, it is certain that, although Cliffe is not named, the site of the church and town of Cliffe itself, as well as Higham, is included withinthe land-marks of the grant; and that the granted manor is identical with those parishes, as they have afterwards become. Cooling adjoins the granted land to the east; Acleag, now Oakley, to the south; Merston, is described by Hasted as a forgotten parish, and no longer appears even in his own map of the Hundred, but he identifies the ruined church among the buildings of “Green Farm,” close to Gads-hill. From this he represents it to have reached the Shorne Marshes; that is to the Thames shore; forming, therefore, the western boundary of Cliffe and Higham, and including the already mentioned detachment of Chalk parish, and having Acleag named as one of its boundaries.[82]
In this charter of Offa, we see one of the examples of those first separations of land, which afterwards became what we call a parish. What we now call a parish, is not an invention or institution by Archbishop Honorius, or Archbishop Theodore, nor of any individual genius; any more than shires and hundreds were invented by King Alfred. Our parishes are the natural and exigent result of the variety of causes that have planted churches; to the use of which, and to the privileges of the cures vested in them, neighbours have acquired customary or other rights. Territorial parishes are definitions and ratifications of these emergent rights, that pre-existed, as other political results do pre-exist, such confirmations of them. Their multiplication may have been promoted, more or less, by different men in different ages, including our own age. We shall presently see, that it is most likely that Offa founded the church at Cliffe; and this charter no doubt fixes the date of it. Higham must have been separated from it, into another parish, at a later time. The Archbishop of Canterbury continued to be the owner of Cliffe until K. Henry VIII.; and the rectory is still in the gift of the Archbishop, and exempt from Rochester which encompassesit. As Johnson of Cranbrook himself admits, “It is indeed a parish most singularly exempt; for the incumbent is the Archbishop’s immediate surrogate.”
But there is a much later Mercian council, which deserves to be noticed; not for its intrinsic importance, but on account of the place from which it is dated.[83]It is a sale of two bits of land at Canterbury to the Archbishop,A.D.823, by Ceoluulf, “rex merciorum seu etiam cantwariorum.” The price seems to have been, a pot of gold and silver money, by estimation five pounds and-a-half (or ? four and-a-half); more portable and convenient to Ceoluulf under Beornuulf’s usurpation of Mercia. This was just when Mercia was waning, and Wessex ascendant. The date is “in uillo regali, qui dicitur werburging wic.” It will be remembered what was the business that first called us to the Kentish Hoo: the finding one of our St. Werburgh dedications there.
That this Werburghwick was in the Hoo, will become more likely by comparison with another charter.[84]This is, a grant of a privilege to the Bishop of Rochester, by Æthelbald,A.D.734, which has an endorsed confirmation, by Beorhtuulf “regi merciorū in uico regali uuerbergeuuic,” which endorsement must have been added aboutA.D.844. Turn also to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,A.D.851 or 853, where it is said that the Heathen men having held their winter in Thanet; in the same year came 350 ships into Thames mouth, and broke Canterbury, and London, and made this same Beorhtuulf King of the Mercians fly with his army, and went south over Thames into Surrey.[85]It is thought more likely that he was at his villa regalis, in the Hoo, than at Tamworth; where however he sometimes is also found.
The truth seems to be, that, when Mercia relapsed into a mere province or Ealdormanship, it still retained its hold in Kent as an appanage. Thus we have seen Ceoluulf at our Werburghwick in the Hoo,A.D.823; and Beorhtwulf in the same place,A.D.844, and again, apparently disturbed by the Danes,A.D.853. In thepaper, before referred to, Mr. Rashleigh has given an analytical table of a hoard of about 550 Anglo-Saxon Coins found at or near Gravesend in 1838, which must have been buried so late asA.D.874-5. Of these 429 are of Burgred king of MerciaA.D.852-874, and one of Ceoluulf (II.) of Mercia,A.D.874. Probably the boundary of the latest holding of Mercians in Kent, answers to that of the diocese of Rochester, as it came down to the middle of the present century; somewhat abnormally consisting of only a part of a county. Dioceses were originally identical with civil provinces; and have been dormantly conservative of their boundaries, during those very times when political revolutions have been most active upon those of civil states.
It thus appears, that the three most frequent of the names, from which the series of Mercian synods are dated, can be accounted for as of places practically in the same locality; and that, the one to which tradition, before it had been tampered with by philological evolution, had already directly pointed; and on a piece of land, exceptionally given to Canterbury, encompassed by the lands of Rochester, for a purpose of which the circumstances here adduced are the only explanation and index. It is not inferred that all three names indicate the same building: probably not; for, in a later synod, “ad Clobeham,” (A.D.825)[86]a judgment “prius at Cælchythe” is referred to. But so might, up to our time, a judgment at Westminster, or at Guildhall, be quoted in the Chancellor’s Court at Lincoln’s Inn; but all three would be at London.
Although the synods of the series are most frequently dated from Cloveshoe, Chalkhythe, and Acleah, other places have one or two each. There is “Berhford,”A.D.685, usually placed at Burford, Oxon., for no other reason than the sound of the name, connected with the old prejudice for that neighbourhood as central for Mercia. “Baccanceld,”A.D.798, was certainly in Kent, since there was also a council of the still self-acting king of Kent held there,A.D.694. Another name “Bregentforda,” very doubtfully,upon no better ground, placed at Brentford. All these deserve to be closely re-considered; and if possible supported by some reason, added to these guesses from the merest outside likeness in the names.
Already,A.D.680, Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, had presided at a general Council of the Bishops of England, said by Ven. Beda to be “in loco qui Saxonico vocabuloHaethfelthnominatur.” Some have placed this at one of the various Hatfields or Heathfields that may have struck the taste of either; whether in Yorkshire, Herts, Essex, Sussex, or Somerset. But Archbishop Parker[87]says that it was “juxta Roffam,” apparently quoting “Roff. Histor.” This, at any rate, shews that near Rochester was at least not thought an unlikely place for a great general Council. Collier also gives the marginal title “The synod at HatfieldorClyff, near Rochester.” So much for Heathfelth. But where, after all, was “Herutford,” the place of the earlier synod (A.D.673), also convened by Archbishop Theodore? This may be looked upon as the initial one of the long series of “Clofeshoch” synods: at which that series was first appointed. Mr. Kemble says[88]that it was “presided over by Hlothari the sovereign of Kent,” and this was probably the case, although Beda does not expressly say so. Beda only adds, to his account of the decrees of the council, a paragraph beginning with a statement that it was heldA.D.673, the year in which king Ecgberct had died and been succeeded by his brother Hlothere. Kent was still an independent kingdom; and, not only in the primacy, but in its instrument, the series of synods thus instituted, possessed within itself the heart of the now established church; which, having become an active political function of concentration, was a much coveted constituent of empire; and invited the impending aggression of Mercia. Within three years of the first institution and localisation of these councils, Æthered made a direct swoop upon this quarry, when he entered Kent at this very Hoo, the appointed place of the future councils.
The only reason for “Hertford,” as the usual interpretation of “Herutford,” is again the mere likeness of the name; and isnot a strong one even of its kind. Any place with “Rod-,” “Reed-,” “Rote-,” and many the like initial syllable, would have a better claim. It is very much suspected that the method, hitherto practised of placing these old place-names, has been far too hasty. It may fairly be expected that some of them are no longer represented by any existing names. We have seen above by how close a shaving several have survived. But of this name “Herutford,” “Heorotford,” or “Heortford,” it might safely be assumed that the initial “He-,” is no more than a prefixed aspirate: that it is not of the essence of the name. And so Beda himself evidently thought; for when[89]he mentions a name, almost identical with this one, in Hampshire; he gives it with a Latin explanation, “Hreutford, id estVadum harundinis,” evidently taking it for Reed or Rodford.[90]We might also expect to find such a name represented by a modern name beginning with “Wr-;” but an inconsiderable “Redham,” a farm, in Gloucestershire, is found written “Hreodham” in the tenth century.
The above had already been written, when it seemed to be at least a formal obligation to test this principle, by a direct application of it to the district under consideration; which has unexpectedly yielded, what is at any rate, an example of the principle. Whether or not it indicates an actual trace of the place “Herutford” itself, shall not at present be ventured to say. However,[91]in the charter, dated 778, already quoted, in which thelevel land north of Cliffe is called “Scaga;” the land-marks begin with the words “Huic uero terrae adiacent pratae ubi dicitur Hreodham.” The land itself, to which it is adjacent, is called “Bromgeheg;” a name which now remains as “Broomey,” a house only, at Cooling; and the chief land-limits are “Clifwara gemære” and “Culinga gemære.” The land is granted to the Bishop of Rochester, but evidently adjoins the eastern side of that including Cliffe itself, which had already been given to the Archbishop, as above quoted.
Even at first sight it would seem unaccountable, that, at a synod held at Hertford; what appears to amount to a periodical series of repetitions or continuations, or in fact adjournments of it should have been determined upon at so distant a place as Clofeshoch,—wherever that may prove to have been—must have been from Hertford. It would seem more likely, that the future place of assembly in view, would have been practically in the same place. This initial council was under the presidency of the Primate; and so were those that followed, except that when the King of Mercia was present the Primate yielded the first place to him. The permanently appointed place would also be likely to have in view the convenience of access, to the Primate, of his suffragans, from all the sub-kingdoms; and to this the Watling-street contributed, not only his own ready approach from Canterbury, to the very place where tradition has fixed it; but also, for those who were to meet him there; the most perfect road from London, and the entire north-west of the island; whilst immediate access from East Saxony, East Anglia, and the northern dioceses, has been shewn in the well frequented ferry, also to this very place. The Church of England is seen to have had an earlier approximation towards political unity than the Kingdom of England. The former was, in fact, contributory to the latter as, perhaps, one of its most efficient causes. This was not lost sight of by those who aimed at the supremacy; whose policy, therefore, was to have the Primate at his right hand in his councils; and to cultivate an identity of interest with him. Offa’s attempt to set upan Archbishop at Lichfield, only seven miles from his home-court at Tamworth, was in this direction.
This attempt to determine the true place of these synods, during the continuance of Mercian supremacy in England; was intended to confirm the statement, that wherever extraneous dedications of St. Werburgh are found, traces are also found of the energetic or active presence of Æthelbald. It may seem to be rather an elaborate implement for so small a purpose. It has been more extensive than was contemplated: but, if once successfully constructed, it may serve a greater purpose of its own: the setting at rest of a long dispute. And this purpose of its own will itself receive back all that it gives to ours: for if the presence of Æthelbald, accounts for our having found a St. Werburgh in this now secluded peninsula; the presence of that dedication, is a weighty confirmation of the much disputed fact, that he was busy and much resident there; and that we might reasonably expect his most important acts to be dated thence. At all events, it is hoped that our sixth and last remaining of the wandering dedications of St. Werburgh, in the Kentish Hoo, has been thus discovered to have been in the immediate company of Æthelbald; when, as it is said in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: