THE JOURNAL
OF THE
Qrdjnrologiral SlSfSOftation
ESTABLISHED 1S43,
FOR THE
ENCOURAGEMENT AND PROSECUTION OP RESEARCHES
INTO THE ARTS AND MONUMENTS OF THE
EARLY AND MIDDLE AGES.
V^OL XXJ
iLontion :
I'KTXTKD Fori TIIK ASSOCfATION
MDCCCLXV.
\xvi.
Sii?
THE JOURNAL
33riti6l; ^rcj^aeologifal dissociation
ESTABLISHED 1843,
ENCOURAGEMENT AND PROSECUTION OF RESEARCHES
INTO THE ARTS AND MONUMENTS OF THE
EARLY AND MIDDLE AGES.
ILontion :
PRINTED FOR THE ASSOCIATION.
MDCCCLXV.
LONDON: T. UlCHAEDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET. WX.
CONTENTS.
Inaugural Address delivered at the Suffolk Congress, held at Ipswich
On MS. Collections relating to Suffolk in the British Museum
On the King's of East Ano-lia .
The Antiquities of Bury St. Edmunds .
On the Earls of East Anglia
On a Heart-Burial at Holbrook Church
MS. Collections relating to Suffolk .
„ Antiquities of Glemsford and Hartest
„ Offices and fees fej»jj. James I
„ Chief Constables' Accounts in Looes Hun dred ....
„ Moated Enclosures at Brampton Old Hall
Suffolk MSS. in the Colles'e of Arms .
British Intei'ments at Lancaster Moor
On Round Tower Churches in East Anglia
On the Castle and other ancient Remains at SouthamjDton ....
On the Population and Taxation of Colchester
On Roman Penates discovered at Exeter
On Croxden Abbey and its Chronicle .
On Andrea Ferara Swords
On a German Sabre of the Sixteenth Century
On Charms employed in Cattle Disease
On Anglo-Saxon Jewellery found at Seamer
On the Antiquity of Spoons
I'AOK
Geo. Tomline . 1
i Edw. Levien
S. W. Rix
I
T. W. King J. Harker E. Roberts
5
H. S. Cuming 22 G. M. Hills 32, 104 J. R. Planche 91 R. M. Phipson 140
144 14r. 149
153
156 158 159 162
E. Kell 197,285
C.H.Hartshorne 208 T. J. Pettigrew 222 G. M. Hills
G. Vere Ir\-ino- H. S. Cumino-
T. Wright J. R. Jobbins
294 316 321
329 333
iv CONTENTS.
PAGE
Ipswich Temporaiy Museum at the Congress . . . 343
•Proceedings of the Ipswich Congress . . 57, 168, 265, 343
Proceedings of the Association . . .76, 184, 222, 350
Annual General Meeting, Report of Auditors, Election of
Officers, etc. . . . . . .240
Election of Associates, 76, 84, 184, 222, 230, 233, 350, 354, 356, 360
Presents to the Association, 76, 184, 190, 222, 233, 241, 350, 354, 358, 360
Antiquarian Intelligence . . . . . .90
Index . . . . . . . .364
List of plates and woodcuts . . . . .371
Obituary for 1864 . . . T. J. Pettigrew 245
THE JOURNAL
or THE
Britisj) arti)aeoIo3ical S^sociation.
MARCH 1865.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE SUFFOLK CONGRESS HELD AT IPSWICH.
BY GEORGE TOMLIXE, ESQ., M.A., F.S.A., M.P., PRESIDENT.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies, and Gentlemen,
On the part of the Arcliseological Association I thank jou for your courteous welcome on this tlie first visit we have paid, to Suffolk, or, to speak more properly, to East Anglia, the country of the Iceni. We may have something to tell, much to observe, and much, I hope, to learn ; and I am glad to see many gentlemen present able to point out to us the local objects of archseological interest, and exchange with us ideas as to their origin, object, and history; for even correct opmions are none the worse for a little discussion. Lord Bolingbroke, I think it is, who talks of the pleasure he has in unniching a saint; and most of us feel equal glee in knocking a historian off liis pedestal. Many and many a laborious writer is gradually sinking into the dust as anti- quarian research, carefully and honestly conducted, assisted by such excursions as this in which we are engaged, sifts his statements, and upsets with unrelenting rigour the theories which will not bear the scrutiny of our more iutel- lic^cnt and more abundant knowledo-e.
Few parts of England can oiler a more fertile field of inquiry tlian this. You have had the Roman, the Saxon, and the Dane. No doubt the footprints they left behind them
1865 1
2 INAUGUEAL ADDRESS
were effaced in blood ; their track was marked by ruin and desolation, which happily have disappeared with the misery which attended them. But as records of later days, you have the Castle of Framliugham and the Abbey of St. Ed- munds,— splendid specimens of baronial and ecclesiastical grandeur. Perhaps nothing new can be said of such remains as these, — perhaps not ; but it is a gratifying result of in- creasing archaeological knowledge that courage and curiosity increase. Problems deemed insoluble have become the favourite speculations of learned men here and in other parts of Europe. I recollect some years ago, when travelling in Spain, I looked with admiration on a Druidical monu- ment, and read the remarks of Mr. Borrow upon it. You have heard of Mr. Borrow, the amateur gipsy, and an enthu- siastic antiquary. He says :
" I gazed with reverence and awe upon the pile where the first colo- nists of Europe offered their worship to the unknown God. The temples of the mighty and skilful Roman, comparatively of modern date, have crumbled into dust in its immediate neighbourhood. The churches of the Arian Goth, his successor in power, have sunk into the earth, and are not to be seen ; and the mosques of the Moor, the con- queror of the Goth, where and what are they ? Upon the rock, masses of hoary and vanishing ruin. Not so the Druids' stone. There it stands, upon the hill of winds, as freshly new as on the day- — perhaps thirty centuries back — when it was raised by means which are a mystery. Earthquakes have shaken it, but its copestone has not fallen ; rain-floods have deluged it, but failed to sweep it from its station ; the burning sun has flashed upon it, but neither split nor crumbled it ; and time — stern old time — has rubbed it with its iron tooth, with what effect let those who view it declare. There it stands ; and he who would learn the history, the literature, and the learning, of the ancient Celt and Cimbrian may gaze upon its broad covering, and glean from that blank stone the whole known amount."
These are eloquent words, and I have never forgotten them. They were written not many years ago; yet the difficulty which such a man as Mr. Borrow thought insuperable, is now ingeniously, if not incontestably, explained. Ethnology and philology, new sciences, concur with older ones in throwing farther back the horizon of history; and agree that the primitive race, of which the Druids were an offspring, emigrated from Central Asia, and colonised both shores of the Mediterranean, India, and perhaps China.
DELIVERED AT THE SUFFOLK CONGRESS. 3
There is in this county, I believe, no Druids' stone; ])ut you have memorials, medals of the past, compared to which the Druids' altar is a thing of yesterday. The flint imple- ments of Hoxne — the productions of an age so distant, that, though satisfactorily demonstrated to our reason, it almost appals our imagination — are true objects of interest to anti- quaries, whose love of knowledge is not limited by medi- aeval, ancient, mythical history; but ascends to the earliest traces of savage man, and aspires to decipher the archae- ology of nature herself. And this is the merit of our science, — we are insatiable. A young man learns at school what schools can teach. He is naturally dissatisfied. The Greeks and Eomans cannot satiate him. The annals of the works of man are soon exhausted. The learned darkness which envelopes the earliest records of man is soon deserted for the bright light of nature. Geology is the archaeology of our earth. That attracts him. He gives himself up to it heart and soul, but not long. Geology has done its work. It has become a low formation. In the progress of science it has been outstripped. The causes of geology, the laws of force, the single force of nature, embracing all the gigantic powers which we now know only in their results, including vital force, and extending into space as our eyes advance into it, are the problems which alone can check his zeal for inform- ation. There at present we all must stop, but only to take breath. We inhabit a thin film of this globe, almost the smallest in the heavens. Three miles above the ground, one mile below it; that is the shred of this earth on which man can live. Our faculties are bounded by the powers of the microscope and the telescope. A shred of knowledge is all we can gain. Yet man has done wonders. By the appetite for learning which forces a young archaeologist to pause and reflect upon a coin of Julius Ca3sar, upon a flint implement in the drift, upon the fact that heat and light arc motion, upon the discovery — not yet quite discovered, I admit — that in the nebulae nitrogen is decomposed into more elementary substances, — we have advanced, and shall con- tinue to progress.
We, archaeologists, have our step on this ladder. Few of us who have placed our foot on the lowest round can help ascending. Some of us move on with eagerness and hope ; others, perhaps more usefully, occupy themselves with
4 INAUGUEAL ADDRESS.
making the ground good below them, and blowing away the clouds and vapours which have long darkened and enfeebled the mind of man ; for there are archaeologists of ideas, who discover and reason upon old prejudices, and by explaining remove them. And some new prejudices are even more strong, and more difficult to root out, than old ones. The same hostility to inquiry, though no vested interest except that of indolence exists; the same reluctance to accept de- monstration,— is to be found in modern science, as when powerful classes were leagued together to resist innovation. Dr. Odling, in his discovery of the composition of water, overthrowing the theory which had satisfied mankind only from the days of Cavendish, excited as much anger as if he had been a colonial bishop; and now, by the spectrum ana- lysis applied to nebulae, nitrogen appears not to be an ele- ment, but to be capable of decomposition into some more elementary matter. If this be so, — and the idea seems likely to result in a new truth, — what bitter feelings and noisy quarrels will ensue between the gentlemen of the tele- scope and the laboratory. But we leave these dissensions to the chemist and the astronomer. Our object and our reward is the simple truth. Not that we are exclusive devotees of our own pursuits. The very attention we pay to them makes us more keen and observant of the proceed- ings of our learned brethren. They are our allies in the search for truth : not the less sincere, perhaps, that we have little to ask of one another. They share with us the intel- lectual freedom which is the characteristic and the pride of the present day. No one supposes that we excel in mental strength the times of Plato and Galileo; but if we have not the advantage of superiority, we have that of freedom ; and noble are the fruits it has borne. The scientific progress which has been made, the secrets stolen from nature, the marvellous discoveries which have given as much happiness as knowledge to mankind, we owe in a great measure to the boldness and energy of this grand age we live in. We owe much, and I believe we shall owe more, to the increasing liberty demanded by the increasing honour paid to the courage and independence of the mind of man.
5
ON MS. COLLECTIONS EELATING TO SUFEOLK IN THE BEITISH MUSEUM.
BY EDWARD LEVIEN, ESQ., M.A., F.S.A.
The materials which exist in our national collection for a history of Suffolk, are so varied and so abundant that it is impossible, upon the present occasion, to attempt anything like a detailed description of them. It will be my object, therefore, merely to point out the latest sources of informa- tion which are available to those who may feel disposed to add to the meagre accounts which have been published by Suckling and Gage, and who from personal connection with the county, and interest in its history and antiquities, may wish to dig deeper into so rich a mine, and render available for public use treasures which have hitherto lain compara- tively buried, " nempe careut quia vate sacro."
It would be superfluous for me to refer a meeting like the present to any of the well-known collections, such as the Harleian, Lansdown, and Sloane, in which so much valuable information especially relating to the heraldic and genealo- gical history of the county may be found ; or the earlier Additional MSS. which contain the collections of Upcott, Craven Ord, Gibbons, and Suckling, and the still more labo- rious and extensive researches of Jermyn and Davy. With respect to the latter, however, as they have not been so much studied as they deserve to be, both on account of the immense variety of subjects which they embrace, and the diligence employed by their author in collecting the mate- rials which he has so usefully brought together, I propose to enter a little more into detail. They arc numbered from 19,077 to 19,207 among the Additional MSS., and are arranged as follows : from 19,077tol9,113 are collections for a history of the county, arranged alphabetically in hundreds, bciijinnino: with Babergh and endiuo- with Wilford. Then come pedigrees of Suffolk families, also arranged alphabeti- cally, as far as No. 19,156. No. 19,157 is a "Breviary of Suffolk ; or a Plain and Familiar Description of the County, the Fruits, the Buildings, the Bcople, and Inhabitants," etc..
6 ON MS. COLLECTIONS RELATING TO SUFFOLK
copied from Harl. 3873. It has a dedicatory epistle to Sir Eobert Crane, is dated 9 Feb. 1618, and is followed by an alphabet of arms of county families, drawn up by Davy himself. Next follow armorials as far as 19,159; and No. 19,160 is "An Alphabetical List of Suffolk Surnames, with the Origins of them as far as they can be made out." That some of them are "made out" in a somewhat fantastic manner, the following examples, taken at random from among many others, will prove. "Argcdl, the tartar of wine- vessels"; ''alkali, clay, from Lat. argilla; Sax., adulter a, malus, improhus. ^r^i7, Celtic, a covered way"; and inserted is a note to the following effect, — ''argal, a vulgar corrup- tion of the Latin word e7yo; with the well-known quotation from Hamlet, — " But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself ; argal he that is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life"; and references to Nares, Bailey, and Skinner, showing that argal or argoil sometimes signifies "clay," and sometimes "hard lees of wine sticking to the sides of vessels." Notwithstanding all which learned conjecture we are informed by Mr. Lower in his Patronymica Britannica, that the name is " possibly derived from Ercall, a parish in Shropshire." Again, coh- hold, " a set of German spirits, were called hohold, from whence the English ' goblin.' They haunted da.rk and soli- tary places, and were often found in mines." But here again the writer seems to differ from Lower, who, quoting Fer- guson, says that, although the name may perhaps come from the hohold of Germany, a harmless and often kindly sprite, something like the Scotch " brownie," yet this is doubtful ; for we have the name of Cobb, answering to the Germ, and Danish nameKobbe ; and hald or hold is one of the most com- mon Teutonic composites." Cuboid, an Anglo-Saxon personal name, is found in Domesday ; and Leuricus Cobbe, who was doubtless a Saxon, is mentioned in the Suffolk Domesday (334, b.) as holding land under the presbyter Ansketillus in the time of Edward the Confessor.
From No. 19,161 to 19,164 is "A Synopsis of the Lords of the several Manors in the County of Suffolk," also alpha- betically arranged according to the parishes in which the several manors are situated, beginning from the time of Domesday Booh, and brought down to the year 1845. Then follow the Athenw Snffolhienses, or a catalogue of Suffolk
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 7
authors, with some account of their lives and lists of their writings, in four volumes. The first three arc arrano;ed chronologically, with tables of authors' names in the same order, and alphabetical indexes at the end. They contain biographical and literary notices of — 1, persons born in the county; 2, persons having had a permanent or long resi- dence therein, including monks of the several monasteries ; 3, lords of manors and other large proprietors of lands, though not resident; 4, incumbents of livings, including the archdeacons of the two archdeaconries ; 5, persons who have received the greater part of their education in the large public schools in the county ; 6, masters of the public gram- mar schools; — and the period they embrace is from a.d. G52 to 1848. The fourth volume contains livino; authors, brouQ-ht down to the year 1851, and is also alphabetically arranged under the names of the several writers. The two next volumes also relate to the literary and artistic celebrities of Suffolk, the former of them containing a list of anonymous publications printed in the county from 1723 to 1741, with a list of papers published anonymously, by Davy himself ; and a list of Suffolk authors to be further inquired about, the latter consisting of notices of the lives, characters, and works, of Suffolk authors of all ages, compiled by Davy from various histories, newspapers, magazines, etc., arranged alphabetically under the names of the various authors. These are followed by two volumes relating to the general history of the county, their chief contents being a description of the w^hole county, with a table of its divisions according to its hundreds, parishes, and manors; derivations of the more common terminations of the names of parishes and places in the county; its history as a portion of the kingdom of East Anglia; a list of the tenants in capite, or serjeanty, as they stand in Domesday Booh; accounts of the possessions of bishops and religious houses; extracts from the Brevia Regum, and from various chronicles and charters, both printed and manuscript, beginning from circa 920; notices of its militia and yeomanry ; accounts of some of the chari- table foundations, more especially those of the several parishes of the AVoodbridge Union in 1845; the ecclesiasti- cal arrangements and antiquities, and the natural history; lists of the sheriffs of Norfolk down to 1840, and those of Sufiblk (with a description of the arms of each of them)
8 ON MS. COLLECTIONS RELATING TO SUFFOLK
down to 1851; lists of the knights of the shire down to 1847, with sliort accouDts of each member, from the parlia- ment of 26 Edward I (1297); lists of the peers, knights, justices of the peace, grand jurors, and various Suffolk dig- nitaries; with lists of brasses, seals, and coins (the latter being traced) ; and of the MSS. and printed books, including various acts of Parliament relating to the sale, etc., of estates, naturalisation, paving, draining, making and improving canals, harbours, etc.; inclosure, poor-house, railway, and turnpike acts, commencing 28 Hen. VIII (1536), and brought down to 5th and 6th Vic. (16 July 1842); lists of publica- tions relating to the lives of persons belonging to the county; lists of pamphlets, and drawings and sketches illustrative of the county, arranged alphabetically according to hundreds; and fac-similes of autographs of various Suffolk celebrities upon tracing papers.
Nos. 19,173 to 19,183 comprise catalogues of engraved portraits and views, and original drawings and sketches illustrative of the history of the county; among which will be found lists of maps and coast-charts, views of various seats, churches, and objects of architectural or antiquarian interest in the county; and in 19,182, lithographed views of Brome Church and its monuments to the Cornwallis family, from drawings by the Hon. Arabella Townshend, daughter of the first Lord Bayning, who was rector of Brome and Oakley in 1821; the volume being illustrated by MS. bio- graphical notices and pedigrees drawn up and written by David Elisha Davy.
The next volume was used by the same writer for record- ing his visits to the churches of the county, and his investi- gations of the charities, registers, terriers, and brasses ; with his researches into the extent of the manors, by marks afExed against the several churches and manors, with summaries of the extent of his researches from Jan. 1811 to Jan. 1833, introduced between two tables of the hundreds of the county, with then divisions into parishes, and their subdivisions into hundreds.
Then follows a series of valuable miscellaneous papers in twelve folio volumes (19,185-19,197), all relating to the county. Their contents are so numerous that it would occupy too much time even to epitomise them. Suffice it to say that they treat of almost every variety of subject, — ■
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 9
such, for instance, as the subscription for Beccles races, on velhim, with autograpli signatures of the stewards, dated 25 Juue, 1 76:5 ; copies of letters to and from Nicholas Revett, an architect, of the fiimily of the Revetts of Brandeston Hall, and co-editor with James Stuart, of the Athenian Antiquities (17G2-1816), while on his travels in Athens and the Ionian Islands in 1750-1 ; various lists of freemen; licenses to kill game ; releases, bonds, documents, relating to elec- tions, corporation and ecclesiastical affairs, pedigrees, suits, and actions at law; and, among other curious matter, trans- lations from the half hundred rolls relative to "the half hundred of Ixninge" (now the parish of Exninge in the hun- dred of Lackford), setting forth " presentments before the justices itinerant, of ojGPences committed at Ixninge and Newmarket," 14 Ed. I (1285-6); and various other docu- ments, of an early date, concerning lands and rents in the same parish, down to the year 1693. It is, however, impos- sible for me, as I have already observed, to go into further detail with regard to these volumes. The few examples I have cited will sufficiently indicate the extent and variety of their contents; and their perusal will amply repay any one who may be interested in acquiring a thorough acquaint- ance with the history and antiquities of the county.
The next volume (19,198) consists of w^ills and legal docu- ments from 1539 to 1805. It contains some few^ originals, but the major portions are copies, and among them may be mentioned several testamentary bequests, indentures, and various instruments relating to grants and titles to lands and estates in Yoxford, Ubbeston, Westhall, Blithborougli cum Walderswick, and Grundisburgh, belonging to the families of the Blois of Grundisburgh and Coxfield Halls, and the Kemps of Gissing Hall, co. Norfolk ; with an original abstract of the title of the Right Hon. Lady Sclina Countess of Huntingdon, and the Hon. Mrs. Clutterbuck, to a freehold farm and lands in Yoxford, — the particulars being dated 1 700-1 768, with counsel's opinion dated 1768; a " Kalcndar of the County of Suffolk, containing the Names of the Chief Bailiffs and Jurors of the several Hundreds," etc. This calen- dar is undated; but Davy remarks in his account of the hundred of Exninge, where it is also given, that it is of the date of the end of Ed. I or the early part of the reign of
Ed. II; and he adds a note stating that "the practice in 1865 • -2
10 ON MS. COLLECTIONS RELATING TO SUFFOLK
those times was for the capital bailiff, or headborough, and two persons named " elizors," to come into court, and be there sworn. Then the two " elizors" chose out of the resi- dents of the hundred ten other persons in addition to them- selves, who, being also sworn, formed the jury, and made their presentments before the judges. When there was a half hundred, then six jurors only made their presentments." There are besides various documents upon law points of considerable interest to the inhabitants of this more imme- diate neighbourhood, as, for instance, a decision relative to the repairs of the highway between Ipswich and Melton, given by the board of magistrates on 15 Jan. 1794; and the whole question in the form of a case, with counsel's opinion upon it; and sundry other matters which will be found upon reference to the volume itself, but which, as its size is that of a large folio, and it contains four hundred and five pages, time prevents me from describing more in detail.
The next volume is a small octavo in two parts, the first containing notes relative to Herringfleet and Somerleyton in 1770; — the second, an inscription from Ely Cathedral; some memoranda concerning flowers and monuments, etc., in Iselborn Church, co. Cambridge.
The following volume is entitled " The History and Anti- quities of the antient Villa of Wheatfield in the County of Suff'olk ; done into Verse by the Kev. William Myers, Vicar of Walton, 1759." Prefixed is the printed prose work upon the same subject by the Eev. John Clubbe (1758), of which Myers' production is meant to be a poetical translation. Davy has inserted a manuscript biographical memoir of the author, in which he states that " Myers was a great coin- collector, and that many MSS. on this and other subjects were found after his death: amono- them a laro;e collection of verses (they cannot be called poetry), of which this volume formed a part." He adds that the performance is " a singular one," — a fact which, I think, the following samples of its quality will fully prove. The epistle dedicatory to the rector of Wheatfield begins thus :
" To whom, dear sir, can I address This work, e'er it goes to press, More properly than unto you, Who know right well the whole is true ? So hope you'll kind indidgencc show
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 11
To this my infant Muse ; who yet From Helicon could never get One cheering draught for to inspire My breast with wild poetic fire ; The real cause why I can soar no higher : Ne'er dreamt with Ennius while I slept Old Homer into me was crept. You'll ask why I did write at all AVhen from the ]\Iuses I'd no call ? And why did I presume to meddle With what to others seems a riddle ? I'll tell you in plain words my story, Tho' 't tends not greatly to my glory."
Then follows more in the same strain, for thirty-eight folio pages; and the preface commences thus :
" 'Tis a respect that's always due Unto our readers, ne'er so few. By way of preface to declare
What all the things we treat on are, •
That some account they may receive For what they do their money give, And to read thorough do intend. If patience hold unto the end."
The "History" itself runs from ff. 52 to 153, being fol- lowed by an index of words and things. It opens with the following proem :
" Ye rural nymphs, my muse inspire. Assist me to attune my lyre. That in fit notes I may rehearse A subject yet unsung in verse : A vill describe whose mighty praise Unknown has been to former lays. Which in rich Suffolk hath its site In the south-west, now "SVlicatfield hight. At distance they who live there fix From London miles near sixty-six. This famous, ancient, pleasant vill Does south-east stand on a steep hill, Whose roots arc watered by a I'ill Which Brett, from Brcttenham, we do call, Where it at Higham has its fall Into the noted river Stonr, Into whose bosom it doth pour
12 ON MS. COLLECTIONS RELATING TO SUFFOLK
Its limpid stream, which doth divide The Suffolk from the Essex side."
After such specimeiis as the above, it is needless for me to quote any more examples of this author's poetical effusions. AVe have, unfortunately, some more of them in the next volume but one, among other compositions by Suffolk writers whose productions fill Nos. 19,201 and 19,202. Among them are original verses uj)on various sub- jects, and translations, by Rev. William Clubbe, vicar of Brandeston, John Mole, C. V. Legrice, Letitia Jermyn, John Brady, W. B. Brausby, Rev. George Turner, Agnes Strick- land, Rev. John Mitford, John Cordingley, and others. Many of them, although they are not knoY\'n, are well worthy of perusal both on account of their sul)ject-matter and their style, touching, as they do, on all sorts of themes, — " from grave to gay, from lively to severe,"- — while others are altogether unworthy of a place in any collection of poetry.
"Phis last remark, however, will not apply to the next volume, the first portion of which contains poems collected by Mrs. Firman Josselyn, the daughter of Mrs. Cobbold of the Cliff in this town; and the second, some of the compo- sitions of Mrs. Cobbold herself. The collected poems con- sist of short pieces by Dr. Dodderidge, Dr. Johnson, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sterne, Sheridan, and other well-known writers; while the original compositions of Mrs. Cobbold, which form the second portion of the volume, are in some instances distinguished by a lively sense of humour, and others by deep devotional expression, and in aU by the marks of a gentle disposition and an accomplished mind. The productions of this lady's muse are of a very varied character, and show her talents to have been of a most ver- satile kind. They embrace all sorts of subjects, from "An Epitaph on a Scarecrow," and "The Crooked Stick, a Tale achlressed to Unmarried Ladies," to paraphrases on the Psalms, lines upon the death of friends, valentines, odes, and poetical epistles; while the concluding part of the volume contains a prose account of her visit to the Lakes of Cum- berland in June 1795.
The four remaining volumes contain sermons preached by various Suffolk divines at the churches of Hawsted, Friston, Snape, Aldboroiigli, and elsewhere, between 1G9| and 1755;
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 13
and these end the Suffolk Collections, strictly so called, made by D. E. Davy for the history of the county.
'From 19,213, however, to 19,241 are twenty-nine quarto V(>lumes of original correspondence, chiefly addressed to Eleazar Davy and David E. Davy, many of them containing information relative to the county and its history, and written by correspondents who were distinguished either by their social position or their literary attainments. Among them we find letters from Augustus Henry and George Henry, Dukes of Grafton, Charles the First, Marquis C'ornwallis, Lord Euston, Lord Charles Fitzroy, Lord Braybrooke, Lord Eous (afterwards Earl of Stradbroke), Sir Edmund Bacon, Sii' Robert Kemp, Sir John Rous, Sir John Cullum, Sir Thomas Charles Buubury, Sir Gilbert Affleck, Sir Henry Peyton, and many other well-known peers, baronets, and knights. Also from Dr. George Tomline, Bishop of Win- chester; Crabbe the poet, Craven Ord, the ]\Iisses Strick- land, Rev. A. Suckling, and a great many others whose names are familiar not only to many who are now present, on account of their connexion by birth and education with Suffolk, but who have earned for themselves a more than local fame from the contributions which they have made to the literature of their country.
The next three volumes also contain letters from cele- brated persons, and are preserved principally on account of their value as autographs. They are dated from 1764 to 1830, and among the writers are, John Lord Wodehouse, Dr. Edward Jenner, Sir Edward Littleton, John Earl of Portsmouth, Charles M. Sutton, Archbishop of Canterbury, George Gordon, IMarquis of Huntly; John Scott, Earl of Eldon; Robert Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool; Robert Stew- art, V^iscount Castlereagh; Nicholas Vansittart, Lord Bexley; Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, and others whose names are familiar to us all throuiihout the Icno-th and breadth of the land.
Three volumes of " Miscellanies'' bring this most valuable collection to an end at Additional MSS. No. 19,247; and as I have detained you so long over this, I will not exhaust your patience by dwelling at any great length upon the remaining MSS., to which I will now, in conclusion, call your attention.
No. 21,032 is a folio volume containing notes upon various
14 ON MS. COLLECTIONS RELATING TO SUFFOLK
cliurches in Suffolk, with pen and ink sketches of architec- ture, copies of inscriptions and coats of arms, and miscena- neous remarks by Sir William Betham, Ulster King of Arnls. It is in Sir William's own handwriting, and is preceded by an alphabetical index of names.
From Nos. 21,033 to 21,059 are volumes relating princi- pally to various manors in the county. Among them are a "Eentale Manerii de Walsham," on vellum, 15 Ed. Ill; and another, 23 Hen. VII; list of subscriptions to the subsidy in the hundred of Blackbourne in 1661; and the assessment for the subsidy in the hundred of Bosmere and Claydon for 1557, 1628, and 1629; court-book of the manor of Waltou- cum-Trimley, 1620-1622; extent, or survey, of the manor of Falkenham in 1607; and of Candelent and Capelle in 1515, with the court-books and rentals of the latter manors from 1528 to 1647; court-book of the manor of Martlesham-cum- Newbourn from 1539 to 1613; assessment of the hundred of Colneis in 1624 and 1641, and of Hoxne in 1663; copies of correspondence and instructions from James Earl of Suf- folk, as lord-lieutenant of the county, to Lord Cornwailis as lieutenant, and the deputy-lieutenants, relative to the militia and the payment of the subsidy in 1661; extracts from the books of courts-leet and from the court-rolls of the manor of Monk-Soham in the hundred of Hoxne, from 35 Edward to 39 Elizabeth (1306-1597), with pleadings in an action at law in re Eobert Hawes v. Lionel Tallemache; a recent copy of the rental of the manor of Wyke's Ufford for the year 1551; books of courts-leet for various manors from 1463 to 1578; extents of the manors of Blaxall, Tunstall, Donning- worth, and Bannyards, in the hundred of Plomesgate, from 1575 to 1600; a collection of drawings and engravings of the ancient seals of English kings, religious houses, charit- able institutions, private families, etc., principally in con- nexion with the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk; various plans of estates and parishes, upon paper and vellum-rolls, from ] 708 to 1839; and original writs, on vellum, of certio- rari, habeas corjDus, attachment, ^jrocedendo, and superse- deas, directed to the bailiffs of Ipswich, between 1509 and 1531.
No. 23,731 is a petition of Nicholas Garneys, Esq., of Little Redisham, to be confirmed in his right to the advowson of the rectory of Ringfield ;md the chapel of Little Kedisham ;
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 15
witli the representations of Lord Higli Chancellor Ellesmere, Dr. John Jegon, Bishop of Norwich, and Dr. George Aljljott, Archbishop of Canterbury, and dated 1611 to 1(5 13.
Nos. 23,945 to 23,967 contain, amongst other matters, remarks on the early mints at Ipswich, commencing from the reign of Edgar the Pacific (959-975), by W. S.^Fitch; papers relating to the case of Arcedeckne v. Owen, for the fishery of the Easton river; letters on the subject of Hitcham charity, Ipswich, 1795 to 1800; survey of the manor of Baudeseye, 16 Hen. VI (1438); rental of the manor of Hol- lisley, 16 Hen, YII (1500-1); abstract of court-rolls and court-books of Holhslevand Sutton, 12 Ed. Ill to Georo-e III (1338 to 1765); court-books of the manors of Butley, Tang- ham, and Monk Soliam, from 1562 to 1736; collections relat- ing to the Suftblk mints, town-pieces, and tradesmen's tokens, by AV. S. Fitch; testamenta vetusta Gi'ppovicensia, abstracts of wills relating to Ipswich, from 1438 to 1532, by the same ; customs and extent of the rectory of Wang- ford, 1532-1580; a description of Dunwich, with a list of its bailiff's, from 1st Ed. IV to 24 Charles I; The Suffolk Garland, which contains not only the collections of songs, ballads, poems, etc., made by the Eev. James Ford, the editor of The Suffolk Garland in 1818, afid the additions of Augustine Page, editor of the Supplement to Kirby's Siff'olk Traveller, but also papers in print and mauuscript added by the late Mr. Fitch as new matter for a second edition of The Garland. The last MS. of this collection, all of which was in the possession of Mr. Fitch, is a volume of miscella- neous papers relating to Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk. It contains a terrier of lands, the customs of Benhall, and various other matters, which time and space prevent me from describing at large.
The MSS. numbered 24,821 to 24,824 are from the valu- able collections formed by Charles Devon, late Assistant Keeper of the Public Records. These consist of the results of his searches relative to tithes, endowments, extents of manors, notes of law-cases, analyses of charters, abstracts of legal documents, wills, and instruments of all kinds (both from public and private sources), relating to the various counties in England and Wales. They are contained in one hundred and fifty-nine volumes, and the places treated of in the Suffolk portion of them are, — Aldborough, Billesford,
1 G ON MS. COLLECTIONS RELATING TO SUFFOLK
BrandestoD, Brandon, Bungay, Cavendish, Cornlieath, Cre- tingiiam, Downham, Eye, Hougliley, Mildenhall, Northall, Orford, Soutbwold, Stowmarket, and Watlefield.
The next volume which I have to notice is the most curious of any wliich have come under our observation. It is the original Liber Niger, or Domesday Book of Ipswich, which was formerly in the possession of this town, but is now the property of the trustees of the British Museum, being numbered 25,012. It treats of the ancient laws, cus- toms, and usages of the borough, and was compiled 19 Ed. I (1290-1). It is a folio volume of fifty pages, in French, written on vellum, and was purchased from the represent- atives of the late Sir Francis Palgrave in November 1862. As extracts have been freely given from it by AVodderspoon in his memorials of Ipswich, I will not detain you longer over it, except to remark that the volume preceding it is a translation of it into English in the fifteenth century. This volume is also a folio on vellum, and contains at the com- mencement the entries, in Latin, from 2 John to 15 Henry VI (1200 to 1437), "Coming events," it is sg,id, "cast their sha- dows before"; and the opening sentence of the book, which runs thus, — "For as much as elde dom day and the elde vsage of the toun of GippysWych and other rollys and remembrances of the same toun, by a fals com'on clerk of the forseyde toun weryn born awey and falselich alojmed," seems to foreshadow a fate which, alas ! overtook not only the " elde domesday," but this its successor; for unless it also had been " born awey and lalselich aloyned," it is difficult to say how it could have found its way from its dignified rest among the archives of "the toun of Gyppswich" to its more elevated position upon the liook-shelves of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, and thence to the MS. department of the British Museum.
The next volumes which I shall bring under your notice will be especially interesting to all " Gyppyswichians," inas- much as they are not only the work of Ipswich men, but con- tain many particulars both of persons and places which have not hitherto appeared in print. The first three of the MSS. to which I allude are numbered, additional, 25,334 to 25,336. 'J'hey are collections for tlie history of the town and borough of Ipswich, by the late William Batley, town clerk to the corporation in 1785, and contain translations of grants and charters of the corporation, perambulations, extracts from
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 17
trials respecting the corporation water-boiuidarlcs, lists of representatives in parliament from the time of Edward IJ, and of officers of the corporation, biographies of Ipswich worthies; historical and genealogical memoranda respecting the Tollemache and other county families ; " minutes of pro- ceedings which have taken place in the corporation of Ips- wich previous to the general election in 1784, and from that time to the 29th Sept. 1827," including an official letter of Lord Sidmouth, and curious local handbills, printed scraps, cuttings, etc., collected by William Batley, Esq., bailiff of Norwich in 1819.
The next volume treats of the Ipswich boundaries by land and water, and contains, amongst others, the following docu- ments : perambulation of the liberties, 26 Edward III and 13 Hen. VIII; times of the boundaries having Ijeen gone over from 1565 to 181 9; description of the perambulation in 1812, with notes and plan ; original letter relating to the complaint of the inhabitants of Eushmere and Westerfield being un- justly taxed by the constables of the hundreds of Carlford and Bosmere towards the composition for the provision of the royal household, with autograph signatures of Sir Thomas Edmonds as treasurer of the household, Sir Eoger Palmer, Thomas jMerrye, and Richard Manley; and at the foot an autograph note of Sir John Barker, Bart., appointing a time for settling the complaint ; bill for work at the Bull's Ringle in 1676; commission of inquiry, and extracts from charters relative to the extent of tlie port and admiralty iurisdiction, from 3 Rich. I to 11 Hen. VIII (1191-1519);" petition to erect a house on this side of Burn Bridge in 1644; licenses granted for enclosing parts of the Ooze, and for exercising rights over the Orwell, from 1572 to 1 71 9; original warrant, with autograph of John Burrough, addressed to the town chamberlain, and ordering payment of £3 to Cuthbert Carr for making a map of the river, 30 ]\Iarch, 1677; various papers in reference to disputes between the corporation and the admiralty with regard to the jurisdiction of the latter, from 3 Ed. IV to 32 Charles II (1463 to 1680); minutes of trials and pleadings in actions at law respecting river-rights and boundaries in the causes of Warren t'. Trcnnings (1736), Ipswich corporation v. Harwich (1778), and the corporation V. John Cobbold (1810 and 1812), the latter being accom- panied by Lord Ellenborough's and ]\lr. Justice Baylev's
1865 3 *'
18 ON MS. COLLECTIONS RELATING TO SUFFOLK
judgment; and tlie corporation v. Ealph Staton and William Ashmore in 1814; a description, sundry particulars, and notice of ancient documents relating to the manor of Wyke's Bishop; various plans and documents about the right of taking ballast from the river ; copy of an order of the Privy Council for destroying cormorants, 29 Sept. 1623; and a short abstract of deodands by drowning, 5 Ed. VI to 9 Anne (1551-1711).
But time presses, and I will now run over the remaining volumes currente calamo, premising, however, that they are quite worth an examination in detail by those who are interested in the town and county. No. 25,338 is a volume containino; extracts from " Bacon's book," which, as it is in the possession of the corporation here, is doubtless too familiar to you all to need any further reference; or at least, if it is not so well known to you as I assume that it is, I can only say that it ought to be. The extracts which are in the Museum are in the handwriting of John Wodder- spoon, the author of the memorials of Ipswich, as also is the next volume, 25,339, which contains abstracts of inquisi- tions, jpost mo7'tem, relating to Suffolk, from 1 Edw. I to 6 Edw, IV (1272 to 1467), and is translated from an ancient MS. in the possession of Sir Robert Sparrow of Worlingham Hall.
No. 25,340 is a " taxatio nonce garhariiin' in the hundreds of Ipswich, Ixning, Dunwich, Thredling, Sothing, Mutford, Bury, Wilford, Lackford, Samford, Theswastoe, Blackbourn, Hartesmere, Stow, Thingoe, Ccarlford, and Colneis. The survey was taken 20 April 14 Edw. Ill, by the prior of St. Peter's, Ipswich; Ealph de Bockinge, John de Hemenhall, and Ralph de AVylyngam, as commissioners; the abbot of Leyston having been appointed in the place of the prior of St. Peter's, Ipswich, on the 10th of June following. The MS. itself is in the handwriting of Craven Ord, and is partly unpublished.
Next follows (No. 25,341) a translation into modern English of the Ipswich Domesday, hy W. Illingworth, Deputy Keeper of the Records at the Tower in 1812, with a charter of inspeximus dated 30 May, 10 Edw. II (1316); the ordi- nances of the burgesses of Ipswich, both native and foreign, 1 4 Edw. II ; a transcript of the roll, 2 John, respecting the same subject; and a list of the foreign burgesses, made in
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 1 9
Ipswich 18, 24, 27, and 36 Henry III (1233, 1239, 1242, and 1251).
Next follows a most interesting volume of the original account books for Christ's Hospital, Ipswich, for the years 1569 to 1572 and 1578 to 1582. The entries are not only most valuable as shewing the nature of the work done in the hospital, and the price of labour at the period, but some of them are most amusing, as giving us an insight into the customs; and, in more senses than one, into the habits of our ancestors. Thus, for instance, the following is entered under January 1571: "It'm p'd for a loc and a chayne to hange vpon a vagabond, xijc/.'" " It'm for mendyng of the backgate locke, iijc^." So that the vagabond was evidently a more expensive investment, in the article of locks, than the back-gate was. In November 1573 we find an entry which will enable both the ladies and gentlemen of the pre- sent day to form some estimate of the materials and value of dress at that period, as compared with those of our more expensive and expansive modern days. " It'm for ij yardes and ^ for a cote for Thomas Smythe, of graye, and j yarde and "I of blauketynge for a petycote. It'm p'd for the mak- yng of hys cotes, xjcZ. It'm v yardes of graye to make ij gownes, one for Besse Norres and one for IMary Jonson, and and iij yardes of blanketyng for ij petycotes. It'm p'd for the makyng of the sayd cotes, xxijd."
The following ]\IS. (No. 25,343) is also very interesting. It is the original book of accounts of the receipts and pay- ments in respect of Henry Tooley's foundation in Ipswich. The principal receipts are for the rents of the farms of Ulves- ton Hall, Kent's Hill, Claydon Hills, manor of Sackvilles, lands in Whitton and Holbroke, and lands and tenements in Ipswich. The payments consist of allowances to the poor, the expenses of Tooley's tomb in St. Mary Key Church, the repairs of the almshouses, the expenses of suits in connexion with the charity, the surveys of certain lands, repairs of highway rendered necessary by a great flood in 1576, pay- ments for wine, sack, and various other " creature comforts," and for incidental expenses attending the court kept at Ulveston, and a great many curious and interesting items. It extends from 1566 to 1595, and has lists of the wardens elected and chosen l)y the bailiffs and portmcn during that period. It consists of 360 pages, in folio; and at the com-
20 ON MS. COLLECTIONS RELATING TO SUFFOLK
mencement is this ominous note, in the handwriting of John
Woclclerspoon : " This book came to me from . From
whence it came to this source I know not." Perhaps the information of some here present may be more complete upon this latter point than was that of the learned author of the memorials of Ipswich.
No. 25,344 is the original account book of the church- wardens of St. Peter's, Ipswich, from 1563 to 1564. It con- tains many curious particulars relative both to the church and the parish of St. Peter's ; and is followed by the last of the MSS. relating to Suffolk which are at present in the British Museum. It was only purchased about thirteen months ago ; and thus I have brought these notices down to the latest period of any addition which has been made to the previously acquired means of obtaining information relative to the county. The MS. is numbered 25,345, and contains extracts from the will-books at Ipswich, from 1437 to 1530; and is, as so many others are, in the handwriting of John Wodderspoon.
Besides these MSS., however, which relate more especially to the history and antiquities of the county, are many others which may be said to be of a more personal nature, as refer- ring more particularly to matters interesting either to private families or the literary public in general. As an instance of the former class, I may mention the volume of letters and papers relating to Lord Crofts of Saxham (1629 to 1681), in Additional MSS. 22,065, and the Johnson and Strafford Papers in Additional MSS. 22,1 83 to 22,267. This latter col- lection contains a variety of curious and valuable particulars, both of a public and private nature, respecting the Went- worths. This great family, although it is now more imme- diately connected with Yorkshire, yet holds lands and estates in several counties, Suffolk being one of them. And we have volumes relating to Aldborough, Friston Hall, Suape, and Bury, from 1554 to 1774.
Among the class of MSS. which may be described as inte- resting to the literary world in general, are the " Suffolk Papers," presented by the executors of the Right Hon. John AVilson Croker to the Trustees of the British Museum in 1858. These consist of five very large folio volumes, num- bered from 22,625 to 22,629, and contain the original cor- respondence of Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, from
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, 21
1712 to 1767. From the fact that among them there arc many original letters from Lord Peterborough, Lord Chester- field, Dr. Young, Swift, Pope, Mrs. Blount, Lord Chatham, Horace Walpole, and several others of equal or nearly equal celebrity, it may be inferred how valuable and interesting a collection they must form.
Time will not allow me to do more than to mention the fact that, in addition to all the manuscript volumes to which I have already called your attention, there is an immense collection of charters relating to Suffolk in the British Museum, the latest acquired, and perhaps the most import- ant of them being those which are known as the "Fitch Collection."
Tims I have, as briefly as I could, indicated to you some of the sources of information which are available to those who may be able and willing to examine and make use of them themselves. It is, as I am fully aware, no light labour, and a work of no slight responsibility, to undertake and to bring to a successful issue a good county history; but by means of the materials which are ready at hand in our great national depository, and those which have passed by various ways into the possession of private collectors, Sufiblk should feel a just pride in reducing into shape and order that which is at present positively aii emharras des richesses; and from the rudis indigestaque moles of information which we possess concerning her, she should raise up a monument which will carry down to posterity the origin and annals of those cele- brated families and individuals of whose names she is so justly proud, and place upon record an accurate and lasting account of her ancient towns and manors, and those vener- able institutions which render her so remarkable among our other Eno-lish counties.
22
ON THE KINGS OF EAST ANGLIA.
BY H. SYER CUMING, ESQ., HON. SEC.
Could dry bones speak, or spear-blade and arrow-head tell of the war-strife, and the rude potsherd recount how it had served at royal feast and funeral banquet, we might learn somewhat of the nameless chiefs of the nameless races who ruled the district in which our Congress is now assembled, before the incoming of the Iceni.^ History, like these relics, is mute respecting the ancient days and ancient people who preceded the age of bronze, at the close of which the too confiding Prasutagus and his heroic queen, Bonducia, find a place in chronicle; yet the fearful vengeance which the latter wrought on the Roman ravishers is to this hour indicated by the charred debris of the Londinum which she and her infuriated followers sacked and destroyed. But Roman at length triumphed over Celt, and the domains of the Iceni became a portion of Flavia Cgesariensis. For four centuries the Csesars held sway; but continental disaster compelled the withdrawal of their legions from this island, and thus abandoned its shores to the invasion of fresh hordes of robbers. Then in the fifth century came the mixed tribes of Teutonic barbarians — Jutes, Angles, Saxons — despoiling the Britons of their lands and riches, spreading themselves far and wide, and erecting petty principalities ever warring against each other.^
That of East Anglia, which is now to engage attention, comprised the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, and a part of Bedford. This kingdom was founded in the second half of the sixth century, but by whom historians are by no means agreed. Nennius (§ 59) gives the genealogy of its rulers thus : " Woden begat Casser, who begat Titinon, who begat Trigil, who begat Rodmunt, who begat Rippa, who begat GuiLLEM Guercha, ^(;/^o ivas the first king of the East Angles; Guercha begat Uffa, who begat Tytillus, who begat Eni, who begat Edric, who begat Aldwulf, who begat Elric." Here, then, Guillem Guercha is made the founder of the monarchy; but Sir Francis Palgrave considers that this
1 Read at the Suffolk Congress held at Ipswich. - See Journal, x, 195.
ON THE KINGS OF EAST ANGLLA. 23
name is but a distortion and corruption of Uffa or Wuffa, Avho is generally regarded as the first sovereign of the pro- vince, commencing his reign at a.d. 575, and, dying in 582, was succeeded by his son Titil or Tytla, declared by Henry of Huntingdon (ii) to be " the bravest of the East Anglian kings"; and who, in 599, was followed by his son Eedwald, styled by William of Malmesbury (i, 5) the first king of the East Angles. He was, in truth, the first of their princes who gained much renown, and possessed sufiicient power to be hailed Bretwalda. Eedwald was also the first of the East Anglian rulers who 'professed the Christian faith, for with him it was but a profession; and respecting his conversion from, and relapse into, paganism, Bede (ii, 5) gives the following account. He says the king was " admitted to the Sacrament of the Christian faith in Kent, but in vain; for on his return home he was seduced by his wife and cer- tain perverse teachers, and turned back from the sincerity of the faith ; and thus his latter state was worse than the former; so that, like the ancient Samaritans, he seemed at the same time to serve Christ and the gods whom he had served before; and in the same temple had an altar to sacri- fice to Christ, and another small one to off'er victims to devils; which temple Aldwulf, king of that same province, who lived in our time, testifies had stood until his time, and that he had seen it when he was a boy." Eedwald had two sons, Eorpwald and Eeinhere ; the latter dying in the same battle in which Ethelfrith, king of Northumbria, was killed in 617, near the river Idle in Nottinghamshire.
Eorpwald, or Carpwald, succeeded his father in 624, and appears to have been a sincere Christian, abandoning his idols at the instigation of Edwin of Northumbria, and striving to spread the holy faith among his subjects; he was at length slain by a pagan named Eichbert or Eigbert, as we are told by Bede (ii, 15) and Florence of Worcester.
The death of Eorpwald, in 62 7, was followed by an inter- regnum of three years, at the end of which, in 629, his uterine brother, Sigebert, was advanced to the throne. Eeared among the Franks, he was enabled to promote civi- lisation among his rude Teutonic subjects, erecting semi- naries for their instruction, and also founding a bishopric for their spiritual welfare at Dommoc, or Dunwieh, in 630; Felix the Burgundian being the first prelate who filled the
24 ON THE KINGS OF EAST ANGLIA.
see, and tlie recollection of whose dwelling-place is still pre- served in the name of the little village of Felixstow on the Suffolk coast. Tired of the world and its vanities, Sigebert renounced the diadem for the cowl in 632, leaving the throne to his cousin Ecgrig, Ecgric, or Egfrid; but Mdien Penda of Mercia invaded the kingdom, Sigebert was dragged from his monastery in the belief that his presence would inspire the- defenders of the province with courage ; and he fell in the midst of battle,^ — not, however, brandishing a deadly blade, but waving a simple wand : hence he is styled a saint by Florence of Worcester and others, and his death comme- morated on Sept. 27.
At the same time and place perished his kinsman Ecgric, the crown passing, in the year 635, to Anna, son of Eni, the brother of Redwald the Bretwalda. Among other acts of Anna recorded by Bede (iii, 19) one is that he erected a stately monastery at Cnobheresburg (i.e. Cnobher's town), now known as Burgh Castle, Suffolk. This monarch, with his son Firminus, was killed in a battle fought at Bullcamp, near Dunwich, with Penda of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle placing the event sub anno 654. Anna had four daughters, whose pure and holy lives have gained for them an undying renown, viz. St. Sexburga, wife of Earcombert, king of Kent; St. Ethelburga, abbess of Brie in France; St. Etheldreda, wife of Egfrid, king of Northumbria ; and St. Withburga, the foundress of the nunnery of East Dere- ham in Norfolk. These ladies' uterine sister, Sethrid, was also a saint and abbess of Brie.
Ethelhere, or Ethelric, succeeded his brother Anna^in 654, and Bede (iv, 23) and Florence of Worcester (sub 664) state that he had for wife Hereswith, or Heresuid, the sister of St. Hilda, whose parents were Hereric and Brcgusuit. We also learn from Bede (iii, 24) that Ethelhere, like his immediate predecessors, was killed in battle ; his foe being Osway, king of Northumbria, and the place of slaughter near the river Vinwed, or Winwidfield, no great distance from Leeds.
Adelwald, or Ethelwald, brother to the last two kings, ascended the throne in ^6b; and Bede (iii, 22) tells us that at his royal seat at Rcndlesham {i.e. Rendil's mansion), Suf- folk, he stood sponsor to Suidhelm, king of the East Saxons. Adulf, Aldulf, Aldwulf, or Ardulph, son of Ethelhere
ON THE KINGS OF EAST ANGLIA. 25
and Hercswitlia, succeeded his uncle Ethel wald in 664, but scarcely anything is known about him except that he was present at the Council of Heathfield or Hatfield in Hert- fordshire, A.D. 680, as may be gathered from Bede (iv. 17).
El\vold, Elfwold, or Ai.phwald, became King of East Anglia on the death of his brother Adulf in 683, and, after a reign of 66 years, departed this life in 74.9.
Beorna (whom William of Malmesbury [i, 5] calls Bern- reel) and Ethelbert I, are believed to have held the sove- reignty conjointly from the year 749, until the death of the latter in 758, when Beorna reigned alone, and was the first of the East Anglian princes who issued money. His pennies (which are very rare) resemble sceattas, and bear on the obv. a circle with central pellet, and the words BEORNNA REX : the rev. presenting a cross within a square, and the money er's name efe. Beorna died in 761.
Ethelred, w^hom Heylyn and some others style St. JEtheklred, appears in the lists of East Anglian monarchs under the year 761 ; and, according to Florence of Wor- cester, married a lady named Leofruna, by whom he became the father of St. Ethelbert. He was killed in 790.
St. Ethelbryht, or Ethelbert II, succeeded his father in 790, and his death in 792 has rendered him more re- nowned than any act of his life. Going to the court of Ofia of Mercia to treat of a marriage ^^'ith that king's daughter, he was basely slain at Sutton Wallis, about four miles from Hereford, through the malice of Offa's queen, Quendreda. Ethelbert was beheaded, and then privately interred at Marden, but his place of burial is recorded to have been miraculously manifested by a luminous pillar appearing over it. The martyr's body was afterwards ex- humed, and translated to Hereford, where it is said to have worked many miracles, so that the cathedral, as also the church of ]\lardcn, was dedicated to his honour. Mayo, Bishop of Hereford, in his will, dated March 24, 1515, directs that his corpse be laid in his cathedral at the feet of the image of St. Ethelbert. The site of ]\Iayo's grave is well known, and behind it is an empty bracket, on which once rested the efligy referred to in the will. Some forty years since an image was dug up at tlie entrance of Our Lady's Chapel, now used as a library, and which seems to be the one wliich stood on the void pedestal. It is of stone,
186.5 4
26 ON THE KINGS OF EAST ANGLIA.
about five feet in height, the brow encircled by an open crown or coronet, and the body clothed in a long tunic. It has been richly decorated with gold and colours, armorial bearings and inscriptions being still faintly discernible on the drapery. It appears to be the work of the fourteenth century.
Beside the cathedral of Hereford and church of IMarden, there are several other churches dedicated to St. Ethelbert ; there is one at Little Dean, Gloucestershire, six in Norfolk, and three in Suffolk. The church of Tannin oton, in the latter county, bears the names of St. Mary and St. Ethel- bert, and that at Belchamp Otton, Essex, of St. Ethelbert and All Saints. The martyrdom of St. Ethelbert was com- memorated on May 20.
Florence of Worcester, after speaking of the slaughter of St. Ethelbert, adds, "Thenceforth, for sixty-one years, very few powerful kings reigned in East Anglia, until St. Ed- mund, the last of them, ascended the throne." If legend may supply the place of history, among the kings who reigned during these sixty-one years, there was a prince named Offa, who is said to have been the immediate pre- decessor of St. Edmund. The story goes that Olfa, having no issue, resolved to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to supplicate the blessing of an heir, and on his way hither paid a visit to his kinsman Alkmund, King of Saxony, whose queen. Si ware, had in the year 841 given birth to a boy who, in after times, became renowned as St. Edmund. Offa on his road homeward was seized with mortal illness at a place called St. George's Arm, or Port St. George, but before his death he nominated young Edmund as his successor to the throne of East Anolia, and sent him his royal signet as a token of his appointment.^ This legend must be taken cwn gra.no salis, but it is worth consider- ation if a few of the pennies attributed to Offa, King of Mercia, may not have been struck by this prince, if such a prince really filled the throne of the Uffans in the middle of the ninth century.^
St. Edmund's accession to sovereign power is thus re- corded by Asser in his Life of Alfred: " In the year of our
^ See the Rev. R. Yates's Ilistoyy of Bvni St. Edmunds. ^ The OfFa penny in Ruding, pi. 5, tig. 27, is more like the East Anglian than Mercian coins in character.
ON THE KINGS OF EAST ANGLIA. 27
Lord's incarnation 855, Edmund, the most glorious king of the East Angles, began to reign on the eighth day before the Kalends of January, i.e., on the birth-day of our Lord, in the fourteenth year of his age," And, suh anno 856, we read : " Humbert, bishop of the East Angles, anointed with oil, and consecrated as king the glorious Edmund, with much rejoicing and great honour, in the royal town called Burva, in which at that time was the royal seat, in the fifteenth year of his age, on a Friday, the twenty-fourth moon, being Christmas-day." From this period we know little respect- ing the youthful monarch until the year 870, when he is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Speaking of the Danes, it is said : " The army rode across Mercia into East Angiia, and took up their winter quarters at Thetford ; and the same winter Kino- Edmund fousfht against them, and the Danes got the victory and slew the king, and subdued all the land, and destroyed all the minsters wdiich they came to. The names of their chiefs who slew the king were Hinguar and Hubba." The battle here recorded was fought at Seven Hills near Thetford, after which Edmund fled to Framlinoham, and thence to Hoxne, where he fell into the hands of the victors, who however ofl'ered him life on condition of renouncino- the Christian faith. Edmund refusing to do this was bound to a tree, beat with clubs, and then shot at with arrows. Tradition had lono; pointed out "^S"^. Edmund's Oak" in Hoxne Wood as the site of the king's martyrdom, and when this venerable relic fell down in September 1848, there was found deeply imbedded in its trunk an iron cusp, believed to be one of the actual arrow blades directed by the Danes against the royal victim. After being shot at, the king was finally dispatched by decapitation. When the Danes departed from the spot, the East Anglians sought for the remains of the murdered prince, and soon found his mangled body, but his head was no where to be seen. After forty days' search it was at length discovered in the woods of Egiesd en safely guarded by a wolf, wdio held it between its fore-paws, and who, as soon as he had resigned his charge uninjured, retired into the wood. This circum- stance, with the kings martyrdom, is noted in the arms of Bury St. Edmund, which arc three crowns (said to be the ensign of East Auglia) transfixed with arrows, and having
28 ON THE KINGS OF EAST ANGLIA.
for crest a wolf lioldino- the kino-'s head between its fore- paws. The legend states that the head being placed on the trunk instantly united with it, so that nothing was visible but a thin line "'like a purple thread^ The martyr's corpse was then interred in a wooden chapel at Hoxne, and after a rest of thirty-three years was in 903 translated to a larger church at Bedrickesworth, or as it is now" called Bury St. Edmund's. About seventeen years later, i.e., in 1010, w^hen the Danes overran the province, the monks of Bury brought the saint's shrine to London, where a church in Lombard-street is still dedicated to his honour. On the road from Suffolk to Middlesex the monks halted at Green- stead in Essex, and the little wooden church, which held all that was mortal of St. Edmund at that place is described and delineated in out Journal (v,l)the engraving forming an interesting illustration of a peculiar ecclesiastical structure.
The shrine of St. Edmund at Bury became a place of pil- grimage. Here, on his return from the Holy Land, Eichard I offered the rich standard of Isaac king of Cyprus ; and in Lydgate's Life of St. Edmund (Harl. MSS. 2278) is a picture of Henry VI, in 1433, devoutly kneeling at the shrine.^ According to the visitors' account of Bury St. Edmund they found, amoug " muche vanitie and superstition, the paring of St. Edmund's naylles''; and these parings were for ages exhibited to the pilgrims, and obtained, if you credit the legend, by a pious lady named Oswyn, who declared that for years after the king's death she annually clipped the martyr's hair and nails, preserving every fragment with religious care. The original resting-place of the corpse of St. Edmund, at Hoxne, was also regarded as a sacred spot. Here was an image of the royal martyr; and in 1307,Gil))ert Bishop of (Jrkney (a suffragan of the see of Norwich) granted an indulgence of forty days' pardon to all persons of the diocese who should make a pilgrimage to it, or bequeath legacies, or offer gifts to the said effigy.^ Eepresentations of St. Edmund are frequently found in East Anglian churches, both in sculpture and painting. When bound to a tree he may be readily distinguished from St. Sebastian by the crown and royal array, and at other times may be known by an arrow, or a bundle of arrows, in his hand.
' For an engraving of this shrine, See Gent. Mag., Sept. 1822. 2 Blomefield's Hist, of Norfolk, ii, 432.
ON THE KIN(;S OF EAST ANGLIA. 29
The martyrdom of St. Edmund was celebrated on Nov. 20; and the high esteem in which he is held is proved hy the fact that no less than fifty-five churches are dedicated to him, fifteen of them being in Norfolk, and seven in Suffolk.
Among otlier memorials of St. Edmund must be included his money, which consists of pence with a large 7^, or a cross with pellets or crescents on the obv., and a cross and pellets on the rev. His name and title are given as eadmvnd HEX A; and his moneyers were, Aethelhel, Baelhel, Beghelm, Beornferth, Dudda, Eadmund, Eadpnal, Ethelnel, Ethelwolf, Silered, and Twigca. Beside these coins, there are others bearing the monarch's name, and known as " St. Edmund's pence"; believed to have been minted in the tenth century, at the monastery of Bury. The obv. has the great A, and the words sce eadmvnd re, or an abbreviation of them; the rev. displays a plain cross, and the names of such moneyers as Adalberte, Adolre, Culgrio, Daiemond, Degemund, Elde- car, Elismus, Ersalt, Siemund, Sixwrne, etc.
After the martyrdom of St. Edmund the crown of East Anglia devolved by right to his brother, St. Edwold; who, however, refusing to bear its burden, retired to a cell near Shaftesbury, and there closed a life of holiness in the year 871. His body was afterwards translated to the abbey church of Cerne, and his festival henceforth celebrated on the 28th of Nov. One church, that of Stokewood, Dorset, is dedicated to St. Edwold.
It is uncertain if any member of the house of Uffa occu- pied the throne subsequently to the slaughter of King Edmund ; but there are pennies of a prince named Ethel- WAiiD so like those of the martyr in design and fabric, that it is conjectured he reigned in East Anglia about this period. These coins have on the obv. a large A, or else a cross with a crescent between each limb, the leoend readino- ethel- WARD or aethelward rex. On the 7'ev. is a cross with pellets, and the names of the moneyers, Aethelnel, Dudda, Eadmund, and Raexenhebe.
Amid the obscurity and confusion of East Anglian history in the ninth century there stands out a Danish chieftain of far higher renown than his fellows, the Pagan Gothrum, or GuRMUND, the Christian Athelstan. He is first brought to notice in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, sub anno 875, where we read that "the three kings, Gothrum, Oskytel, and Amoind,
30 ON THE KINGS OF EAST ANGLIA.
went with a large army from Eepton to Cambridge, and sat down there one year." Again, under 878, after speaking of the defeat of the Danes, at Heddington, by Alfred, the nar- rative goes on to say : "And then the army delivered to him hostages, with many oaths, that they would leave his kingdom, and also promised him that their king should receive baptism; and this they accordingly fulfilled. And about three weeks after this, King Gothrum came to him, with some thirty men who were of the most distinguished in the army, at Aller, which is near Athelney; and the king was his godfather at baptism, and his chrism-loosing was at AYedmore; and he was twelve days with the king, and he greatly honoured him and his companions with gifts." This account agrees perfectly with that given by Asser in his Life of Alfred, suh anno 878.
Gothrum, or, as we ought now to call him, Athelstan, issued a dozen or more varieties of the penny. On the ohv. we find the letter 'K, or a cross, and a cross is also the usual device on the rev. His name is indifferently spelled Aethil- STAN, Ethelstan, and Ethelstani; and his money ers were Eadgar, Eadnod or Eadnoth, Orhthel, Eernher, and Torhthel. The death of Athelstan is thus noticed in the chronicle of Fabius Ethel werd, 5. a. 889 : " Gothrum, king of the northern English, yielded his breath to Orcus. He had taken the name of Athelstan, as he came out of the baptismal laver, from his godfather, King Alfred; and had his seat among the East Angles, since he there also held the first station." The Anglo-Saxon Clironicle gives his death as one year later, i.e. in 890, and records that "he abode in East Anglia, and first settled that country." Florence of Worcester gives twelve years as the duration of his reign, and states that his rule extended " over nearly all Essex." This prince is said to have been buried in the church of Hadleigh, Suffolk.
EoHPJC (Eric), another Danish chieftain, succeeded Goth- rum on the East Anglian throne, as we learn from Florence of Worcester and AVilliam of Malmesbury (i, 5); the latter further telling us that, after he had reigned fourteen years, he was taken off by the Angles because he conducted him- self with cruelty towards them. This king's rule would, therefore, appear to extend from about 890 to 904; and Fabius Ethelwerd gives the following version of his death, s. a. 902: "After two years was the battle of Holme. Five
ox THE KINGS OF EAST ANGLIA. 31
days after the festival of the Blessed Mother they lock toge- ther their shields, brandish their swords, and vibrate their lances iu both hands. There fell Duke Siwnlf and Si2[elm and almost all the Kentish nobility, and Eohric, king of the barbarians. These descended to Orcus." This account of the death of Eohric agrees closely with that given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s. a. 905.
The cruel Eohric fell, but the devoted people still groaned beneath the oppression of the Danish chieftains until Edward the Elder, son of the great Alfred, expelled the foes from East Anglia, and added the province to his own West Saxon dominions in the year 921, as stated by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, though Florence of Worcester assigns the event to 918.
Henceforward the once independent kingdom of the Uffans shared, in a great measure, the fortunes of the rest of the country. There were, indeed, Ealdormen of East Anglia sub- ject to the chief monarch of England; but this title ceased in the eleventh century, when Teutonic perfidy culminated in the person of the perjured usurper Harold, and the long- delayed vengeance of Britons and Bretons triumphed on the ever-glorious field of Hastings. As the tribes of the stone period succumbed to the Icenian hosts, so those hosts fell before the legions of imperial Rome. The Eomanised Britons, in their turn, were vanquished and subdued by the savage hordes from Germany and the north, who for generations plundered and oppressed the nation, and seemed to root their power so strongly in the island that nothing could overturn it. But the cycle of their iniquity was complete, the hour of retribution at length arrived, and the haughty barons of France, led by the grandson of the tanner of Falaise, annihilated the Saxon domination so utterly that all that is now high and noble in the land, not only in title, but in hlood, is due to these Norman victors.
32
THE ANTIQUITIES OF BUKY ST. EDMUNDS.
BY GORDON M. HILLS, ESQ.
When tlie British Arcliseological Association visited this town on the 9th of August in the past year (1864), they were first assembled at the railway station, close to which is the ancient mound or hill formerly known as the Thing- hoe immediately outside of the town. The members then passed by Moyses Hall, and reassembled at the Guildhall, nearly in the centre of the place. They afterwards pro- ceeded to view the buildings of the monastery, which formed the chief subject for examination. The first part of it to which they were conducted was St. Mary's Church, from which they went to the Norman gateway, the most ancient existing gate tower of the monastic precinct. From it was viewed the west end of the once stupendous abbey church ; close by St. James's Church was next inspected ; then another of the abbey gates, commonly known now as " the Abbey Gate." Entering the precinct by this gate, the members passed through the outer court of the abbey to the abbot's palace, and studied the remains of the mint, the hospitium, the refectory and cloister, concluding the circuit within the great abbey church. The two abbey gates, and the two churches of St. Mary and St, James are well pre- served and really magnificent buildings, yet in a historical description of the monastery much greater space must be devoted to portions whose present appearance is less im- posing, and whose former magnitude dwarfed into absolute insignificance what now attracts so much admiration. The immense abbey church was conspicuous above the domestic conventual offices, which, on a scale of magnitude not surpassed in England, enveloped its north side, and the numerous chapels grouped in the cemetery on its south side. Of the abl^ey church, the conventual offices, and most of the chapels, so little remains that only a close study of their history can recal their ancient dignity. In the essay which follows, a few remarks will first be made upon the Thing-hoe, the building called Moyses Hall, and th(^
THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 33
Guildhall, and tlien the rise and progress of the monastic buildings will be traced.
On the west side of the road leading from the ancient north gate of the town to Fornham, and nearly opposite the remains of St. Saviours Hospital, is a mound clothed with trees, and known as Betty Burroughs hill. This name is derived from the notoriety of a criminal executed there in modern times. In remote antiquity it was the Thing- hoe, or Hill of the Council, and under this name, as Mr. Gage Eokewood has shown,^ such a mound was known at the time of the Domesday survey and later. In the time of the Conqueror it is mentioned in a legend of a miracle of St. Edmund which had been handed down, and was then recorded by Herman, a monk of St. Edmund's — Leofstau the sheriff: "Die Kalendarum Maiarum placitatur aderat cuidam acervo quem Thinhogo solite vocat populi frequens appellatio."^ That the Thing-hoe was without the north gate of the town is clear from q^i allusion to it in describing a certain piece of land let by the monastery at five pence per annum to William Brown in a Book of the Customs of the Monastery: "Extra portam boreal' de Willo Brun p. terra que abbutat sup. Thinghowe et Teyvene."^ The Tay- ven, or Tey Fen meadows without the north gate retain that name to the present day, and to the north of them is the mound in question. Although the ancient name has long fallen out of popular use with respect to the mound itself, the hundred which contains it is called Thiugoe hun- dred now.
When public attention was lately fixed on Danish aflairs, the great councils of that kingdom and of Norway were continually before us, and every day we heard of the reso- lutions of the two bodies of the Danish parliament, the "lands-thing" and the "volks-thing," with the proceedings of the "stor-thing" in Norway, recalling the fact that the progenitors of the Danes and Northmen were kinsmen of the old inhabitants of Suffolk. A still closer link between the past and the present is to be found within the do- minions of our own Queen, for we have one " thing-hoe" at least, where still in its ancient simple mode the annual council of the district is held. In the Isle of Man, on the
" Gage's Thingoe Hundred, introd., pp. x, xi. xii.
* HeriDiiun, fol. 23. = Ilegistrum Wcrkctone, f 3, v.
181)5 5
34 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
6th of July in each year, the Governor assembles the whole of the dignitaries and officers of his government at a mound called the Tynwald (Thing-wald), where, himself on the summit, and the others ranged in three circles lower down its sides, he promulgates the acts of his island parliament, which, without this confirmation, have no force. The Tyn- wald, once probably, as its name implies, in a wood, is situ- ated at the meeting of the roads from Peel, Douglas, and Castleton, the three chief places of the island.
The assembly at the Thing-hoe in Suffolk seems to have had nothing to do with the existence of a town. Bury St. Edmunds owes its origin to the foundation of a monastery by Sigbert, King of the East Angles, and Felix his bishop, about the beginning of the seventh century, and its increase and celebrity to the acquisition by that monastery of the supposed relics of King Edmund about two hundred years after. In the twelfth century the monastery had attained the height of its power, had, established its buildings, and enclosed them within limits which remain defined to the present day, and had created a town which, in extent and in the disposition of its streets, has undergone but little change. The monastery was placed on the west side of a small river, and enclosed within a parallelogram, the town was arranged in a rather regular manner, enveloping the north, south, and west sides of the monastery, like the letter E, the main streets meeting one another so as to follow the same form. In one of the Registers^ of the monastery an account of its property within the town furnishes the names of twenty streets as applied in the fourteenth century, which names are still in use. In the manuscript they are thus written: Estgate-strete, West- gate-strete, Rysby-gate, Northgatestre, Mustowe, Lytle- brakelonde, Chyrchgate-strete, Fforum Sci Edmundi, Corne- market, Reym-strete, Scholhale-stret, Sparhauke-strete, Tey- ven, Gilda Aula sive vicus de Gildhal-strete, Wytyng-strete, Maydewater-strete, Baxter-strete, Skynneres-rowe, Longa Brakland, and Suthgate-strete. Other ancient street names in the same MS., some of which may possibly be recognised by those intimate with the locality are, Hezestrete or Hystrete, Cryspene-lane, Bolax-strete, Carpenters' and Lori- mers'-streets, and Goldsmiths'-strect or row, Cordwainers'-
' Regist. Cellerai'.
THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 35
street, Poulterers'-row, Glovers'-strect, Vicus Francorum, Heathcnman-street, otherwise Jews'-street, Ratonneraw [Rotten-roivf), and Wall-street.
The name of Heathen man-street, or Jews'-street, is sug- gestive of the neighbourhood of Moyses Hall, which has also been called the Jews' House, one of the most ancient specimens of a citizen's house in the kingdom. It is on the north side of the market-place, and is now occupied as a jDolice-station and lock-up. These uses are unfavourable to a close architectural survey of the building, but it has been so well described in T. H. Turner's Domestic Architecture, as to demand no more here than a general description. It is an oblong in plan ; the ground story vaulted over and divided into two parts by a longitudinal wall, had origin- ally no windows. The upper story was well lighted by Norman windows, finished outside with shafts to the jambs, and well moulded. The character of the work belongs to the middle of the twelfth century.
The Guildhall, situated in the street which is named from it, has now only one architectural feature of interest. Its entrance-door is well moulded, and carved with the dog-tooth ornament ; it is a pointed work of about a.d. 1230. In the interior of the building there is nothing in sight older than the age of Queen Elizabeth, but the walls are concealed by very modern works, which render it highly probable that at some future time a clearance might expose a greater proportion of the most ancient work. The Guild- hall formed the head-quarters of the rioters, who in 1326 held possession for a considerable time of the town and abbey. ^ It continued to be used by the principal guilds of the borough, till a burgess and munificent benefactor of the town gave it, late in the reign of Edward IV, to the Cor- poration. A reputed portrait of this worthy burgess, John (familiarly called Jankyn) Smith, hangs in the Guildhall. His title to our gratitude will be still more apparent when we have described the important additions he made to St. Mary's Church.
In the first half of the seventh century,^ Sigbert, king of the East Angles, retired to a monastery which he had built. Thomas of Ely declares that this monastery was at Betriches-
1 Regist. Ilostellariac, f. 116 et seq. ■ Bede, Eccl. Hist., lib. ii, c. 18.
36 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
werde, or Beodricswortli,^ wliicli identifies the place with that afterwards famous as Bury St. Edmunds. Abbo Floria- censis, in his fife of St. Edmund, gives an account of the foundation of the church in which that saint rested, — " in villa regia quae lingua Anglorum Bedricesgueord dicitur, Latina vero Bedrici curtis vocatur."^ Abbo wrote about a.d. 985. Hermann, the archdeacon, whose work is at least a hundred years later, calls the place " Beodrici villa."^ Suc- ceeding writers put this into the form, "Beodricsweorth";* but in common use the name, shortly after Hermann's time, was Burgh St. Edmunds.
Abbo Floriacensis is at the pains to tell us the significa- tion of Beodricsweorth, as quoted above. Eoger of Wend- over^ copies from him, and Matthew of Westminster copies Eoger; and from Matthew a host of dictionaries of learning and authority tell us that iveorth signifies a court, street, or farm. As to the meaning of the first part of the name, Yates^ consulted Sir Henry Ellis and Sharon Turner, ac- cording to whom it may be interpreted, rice, power, hede in prayer. Suppose, however, that Abbo, the first of these interpreters, was himself wrongly informed. A foreigner and abbot of a French monastery, he had no acquaintance with the English or Saxon language, and candidly tells us so in his preface : however, he adds that he had the aid of two persons who did understand it. If his second-hand knowledge is doubtful, all the later interpreters are wrong in their reliance upon him. Some topographical observation and inquiry will show that, in a remarkable number of instances, a weorth or ivorth is a place situated at the junc- tion of two rivers, or a strip of land ending in a tongue, and lying between two fens or marshes where they unite : thus, concerning a neighbouring town, Halesworth, it is said,'' — " This town, though usually considered to be situated on the Blythe, appears rather seated on a contributory stream of that river, which, rising from several heads in the adjacent parishes, receives their united waters just above Halesworth Bridge, and forms its northern arm." In Germany the cor- responding termination is similarly used : witness, Donau- wert on the Danube, at its conflux with the AVeinitz ; Kaiser-
1 Battely. ^ Abbo, f. 14. * Hermann, f. 77.
* Matthew of Westminster at a.d. 870. He lived in the fourteenth century.
* Roger of Wcndover, He died in 1237. " Yates, p. 6. ' Lewis' Tofog. Diet.
THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 37
wort on the Rliine, at its junction with the Riir; ^Vcrtheim on the Main, in Franconia, at its conflux with the Tauber. Beodricsweorth, hke all these places, is at the junction of two streams, now known as the Lark and the Linnet, but in Leland's time called Ulnoth's River. One author who sup- ports this topographical theory, is J. 0. Halliwell in his Dictionary of Archaisms and Provincialisms ; whence he derived the notion, however, does not appear. Then as to Beodric, the first part of the name, in the hands of Abbo and the succeeding Latin writers, may not this be merely a transformation of hyrig or hurgh, and therefore the name Burgh St. Edmunds be in part only a continuation of the earlier name 1
No account has reached us descriptive of Sigbert's monas- tery; the history of the monastic buildings of Beodrics- worth, therefore, commences with the arrival there, in a.d. 903, of the reputed relics of St. Edmund. The original account is preserved in Abbo Floriacensis. Slain in a fight with the Danes, his body had been miraculously discovered after it had been decapitated and mangled by his enemies : it had then remained for thirty-three years in an uncor- rupted state till now, when a multitude, not only of the common people, but of the nobles, constructed for it a very large church of planked wood at Beodrics worth. ^ Here it remained till about 1010, when further ravages of the Danes caused the body to be removed to London for three years.^
As soon as Canute had established the Danish rule in England, he gave his attention to ecclesiastical affairs. A college of secular priests was found at Beodrics worth, in charge of the church which held St. Edmund.^ LTuder the Benedictine rule, introduced in the previous century into England by St. Dunstan, from its superior disci- pline and organisation, the monks not only became more apt depositaries of learning, but gained the reputation of greater religious zeal than the priests and canons. Ailwiu, a monk, was now bishop of the diocese ; and, with the con- sent of Canute, he displaced the priests at Beodricsworth, and handed the establishment over to twelve Benedictine monks from Hulme, with others from Ely, under one Uvius for abbot. This was in 1020.^ In the next year he laid
^ Abbo Floriacensis, f. 14. 2 Battely, p. 30.
3 Leland, Collect., vol. i, p. 248.
' Chronica Johanuis de OxaneJes at a.d. 1020; and Rcgist. Cellcrarii, f. 161.
38 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
the foundation of a new church for them, which was conse- crated by Egehioth, archbishop of Canterbury, on St. Luke's day in 1032, in honour of St. Mary, the mother of God, and of St. Edmund. The joint dedication has led to a notion that this church superseded the older one of Sigbert's found- ation ; but the sequel will show that the first church con- tinued to stand not far from the new one.
The great improvements in church building introduced in the reigns of Edward the C*onfessor and William the Con- queror, caused Ailwin's church in a few years to be esteemed too mean for the honour of the relics it held. Uvius, the first abbot, had died in a.d. 1045;^ Leofstan, his successor, died in 1065 ;2 the third abbot was Baldwin, who came from the great French monastery of St. Denis, and obtained the cooperation of William the Conqueror for the rebuilding of his monastery. One of the monastic registers records cir- cumstantially that, under Baldwin, the sacrists Thurstan and Tolin levelled to the ground the old wooden church (" eccle- sia lignea et vetus"), and laid the foundation of the new one.^ This account of the commencement of Baldwin's church has been universally adopted, and yet a close inves- tigation shows that the monkish author of the history of the sacrists, the architects of the monastery, was not properly acquainted with the circumstances. Ailwin's church was not of wood, and was not pulled down at this time. Her- mann, the archdeacon, who was contemporary with Abbot Baldwin, says that it remained to his day, and that the new one was built because Ailwin's was of more simplicity than suited the later time \^ but says not one word of pulling it down. Hermann even speaks of it as a church older than Canute's time; but expressly says that he and his queen, Emma, restored it in stone.^ It is worth considering whether some of the so-called wooden churches were not thus de- scribed merely to designate their meanness as compared with the churches vaulted with stone ; whether, in fact, we are not often to understand of a wooden church, merely that its covering was of timber framing alone. As to the
Matthew of Westminster, a.d. 1032; Joh. de Oxanedes, a.d. 1032; and Regist.
Sacristiae, f. 23, b.
' Regist. Rubeum, f. 65. 2 j^id. 3 Ljb. Alb., f. 114. _
' Hermann, f. 77. " Hasc quoque simplici facta scemate non sic artificialis
ut qiiedam construuntur hoc tempe." ^ Hermann. Ibid.
THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 39
preservation of Aihvin's church at the time of Baldwin's work, not only is Hermann's account, already given, pre- sumptive evidence in favour of it, but he also furnishes a piece of testimony which shows clearly that it could not have been wholly removed till after Baldwin's structure was sufficiently advanced to receive its venerated deposits. He relates with much detail the ceremony of the translation of the body of St. Edmund, in a.d. 10D5, from the old to the new church; and tells us that the procession left the old church, bearing the shrine of the saint, by the south door.^ From this we also learn that the old church of Ailwin stood to the north of Baldwin's. The further history of Baldwin's church indicates still more closely the position which this one of Ail win's held, and shews that some part of it was long preserved. Baldwin's may properly be consi- dered the second church of St. Edmund, and to it attention must now be directed.
St. Edmund's, or the Abbey Church. — In the second church of St. Edmund we speak of that church which, in all its principal dimensions, is still traceable. Unfortunately the remains have been divested of almost every piece of cut stone, so that the only architectural features which it pre- sents are parts of the bases of the north-east pier of the central tower, and of the choir-pier next to it (of Norman work), and two arches of Early English work near the west end of the north wall of the nave. A wall which, in the fifteenth century, was built up within the south wall of the nave, has impressed upon it the form of a Norman arch and its mouldinos, which belonged to that wall of the nave; we therefore know the church to have been completed almost to its whole length in the Norman period. Of the nave, the core of the walls of its west front remains, from thirty to fifty feet in height. Three arches, smaller than those of the west front of Peterborouo-h Cathedral, and larger than the corresponding features at Lincoln Cathedral, formed a front to the nave and its north and south aisles. Each aisle is flanked by a chapel, the west end of which forms a further extension to the west front of the church. The rude walls left do not off'er a suggestion as to the architectural features of this part of them. In position they resemble a pair of chapels similarly attached at the sides of the west end of
' Hermann, f. 78 to HOb,
40 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY- ST. EDMUNDS.
Lincoln Cathedral. At Bury, however, these appendages are again outflanked by two octagon towers, giving to the west end of the church a vastness of dimension with which no other church or cathedral in England, so far as known, could have competed. This once magnificent work is now ' not only reduced to a fragment of the roughest part of the walls of its base, but is disfigured by dwelling-houses which have been crowded into the church along the whole breadth of the west front, blocking up its arches, and filling them with doors and windows which, not long since, were all of the meanest character. In the attempt to relieve the vene- rable fragments from this depth of contemptuous treatment, a mistaken notion has lately led to the production of a series of Norman windows executed in cement in the south octa- gon tower and front of the adjoining chapel,- — a perversion of taste which has been avoided in the new stone windows of the house in the northern part.
Behind the western wall fragments of the side-walls of the chapels exist in a corresponding state of dilapidation. In the well-kept garden of Mr. Green appear the founda- tions of three of the pillars of the north arcade of the nave and one of the south, with a fragment of the wall of the north aisle. Further east, in another garden, are the yet lofty fragments of the core of the four great piers of the central tower; similarly rude and lofty remains of the end of the north transept, and of one column in that transept, with bits of two other columns there, and of three in the south* transept. There are also found here low fragments of the eastern walls of the transepts, and of the external wall of the choir, showing its eastern chapels very distinctly; and lastly there appear parts of the bases of the two western pillars of the choir. All of these portions, with such pains as could be applied, have been now measured, and laid down in plan (plate 1), adding to them the two apsidal chapels of the transepts dug out in 1772, and drawn by Mr. Edward King.^ Thus an almost complete plan of the church can still be traced. To convey an idea of the amazing magni- tude of its dimensions, it may be compared with the fine churches of Build was Abbey, Lilleshall Abbey, and Wenlock
' Plans of the church have been previously drawn by Sir James Burrough in 1718, engraved in Battely's Antiquitates by Mr. Edward King, engraved in vol. iii of the Arc/ueoloijia, and by Mr. W. Yates, in 1802, engraved in the Rev. Richard Yates's History.
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THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 41
Priory, whose plans arc drawn in the Journal and Col- lectanea of the British Archteolofyical Association.^ The plans of the first two are to the same scale as that now used for St. Edmund's Church. Byland, the largest in its original dimensions of the abbey churches in Yorkshire, measures 333 feet long within the walls; Fount§iil!?forigin- ally of smaller size, by a magnificent ext^^nslon at its east end, is 359 feet long inside; St. Cuthljert's Cathedral at Durham, with an almost identical eastern addition, is 414 feet long; St. Edmund's Clfurch at Bury, measured in a similar manner within its main walls, and omitting the sub- ordinate eastern excrescence, is 472 feet in length. As a Norman edifice it far surpassed in size any other church or cathedral in the kingdom of that era. Those churches or cathedrals which, by subordinate chapels and other additions in later times, have challenged the supremacy of its magni- tude, are,^ Winchester, 54.5 feet long inside; Canterbury, 514 feet; Salisbury, 474 feet; AVestminster, 489 feet. The only churches which, comparing them with St. Edmund's, have superior size, without excrescences or extraneous additions, are, — York and Lincoln, each 498 feet long; Ely, 517 feet long; Peterborough, 480 feet; and St. Albans.
In the MSS. of the Abbey are preserved records, not only of the progress to completion of the main fabric of St, Ed- mund's Church, but much scattered information as to its subordinate parts, its ritual arrangements, and its ornaments and furniture. To digest this matter, and place it in an intelligible form, is the next purpose in hand. It will be a convenient preface to reproduce at this place a list of the abbots complete, as it is already in many printed authorities :
1. — A.D. 1020. Uvius, who came with the first Benedic- tines from Hulme.
2. — A.D. 1045. Leofstan succeeded.
3. — A.D. 1065. Baldwin, originally a monk of St. Denis at Paris. He was skilled in medicine, and physician to King Edward the Confessor. He died in 1097.
> Buildwas and Wenlock, see Col. ArchwoL, 1862. Lilleshall : Journal, 1861.
- The dimensions preceding are taken by the author, those which follow are from Gwilt's Encyclopedia of Architecture. Winchester, reduced at the east end to its ancient apse, would be 445 feet; Canterbury about 414 feet; Salis- bury, without the Lady Chapel, 404 feet ; Westminster, without the same appendage, 390 feet. St. Albans, the largest English church not a cathedral, is about 490 feet long without the Lady Chapel ; but, as a Norman church, was less than 400.
1S65 6
42 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
4, — A.D. 1 100. Egbert, son of Hugh, Earl of Chester, was elected, but deposed in 1102 for invalid election. A vacancy followed till —
5. — A.D. 1107. Robert, also of St. Denis, ruled till his death in 1 1 1 2. A vacancy followed.
6. — A.D. 1114. Albold, a monk of Bee, w\as elected. Died 1120.
7. — A.D. 1120. Anselm, who had been abbot of St. Saba at Rome. Was elected to the see of London in 1136; but, not being confirmed, returned in 1138 to his abbey.
8. — A.D. 1148. Ording, who had been prior, was elected abbot in 1136, but gave way to Anselm on his return, and was again elected abbot in 1148, at Anselm's death. 9. — A.D. 1157. Hugh, prior of Westminster, elected. 10. — A.D. 1182. Sampson, subsacrist of the monastery, chosen abbot. He died in 1211 or 1212.
11. — A.D. 1215. Hugh de Northwold became abbot, and in 1229 was raised to the see of Ely. 12. — A.D. 1229. Richard of Ely.
13. — A.D. 1234. Henry, prior of the convent, elected abbot. 1 4. — A.D. 1248. Edmund de A¥alpole elected abbot only two years after taking the habit.
15. — A.D. 1257. Simon de Luton became abbot. • 16.-^A.D. 1279. John de Northwold, hostillar of the monastery, became abbot.
17. — A.D. 1301 or 1302. Thomas de Totyngton, the sub-prior, elected abbot.
18. — A.D. 1312. Thomas de Draughton elected. 19. — A.D. 1335. William de Bernham, sub-prior, elected. 20. — A.D. 1361. John de Brinkele succeeded. After his death, in 1378 or 1379, a disputed election caused a vacancy till
21. — A.D. 1384. John de Tymworth was acknowledged.
22. — A.D. 1390. William de Cratfield became abbot.
23.— A.D. 1415. William de Exeter became abbot.
24. — A.D. 1429. William Curteys elected.
25. — A.D. 1446. AViLLiAM Babyngton chosen.
26. — A.D. 1453. John Boon succeeded.
27. — A.D. 1469. Robert de Ixworth followed.
28. — A.D. 1474. Richard Hingham succeeded.
29. — A.D. 1479. Thomas Rattlesden followed.
30. — A.D. 1497. AViLLiAM Codenham succeeded.
THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 43
31. — A.D. 1511. William Bunting occurs as abbot.
32. — A.D. 1520. John Melford, alias Reeves, became abbot. He siUTenclered the monastery at the suppression in 1539, and died the following year.
Al)bot Baldwin procured from William the Conqueror a mandate^ commanding the abbot of Peterborough to permit him to bring stone for the use of his church from Barnack in Northamptonshire. How extensively he and his succes- sors availed themselves of this privilege, is shown by the appearance of that stone in almost every part of Bury; for very few of its buildings, as they now appear, have failed to profit thus by the spoils of the monastery. The solid part of Baldwin's work is constructed of flint, the facino; and ornamental part was of the Barnack oolite. His sacrists (first Thurstan and then Tolin) had charge of the work.^ But little progress was made in the Conqueror's reign; and it was not till the seventh^ year of William Ptufus that the presbytery was sufficiently advanced to enable him to pro- pose to the king the removal to it of the saint. The king was going abroad at the time, and it was not till the next year (1095) that the translation was accomplished; then, taking advantage of a visit paid to the monastery by Walk- elyn, bishop of Winchester, and Randulph, the king's chap- lain, on the king's affairs, he prevailed upon them to carry into effect the royal license already procured for the trans- lation. The Bishop of Winchester took the chief part in the ceremony, one object of which seems to have been to certify to the people that the body of the saint was still in- corrupt,— a fact which had been doubted by certain courtiers in the king's service. The procession left the old church by the south door,'^ bearing, as Hermann expressly states, the wooden shrine ("locellus ligneus'") into the new presby- tery. Baldwin's building so far included, of course, the crypt, wdiich later notices will show existed under the whole presbytery, but he did not complete the chapels at- tached east of the presbytery (see plate 1). The two westernmost piers of the presbytery are the only parts which exhibit any traces of architecture, and here parts of the bases of the shafts in Barnack stone are yet to be
^ A copy of the mandate in a handwriting as old as the twelfth or thirteenth century, is in the Nigrum Reyistriim Vestutrii.
■ Liber Albus, f. 114. ^ Ilenuaun, f. 78 ei seq. * llerinaun, f. 82.
44 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
seen. The width of his presbytery, without the aisles, can be ascertained at this point to have been 38 feet 9 inches from centre to centre of the walls. That these two western piers were intended for tower-piers is pretty evident from their form ; and here, therefore, Baldwin intended the presbytery to have terminated, and the eastern side of the central or choir-tower to have been placed. In the plan, the columns of the arcades to the presbytery are marked as cylindrical upon supposition, for there is no evidence of their form ; and as to number, they are set out to accord with the number of windows described in this part of the church in a later account of the delivery of wax tapers to be placed in the windows for the lighting of the church.^ Abbot Baldwin also translated to his new church the reliques of Sts. Botulph and Firmin,^ and subsequently they are frequently mentioned as resting in proximity to St. Ed- mund's shrine. The other buildings which were erected under this abbot, were, the detached chapels of St. Stephen, St. Dionysius or Denis, and St. Margaret, placed at figs. 3, 4, 5, on plate 2. The history of these buildings, all of which have been destroyed, will appear hereafter each in its place.
From the death of Abbot Baldwin, which occurred in 1097, two years after the completion of the presbytery, to 1107, the monastery was in a state of confusion, his succes- sor Kobert being deposed after only two years government, after which a vacancy followed. Upon the appointment of another Kobert to the abbacy in 1 107 the works were recom- menced. The remains shew that Baldwin's design was now to some extent set aside. The work was resumed upon a larger scale, for the tower piers which he had prepared were not used for that purpose, but an additional bay a a was, added to the presbytery, which was made to widen out so as to measure 1 foot 10^ inches wider across the presbytery at hh than in the earlier portion. The four piers cccc for the central or choir tower were now put in, and the tower must have been raised, for which a great bell was at this time prepared at no small price, and the transepts proceeded with.
The director of the work under Abbot Eobert was God- frey, the sacrist, described in the history of the sacrists^ as " great in body but greater in mind." For extending the
1 Reg. Pinchbeck, f. 174. - Hermann, f. 80 b. ^ Liber Albus, f. 114.
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THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 45
right arm of the monastery/ as we learn in an account of the dedication of the chapels, this sacrist pulled down the old parish church of " stone" This, and the account of this sacrist above referred to, shew that the church so pulled down was the church of St. Mary, and record that he erected a new St. Mary's church in the south-west angle of the cemetery. The south arm of the monastery un- doubtedly refers to the south transept of the church, and the site of the ancient St. Mary's church may, therefore, be fixed at fig. 1, plate 2. The position of the new St. Mary's is also marked on the same plate, at the spot where in our ov*^n day stands its successor. It has already been deduced from the account of the translation of St. Edmund's shrine to Abbot Baldwin's presbytery, that the first church of St. Ed- mund stood to the north of Baldwin's presbytery. It will hereafter appear still more precisely that it was at fig. 2, and was partly preserved and incorporated into the presbytery and north transept. It is probable, therefore, that the smaller scale of Baldwin's church would have preserved, at least in part, both the ancient churches, between which he had contrived that his should be placed ; but the enlarged ideas of the great sacrist Godfrey overruled that part of his project. The only architectural features which remain to confirm what has been said of the date of this part of the abbey church are a few of the bases of the shafts upon the east faces of the two eastern tower piers.
Abbot Robert II died in 1112, when ensued a vacancy to 1114, during which, Radulph, Bishop of Rochester (he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1114) visited St. Edmund s monastery.^ He dedicated at this time the altar of the chapel of St. Mary in the crypts, and during the same vacancy was dedicated the altar of St. Peter,^ where also was erected a cross " greatly venerated in past times." This would seem to have been the cross which Abbot Leofstan had placed before 1044 at the altar of St. Peter in the first church of St. Edmund, made after a design which he had seen in Rome."^ St. Mary in Cryptis, as described in 147.9 by William of Worcester, was almost co-extensive with the presbytery and its aisles. St. Peter's seems to be the same subsequently called, from its distinguishing orna- ment, the altar of the Holy Cross, marked on plate 1. Of this altar and chapel more will be heard presently.
' Ibid., f. 213 b. 2 Ibid. ^ Ibid. ' Battciy, p. 42.
46 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
Of any progress made under Abbot Albold from a.d, 1114 to A.D. 1120, there is no record, though the great sacrist Godfrey continued in office. Ausehn, who succeeded to the abbacy in 1120 and governed (with a slight inter- ruption) till 1148, was a man of high connections, active, and ambitious. Under him, the architect of the monastery, was Radulph Harvey the sacrist, the successor of Godfrey and " a man the most prudent of all", as the biographer of the sacrists has it.^ With such government and guidance the progress of the abbey church was very great. The nave had been commenced, and must have been carried on by them on a scale larger than originally contemplated. For extending sideways the foundations of the nave,^ they pulled down the Basilica of S. Dionysius erected by Abbot Baldwin. Within eighty years, therefore, the plan designed by Baldwin had so grown as to absorb St. Edmund's first church, St. Mary's, and now the church of St. Dionysius, which he had himself built. The latter church, the relator of the present works states, was the first parochial church of the parish which became St. James's. Almost upon its site, he informs us, they raised the porticus of St. Dionysius constructed with art and skill. This porticus, with the porticus of St. Faith and a number of chapels, were conse- crated in Abbot Anselm's time by John, Bishop of Rochester. Of the chapels mentioned at this consecration, these two only have the designation " porticus." It may, therefore, be assumed that they had some quality of form or position in common. We know, from what is afterwards recorded in Abbot Sampson's time, that the chapel of St. Faith adjoined a western tower completed for him. There are yet to be seen on the north side of the nave close to the north-west tow^er two arched panels of work corresponding to Sampson's era (they are high up above the roof of Mr. Greene's house), from which circumstances it is safe to infer that the chapel immediately to the north of it is that of St. Faith. On the opposite side of the nave, most of the existing masses are of much more re- cent date ; but yet there remains in the fragment of the apse of the chapel there, some walling of the age of Anselm and Harvey ; most curious, however, it is to notice that at d the late work filled up a Norman arch, whose mouldings, unmistakeably of Radulph Harvey's work, have their form
> Lib. Albus, f. 114. - Ibid., f. 213 b.
THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 47
slinped or impressed upon the later wall with the utmost distinctness. The evidence of the work and the agreement in form with the portions of St. Faith, seems to point out this south lateral chapel, as the portions of St. Denis. There is no further record of what was now done at the west end of the church ; but, as we shall hear within fifty or sixty years of the completion of its western towers, it is nearly certain that the whole substructure of that part of the church was now built. In the southern octagon the modern renovator has left some traces of work of this date.
Anselm, who had been abbot of St. Saba at Eome, it was anciently believed, caused to be built the chapel of St. Saba. The altar here was dedicated by John, Bishop of Rochester.^ A Liher Traditionum in the Liher Alhus^ shews that the chapel of St. Saba was at the feet of the shrine of St. Edmund. On another occasion, while Anselm was absent at Rome, Alberic, Bishop of Ostia, the papal legate to King Stephen, dedicated the altar of St. Cross " behind the choir." Two artists, Godfrey and Wo- hantun the painter, had been employed to make for it a great cross, in which they enclosed great reliques.'^ This was fixed at the back of the altar. The altar of St. Cross is also said to have been at the feet of St. Edmund.'^ These particulars point very clearly to the two little apsidal side chapels at the east end of the church, and that St. Saba was the north one of the two is known from the position which on certain occasions the prior was to take on the north side of the church before the door of St. Saba's chapel.^ That the centre eastern projection was one of the chapels dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is known from the same notice, which describes it with St. Saba and St. Cross at the feet of St. Edmund, and from the mode in which in a.d. 1479 William of Worcester measured the lenoth of the church from the chapel of St. Mary.*^ The foundation which appears is coeval with that of the other two foundations ; but no record of its first erection or consecration has reached us.'' Another altar within the church which Anselm caused
1 Liber Albus, f. 213 b. "■ Ibid., f. 99 b. ^ Ibid., f. 213 b.
* Ibid., f. 99 b. ^ Ibid. ^ Itinerary of William of Worcester.
' The dedication of the altar of St. Cross seems to have been the re-dedica- tion of the old altar of St. Peter. The slifijht remains of the foundation of this chapel, still to be seen, exhibit, in a projecting piece of walling, shown on the plan, plate 1, some marks of an alteration in its construction made perhaps at this time.
48 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
to be dedicated by the Bishop of Rochester, was that of St. Martin,^ Its position cannot be identified ; the only other notice of it met with is in the will of Lady Ela Shardelowe in 1457, Avho bequeathed ten shillings for the repair of the altar of St. Martin in St. Edmund's Church.^
An important work of Anselm's was the construction of the first church of St. James, as a parish church, in lieu of the church of St. Dionysius, which he had pulled down.^ Its position is not described, but there is no reason to suppose it different from where the present later church of St. James stands (see plate 2). The separate chapel of St. Stephen (fig. 4, plate 2), and the churches or chapels, for they are called both, of St. Andrew and St. Margaret (figs. 5 and 6), were all reconstructed under Abbot Anselm. We remit what further concerns all these to the separate account of each.
Under Abbot Ording, the successor of Anselm was con- secrated by Godfrey, Bishop of St. Asaph, the chapel of St. Egidius, otherwise St. Giles, described in the record as situated within the greater monastery (church) above {desuper) the altar of St. John the Evangelist. Another record proves that the abbey church had both altars in the crypts and altars in the vaults."^ In the vaults there were five altars. Like some at Gloucester cathedral, in all probability these altars in the vaults were \\ the tri- forium of the presbytery; St. Giles's desiq^er might be one of them. The origin of the altar of St. John and its situ- ation are alike unknown, except in so far as the preceding observations indicate its position in the aisle of the presby- tery.^ The other works attributed to Ording, with Llelyas, his nephew, for sacrist, were matters of internal ornamenta- tion. In 1156 or 1157 his death brought Abbot Hugo to the government of the abbey, which he held from 1157 to 1180, a period which almost completely embraces the transition from the Norman to the first pointed or early English style of architecture. Frodo, William Schuch, and William Wardel succeeded as sacrists, with Ralph the almoner occasionally ministering in that office.^ The im- portant works executed during their time are, however,
' Liber Alhus, f. 21.3 b. 2 S. Tymms. Bury Wills.
3 Liber Albus, 21 :5 b. ' Ibid, f. 69.
5 Battely says the altar of St. John was in the nave, and calls St. Giles's Chapel a porticus. « Liber Albus, f. 114.
TPE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 49
attributed to the sub-sacrist Sampson, both in the oft quoted history of the sacrists in the Liber Alhus, and in the chronicle of JoceKn de Brakelond.
The former of these records^ relates that Sampson finished the choir for the most part, and one story of the greater tower at the west door. The choir must no doubt here be understood to be that part of the church west of the central tower in which were placed the stalls of the monks.
Jocelin de Brakelond says : — " Sampson, the sub-sacrist, being master over the workmen, did his best that no breach, chink, crack, or flaw should be left unrepaired so far as he was able ; whereby he acquired great favour with the convent, and especially with the cloister monks. In those days was our choir built under Sampson's direction, he ordering the designs of the paintings, and composing- elegiac verses." The mention of paintings reads as if his work had rather to do with the construction of the internal work of the choir, i.e., the stalls and tabernacle work, and the decoration of walls already built, than with the sub- stantial part of the choir. Jocelin continues : " He also made a oreat drauoht of stone and sand for buildino- the great tower of the church" (at the west end, as the other record shows); and then relates how this work was in- terrupted by the jealousy of some of the monks, who suspected that the offerings at St. Edmund's sluine furnished the funds for it. Sampson removed their suspicions by setting uj^ an alms box near the door without the chou' in the way of the people, to receive contributions, and finally brouo^ht the work to the desired end. This was durins: the vacancy at the death of Hugo, and immediately before the unexpected elevation of Sampson himself to the abbacy.
Sampson ruled from 1182 to li211, and to him is to be attributed the completion of the church. Hugo became the sacrist. On the great tower at the west end he placed the roof covered with lead, the abbot himself furnishing timber and other materials. The tower at the chapel of St. Faith (the north west tower spoken of in Abbot Ansehn's time) he also finished as to the stone work, and in another tower at the chnpel of St. Catherine he finished one story. Can this be another western tower, perhaps one of the
' Liber Albus, f. 114. 1865 7
50 THE A^'TIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
octagons 1 Except that Sampson covered the Chapel of St. Catherine with lead, as Jocelin de Brakelond relates, this is the only allusion discovered to this chapel.
The other works of Hugo the sacrist were the erection of a great cross (in the choir), with images of St. John and St. Mary, and of the abbot's seat or throne in the choir, painted by Master Symon. The nature of these works confirms to some extent the supposition that the con- struction of the choir spoken of a few years before, was as to its fittings only, of which this was the completion. The next sacrist, Walter de Banham, more completely finished with a "culmen" the great tower near the chapel of St. Faith, of which Hugh had finished the masonry. •■ He likewise largely repaired the fabric of the church.
Of the next sacrist, William de Disce, only the name is recorded. Robert de Gravele, who came next, was in office late in Abbot Sampson's time. He raftered the nave roof anew. Thus contemporarily with the completion of the fabric, and about one hundred and thirty or one hundred and forty years from its commencement, had decay set in. This fact is marked still more strongly by a calamity which befel the church in the last year of Sampson's rule. In A.D. 1210, on the 22nd of October, the tower of ihe church of St. Edmund fell from the violence of the wind." Which of the tov/ers the notice refers to is not discovered. The tower chiefly noticed as a belfry is that in the choir.
Of the bells, we find that Godfrey, the great sacrist in the time of the abbot, Robert the second, prepared a great bell at no small cost,^ concerning which Battely adds that it was probalily the same reported by John Scotus as the largest bell in England. Soon after Abbot Sampson's decease, Richard de Newport, sacrist, made the "great bell in the greater belfry."^ About 1240, Nicholas de Warwick, sacrist, caused to be founded the best bell in the choir, called the sacrist's bell ; and about 1250, Symon de Luton, sacrist (subsequently prior, and then abbot in 1257), made the bell in the choir called Luton. In a.d. 1434, there were seven bells in the choir tower. In that year, on the 7th of July, Abbot Curteys and William Aston, the " south sexteyn" of the monastery, made an indenture with William
■• Liber Alhus, f. 114. s Liber Albus, f. 114.
- Battely. ' ibid.
THE ANTIQUITIES OE BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 51
Pontrell, citizen and Lellmaker of London, for the purchase of a bell " cleped a tenor to four belles, and a treble to two belles, hanging in the steple of the quere,"^ the bell to weigh 18 cwt., 1 qr., and 7 lbs., five-score pounds to the hundredweight. A book of customs in the Liber Albus,^ directs that at the anniversary masses of kings and abbots "they should ring the great bell in the cemetery, and thrice ring the two greater bells in the choir."
The sacrists in succession from Robert de Gravele, were Richard de Insula, Richard de Newport, Gregory the Precentor, Nicholas de Warwick, and Symon de l^uton. Li the office after Luton, and some of them under his abbacy, were Richard de Hoyngesheth, Richard de Col- chester, Symon de Kingston, and the last sacrist whose history is preserved, WilHam de Luton. ^ He was in office w^hen Edward I, in the last years of the thirteenth century, was engaged in his wars with the French king. No part of the abbey church is attributed to any of these, except to Symon de Luton, after he obtained the abbacy in 1257. Li the Liber Alhus^ we learn that " the chapel in which first St. Edmund rested having been destroyed, the Abbot Symon built the chapel of the blessed Virgin Mary in that place at his own cost."
During this century, most of the great churches were receiving the addition of a large lady chapel usually attached at their east end. That this was not the position selected at St. Edmunds church we know from the visit to it of WiUiam of Worcester, in 1479, who mentions, besides the eastern chapel of St. Mary, " the chapel of the blessed ]\Iary on the north side of the choir, where Thomas Beau- ford lies buried." William of Worcester measured its size, forty paces long, and twenty-one paces broad. Unfor- tunately, he stepped his paces so inaccurately, that at one time they were two to a yard and at others greater. Hence, not much reliance can be placed on his measurements ; but taking the distance from the east side of the choir tower to the eastern lady chapel, which can still he measured, and which he calls seventy paces, we can judge Symon's lady chapel to have been about 70 feet by 37 feet, to which size it is drawn on the plan, plate i. Within this space
' Rcgist. Curtcys, T. I'jI. ' Liber AUais. i\ 114.
- Lil.LT Albus, f. '.)!). ' Ibid., f. •21:1 b.
52 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
was found, in 1772, the body of Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter,^ which was then removed and re-interred against the north-east pier of the choir tower. The clear identifi- cation of the site of Abbot Symon's chapel is important, as . it determines the position of the old church of St. Edmund.
The last of the detached chapels the foundation of which is recorded, is the chapel of the charnel, built by Abbot John de Northwold in 1301. There are yet considerable remains of it to be seen in the cemetery, where shown at fig. 7, plate 2. The only other detached chapel to be noticed is called St. John ad Monte m. It stood at fig. 8. Though we have no account of its foundation, its later history, given hereafter, at the proper place, will he found to possess some interesting points.
From the time of Abbot SamjDson, the records are silent as to any further works at the church for more than two centuries. It was not substantially injured when in the sedition of 1326-7 the domestic offices were to a great extent destroyed. In a.d. 1430, we have to resume its history with an account of a serious calamity, of which very succinct details are handed down to us in the register of Abbot Curteys.^ On the 18th December in that year, about the first hour past noon, the south side of the great campanile fell without any previous warning. No person was hurt, for happily a large congregation which had shortly before been in the nave of the church had already dispersed. A little more than a year elapsed, when on the 30th December, 1431, the east part of the same tower similarly fell to the ground. In the interval, the lead and timber of the roof, the beUs, and their frames, had been cautiously removed, and now two skilful workmen employed themselves in gradually undermining the north side of the tower, so that on the 28th of March, 1432, that part was thrown to the ground, without damage to any other portion of the building. That the tower here called the great campanile was contiguous to the nave is mentioned in the record of its fall, and that it was at the west end of the church is demonstrated by some notices of it in records of events which occurred whilst it was rebuilding.
The ruin of the tower is attributed in the reoister to the
' See Philoso2)h. Transactions, vol. 62, art. 33, for au account of the finding of the body. =^ Regist. Curtejs, f. 87 b.
n'i
THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 5 J
carelessness of the sub-sacrist and sacrist, who permitted the insertion of large oak shores to the bell-frames improperly let into the stone work, and allowed an inordinate use of .the bells.
The measures upon record for the repair of the disaster, are a bull obtained from the Pope, granting absolution to all who should assist in rebuilding the tower, which the instrument states would require sixty thousand ducats of gold.^ A. copy of an indenture made between the abbot and the prior on one part, and John Wode, mason, of Col- chester,^ on the other part, sets forth that John Wode should work on the steeple of the monastery " with every- thing that belongs to freemasonry," from Michaelmas 1435, for seven years, and for payment he should have £10 annually, with board in the convent hall for himself as a gentleman, and for his man as a yeoman, with a robe of gentleman's linen for himself, and one of yeoman's linen for his man, or in lieu thereof, 235. 4cZ. A further indenture of September the 1st, 1438, between the same parties, specifies some further details of agreement, and proves that John Wode, whose quality would seem to be that of an archi- tect of the present day, was then proceeding with his work.
When King Henry VI visited the monastery in 1433, the ruined state of the belfry prevented his entering the church at the west door, and in 1439 a great tempest inundated the church, ujDon which, to prevent such a flow of water entering it again, the abbot ordered the pavement of the new bell tower at the west end to be raised three steps.^
Subsequent references to the tower shew that its re- erection was yet in progress through this century, and at the beginning of the next. In a.d. 1457, Lady Ela Shar- delowe bequeathed 6s. 8d. to repair the ornamentation of the vestilmle of St. Edmund's Church, and one hundred shillings for the building of the new campanile.^ In a.d. 1461, the will of John Amy directs his body to be buried in the great entrance by the new campanile."'' In a.d. 1504, Anne Uarrett bequeathed to the building of the new steeple five marks.*' How nearly it had reached its completion when the dissolution came, in a.d. 1539, is unknown.
■ Reg. Curteys, f. 292 b. ^ jbid., f. 308. ' Ibid., f. 322. ' Tymms' Wills. ' Archncologia, vol. xxiii, art., " Bell-Tower of Church of Bury St. Edmunds," by Gage Rokcwode. " Tyiuuis's Wills.
54 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
It must be hazardous to indicate exactly the f)Osition of this great belfry. At c and d (plate 1), are pieces of masonry not unlikely to be of the time of Abbot Curteys, and massive enough to form the base of a tower; they encase Norman work, and at y is a Norman circular stair, from which the winding steps have been removed, and then the well has been filled up with solid work. The Norman well or case of the stair has been subsequently pulled down, and leaves now the filling in standing as a cylindrical pillar. The bottom part of a tower at g, with a stair turret at its south west angle, is the most conspicuous piece of the ancient work in the west front. The symmetrical arrangement of the walls, as far as they remain, suggests the existence of a similar tower at h. Lastly, hazarding a conjecture as to the great tower, it may have been at I, I, I, I. This position, though unusual, furnishes at m, the vestibule spoken of in Lady Shaxdelowe's will, and gives to the tower the three sides described in the account of its ruin, in a detached condition, agreeing with the cir- cumstances there related; the mass of wall at e would seem to be some kind of abutment added on the south side of the tower, but none such was provided on the north. At n or 0 there may have been the chapel of St. Catherine, formerly described as adjoining a tower. The arch which crossed over from e to p must have had a larger pier at p than the columns, q, q, etc., of the nave, and this suggests the western termination of those arcades at this point, by massive tower piers at p, p. The suggestion is supported by the fact that this arrangement accords with the width and number of the arches which can be set out on each side of the nave, taking the measure from the six existing bases on the north side, and that this number of arches coincides with the mode of lighting the nave described in one of the registers.^ For the use of the church, on the festival of St. Edmund, the sacrist is directed to deliver twenty-four wax tapers of a pound each, for either side of the nave, which seems to have been intended two for every arch. For the rest of the church, there were to be at seventeen windows in the presbytery seventeen tapers of the same weight, which coincides exactly with the four win- dows shewn in plan, plate 1, in the south aisle of the
' Regist. Pinchbeck, f. 174.
THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS. .'35
prosbytery, adding its thirteen clerestory windows. In the great tower, i.e., in this instance, the central, or choir tower, twelve tapers, apparently three upon each of its piers. In either arm of the cross were to be twenty-six tapers.
In addition to this arransjement for the general illii- mination of the edifice, particular parts and objects had further provision for light. Around the shrine of St. Edmund were to be four tapers of three pounds each. The candelabrum before the altar was to have five, and the great candelabrum seven tapers, each of a pound and a half. In the choir (proljably that is to say in the stalls) and at the great cross (rood cross) were to be placed twelve tapers of a pound each. The altars of St. Saba and of the Martyrs, and the cross (in the presbytery) had each a one pound taper. Fourteen other altars, not designated as to name or situation, had each two similar tapers. The altar of the Virgin Mary (it may be assumed to be that of the chapel on the north side of the presbytery) w^as to have five two- pound tapers, the gift of John, the son of Luke, and seven more from the sacrist. These arrangements were fulfilled if the abbot himself were present.
The prime ornament of the church, the shrine of the Martyr St. Edmund, stood in the apse at about its centre. We should expect to fiud it in this position from the exist- ing example of the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor in the apse of Westminster Abbey, or from the ascertained fact that St. Cuthbert's shrine at Durham Cathedral held a. similar position; but we have also complete evidence in the records to shew that the position of St. Edmund s shrine agreed with these instances. It was placed when Abbot Baldwin had completed the presbytery in a.d. 1095, and never moved afterwards. In 11 98 the shrine was damaged by fire, as Jocelin de Brakeloud copiously relates. On the 1 7th of October in that year, the master of the vestry roused by the fall of the clock before matins, was alarmed at the sight of fire at St. Edmund's shrine. The alarm instantly spread throuQ-h the convent, and the fire was found encirclinir the whole shrine and mountino- hiijh towards the wood-work of the church, but was soon suppressed by the activity of the monks, and many relics snatched from destruction. Be- tween the slu'ine and the altar (the great altar) there was a certain wood floor upon wliich the keepers of the shrine,
56 THE ANTIQUITIES OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS.
who, it is believed, on tins night fell asleep, had in a slovenly manner placed two tapers which were made into one by joining them one upon the other. The upper part fell upon and set fire to the boards and to a quantity of flax thread, rags, and utensils used by the said keepers, and now huddled together beneath in a frame of iron gratings. The heat destroyed the woodwork of the shrine beneath its silver plates to the depth of a man's finger, and the water poured on it reduced its heated stones to a powder. A beam beyond {i.e., east of) the high altar had been removed previously, to be repaired with new carving, and thus the cross with the St. Mary and St. John which were upon it, the casket with the shirt of St. Edmund, and other relics which usually hung from the beam, escaped, whilst a tapestry which was in its place was destroyed. The first danger over, the inconvenience of an exaggerated report of it abroad had to be met. A goldsmith was at hand, who arranged the metal plates of the shrine, and others busily removed every trace of the fire ; so that it was hoped the scandalous neglect of the keepers would be concealed from the public, and the loss of ofi'erings be avoided, which might happen if a suspicion of important injury to the relics should be fixed in men's minds. Notwithstanding the care which put all in apparent good order at a very early hour, yet some pilgrims who came early and could perceive no marks of what had happened, were observed peering about ; they made inquiries respecting the fire, and a false report was spread that the head, or as some said, only the hair of the saint had been burned.
All this occurred in the absence of the abbot. On his return he reprimanded the sacrist for the carelessness which had made such a fire possible between the shrine and the altar, and at once set to work to repair what was damaged. By the 20th of November, the feast day of St. Edmund, some new marble blocks were prepared for the base of the shrine, and polished. The day after the feast, therefore, the shrine was lifted on to the "high altar," empty at first, for the body of the saint was not removed with it.
{Tu be continued.)
Britislj ^rctjaeoloQtcal Association.
TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING,
IPSWICH, 1864
AUGUST 8th to 13th INCLUSIVE.
PATRONS. The Earl of Stradbroke, Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk. Hon. and Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Norwich, D.D.
PRESIDENT.
George Tomline, Esq., M.P., M.A., F.S.A.
VICE-PRESIDENTS.
The Marquis of Bristol, V.P.S.A. The Earl Jeemyn, M.P. The Lord Eendlesham. The Lord Houghton, M.A., D.C.L. The Yen. Lord Arthur Hervey. The Lord Alfred Hervey, M.P. Lord Hexniker, D.C.L., F.S.A., M.P. Hon. and Rev. Frederick de Grey. H. E. Adair, Esq., M.A., M.P. Fred. Alexander, Esq. Rev. E. C. Alston, M.A. Rev. Thomas Anderson, M.A. Charles Austin, Esq., High Steward
of the Borough of Ipswich George C. E. Bacon, Esq., Mayor of
Ipswich. L. S. Bidwell, Esq., F.S.A. J. F. Bishop, Esq., Mayor of Colchester. Sir Charles Rouse I3oughton, Bart. Rev. Herbert Bree. Sir Charles J. F. Bunbury, Bt., F.R.S. R. P. BuRRELL, Esq. John C. Cobbold, Esq., M.P. James Copland, M.D., F.E.S. Rev. C. T. Corrance. Rev. Edw. L. Cutts, M.A. Sir Thos. Rokewode Gage, Bt., F.S.A. Rt. Hon. T. Milner Gibson, M.P. 1865
William Gilstrap, Esq.
George Godwin, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A.
Nathaniel Gould, Esq., F.S.A.
Charles Foote Gower, Esq.
Daniel Gurney, Esq., F.S.A.
J. A. Hardcastle, Esq., M.P.
Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, M.A.
Rev. Henry T. Hasted, M.A.
Jas. Heywood, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., F.S.A.
Rev. Hubert A. Holden, LL.D.
George Vere Ikying, Esq., F.S.A. Scot.
Rev. B. R. Keene.
Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Q.C, M.P.
Henry Le Grice, Esq., Mayor of
Bury St. Edmunds. John Lee, LL.D., Q.C, F.R.S., F.S.A. Rev. Professor Marsden, B.D. Rev. John Maynard, M.A. Rev. Charles Merivale, B.D. Rear Admiral Sir George N. Broke
MiDDJ.ETON, Bart., C.B., High SheriS
of Suffoliv. J. T. Miller, Esq., M.P. Rev. Thos. Mills, M.A. Sir F. G. Moon, Bt., F.S.A. J. H. P. Cakes, Esq. Yen. Archdeacon Ormerod, M.A. Charles J. Palmer, Esq., F.SA.
8
58
Vice-Presidents — continued.
Philip 0. Papillon, Esq., M.P. Windsor Parker, Esq., M.P. T, J. Pettigrew, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A. R. N. Philipps, Esq., F.S.A. Rev. J. H. Pollexfen, M.A. J. Wij.TON Rix, Esq., Mayor of Beccles. J. G. Sheppard, Esq. Samuel R. Solly, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. F.S.A.
Robert Steward, Esq., Mayor of Yar-
moutb. Rev. J. TuRNOCK.
Thomas Sutton Western, Esq., M.P. Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, D.C.L.,
F.R.S. Thomas Wright, Esq., F.S.A., Menib.
Institute of France.
GENERAL COMMITTEE.
George G. Adams, Esq.
George Ade, Esq.
George H. Baskcomb, Esq.
Thomas Blashill, Esq.
Robert Fitch, Esq., F.S.A.
J. V. GiBBs, Esq.
W. D. Haggard, Esq., F.S.A.
J. 0. Halliwell, Esq., F.R.S.,
F.S.A. Matthew Harpley, Esq. Gordon M. Hills, Esq.
R. Horman-Fisher, Esq.
T. W. King, Esq., F.S.A., York Herald
Edward Levien, Esq., M.A., F.S.A.
W. Calder Marshall, Esq., R.A.
George Maw, Esq., F.S.A.
Thomas Page, Esq., C.E.
J. W. Previte, Esq.
J. W. Walton, Esq.
C. F. Whiting, Esq.
W. Yewd, Esq.
Treasurer — Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A.
I J. R. Planche, Esq., Rouge Croix. H. Syer Cuming, Esq. Edward Roberts, Esq., F.S.A.
J- , „ . f R. M. Phipson, Esq., Ipswich and Norwich.
i^ocai i>ecretaries ^ ^^^^ Haddock, Ipswich.
Palceographer — Clarence Hopper, Esq. Curator and Librarian — G. R. Wright, Esq., F.S.A.
LOCAL COMMITTEE.
The Worshipful the Mayor, Chairman.
William Alexander, Esq. William Brown, Esq. Barrington Chevali.ier, M.D. John Patteson Cobbold, Esq. Henry Drummond, M.D. Charles Foote Gower, Esq. Mr. R. Green. W. P. Hunt, Esq. Rev. F. H. Maude.
Hasell Rodwell, Esq. W. B. Ross, Esq. Mr. James Read. Samuel Tymms, Esq., F.S A. A. Vulliamy, Esq. Sterling Westhokp, Esq. William Whincopp, Esq. W. S. Yarrington, Esq.
59
Proccetiings of tlje Coitgrfss.
Monday, August 8, 1864.
The business commenced by a meeting of the officers and committees at the Town Hall, Ipswich, the Mayor, G. C. E. Bacon, Esq., in the chair, when the arrangements for the several excursions, reading of papers, etc., were finally agreed upon. The general assemblage took place in the large Council Chamber, where upwards of a hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen had gathered together to give to the Presi- dent and Association a hearty welcome.
Mr. Pettigrew, Y.P. and Treasurer, rose to address the meeting. In the absence of Lord Houghton, ex-President of the Association, detained in Yorkshire by the arrival of some friends, and business which incapacitated him from attending at Ipswich, Mr. Pettigrew said it devolved upon him, as the senior Vice-President, to introduce to them George Tomline, Esq., M.P., M.A., F.S.A., and to move that he do take the chair. In the presence of Mr. Tomline, — and, indeed, to those to whom he is well known, — it would be unnecessary for him to make any observations as to the fitness of the selection that had been made, by enumerating the high and distinguished qualifications of Mr. Tomline to preside over the Association, and regulate the proceed- ings of the Congress ; but he might be permitted to congratulate the members upon the appointment wliich had been made of one whose taste for, and knowledge of, literature, whose appreciation and judg- ment of works belonging to the fine arts, and whose general acquaint- ance with science, so eminently fitted him to fulfil the duties of the presidential chair. In former times it had been esteemed necessary, at the commencement of the Congress, to point out to those attending the advantages arising from such meetings, and to urge upon those who were present the services rendered to historical knowledge by the study of objects of antiquity. These meetings, the first of which, in
60 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS.
tliis country, he (Mr. Pettigrew) could congratulate himself upon having attended at Canterbury in 1844. This had been successfully followed in various counties by this Association and by other bodies, general and local, the result of which had been the production of numerous important journals and volumes communicating much useful knowledge, and giving illustration to history and antiquities. These results render any observations as to the value of such meetings alto- gether unnecessary. He should, therefore, no longer detain them from receiving the welcome of the Mayor and Corporation of Ipswich ; but move that Mr. Tomline do take the chair, a proposition adopted by general acclamation.
The Mayor said, before he called upon Mr. Tomline to deliver his opening address, he hoped the meeting would allow him, on behalf of the aldermen and councillors of the Corpoi^ation, to express the high sense they entertained of the honour conferred upon the town by the British Archaeological Association in selecting Ipswich as the centre of the present annual Congress. Ipswich was a town of much antiquity, but he feared it did not possess many monuments of its antiquity which would prove very attractive to archgeologists ; still there were some few objects to which their attention would be drawn ; and he said on behalf of the Corporation, that he would be most happy, by the produc- tion of the ancient records and documents of the Corpoi-ation, or by any other means, to aid them in any researches and inquiries they mio-ht think fit to make. He could not but think that, had this Asso- ciation been instituted at an earlier period, many monuments of anti- quity which have been destroyed would have been preserved. He hoped the Association would be able to pass an agreeable and pleasant
week.
Mr. Tomline then took the chair, and delivered the address intro- ductory to the meeting. (See pp. 1-4 ante.)
J. C. Cobbold, Esq., M.P., moved, and George Godwin, Esq., V.P., F.R.S., seconded, the thanks of the meeting to the President for his able and eloquent address, — a motion carried by acclamation.
The Mayor then directed the attention of those present to a reHc of ancient times, to be seen hanging at the top of the staircase of the Town Hall. It was a "ducking-stool," into which the refractory Ipswich scolds of former days were used to be fastened, and dipped into the water to cool their angry passions.
The party then broke up to attend the Mayor and authorities, who, together with the aid of R. M. Phipson, Esq., one of the local secre- taries, proceeded to make a survey of some of the objects worthy of attention in the town, commencing with the Town Library, upon which Mr. Sterling Westhorp had prepared a paper to be read at one of the evening meetings.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 61
The next place visited was Sparrowe's House, kindly thrown open for the occasion by one of the local secretaries, Mr. Haddock. Tliis is an interesting mansion, an illustration and account of which may be found in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Bury and Suffolk ArchcEO- logical Institute (vol. ii, p. 164 et seq.), by Mr. Phipson, who kindly gave explanations of its principal features, remarking that the oldest part of the house was a small chamber of the period of Henry VII, or early in Henry VIII's reign ; but it had been for a long period closed and concealed, and was not discovered till 1801. When it was broken open, a number of figures of angels, etc., were found to be distributed about the floor. Tlie elaborately carved front of the house was built in 1567 by George Copping, but the house came into the hands of the Sparrowe family seven years later. The front, he said, was unique in desisrn, for there was not one to be found like it even in Chester ; and he gave an explanation of the emblems, etc., of the ornamentation. The house had remained the property of the Sparrowe family until the last of the name died two or tkree years ago, and it now belonged to Mr. J, C. Marshman, son-in-law of the late Mr. J. E. Sparrowe. After hearing Mr. Phipson's account of the house, the party repaired to the secret chamber, to the elaborately panelled oak room, etc., and after- wards examined the back of the house and the exterior.
The party then pi-oceeded down St. Stephen's-lane, examined in passing the old carved corner-post at Mr. Silverstone's shop at the bottom of Silent-street, and then inspected Wolsey's Gate, dated 1528, the only remaining portion of the great college Cardinal Wolsey took so much pride in establishing.
The next place visited was Key Church, whose roof of double hammer-beams was admired, and where the fine Powmder brass and the tomb of the charitable Tooley came in for examination and expla- nation. In this church Mr. Godwin took the opportunity of remarking that the roof wanted a little care on the part of the churchwardens to prevent its falling into decay ; and he also observed that Wolsey's Gate required some attention. A promise was given that the attention of the churchwardens should be called to the subject ; and Mr. E. R. Turner, as owner of the property on which Wolsey's Gate stands, expressed his willingness to fall in with the wishes of the town with regard to the maintenance of Wolsey's Gate in its present condi- tion.
The party then took their course by Quay-street to St. Clement's, Fore-street, where they inspected the Neptune and other carved houses in this which, Mr. Phipson said, must have been the High-street of the town in the days of the merchant princes of Queen Elizabeth's days. They also entered the house opposite the Neptune, once the residence of Thomas Eldred, who sailed round the world with Cavendish ; and
62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS.
examined the fine carved chimney-piece and the panel-paintings repre- senting scenes in the life of the circumnavigator.
The picturesque park and fine old Tudor hall of Christchurch was the next place visited. The house, Mr. Phipson stated, stood upon the site of Trinity Priory. Its back part was of the time of Edward VI, but its front was later. It came into the hands of the present family in 1735. The party were very kindly received by T. N. Fonnerau, Esq., and Mrs. Fonnerau, who accompanied them through the hall. It pre- sents a fine specimen of an ancient baronial hall in a perfect state of preservation. The interior is that of a splendid mansion of the Eliza- bethan days, with a large number of fine family portraits and pictures, among which is a valuable cartoon by Edward Smythe, representing the death of Sir Philip Sidney. In one of the chambers is a bed on which Queen Ehzabeth slept on one of her visits to Ipswich, on which is a beautiful coverlet woi'ked by one of her majesty's ladies in waiting. The entrance hall is surrounded with a gallery, and the walls are orna- mented with armour and ancient weapons of war. The capacious chimney-piece is decorated with sculpture, aiQong which is the marble bust of a female whose face is covered with a veil. That trick of the sculptor which excited so much notice and admiration in the veiled figure at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and was then considered a novelty in the art, had been practised in Italy two hundred years ago ; for it is stated that an ancestor of Mr. Fonnerau brought the bust in question from Rome about that period. In the garden a small building was inspected, which has been supposed to have been a chapel in former times.
The fine church of St. Margaret was next visited, and admired for its handsome, enriched, carved roof of double hammer-beams.
The church of St. Mary Tower, in its half-restored condition, next occupied the attention of the company, and gratification was expressed at the style in which the work of restoration is being carried out. Time would not permit of further inspections, the hour for table dlwte having arrived. The meeting was numerous, and the Mayor presided, supported by the President of the Association, officers, etc.
At half-past eight the party adjourned to the Great Council Chamber for the evening meeting.
The Worshipful the Mayok, V.P., in the Chair.
J. R. Planche, Esq., Rouge Croix, Hon. Sec. of the Association, com- menced the business by reading his paper, " On the Earls of East Anglia," which will appear in the next number of the Journal.
After a slight discussion relating to a tradition that Ipswich Castle was destroyed in 1176, owing to the dissatisfaction of Henry Hugh Bi'god, Mr. Planche, in reply to Mr. Phipson, observed that there were
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, G3
traces of the occupation of the Castle by the Bigods, and also of its destruction while in their possession ; but great confusion prevailed as to how many Hugh ]3igods there were.
Thanks having been voted to Mr. Planche for his paper, Edward Levien, Esq., F.S.A., was called upon for his communication, " On MS. Collections relating to Suffolk in the British Museum." At the con- clusion, the Mayor conveyed the thanks of the meeting to Mr. Levien for his valuable paper, and said that he hoped Bacon's book on the town records, which had been alluded to by the author, would be printed and circulated in the town.
The proceedings for the next day were then announced, and the meeting was adjourned.
Tuesday, August 9.
By special train, and notwithstanding the state of the weather (the long- wished for rain descending steadily), a large party departed to view the antiquities of Bury St. Edmunds. Reaching this town, cai-- riages were in readiness to take them to the Guild Hall. Here they were received by the Mayor of Bury (H. Le Grice, Esq.) with the Town Clerk and several members of the Corporation, as well as the Ven. Lord Arthui- Hervey, the President of the Suffolk Archaeological Institute. The reception took place in the Bury and West Suffolk Library, where were exhibited some interesting and beautifully illu- minated manuscript books of ancient date, which formerly had belonged to the monastery.
The Mayor, before the reading of the papers was commenced, addressed a few observations expressive of the pleasure which he and the other membei"s of the Corporation, as well as the inhabitants of Bury, experienced at receiving the British Aixha>ological Association. He tmsted that they would have a pleasant reminiscence of their visit to the town, which presented many features of interest to the archaeo- logist, two magnificent churches, and the remains of a monastery and of an abbey.
The company then adjourned to the Sessions' Court, where, in con- sequence of the unfavourable state of the weather, it was aiTanged Mr. Gordon Hills should give his explanations of the antiquities instead of at the churches, etc. The chair was taken by the Mayor ; and the Ven, Lord Arthur Hervey, on behaH" of the Suffolk Ai-cha3ological Institute, cordially welcomed the British Archa)ological Association in Bury, to the interesting parts of which town they could, perhaps, best direct them.
Mr. Gordon Hills then proceeded to address the meeting upon the
64 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS.
antiquities of Bury ; for a full account of wliicli, with illustrations, see pp. 32-56 ante.
At the conclusion of Mr. Hills's address, Mr. Tomline, on the part of the Association, returned thanks to the Mayor and Corporation, and also to the members of the Sufiblk Archaeological Institute, for the very kind reception given to them.
The party then proceeded to view the magnificent church of St. Mary, regarded as the finest ecclesiastical building in the county, and were conducted over it by the Rev. J. Richardson, the incumbent. Here, in the chancel, Mr. Hills proceeded to give a history and description of the church and its monuments. The Norman tower, which formed one of the entrances to the cemetery of the monastery, was then examined ; also St. James' Church and the Abbey Gateway. The state of the weather and heavy rain prevented a full examination of the remains of the abbot's stables, or the interesting bridge ; but of these, as well as of the site of the cloisters, and part of the old church, full particulars will be found in Mr. Hills's paper.
An adjournment now took place to the Angel Hotel, where an elegant luncheon had been prepared ; the Mayor presiding, and upwai-ds of a hundred persons present.
Mr. Tomline expressed the thanks of the Association to the Suffolk ArchEcological Institute and the inhabitants of Bury for the energy they had shewn in keeping the monuments of ancient history in the town in so perfect a state. The President of the Suffolk Institute was present, and to him he tendered their thanks.
Mr. Gordon Hills observed that it was very desirable that the two parts into which the remains of the nave and choir of the old church had been divided should be thrown into one. He understood that they belonged to one owner, and that there was a possibility of theii' being so united.
The Ven. Archdeacon Lord A. Hervey in responding said he agreed with Mr. Hills that it was desirable that the whole site of the ancient church should be thrown into one enclosure ; and he hoped the British Archaeological Association might visit the town again, and find the suggestion carried out. He concluded by proposing " Success to the British Archajological Association," which was responded to by Mr. Tomline.
Carriages were again called into requisition, and in a long line of vehicles the party set out for Hengrave Hall, the seat of Sir Thomas Gage, Bart., three or four miles from Bury, of which an account will appear in a future number of the Journal.
After giving a thorough examination to the Hall and the curious little church with a round tower, close to the building, the party returned to Bury Station, and thence back by special train to Ipswich. A table
PROCEEDINGS OP THE CONGEESS. 65
dliotewtis lield at the Great White Horse Hotel, Nathaniel Gould, Esq., V.P., presiding ; after which a meeting was held in the Great Council Chamber for the reading of papers and discussion, T. J. Pettigrew, Esq., V.P., in the chair. The chairman expressed his regret that the state of his health had not permitted him to accompany the Association in their excursion to Bury St. Edmunds, Hargrave Hall, etc., and embraced this opportunity afforded him by the presence of the Ven. Lord Arthur Hervey, President of the Suffolk and Bury Archaeological Institute, personally to offer the best thanks of the Association for his Lordship's most obliging attention on the occasion. This being duly acknow- ledged by Lord Arthur Hervey, the chairman called upon Edw. Eoberts, Esq., F.S.A., Hon. Secretary, to give an account of the proceedings of the day ; which having been done in accordance with the preceding statement, a paper was read, " On the Camps, Roman Roads, Pave- ments, etc., in Suffolk, by George Vere Irving, Esq., V.P., which will appear in the Collectanea Arcliceologica of the Association, accompanying similar accounts, already published, of camps, etc., in Devon and Corn- wall. Suffolk possesses thirty-five camps and other fortifications, included within the scope of this paper.
Thanks having been voted to Mr. Irving for his communication, the following paper was read :
On the Library of the Town of Ipswich,
BY STERLING WESTHORP, ESQ.
The Libraiy belonging to the Corporation of Ipswich, which is one among the earliest of town Hbraries, appears to have been founded b}^ William Smarte, portman (or, as he would now be called, alderman) of the borough, who, by his will dated the 8th of January, 1598 (proved at Doctors' Commons the 2nd November, 1599), made the following bequest : " My latten printed bookes and written bookes in volume and p'chraentc.I gyve towardes one librarye, safely e to be keepte in the vestrye of the parishe chui-ch of St. Mary Tower in Ipsw'ch afore- sayde, and the doore to have two sufficiente lockes and kcyes, th'one to remayne in the custody e of the minister of the parish for the time beinge, and the other to be kept by the churchwardens of the sayde p'ishe for the tyme beinge, to be used there by the co'mon preacher of the sayde towne for the tyme beinge, or any other precher rayuded to preache in the sayde p'ish church."
The books and MSS. given by Smarte do not appear to have been deposited in the Vestry of St. Mary Tower, as directed by his will. In an old parchment book dated May 1615, lately found amongst the town records, and containing a catalogiie of the books (" Index Bibliothecaj") and names of the donors, it is stated they were rcsfcrved by the town in
1865 9
Q6 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS.
an old chest until the year 1612. In this year they were deposited in a large spacious room over the chapel at Christ's Hospital, fitted up for the purpose by the Corporation ; with the addition of many volumes purchased by them with a legacy left by a Mrs. Walter, whose name appears as donor of fifty-three works still in the Library. Subsequently to the year 1748 this room was 'used as the Grammar Schoolroom, in consequence, it is presumed, of the old Grammar Schoolroom, which stood in front of the Chapel, being taken down ; and the books were then, or at some subsequent time, removed to a room under the former one ; and in consequence of the damp state of this room they were, about the year 1820, again removed to another room, adjoining the cloisters, which was used as a committee-room by the governors of Christ's Hospital. It may not be out of place to remark that Christ's Hospital was situate in Foundation- street, in the parish of St. Mary Key ; and was, prior to the dissolution of monasteries, a house of the Black Friars, Dominicans (called the Friars Preachers) ; and was, soon after its dissolution, purchased by the Corporation, and used for the purpose of a hospital for poor boys, a grammar-schoolroom, a bride- well, almshouses, etc. The last i^emnant of the hospital was taken down about the year 1851, and new almshouses for aged poor, and schoolrooms for poor boys, have been erected on the site.
Formerly the "keys of the Library were kept in the hands of the bailiffs (mayors) of the town and the Master of the Grammar School, who was generally the town preacher or lecturer of the Corporation ; and latterly the Master of Christ's Hospital School, which adjoined the Grammar School, was entrusted with a key, and had free access to the Library. In the year 1832 the Library was placed under the care of the late Literary Institution, in the room at the Town Hall in which it now is, and they are now under the sole charge of the Corporation.
The Library has been increased from time to time (but not much of late years) by gifts from the bishop of the diocese and the clergy and inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood, and now contains 922 volumes, representing 659 works, only two of which bear the date of the present century. Most of them are of a theological character. The MSS. are now only ten in number, eight of which appear to have been given by William Smai'to.
The oldest printed book in the Library (No. 1) is the second volume (imperfect) of the " Pantheologia, sen Summa Universse Tlieologia?," of Raynerus de Pisis ; foHo, printed at Nuremberg by Anthony Ko- burger in the year 1474, — remarkable as being the year in which the first book from moveable types was printed in England. From the old catalogue above referred to, both volumes of this book appear to have been given to the Library by the will of Mr. Caston, rector of Ottley ; but it is stated, " his executors never add' y'' 1'' p* of Rayner"." There
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 67
are three other works belonging to this Library printed in the same century, — No. 26, " Gratiani Decreta," Argent., 1490, folio ; No. 355, " Epistola3 ad Pontificos," Nuremberg, Koburger, 1481, fol. ; and a work (No. 387) of S. Thomas Aquinas ; Basil, 1495, folio : and also the three following from the Library of the Ipswich Museum, tempora- rily deposited in the Corporation Library, — " Appiani Alexandiini His- toria,"Venet., Bernard Pictor and others, 1477, 4to. ; " Mammotrectus," i.e., a manual for the guidance of priests in the reading and exposition, in the services of the Church, of the Bible, hymns, extracts from writ- ings of the Saints or Fathers, etc. ; Venet., 1479, Nicholas Jansen, 4to. (a Frenchman, considered by some the founder of printing in that city. The third book from the Museum is "Maillardi Sermones," Lyons, John de Vingle, 1498, 8vo.
There are three large folio Bibles worthy of special notice. No. 12, Cranmer's (" The Great") Bible, black letter, and printed in the reign of Henry VIII. It is either the copy printed by Edward "Whitchurch, 28th May, 1541, or that printed by Richard Grafton in 1540-41. All the insignia, except the " descriptyon and successe of the kings," etc., and the prologue or preface by Archbishop Cranmer, and the woodcuts at the commencement of chapters, have been abstracted. This was the Bible required by royal proclamation to be placed in every parish church. It contained an elaborately engraved title-page, in which King Henry VIII was represented delivering the Bible (" Verbum Dei") to the bishops, with this injunction, " Hsec precipe et doce"; and to the judges with this, " Quod justum est, judicate ita parvum audietis ut magnum"; a bishop in turn dehveriug the Bible to the clergy, and the latter preaching to the people, who were shouting " Vivat rex" and " God save the king." This frontispiece is supposed to have been the work of Hans Holbein.
No. 11, commonly called " The Bishops' Bible"; London, by Richard Jugge, in 1572, folio. It contains the two versions of the Psalter, that of " The Great Bible" in black letter, and a new one in Roman ; and has for many of the illustrated initials in the New Testament, subjects from Ovid's " Metamorphoses." Tlie engraved title-page to the Old Testament, and the portrait of Lord Leicester at the commencement of Joshua, are wanting. The portrait of Loi'd Burleigh between Job and the Psalms, and the title-page to the New Testament, tire extant. Pre- ceding the title-page to the New Testament is " a table to make plain the diflficultie found in St. Matthewe and St. Luke touchino' the efenera- tion of Jesus Christ," etc.
No. 13, " La Bible," a Geneve, 1588, 8vo. ; a Protestant edition with epistle by Theodore Beza. It was presented to the Library by the widow of Edward Bacon, Esq. (the half-brother of Lord Francis Bacon), to whom it had been given by Theodore Beza, his former preceptor.
68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS.
About the year 1828 the following memorandum recording this fact was in existence upon a blank leaf in the book, since removed : " This book was given to Edward Bacon, Esquire, by Theodore Beza, in whose house he had lived diverse years in Geneva, as a monument of their Christian acquaintance ; recorded by Lambert Duncan in an epistle dedicatorie to the sayde gentleman, intended by him in his lifetime to be placed in this Library ; and now by Mrs. Helena Bacon, his wife and sole executrix, given to the same use A" D'ni. 1618, Septemb" 25^''." It is also referred to in the old catalogue of 1615, as "A French Bible of Mr. Beza's gyft to him" (Bacon) ; and within the period of living testimony this volume contained an original letter from Beza himself to his quondam pupil, which has also been abstracted. This bible has many illustrations.
The "Holy Bible," Lond., Robert Barker, 1617, folio.
There are several works from the printing presses of the Stephens (the French family, so numerous and celebrated in their day for scholar- ship and the art of typography). No. 145. " Ecclesiastica Historia Eusebii," etc. No. 146. " Eusebii preparatio Evangelia," Greece, R. Stephens, Paris, 1544-5, folio. These volumes are beautifully printed, and contain the earliest specimens of the device subsequently adopted by royal printers, a thyrsus with an olive branch and a serpent wound round it, and the motto " BaaiXei t a^iaOw Kpmepw t' ai')(^i.iijTr]." No. 165. Buceri (Mart.) opera, Lat. No. 450. " Biblia Hebraica," first Parisian edition, 1540-43. The margin of this book abounds with notes, written in a very minute character. All these works contain the device on the title page of an olive-tree, with one or more branches broken oiF, while new ones are grafted on, and the motto " NoH altum sapere," but without the addition of " Sed tunc," sometimes added by Stephens. No. 47. Henry Stephens, the IP^ in 4 vols., folio. No. 47. Stephani, Henr., " Thesaurus Greca3 Lingua? ;" Paris, 1572, 4 vols., folio.
Amongst the earlier printed books are the following : —
No. 15. " Salemonis ecclesiae Constantiensis ep'i glosse ex illustris- simis collecte auctoribus, sine loco, anno, aut nomine typographi."
No. 320. "Postilla super Matheum, &c.," Nicolai de Lira. Old printing, good type and paper, and in excellent condition, but leaves at end wanting. This book is an excellent specimen of perfect register in printing.
No. 24. "Decretalium Gregorii Noni," folio; Rembolt at Dystichon, 1514.
No. 25. " A Catena of the Fathers," printed at Paris by the widow of Rembolt, Madame Caroline Guillard, the first woman who distin- guished herself in the typographic art.
No. 136. "ProvinciaHs Guillielmi Lyndewode," 1505. This book was the gift of Wm. Smarte.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 69
No. 55, is a fine edition of the works of the Venerable Bede, folio, G vols, in 3, Colonia), 1G12 ; with a beautifully engi'aved title page, containing a view of the city with the crane upon the unfinished tower of the cathedral. It is remarkable, that although Bede was considered the most learned man of his age, his works were never pubhshed in a complete form in his native land until within the last few years.
No. 65, is a fine copy of the works of S. Chrysostom in Latin, 5 vols. in 4, folio, Paris, 1614; and No. 134 is a copy of the same works in Greek, printed at Eton in 1613, in 8 vols., folio, under the editorship of the eminent scholar Sir Henry Savile. Both works contain finely engraved frontispieces.
The works printed by the Elzevii's are not good specimens. No. 573, "Descartes Opera Philosophica," is by Daniel Elzevu-, the last of the race, and was printed at Amsterdam in 1672.
There are many works printed by Froben, the Wechels, Froscho- verus, Blaeu, Plantin, Oporinus, and other continental printers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, containing specimens of the curious symbols, etc., adopted by them.
No. 397, containing the works of WiUiam Tyndal, John Fi'ith, and Dr. Banies, martyrs, 1572 ; and No. 411, containing the works of Thomas Beacon, 1560, have a local interest. They were printed by the eminent printer John Daye, who was bom at Dunwich in the county of Suffolk, and buried in the parish church of Bradley Parva in the same county, where there is a monument with an inscription to his memory. The books are curious as containing specimens of the quaint devices or symbols adopted by printers of the day. Day's ■ device represents the sun rising, and a man (doubtless intended to re- present himself) awaking a sleeping monk, saying, " Arise, for it is day." John Daye was the printer of the first edition of Fox's "Acts and Monuments."
In addition to those above mentioned, there are in the library the following valuable works : —
No. 2. "Biblia Polyglotta, Briani Waltoni," 6 tom. folio, Thos. Roycroft, London, 1653-7, printed on paper, allowed by Cromwell to be imported duty free for the purpose ; but the preface does not con- tain either the republican or loyal clauses.
No. 3. "Lexicon Heptaglotton," E. Castelli, 2 vols., folio, 1669, to accompany Walton's "Polyglot."
No. 7, a perfect copy of Fox's "Acts and Monuments," in 2 vols., folio, Company of Stationers, 1610.
No. 14. " Biblia Hebi-aice, Gra3c. et Lat., Francisci Vatabli," 2 vols., folio, ex ofiicina Commelinina, 1599.
No. 16. Bishop Hacket's " Century of Sermons, folio, Andrew Clarj^<-r-y-^
London, 1675 ; given to the Library 6th May, 1675, by Sir Andu^ ^/*'
Hackett, his son. i^//>y^ \^
\ V v^
70 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS.
No. 19. Elias Ashmole's "Order of the Garter," with plates by Hollar, foHo, J. Macock, London, 1672; given by John Knight, Doctor of Physicke, Sergeant Chirurgion to his May"*^ Charles y® Second, February 1680.
No. 27. John Minsheu's " Ductor in Linguas," folio, John Brown, London, 1617. The first work published by subscription in England; but this copy. is without the very rare list of subscribers.
N'os. 44 and 189. Wm. Dugdale's " Baronage of England," 2 vols., folio, Thos. Newcomb, London, 1675; and his "Antiquities of War- wickshire," Thos. Warren, London, 1656; and No. 140, Roger Dods- worth and Guil. Dugdale's " Monastici Anglicani," 3 vols., folio, London, 1661— all given by Dr. Knight ;. and No. 258, " Will. Dug- dale's History of St. Paul's Cathedral," with portrait and plates by Hollar, foho, John Warren, London, 1618, the gift of the Rev. Thos. Hewett.
No. 45. Rev. J. Dart's "History and Antiquities of Canterbury Cathedral," with plates, foho, J. Cole, London, 1726.
No. 60. " Immanuel Tremelhus et Franciscus Junius, Biblia Sacra Latina ex HasbrEeo facta, fol. Typ. Wechel. apud Claud. Marnium, & Hser. Joan. Aubrii, Hanovise, 1603."
No. 79. Bayle's " Historical and Critical Dictionary," 2nd edition, 5 vols., folio, London, 1734. This coj^y contains the two lives of David.
No. 91. " Matth. Westmonasteriensis Flores Historiarum Florentius Wigorniensis Chronic, fol., Typis Wechelianis, &c., Francofui'ti, 1601."
No. 95. " Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam praecipi : Will. Malmsburiensis ; Henricus Huntindoniensis ; Roger de Hoveden ; Chronic Ethelwardi ; Ingulphus." Fol., G. Bishop, &c., Londini, 1696 ; referred to in the old Catalogue as the gift of "Mrs. Catherine Dod, widow."
No. 97. Nicolas de Lyra, " Textus Biblii cum glossa ordinaria, postilla," &c., folio, 3 vols., Frobcu, Basil, 1506. The gift of Wm. Smarte.
No, 107. Francis Peck's " Desiderata Curiosa," in 2 vols., folio, London, 1732.
Nos. 109 and 110. Bishop Tanner's " Notitia Monastica" and "Bib- liotheca Britannico-Hibernica," 2 vols., folio, 1744 and 1743; given by the Rev. John Tanner, Vicar of Lowestoft.
No. 112. Peter Heylyn's "Cosmography," 3rd edition, foho, London, 1666.
No. 162. P. Melanchthon, opera in 4 vols, folio, Ha3r., Joan Cratonis, Witeberga), 1580.
No. 176. "De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesia?," M. Parkcri, folio, Typ. Wechelianis, Hanovias, 1605.
No. 226. "Purchas his Pilgrimes," in 4 vols., folio, Wm. Stansby,
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 71
London, 1625; given by "Mr. John Smytlieir, merchant, during his life reserving one in his owne custody." And No. 309. " Purchas his Pilgrimage," 2nd edition, small folio, Stansby, London, 1G14 ; the gift of Mr. John Sicklemore.
No. 255. " Erasmi Annot. in Nov. Test.," folio, John Froben, Basil, 1527; the gift of Mr. Jno. Carter, of Bramford.
No. 272. "Rhemish New Testament," by W. Fulke, folio, G. B., London, 1601.
No. 279. Edward Brown's "Fasciculus Rerum," folio, 2 vols., R. Chiswell, London, 1690.
No. 369. Henry Spelman's " Concilia in Eccles. Britan." folio, Rich. Badger, London, 1639.
No. 370. S. Birgit, " Revelationes celestes," 2 vols., folio, Anthony Koburger, Nuremberg, 1517; the gift of Wm. Smarte.
No. 373. " Natural History of Oxfordshire," by Plot, with plates, foho. Theater, Oxford, 1677 ; the gift of Dr. Knight.
No. 401. Wm. Wollaston's "ReHgion of Nature," L.P., 4to, Long- man and others, London, 1726 ; given to the Library by the author.
No. 416. Samuel Moreland's " History of the Evangelical Churches of Piemont, London, 1658 ; with illustrations of the terrible sufferings the brave Waldenses had to endure in adhering to their primitive faith."
No. 442. Browne Willis's " Survey of Cathedrals," vols, i and iii, 4to, London, 1742.
No. 484. The first volume of the " Philosophical Transactions for 1665-6," 4to, printed in the Savoy.
No. 559. John Marbeck's " Common Places," B.L., 4to, Thos. East, London, 1681.
There are also in the Library the works of SS. Cyprian, Cyril, and Jerome, S. Thomas Aquinas, and of Maldonatus. The works of Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and other reformers ; and of Socinus and other Unitarian -m-iters of the sixteenth century ; the latter bearing fictitious names for the places where they were printed, in consequence of the persecution the writers were then liable to.
And in the Library of the Museum, are the following valuable works temporarily deposited in this library : — " Strutt's Dictionary of En- graving;" "Astle's Origin of Writing ;" " Singer, on Playing Cards, with Illustrations of the Origin of Printing and Engraving on wood ;" " Ottley's History of Engraving ;" " Dibdin's Typographical Antiqui- ties ;" and " Twelve Prints of the Monasteries, etc., in Sullblk," by Joshua Kirby, with his historical book thereon.
No. 461 in the Corporation Library, " Dr. Brook Taylor's Perspec- tive," by Joshua Kirby, was printed at Ipswich in 1755, and contains the curious frontispiece by Hogarth setting at defiance all rules of perspective, underneath which is the following, " Whoever makes a
/ -:
2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS.
Design without the knowledge of Perspective will be liable to such ab- surdities as are shown in this Frontispiece." It was given to the Lib- rary by Kirby himself. This is the earliest book in the town library printed at Ipswich, although the art was carried on there at a very early period.^
1 In the year 1548 there were three printers at work in Ipswich, namely, John Oswen, John Overton, and Anthony Scoloker. Two books printed by Oswen and Overton were exhibited at the Congress by \V. P. Hunt, Esq. That by John Overton is the work of John Bale, a biographical dictionary of British writers, with catalogues of the works printed by them, and the first work of the kind published in England. It is entitled " Illustrium Majoris Britannias Scriptorum....Summarium." It is believed that in all other editions of this work it is entitled " Catalogus" in lieu of " Summarium." It has the follow- ing explicit, " Completum erat prtesens ...opus....excusumque fuit Gippeswici in Anglia per Joannem Overton anno a Christi incarnatione 1548, pridie calen- das Augusti." This book contains for frontispiece a picture of Bale presenting his book to King Edward VI, and on either side of the leaf preceding the pre- face there are a likeness of WiclifFe and a small engraving similar to that of the frontispiece. It is not known that Overton printed any other book than this at Ipswich.
Bale was a Suffolk man. He informs us in this book (at pp. 242-.3) that he was born at Cove, three miles from Sothold, and five from Dunwich, in Suffolk, and educated in the monastery of Carmelites at Norwich, and at Cambridge. His education was, of course, in the Romish religion ; but at some subsequent period he turned Protestant, and gave proof of having renounced one at least of the rules of the Romish faith, by marrying ; which event is thus referred to by himself : " Ilorribilis bestiee, seu execrabilis Antichristi maledictum charac- terem deinceps — erasi, extirpavi, delevi. Non enim ab homine, neque per hominem, sed ex speciali Chri Verbo et dono, uxore fidelissima accepi Dorothea, at non amplius essem papse creatura, sed Dei jubentis. Qui non continet, nubat in domino." In a letter to Lord Cromwell, Bale styles himself Doctor of Divinity, and " late parysh prest of Thomden in Suffolk"; and in the deposition of one Robert Blosse alias Mantel, recorded in Strype's "Annals" (vol. ii, p. 2, Append. No. 25) a reference is made to " Mr. Bale, the learned man, prior of the White Friars in Ipswich." Bale was made bishop of Ossory, in Ireland, after he became a Protestant.
The other book belonging to Mr. Hunt is by John Oswen, and is a 12mo., in black letter, and contains the following title : "A newe Booke containynge an Exhibitio to the Sycke. The Sycke Man's Prayer. — A Prayer with thanks at the Purification of Women. — A Consolation at Burial, 1548"; and the follow- ing colophon, " Imprynted at Ippeswiche by me, John Oswen, cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum." Oswen also printed the following books at Ipswich : "Invective against Drunkenness," 16mo. ; "Of the trewe Auctoritie of the Churche newely translated out of Latyn into Englyshe," 16mo., Peter Moon, eight leaves, 4to.; "John CEcolampadius, his Epistle that there ought to be no Respect of Personages of the Poore, but all to be holpe and comforted in their Necessities," 16mo.; "The Mynde of M. Jhon Caluyne, what a faithful Man, which is instructe in the Worde of God, ought to do dwelling amongst the Papisters," 16mo, k 4, in eights; "A Brief Declaration of the fained Sacra- ment, translated out of the Latine into Englysh," IGmo, b, in eights. Oswen left Ipswich in the year 1548, and in the same year established printing at Worcester.
Anthony Scoloker printed at least three books at Ipswich, the following arc the titles : — " A right notable Sermon made by Doctor ^lartyn Luther vppon the Twentieth Chapter of John, of Absolution and the true use of the Keyes, full of great comfort. In which also it is intreated of the Mynysters of the Church, and of the Scholemaisters what is dune unto them. Ande of the Uardnes and softenes of the Harts of Menne," 8vo. ; "Certcyne Preceptes,
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 73
The old catalogue, above referred to, contains some interesting en- tries. It is stated at the commencement, " This booke was made and given by Willa Saires, book-binder, of Ipswich, May 1st, An. 1615."
The following extract refers to the gift of ]Mrs. Walter, and contains a list of the prices^ given in, or prior to, the year 1612 for the books purchased Avith her legacy, An. 1615 : — " Mrs. Walter, widdow, her gift to the towne is conferred towards the furnishing of this librarie, see the 1 page, £50."
The old catalogue contains a list of the books given by Wm. Smarte, and refers also to the following benefactors : — " Mr. Samuel Ward, publicke preacher, of Ipswich, the workes of Parens, in 9 vols., £2:10: 0, still in the Library, Nos. 454 to 460. Samuel Ward was chosen town preacher in 1604, and died about the year 1640 ; he was a Puritan, and man of some note in his day. Mr. J. P. Hunt has an original portrait of him, well executed, and exhibited at the Congress. He is represented with an open book in his right hand, ruff, peaked beard, and moustache ; on one side is a coast beacon hghted, and in- scribed " Watche Ward ajtatis suse 43, 1630."
Mr. Drax, of Harwich, his owne workes ; Mr. (Tho.) Eldred, Dr. Hall's workes, and Mr. Hemes workes, and also Lorinus, 3 in Psal. Gesner., in 3 vols. The Eldred here referred to was Capt. Thomas Eldred, who sailed round the world with Cavendish, the navigator, in 1586. The house in which he Hved is stiU standing in St. Clement's Street, opposite the Neptune Tavern : it contains some cui'ious paint- ings upon the old carved oak panels of the fii'e-place in the front room. They consist of a ship in one panel, a globe in a second, and a portrait of a man holding a sea glass towards his eye in the third.
" The Lord Bishop of Norwich, at his visitation, 1662, gave £10 to y* Library.
Mr. John Coleman, inter alia, " Syb's Riches of Mercy;" "Bruised Read ;" " Soul's Conflict ;" " Beams of Light ;" " Light from Heaven ;" " Saints' Cordials," in folio; " Bowels opened;" "On '6'^ of f PhiHps;" "Evangelical Sacrifices;" "Returning Back-sHder": a cmious speci- men of the nomenclature of the Puritan writers of the day.
The manuscripts are all (except No. 10) written on vellum, and are
gathered by Ilubricus Zuinglius, declaring howe the ingenious youth ought to be instructed and brought unto Christ — translated out of Latiue into En- glysh by Maister Richarde Argentyue, Doctour of Physyck," 12nio ; "Sermons (6) of Bernardus Ochiuus," translated by 11. Argentyue, small bvo, of which a perfect and tine copy is to be found in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. It is very much to be regretted that works of so great a local interest are not to be found in this library. There is no trace of any books having been printed at Ipswich during the reniaiuder of the sixteenth century, or even during the seventeenth.
' As the prices vary little from what the works arc now obtained at, the enumeration is omitted from this paper.
1865 10
74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGEESS.
upon theological subjects. They are, for the most part, illuminated, in a fair state of preservation, and good specimens of the writing of the several periods to which they belong.
No. 1. " Biblia Concord." MS., illuminated, folio, s£ec. xiii. vl xiv.
No. 2. Bede, " On the Gospel of St. Luke," imperfect, fine MS., saec. xii.
No. 3. "Biblia Sacra, Exodus cum Glossa," S£ec. xiii: contains a beautifully illuminated title-page, and is in a very good state of preser- vation.
No. 4. " Mariale de Sa. Ed. per J. Abbatem," saec. xiv. Probably by John Abbot, of St. Edmund's Bury, in a very good condition.
No. 5. "A Collection of Sermons," circa sjbc. xiv.
No. 6. "Varia," containing: — 1. Compilatio super moralia S. Gre- gorii; 2. A Theological work, explicit, "ALibello qui dicitur Paratum"; 3. List of Archiepiscopal and Episcopal Sees ; 4. Libellus excerptis ab Ethimologiis Rabani, dictus Palmapenne ; Texts on subjects, etc.,
CU'Ca M.CC.LXX.
No. 7. " OflBcina et preces," s£ec. xiv.
No. 8. A book entitled " Liber Sancti Edmundi Regis in quo con- tinentur Expositio super Psaltarum Josue et Judicorum Glosati," S8ec. xiii. This work was probably written by the monks of St. Edmund's Bury.
No. 9. " Sacra Vulgata cum Concordantia."
No. 10. " Catechitice," Versiones variae. Heb., Gr^ec, Lat., and Angl., MS. on paper.
In the year 1746, a laudable attempt was made by a clergyman of the town to do something for the preservation of the books. For that purpose he had a label prepared at his own expense, representing the Arms of Ipswich, with the words "The Ipswich Library," and "The
gift of ," on scrolls above and below, and made some valuable
suggestions. But, unfortunately, this gentleman had his own arms in miniature, and the date 1746 engraved upon the label, which were con- sidered by a Committee of Inspection appointed to consider the matter, sufficient reasons for the rejection of the proffered gift and the sugges- tions too, for they do not appear to have been ever acted upon, although the plate, with the objectionable armorial bearings and date erased, has since found its way into the books. And in 1799 a catalogue was pre- pared of the books of which but two or three copies i-emain. But there does not appear to have been much care taken of the library. Many valuable works have been lost, and many of those that remain are much mutilated.
This has arisen in a great measure, it is believed, from the library not having been sufficiently accessible to the public to induce them to take an interest in its preservation or augmentation.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 75
It -would be very desirable that this library and that attached to the museum should be amalgamated and made the nucleus of a good Library of Reference, which is very much needed in the town. And also that the records, charters, and other documents belonging to the Corpora- tion should be chronologically arranged and bound in volumes, and kept in the library for inspection by the public under proper regula- tions, as is now becoming customary with other municipal corporations.
This practice has been found useful for the preservation of public documents, and there can be no doubt that if an arrangement of this kind were adopted, it would inspire confidence and many valuable ad- ditions would be made to the collection.
" The writer of this paper feels some diffidence in placing it before the Association, as until within the last few weeks, bibliography was not a study to which he had given much attention, but being at the time of the announcement of the visit of the Association to Ipswich engaged as a member of the corporation in preparing a catalogue of the library, he from that circumstance was requested to give some information upon its histoiy and contents."
Thanks having been voted to Mr. Westhorp for his paper, a conver- sation ensued in relation to the library in general, and some of the books contained in it, principally by Lord Arthur Hervey and Mr. Pettigrew.
Mr. Thomas Shave Gowing read a paper on " Suffolk Local Etymo- logy." He was assisted in preparing this paper in a great degree by " Domesday Book," made twenty years after the Conquest. There were very few remains of Roman nomenclature in the county. Some names of villages, etc., he derived from the names of tribes of Saxons and Danes ; others he traced to the natural features of the places to which the names had been applied ; some to Scandinavian theological terms ; some to the customs of the places, etc. ; and in this way he endeavoured to account for the name of almost every parish, hundred, river, etc., in the county and district.
The Chairman said the meeting would concur with him in thanking Mr. Gowing for his exceedingly ingenious paper, and join with him in admiring the enthusiasm which had enabled Mr. Gowing to pursue the subject as he has done. He then gave an outline of the proceedings of the following day, and concluded by expressing his great pleasure in seeing the Ven. Archdeacon Lord Arthur Hervey among thftm.
The Ven. Lord Arthur Hervey acknowledged the compliment, and proposed a vote of thanks to the Chairman of this meeting.
The vote was responded to and the meeting separated.
{To be continued.)
76
^Proceetftnrjs of tfje Association.
January 11, 1865. Nathaniel Gould, Esq., F.S.A., V.P., in the Chair.
The following associates were elected :
John Sebastian Chrestio-Renneck,Esq.,GrranvillePlace,Blacklieath William Watson, Esq., Barnard Castle, Durham Richard Laurence Pemberton, Esq., The Barnes, Sunderland J. C. Thompson, Esq., Sherburn Hall, Durham.
Thanks were voted for the following presents :
From the Society. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scot- land. Vol. V. Part I. Edinb., 1864. 4to. „ „ Transactions of the Leicestershire Architectural and
Archaeological Society. Vol. I. Part 3. Leicester, 1864. 8vo. „ ,, Zeitschrift des Vereins zur Erforschung der Rheines-
chen Geschichte und Alterthumer in Mainz. Mainz, 1864. 8vo. ,, ,, Fiihrer in dem Museum. Mainz, 1863. 8vo.
„ ,, Archgeologia Cambrensis for Jan. 1865. 8vo.
„ „ The Canadian Journal for Sept. and Nov. 1864. 8vo.
/. Alger, Esq. Third Annual Report of the Acclimatisation Society of
Sydney. Sydney, 1864. 8vo. G. Tate, Esq. Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club.
Vol. V. No. 1. 1865. 8vo. The Publisher. Gentleman's Magazine for Jan. 1865. 8vo.
«
Mr. F. J. Baigent forwarded a series of drawings in distemper, lately discovered and erased in the Church of St. Cross near Winchester. Mr. Gordon Hills, in the absence of Mr. Baigent, made observations on the several sketches, and stated that Mr. Baigent's remarks would be laid before a future meeting. The subjects are as follow : — No. 1, octagonal columns in the choir of the church, showing, among other
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 77
particulars, the opening made at the top of the column on the south side, and Purbeck marble base beneath the octagonal columns ; 2, sec- tion of choir, looking south, with tower-piers ; 3, high altar-slab disco- vered built into the east wall of the choir ; 4, consecration-crosses on the high altar-slab ; 5, elevation of wall, etc., on the north side of the choir, with painting in distemper ; 6, aumbry and fragment of dis- temper discovered in the north wall ; 7, fragment of distemper painting on wall on the north side of the choir ; 8, elevation of wall on the south side of the choir, with painting in distemper ; 9, fragment of St. Anne and the Blessed Virgin on the south wall of the choir ; 10, diaper pat- tern discovered on the side-walls of the choir, on a black ground ; 11, ditto on the walls of the north transept and on the walls of the side- chapels of the choir; 12, remains of distemper-painting on the side- walls of the chapel, on the north side of the choir, beneath the diaper- pattern on the same walls ; 13, consecration-cross on the east wall of chapel, north side of the choir ; 14, figure (probably St. Simeon) dis- covered on south side of east wall of the chapel on the north side of the choir ; ditto (probably St. John the Evangelist) discovered on the window-splay at the east end of the same chapel ; 15, matrix of a brass discovered on the side of the octagonal column in the chapel on the north side of the choir ; 16, distemper-painting discovered on the south wall of the south transept ; 1 7, elevation of the south end of the altar- recess in the east wall of south transept.
Lord Boston exhibited a forcer, or coffer, of English workmanship, conjectured to be of about the end of the fifteenth century, composed of stout iron plates joined and paneled by straps of the same metal, and secured by round-headed rivets. It stands on four cylindrical feet. At each end is a wide drop-handle ; and at the back two stout staples with rings one inch and seven-eighths diameter, by which the little chest was secured to a wall by a bar or chain and padlock. The key- hole is in front, and shut in by a hinged strap, the spring of which must be depressed by a lever before it can be raised. The spring is reached through a perforation concealed by a sliding rivet. Within the forcer, at its dexter end, is a small trough with sliding-spring cover. This " strong box" is nearly eight inches and thi-ee-quartcrs wide by five inches and a quarter from back to front, inside measure, and (in- cluding feet) six inches and three-quarters high. It weighs exactly twelve pounds, and is painted of a dull green colour.
An enriched, arch-topped iron forcer, of the close of the fourteenth century, has been engraved in this Journal (ii, 306) ; and a flat-topped one with complicated lock-woi'k, of the time of Henry VIII, is dcscnbed in vol. xiii, 236. A steel panel of a coffer, graven with a bear-hunt, is also noticed in vol. xvi, 317.
Mr. J. T. Blight exhibited rubbings of two sepulchral crosses found
hr
78 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION.
buried in the churcliyard. of Abergele, Denbighshire, North Wales, and recently built into the walls of the church porch. The edifice was erected in the fifteenth century, but the stones seem to be referrible to the thirteenth century. One, nearly two feet and a half high, has the cross within a broad ring, and a bulb at its junction with the shaft, which is elevated upon two steps. The second slab is neai-ly two feet ten inches high. The cross is also suiTOunded by a hoop, and has a rosette of eight petals in each quarter. The shaft is bulbed at the top, and rests on two steps. On the left side is a sword with a globose pommel, the grip criss-crossed, and with a horizontal guard. The pre- sence of the sword is an interesting but not an uncommon accompani- ment to the sepulchral cross. That the fashion is not confined to one county is shown by the following instances : Cumberland, — Newton Rigney, with arms of Vaux of Catterlen, twelfth century ; Derbyshire, — Bakewell, Chelmerton, Darley Dale ;^ Durham, — Aycliffe ; Northumber- land,— Cambo, Haltwhistle (with arms of Blenkinsop), Newbigging, East Shaftoe ; Westmorela7id, — Brougham (Udard de Broham, 1185); Wales, — Rhuddlan, Flintshire, where the sword is accompanied by an axe. An axe also occurs on the monumental slab of David ap Jevan Lloyd at Langattock-juxta-Usk, but no sword is introduced.^
Dr. Palmer transmitted five objects discovered at, or in the neigh- bourhood of, Newbury, viz., — 1. Roman bulla of bronze found in Don- nington square. It is a thin round box, an inch and a quarter diameter, hinged on one side, and secured on the other by a loop and staples, through which a pin has passed. It has a loop for suspension ; and may be compared with an ornamented bulla given in Beger's Thesaur. Brandetiberg (m,4!27). 2. Bronze signet-ring. The device is a crowned R. : date, fifteenth century : found at Compton Cow Down. Finger- rings of the same age, with a crowned R., seem to be somewhat com- mon. One is given in Gardner's History of Dunwich, pi. 3 ; another, found at Swanton Morley, Norfolk, in the Gent. Mag., Sept. 1792, p. 818 ; a third found near Dunwich, in Gent. Mag., March 1806, p. 217 ; and a fourth found at Tonbridge, is mentioned in this Journal, vi, 450. 8. Cover of a heart-shaped locket of silver. On it are engraved the initials C.R., divided by a crowned profile bust to the left, in relief, of Charles II, which resembles that seen on the king's first silver coinage and small coronation-medals. It was found on Rush Common, the site of the first battle of Newbury. Heart-shajDed lockets with the bust of Charles I have been described in this Journal, but this is the first example of such a locket with the portrait of Charles II which has been brought to our notice. 4. Obelisk-shaped pendant of black slate, about two inches and three-quarters high. It may be described as con- sisting of a square base, four square pillars supporting an abacus, on
> See Journal, u, 2bl-b^. - lb., ix, 80.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION. / 9
which rests a foar-sidecl i-hombic object capped by another abacus, above which is another rhombic object perforated through either side. Date, second half of the seventeenth century. Found near Newbury. Among the rarities at Don Saltero's Coffee House, Chelsea, was a chain with a similar pendant attached, the whole " cut out of the solid wood by a shepherd." 5. Globose water-pot holding a quarter of a pint, and having a loop on one side, fitted to pass between the bars of a large birdcage, and secured outside by a peg. The hard paste is of a light reddish stone colour ; the whole surface decorated with brown " quill- ing," and covered with a yellow glaze. Date, seventeenth century. Found, in Newbury five feet below the surface.
Dr. Palmer also made the following communication in reference to restorations which have been going on at the church of Newbury : —
" During the past two years the chancel of St. Nicholas' Church has been repaired and restored. Externally, the fine eastern window has been blocked up by stone work to the height of nearly four feet, and to the walls and gables have been added a rather heavy battlemented cornice and a cross at the eastern end. Internally, the whole of the dark-painted wood-work, with Corinthian columns, etc., has been re- moved, and a reredos substituted, the ground- work of which is gold, and panelled with emblematical devices of the four Evangelists ; to- gether with the Lamb and a crowned monogram, ihs. On the south side, there are sedilia with three panels, and an oak screen of chaste design, and carved. It fills the southern arch recently made for the choir.
" On the north side, there is a credence table, with elaborately carved canopy and finial. The panelling of the chancel walls is of Bath stone and Derbyshire alabaster, on which are painted scrolls with various scriptural texts.
" The stalls, altar-rails, and communion table are very handsome. An archway has been made in the north wall, corresponding with that on the south side, and communicating with the vestry room. Here is placed the fine old organ, which has been removed from the loft, where it stood when seen by the Association at the Berkshire Congress in 1859. The western window is now disclosed to view. The floor and steps leading to the altar are of black marble, and encaustic tiles. The roof is of oak, and the pendants to the boards ai'e cai-ved and picked out with rich colours and gold.
" The large eastern window has been filled with stained glass, a con- tribution from persons connected with Newbury families, or who once lived there, but are now non-residents. This window is in two com- partments, figuring the Cracitixion and Ascension of our SaA*iour, which harmonises well with the other restorations. The efiect will bo enhanced when the windows in the clerestory are filled with stained glass and a soft light admitted from above.
80 PROCEEDINGS OP THE ASSOCIATION.
" I fear tlaese details may not prove interesting to the Society ; but I am anxious to state that these restorations have been well carried out at considerable cost, and carefully avoiding the too usual destruc- tion of monuments, etc.
" While cutting through the north wall, there was found among the rubble some remains, which I have thought it worth while to collect and send drawings of. The first is the nether-stone of a quern about eight or nine inches in diameter. It was imbedded in the wall, and while being removed was unfortunately broken. It is made of lava, probably from the district of Andernach, on the Rhine, or from the neighbouring volcanic region, whence this kind of stone was formerly largely exported. Fragments of a former building were also taken out : they consist principally of caps of columns, fragments of pillars, etc., some of them possibly parts of sedilia or arcades. There were also found two mason's line-pins. These will be seen to differ much from those of the present day, and the smith must have bestowed some labour on them, as they appear to be made of steel or very pure iron, and neatly fabricated."^
Mr. Henry Thompson exhibited, through the Treasurer, an iconogra- phic ring of gold, weighing two pennyweights eleven grains, and a groat of Edward III (Civitas, London) found near a skeleton with re- mains of a wooden coffin, by some labourers in draining land at the back of the Volunteer Inn on the left of Saxtead Green, Framlingham, May 1831. The bezel of the ring is divided into two concave panels by a high ridge, and in one is incised a group of the Holy Trinity — the Father supporting before him the crucified Saviour, above whose head is the dove. This treatment of the subject may be compared with French paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries given in Didron's Cltristian leoJiographj, i, 226, 503, and with a piece of sculpture of early sixteenth centmy work in the Gent. Mag., January 1788, p. 9. The second panel displays the figure of the Virgin ; and the hoop is wrought with a cable-pattern, with the flower of the Marguerite on the shoulders. Within the ring is the motto De Bon Cuer. Date, circa 1500. A gold iconographic ring of the same age and like motto, but with figures of St. Catherine and St. Margaret on the bezel, is given in the Gent. Marj., September 1 790, p. 798.
A further contribution from Mr. Thompson consisted of two little religious medals with loops for suspension :• — 1st, a circular one of copper with profile busts to the right of St. Peter and St. Paul, encircled by pellets ; the rev., void ; date, sixteenth century. 2nd, an oval one of silver, having on one side a nude female kneeling before a crowned standing figure — legend, s.m.d. cakavagio ; rev., the Crucified Saviour, S.S. CKOCi. Fi. D. SIKOS ; date, seventeenth century.
' Mr. Cumiiipj y)roflucecl a similar mason's line-piu recovered from the Thames, near the site of Old London Bridge, in 1846.
M. 3
.li? Jobbing
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 81
Mr. Thompson also exhibited some gold coins, viz. : — 1. Quarter noble of Edward III. 2. Sovereign of James I — " Faciam Eos In Gentem Unain;" M.M. a cinque foil. 8. Double crown of Charles I — " Cultores Sid Beits Protegit ;'^ m.m. a crown. There is a large hole through the bust, indicating that the coin may have been worn, like many of the angels of this monarch, as a touch piece. 4. Guinea of Anne, 1711. 5. Quarter moidore (weighing only twenty-three grains) of John V of Portugal, 1722. As late as the reign of George II, the gold money of France, Spain, and Portugal, was of legal currency in * this country ; and Mr. Cuming has a set of eight brass weights for foreign pieces, together with those for the English guinea, half and quarter.
Mr. W. D. Haggard, F.S.A., laid upon the table four fine impres- sions of portraits in his collection, being those of H.R.H. Prince William Henry Duke of Gloucester, and referred to a rare and curious book, Memoirs of Prince William Henry Duke of Glocester, from his birth, July 24th, 1689, to October 24th, 1697," written by Jenkin Lewis, some time servant to her Highness the Princess Anne of Denmark, after- wards queen of England, serving to illustrate the variety of costume represented on the portraits : — No. 1. The young prince in flowing robes, knee bare and sandals, hair natural, neck bare, with a sword by his side, and dressed in breeches — G. Kneller, Eques pinx.; J. Smith fee. et exc. No. 2. Flowing hair, coat and waistcoat of the time, loose neckcloth, a star on the breast, and a bandelier on his shoulder — G. Kneller jj /?;,!', 1699; J. Smith/i^c. No. 3. Upright figure, hair flowing, in the robes of the Garter, with the St. George on horseback suspended from his neck ; at his side stands Master Benjamin Bathurst, holding a hat and feathers — T. Murray pinx.; J. Smith fee. et exc. No. 4. Three-quarters bust to the right (or nearly full face) in armour, a scarf lined with ermine over his shoulder, fastened by a brooch ; neckcloth in a loose careless manner, hair curled and flowing. Round an oval in which the bust is placed is the legend William Duke of Gloucester. On a pedestal beneath is suspended a medallion on which Britannia is represented weeping— G. Kneller j)ma;. ; J. Houbraken sculp., 1745.
Mr. G. R. Wright, F.S.A., exhibited a fine coin of Ptolemy, found at Ancona ; also a leaden bull of Pope John XXII, James d'Euse, 1316-1334 ; found at Maidstone, Kent.
Mr. J. B. Greenshields laid before the meeting an interesting group of antiquities, discovered in the parish of Lesmahago, Lanarkshire : — A Celtic coin of silver, weighing four dwts. five and a half grains, found upwards of fifty years since at Westown. Obr. Large profile to the right, which may be compared with that on the " Channel Island type," given in this Journal (iii, 62), and with the heads on the silver coins in Ruding, pi. iii, 46, 47. Eev. A charioteer, with a lyre-like 1865 11
82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCtATTON.
object below the horse resembling that seen on the gold coins. See also Journal, v, 11 ; xvii, 333 ; and on pieces in Ending, pi. i, 7 ; ii, 25, 33 ; iii, 45, 48. On the Westown coin, Mr. Evans, F.S.A., remarked that " It is of a very common type, such as was originally struck in Armorica and the adjacent islands, and of which there were a large number in the great hoard of coins discovered in Jersey some years ago. Eighty-nine of them are engraved in the first four plates of Donop's account of that hoard, and another is engraved in Lambert's Numis- tnatique Gauloise, pi. v, 2. They are frequently found all along the north-west coast of France. The most remarkable circumstance in connection with the present specimen is its having been found so far north as Lanarkshire, though a coin of the same type, engi'aved in the Numismatic Chronicle, iii, 153, No. 5, is said to have been discovered near Hexham." A bronze figure of a horse and a bronze bell, found about thirty years ago at Birkwood. The horse (see pi. 3, fig. 3) is of a very rude design, and reminds us of the great steed in Berkshire (^Journal, xvi, 30). It may be classed with the btill engraved in this Journal, xvii, 112, also found in Lanarkshire ; and the brazen elephant discovered at Toddington, Bedfordshire, engraved in the Arcliceologia, vol. 28, and G entlonan^ s Magazine, Dec. 1840, p. 633. They all pro- bably served as lares or penates, and bear a resemblance in style of art to the archaic bronzes of Etruria. The bell (fig. 2) is four-sided, with a sort of little foot at each corner, and a large loop at the top by which it was suspended round the neck of a sheep. TintinnahuU of this form are frequently found with Roman remains, but it is worthy of remark that some of the oldest Britannic bells with which we are ac- quainted are four-sided, like the examples given in Wilson's Pre-liistoric Annals of Scotland, pp. 652-660. A Roman horse-bell of hemispher- oid form was recently submitted to the Association, and is figured in vol. xix oi ih.G Journal (pi. 5, fig. 2, p. 68). Other objects were found at Auchlochan, being portions of two urns or cups of light red earth, moulded by hand, imperfectly kiln-baked, and ornamented with lines of punctures, apparently of late Celtic fabric ; a stud or button of can- nel coal, nearly seven-eighths diameter, of low conic form. Wilson (p. 300) mentions the discovery at Dubbs, Ayrshire, 1832, of five studs or buttons of different sizes, the largest more than an inch diameter, wrought of highly polished jet, which must have closely resembled this specimen ; and a portion of the field of a Roman hand-min-or, perhaps one of the famous specula of Brundisium, alluded to in the Journal, xvii, 282.
Mr. Warren, of Txworth, produced some antiquities obtained by him, and collected together for exhibition at the late Congress in Suffolk. The principal object is one of good workmanship and elegant contour. It is a bust of Jupiter, measuring full two inches in height by one
PI 4
WC SiraJti^ ruh.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 83
and three-quarters in breadth. It is represented on plate 3, fig. 1. It was purchased at Bridge water. Tlie other antiquities consist of fibula?, some of which it has been thought proper to engrave on plate 4.
A brooch of a circular form, with bulbous terminations, like to ex- amples found in Ireland. The tongue is looped round the hoop as in various fibula), represented in the Journal (iii, 97 ; vi, 15G ; xviii, 394) and in the P re-historic Annals of Scotland, p. 327. Mr. Warren's spe- cimen was found by a shepherd at Icklingham, May 3, 1859. See pi. 4, fig. 1.
A harp-shaped fibula of admirable fabric, and beautifully patinated. In general character it is identical with an example in the Journal (iii, ^7, fig. 4). Found in a sandpit at Icklingham. See fig. 2.
Another harp-shaped fibula, which may be compared with three already given in the Journal, x, 17, fig. 17 ; xvii, 112, fig. 2 ; and xix, 68, fig. 7). The large wii-e ring at the top to which a chain was once attached, is worthy of notice. This was found at West Stow.
A fibula, inclining to the harp-shape. The upper part has termi- nated in a ring, and the centre is decorated with a disc of white ena- mel, around which has been a small circle of silver. The arms moved between staples set rather wide apart, and was received in a hasp. It ^s of the same age as the example from Colchester, given in ih.e Journal, ii, 42. Found at Pakenham by a boy employed in picking grass. See fig. 3.
A circular fibula, the middle of which has had a projecting orna- ment as in an example in the Joicrnal, xvi, 270, fig. 2. The centre rises from a disc of white enamel, in wliich are six sockets, arranged in a circle, once set, but now without its ornaments. The broad verge is decorated with twelve bars of blue enamel, radiating from the white disc like the spokes of a wheel from the nave. The acus was hinged between two staples and received into a hasp. Found at Icklingham. See fig. 4.
A circular fibula, one inch diameter, which has been decorated