by A. D. Crake
vices of his fellow students, ranaway from the city, and shut himself up in a hermitage, where heresigned himself to a life of the strictest austerity. Three years hespent in a cave near Subiaco, about forty miles from Rome, where he wasso removed from society that he lost all account of time. He did not,however, lead an idle life of self contemplation; he instructed theshepherds of he neighbourhood, and such were the results of hisinstruction that his fame spread widely, until, the abbot of aneighbouring monastery dying, the brethren almost compelled him tobecome their superior, but, not liking the reforms he introduced,subsequently endeavoured to poison him, whereupon he returned to hiscave, where, as St. Gregory says, "he dwelt with himself" and becamemore celebrated than ever. After this the number of his disciplesincreased so greatly, that, emerging from his solitude, he built twelvemonasteries, in each of which he placed twelve monks under a superior,finally laying the foundation of the great monastery of Monte Cassino,which has ever since been regarded as the central institution of the order.
Here was drawn up the famous Benedictine rule, which was far moreadapted than any other code to prevent the cloister from becoming theabode of idleness or lascivious ease. To the three vows of poverty,chastity, and obedience, was added the obligation of manual labour, thebrethren being required to work with their hands at least seven hoursdaily. The profession for life was preceded by a novitiate of one year,during which the rule was deeply studied by the novice, that the lifevow might not be taken without due consideration. The colour of thehabit was usually dark, hence the brethren were called the Black Monks.
St. Benedict died of a fever, which he caught in ministering to thepoor, on the eve of Passion Sunday, A.D. 543. Before his death, thehouses of the order were to be found in all parts of Europe, and by theninth century it had become general throughout the Church, almostsuperseding all other orders.
xviii The Roman Roads.
Roman roads were thus constructed: Two shallow trenches were dugparallel to each other, marking the breadth of the proposed road; theloose earth was removed till a solid foundation was reached, and abovethis were laid four distinct strata--the first of small broken stones,the second of rubble, the third of fragments of bricks or pottery, andthe fourth the pavement, composed of large blocks of solid stone, sojoined as to present a perfectly even surface. Regular footpaths wereraised on each side, and covered with gravel. Milestones divided themaccurately. Mountains were pierced by cuttings or tunnels, and archesthrown over valleys or streams. Upon these roads, posting houses existedat intervals of six miles, each provided with forty horses, so thatjourneys of more than 150 miles were sometimes accomplished in one day.
From the arrival of our uncivilised anceators, these magnificent roadswere left to ruin and decay, and sometimes became the quarry whence thethane or baron drew stones for his castle; but they still formed thechannels of communication for centuries. Henry of Huntingdon (circa1154) mentions the Icknield Street, from east to west; the Eringe, orErmine Street, from south to north; the Watling Street, from southeastto northwest; and the Foss Way, from northeast to southwest, as the fourprincipal highways of Britain in his day. Once ruined, no communicationsso perfect existed until these days of railroads.
xix The Rollright Stones.
These stones are still to be seen in the parish of Great Rollright nearChipping Norton, Oxon, anciently Rollrich or Rholdrwygg. They lie on theedge of an old Roman trackway, well defined, which extends along thewatershed between Thames and Avon. The writer has himself heard from therustics of the neighbourhood the explanation given by Oswy, while thatput in the mouth of Father Cuthbert is the opinion of the learned.
xx For this new translation of Urbs beata the author isindebted to his friend the Rev. Gerald Moultrie.
xxi The reader will remember the strong feeling ofanimosity then existing between seculars and regulars.
xxii This demoniacal laughter is one of the manylegends about St. Dunstan.
xxiii See Preface.
xxiv Ruined British Cities.
The resistance of the Britons (or Welsh) to their Saxon (or English)foes was so determined, that, as in all similar cases, it increased themiseries of the conquered. In Gaul the conquered Celts united with theFranks to make one people; in Spain they united with the Goths; but theconquerors of Britain came from that portion of Germany which had beenuntouched by Roman valour or civilisation, and consequently there was nodisposition to unite with their unhappy victims, but the war became oneof extermination. Long and bravely did the unhappy Welsh struggle. Aftera hundred years of warfare they still possessed the whole extent of thewestern coast, from the wall of Autoninus to the extreme promontory ofCornwall; and the principal cities of the inland territory stillmaintained the resistance. The fields of battle, says Gibbon, might betraced in almost every district by the monuments of bones; the fragmentsof falling towers were stained by blood, the Britons were massacredruthlessly to the last man in the conquered towns, without distinctionof age or sex, as in Anderida. Whole territories returned to desolation;the district between the Tyne and Tees, for example, to the state of asavage and solitary forest. The wolves, which Roman authorities describeas nonexistent in England, again peopled those dreary wastes; and fromthe soft civilisation of Rome the inhabitants of the land fell back tothe barbarous manners and customs of the shepherds and hunters of theGerman forests. Nor did the independent Britons, who had taken refugefinally in Wales, or Devon and Cornwall, fare much better. Separated bytheir foes from the rest of mankind, they returned to that state ofbarbarism from which they had emerged, and became a scandal at last tothe growing civilisation of their English foes.
Under these circumstances the Saxons or English (the Saxons founded thekingdoms of Wessex and Essex; the Jutes, Kent; the Angles all theothers. The predominance of the latter caused the term English to becomethe general appellation.) cared little to inhabit the cities theyconquered; they left them to utter desolation, as in the case describedin the text, until a period came when, as in the case of the firstEnglish assaults upon Exeter and the west country, they no longerdestroyed, but appropriated, while they spared the conquered.
xxv Seaton in Devonshire.
xxvi Elgiva or Aelgifu, signifies fairy gift.
Xxvii
The gate of hell stands open night and day;Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:But to return, and view the upper skies--In this the toil, in this the labour lies.--Dryden.
xxviii Valhalla.
Valhalla or Waihalla was the mythical Scandinavian Olympus, thecelestial locality where Odin and Edris dwelt with the happy dead whohad fallen in battle, and who had been conducted thither by the fairValkyries. Here they passed the days in fighting and huntingalternately, being restored sound in body for the banquet each night,where they drank mead from the skulls of the foes they had vanquished inbattle. Such was the heaven which commended itself to those fierce warriors.
xxix The parish priests were commonly called "Mass-Thanes"
xxx "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord.He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; andwhosoever liveth, and believeth in Me, shall never die."
It was not the usual English custom, in those days, to bury the dead incoffins, still it was often done, in the case of the great, from theearliest days of Christianity. For instance, a stone coffin, supposed tocontain the dust of the fierce Offa, who died A. D. 796, was dug up,when more than a thousand years had passed away, in the year 1836, atHemel-Hempstead, with the name Offa rudely carved upon it. The earliestmention of churchyards in English antiquities is in the canons calledthe "Excerptions of Ecgbriht," A.D. 740, when Cuthbert was Archbishop ofCanterbury; and here the word "atria" is used, which may refer to theoutbuildings or porticoes of a church.
xxxi The Greater and Lesser Excommunications.
The lesser excommunication excluded men from the participation of theEucharist and the prayers of the faithful, but did not necessarily expelthem from the Church. The greater excommunication was far more dreadfuli
n its operation. It was not lawful to pray, speak, or eat, with theexcommunicate (Canons of Ecgbright). No meat might be given into theirhands even in charity, although it might be laid before them on theground. Those who sheltered them incurred a heavy "were gild," andendangered the loss of their estates; and finally, in case of obstinacy,outlawry and banishment followed.
--King Canute's Laws Ecclesiastical.
xxxii Disappearance of Elgiva.
The writer has already in the preface stated his reasons for rejectingthe usual sad story about the fate of the hapless Elgiva. The otherstory, that she was seized by Archbishop Odo, branded on the face, andsent to Ireland, as Mr. Freeman observes, rests on no good authority;all that is certainly known is that she disappeared.
At the time commonly assigued to these events, Dunstan was still inFlanders; yet he is generally credited with the atrocities by modernwriters, even as if he had been proved guilty after a formal trial. Hisreturn probably took place about the time occupied by
