Page images
PDF
EPUB

likely, the centres of local volcanic activity in olden times.

It remains to be noticed that the northerly extension of the eastern or coast range of mountains also remains to be explored. A range of snow-clad mountains has been sighted to the westwards, from the Juba River, by Captain Short, as noticed in Dr. Beke's work; and a French traveller also sighted a snow-clad range to the south-east from the Bahr-el-Ghazal.

The name Himadū, or "Snow Mountains" given to this unexplored range, having a Sanscrit origin, would appear to have been originally applied to Mount Kenia, since the traces of mining operations, apparently carried on by Hindoos, at a very remote period, have been met with in the mountain in question.

This Mount Himadū probably gives birth in its northerly extension to the river Sobat -the ancient Astasobas-and it also, probably, supplies tributaries to the Victoria Nile and its lakes.

Lakes standing in the same relation to the Victoria Nyanza as the Albert Edward does to the Albert Nyanza have also been discovered between the former and the coast range of mountains. Such are the Bahr-ngu or Baringu, the Naivasha, and others (Lakes Rudolph and Stephanie, discovered by Count Teleki and Lieut. Hochmel, appear to lie on the eastern side of the coast range); but the existence of such minor lakes does not in any way militate against the identification of the two great lakes discovered by English travellers with Ptolemy's eastern and western lakes of the Nile.

The Ancient Chapel on St.
Martha's Hill, near Guildford,
Surrey.

BY GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON, F.R.S.L.,
F.R.HIST.Soc., ETC.

OUTH-EAST of Guildford, between Albury on the east and Shalford on the west, is the small parish of St. Martha's, comprising about

1,000 acres. In some old deeds it is called the Parish of Martyrs', from a tradition that, in early

times, some Christians suffered there. The parish is attached to the Manor of Chilworth, and the conspicuous feature within its boundaries is the lofty eminence known as St. Martha's Hill and the quaint little chapel surmounting it.

Doomsday Book mentions that in Bramley (Brumlei) there were three churches, and that the Bishop of Baieux (Odo) held the manor in demesne. St. Martha's was probably one of the three churches, as Chilworth, the manor to which it is attached, is also named in Domesday as being in Bramley and held by the same bishop. There are sufficient traces, Brayley thinks, to refer the origin of the chapel to Norman times, but it is probable that a shrine existed there in earlier times, and that the unknown martyrs gave their name to the chapel, which was built of rough ironstone, and with keyless arches.

The manor, with other estates, was, we learn, on the disgrace of Bishop Odo, escheated to the crown.

The benefice in very early times belonged to the Priory of Newark. As early as 1186 the priory enlarged the chapel, consecrated the newer portion, and placed a brother in charge of the building. The actual appropriation of the benefice to the Priory of Newark was certified in 1464 by Bishop Waynflete to have taken place in 1262. In 1463, under date May 20, Bishop Waynflete granted a special indulgence of forty days to such as resort to the chapel on account of devotion, prayer, pilgrimage or offering, and should say there any Paternoster, Ave Maria and Credo, or should contribute, bequeath or otherwise assign anything toward the maintenance, repair or rebuilding of the same."

The estate around was possibly granted to the priory subsequently to their possession of the patronage of the benefice.

From 1262 to 1412 the prior of the monastery appointed vicars in charge of the chapel, and in the Valor Beneficiarum of 20 Edward I. (1292) we find reference to the early vicars. The benefice was held to the use of the priory in pleno jure, and was kept up or allowed to decay according to the position and feelings of the priory. To this cause may be probably attributed the condition into which in later times the building fell. It is interesting to find the actual survival of the

fact of the benefice being under monastic and not episcopal authority remaining to the present time, as even now the living is in the peculiar position of being a donative. In other words, In other words, it is a benefice conferred on a person by the founder or patron without either presentation, institution, or induction by the ordinary. It appears that upon the induction of the present rector into the rectory of Albury, a desire was expressed by him that St. Martha's should be included in the deed, but it soon appeared that the Bishop of Winchester had neither knowledge nor cognizance of St. Martha's. The lord of the manor or lay impropriator (in this case the Duke of Northumberland) confers the benefice, and the holder of it exercises quasi-episcopal jurisdiction in the parish.

to

On the dissolution of the monasteries the property reverted to the crown, and Queen Elizabeth granted the manor William Morgan, who, in 1583, settled it, or a portion of it, upon his son John. William Morgan died on December 10, 1602, at the age of 77, leaving one son, Sir John Morgan, knighted at Cadiz in Spain, 1596. buried in an altar-tomb of freestone, upon which is a knight in armour, in the chancel of the chapel on the hill.

He was

The manorial estates passed through the hands of the Randyll and Houlditch families subsequently to the Duchess of Marlborough, and thence by will to the younger son of her son-in-law the Earl of Sunderland. John Spencer, son of the legatee, was created Earl Spencer in 1765, and from him the property passed through very many hands until it reached its present possessor.

The actual chapel is said to be dedicated to All Holy Martyrs, or to the (unknown) Holy Martyrs, but its early history is shrouded in mystery. It was built in the form of a Latin cross, and was so neglected by its new owners after the dissolution of the monasteries that it gradually fell into a dilapidated condition. It is even possible, from the indulgence already referred to of 1463, that the dilapidation was even of that early date, as the use of the expression "rebuilding" would almost imply a state of ruin of at least a portion of the chapel.

In the inventory of church goods in Surrey, made in the sixth year of King

Edward VI., the only items found at the Church of "Saynt Marter" are "a challice of silver, a bell hanging in the steple, a verrie old coope, a sorplus, a hanging bell at the place," and these were in the custody of John Stephen and John Cheesman. The bell from the steeple is the only item of this inventory now remaining. It hangs in the turret of the Guildford Town Hall, and is the bell upon which the clock strikes the hours. The "hanging bell" was probably a sanctus bell, hanging on the rood loft, or

screen.

Service in recent times was held in a portion of the ruins, but in 1850, through the generous action of neighbouring landowners, the building was repaired and restored for worship. The restoration unfortunately amounted in a very large extent to a destruction and rebuilding, and was a very Medea-like procedure; and to the previous shocking neglect, and even to the restoration, we may attribute the loss of identifying evidence on the early tradition that gives to the chapel a peculiar and special interest.

The district of Surrey lying around the hill has cherished for many long years a tradition that the remains of the cardinal-archbishop, Stephen Langton, lay in the chapel on the hilltop, once dedicated to the Holy Martyr. The tradition of a countryside, nourished amidst its peasantry and handed on from generation to generation, does not afford a scientific basis of investigation. It, however, usually possesses just that element of fact as a component part which entitles it to careful attention, and it is often of much value in determining fact as a piece of folk-lore, built up, probably, upon a groundwork of truth, although at present often a superstructure of fantasy. To add in some measure to the truth of the story, and to give it just a visible and tangible reality, the inhabitants point to the two stone coffin-lids which rest even now one on each side of the restored chancel of the chapel. It is around these two stone coffin-lids that any especial interest in connection with St. Martha's now centres.

In a MS. note-book of Thomas Russell, the historian, of Guildford, is a note which appears to have been made between 1780 and 1800, which states that in some repairs

or work at St. Martha's "certaine items were found in the stone coffin with a big crosse on it-to wit, a silvern chalice broken, a gold ring with a stone cut in ye same, also a stick or staff with a great boss and a curve or crook at ye top of ye same, in pieces, and a bit of silken brodery."

This entry, which is made by a man who was above everything an accurate and painstaking antiquary, is almost the sole evidence to support the local tradition, and is naturally not very substantial in proving the truth of the old story.

In 1849 one of the two stone coffins was to be seen empty standing just within the porch of the church, and in the restoration of the building we do not find any mention of the contents of either coffin. The two coffin-lids were placed in the floor of the chancel at the restoration, and the coffins, it is believed, beneath them. Upon one lid is rudely carved, in what appears to be thirteenth-century work, the crook of an abbess; the other bears a cross with a slight indication at the fess point of a lower transverse beam, which if extended would give a patriarchal character to the cross, and which just suggests such a cross.

The local story is that Langton, the great archbishop, whom it is pretty clear, from the obituary of Newark, was once a monk of the priory, was, at the consecration of the chancel of the chapel, appointed as the brother in charge, and that he then resided at the ancient house that nestles at the foot of the hill, now known as Tything, which was the dwelling-house of the attendant priest. Tradition still clings around that quaint house, in which one may yet see the lancet east window of an oratory, the arched cell hollowed out underground, with its quaint entrance below the lancet window, the rudely-chiselled chalk work, and the walled-in sunken herb-garden of the monkish residence.

Tradition tells that Langton before becoming a monk was attached to a village maiden, "Aliz" by name, and that his adoption of the habit was due to a belief that she was dead; Aliz believing a similar report as to Stephen, took the veil, and the two persons met after reception into their respective orders at the consecration of the new chancel

VOL. XXII.

of St. Martha's. These local traditions, with all their richness of story, were taken up by the late Dr. Martin Tupper, and, united with evidence of the visit of King John to Tangley and his Christmasing at Guildford, and other actual historical events, were skilfully woven by him into the well-known story of Stephan Langton.

As to the burial upon St. Martha's we have little but tradition to guide us. Tradition tells us that it was at Langton's own request that he was buried at St. Martha's, so as to be near to the body of her whom in the days long past, before as a religious he had taken the great vow of perpetual celibacy, he had dearly loved. It is also said that his hope and wish was to lie for ever by the altar at which first he had ministered, and where, as guardian of the sacred mysteries and priest of Holy Church, he had pondered over the woes of his country and longed to crush tyranny and inaugurate freedom. Near, then, to the tomb of the "Bele Aliz" (whom he apostrophized in a poem still preserved in his handwriting in the Duke of Norfolk's library at Arundel), we are told, he was buried, and the monks of Canterbury buried an empty coffin in state while by torchlight the great prelate was laid to rest by his own faithful retainers on St. Martha's. In all this, however pleasing it may be, we have little but popular folk-lore to guide us, although, as before stated, such early tradition is not a guide to be altogether scorned and neglected.

Now as to the cross upon the coffin-lid to which allusion has been made. We may point out that if Langton were indeed buried on St. Martha's Hill, the persons so burying him would be hardly likely to put upon the coffin a cross of such a distinctive character as would betoken the grave of an archbishop. Such action would be to at once reveal their procedure and bring down upon their heads vengeance from the monks at Canterbury, who believed they had buried their beloved prelate in his cathedral. They might possibly, however, have placed such an ornament on the coffin as would suggest a patriarchal cross and convey just the impression needed to those in the secret, but which to the ordinary observer would not be noticeable. One can hardly fancy their intentionally exposing

G

their action, but one could believe in their marking the coffin in such a way as to identify it. This we believe they did in carving the cross with the slight suggestion of a transverse beam; but at the same time, in making this suggestion, we are fully aware of the treacherous character of such a theory.

The relics to which Russell refers might certainly point to the burial of an archbishop, but at the same time they by no means conclusively prove the matter. They may have been the insignia and possession of the Prior of Newark, or of a local abbot or abbess, or even of Aliz herself, who is said to have risen to be abbess of the neighbouring convent of St. Catherine and to have been buried at St. Martha's.

The whole story is very interesting, although possibly somewhat fanciful, and an airy fabric built upon very slight evidence. The most remarkable discovery recently made Canterbury Cathedral has caused a revival of interest in Stephen Langton.

at

The occasion of the discovery at Canterbury was the opening of a tomb in the south wall of the aisle of Trinity Chapel in the cathedral, at the east end of the building, which has for some time past been erroneously known as Archbishop Theobald's tomb. There had been a tradition that the supposed tomb was really a shrine, and contained relics from other shrines hastily collected in it at the time of the fire in the cathedral choir in 1174. On the tomb being opened, however, the undisturbed remains of an ancient archbishop in full pontificals were seen. The tomb also contained a beautiful chalice and paten, parcel-gilt, a gold ring with an engraved emerald, the pastoral staff, and some specimens of beautiful embroidery on the

vestments.

These remains were at first attributed by the Rev. John Morris, S.J., F.S.A., in a letter to the Times, to be those of Langton, but subsequent evidence did not warrant this conclusion. Against the truth of the Surrey story a great deal may be said. The chroniclers unanimously place the burial of Langton at Canterbury.

Father Morris was good enough to refer us to contemporary writers in proof of his first assertion, presupposed in his letter to the

Times of March 12, that Langton was buried at Canterbury.

Gervase says of Langton, 1228: "Obiit.... ad manerium suum quod Slindune dicitur Cujus corpus cum apud Cantuariam deferretur, Conventus Cantuariensi," etc.

Mathew Paris on the same subject writes: "Apud Slindon diem clauvit. . . . Cantuariæ sepultus est."

Roger of Wendover tells the same tale, and writes: "On July 9, 1228, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, closed his life at his manor of Slindon, and was buried at Canterbury on the sixth day of the same month." There is a curious error in this quotation in the matter of date which it is difficult accurately to explain.

Father Morris discovered amongst the Harleian MSS. a history of Christ Church, Canterbury (Harl. 636), written in French, ending with the year 1313, called Polisterie, and the writer gives the earliest testimony yet produced respecting Langton's burial-place. His words are Puys Kaunt honurablement en cele eglise fust mys en tere devaunt lauter Seint Michel." In the fourteenth century we are thus told that he was buried before St. Michael's altar. Further, amongst the same collection of manuscripts Father Morris has found that a lover of heraldry, visiting the cathedral in 1599, states that Langton was buried in St. Michael's Chapel in the following words (fol. 13): "Stephen Langton, hee fyrste devyded the Byble into Chapters, and lyeth in the Chappell of St. Michaell on the Southe syde of the Churche neere the Southe dore, wch shulde seeme to bee the Chappell Redyfyed by John Earle of Somsett, for ther standyth yett the said monument whear the Altar stood halfe in the walle and halfe owte, hee dyed the ixth of Julie A.D. 1228."

All this is weighty evidence, not only in favour of Langton's burial-place being at Canterbury, but in favour of a particular situation for his tomb. It must be remembered, however, that the existence of a strong belief and an authoritative statement on this matter does not actually per se destroy the Surrey tradition.

The St. Martha's story depends for its very existence upon the fact of a subterfuge, and the important item in it is the statement that Langton was buried secretly and by

night on St. Martha's, and that those who buried the coffin at Canterbury did not therein bury the archbishop.

Into the question as to the exact position of the tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, known The still as Langton's, we will not enter. arguments pro and con are by no means exhausted, and various opinions are held by competent authorities upon the question. Suffice it that we have told the local story which is still keenly and enthusiastically received in Surrey, and which we are sure will not be surrendered until some further destructive evidence has been produced. The relics to which Russell refers have mysteriously disappeared since his time. Our efforts at present to trace them are unavailing, although we hear that a sketch was made of them at the time of the discovery, and we believe the relics themselves were removed to the custody of some local collector. They are not in any way referred to at the time of the restoration in 1850, but we are pursuing our investigation, and do not despair of being able at some future time to throw a further light upon what is at least a local tradition of some remarkable interest.

this daie in obedience to the said l're the Maister and Wardens of the Pewterers weare couvented before this Courte and having heard the Maister & Wardens of the Companie of Goldsmiths what they would saie touching the said business it was thought fitt and soe ordered by this Courte That from henceforth the Pewterers shall strike but one stampe or marke uppon their Pewter as anciently hath bin accustomed and as the Lawe in that case requireth unless the buyer shall desire his owne Armes and stamp of his signe to be strucken thereupon And that the Maister & Wardens of the Pewterers shall forthwith call a Courte and cause all their Brethren of the Companie using the trade of a Pewterer to be summoned thither and cause this order to be there notified and published to the end that such of them as hereafter shalbe discouered to practise the like fraudulent invention mind not pretend ignorance of this order but be punished according to the qualitie of the offence. And it is likewise ordered that the said Maister and Wardens of the Pewterers shall diligently search and examine not onlie what stampes are already engraven and made but alsoe what Pewter is therewith marked and remayning amongst the Pewterers wh are in likento the Goldsmiths marks and take order that the same stampes be called in and delivered to the Wardens of the Goldsmiths to be defaced and alsoe that all Pewter having more than one marke resembling the marke of the silver touch which are to be sould by anie the Pewterers, be forthwith moulten down, or the same marke be defaced.

Dispute between the Goldsmiths and Pewterers in 1635.

By R. C. HOPE, F.S.A., F.R.S.L.

HE following interesting memorandum relative to the counterfeiting of the Goldsmiths' marks I have extracted from the Guildhall MSS., NN, f. 50b, of the year 1635:

Item wheras the Goldsmiths of London did of late shewe unto the Lords of his Maies most hon ble Privie Counsell a certaine plate made of Pewter having the stamps & marks upon it wh only belongeth to the Companie of Goldsmiths of London as if it had bin of silver plate of the assaye of the said companie, whereupon their Lordships conceiving that manie inconveniences might arise if such fraud should be permitted to passe did direct their l'rs unto this Court to take order both to restraine the said practises and to punish the same soe farre as they should appeare to deserve punishment-Nowe

Clerical Incomes in 1643.

BY REV. CANON SCOTT ROBERTSON.

OLDSMITH'S well-known description of the parson "passing rich on forty pounds a year" is well illustrated by items which are recorded as payments to clergymen from the revenues of the See of Canterbury in 1643, when Archbishop Laud was in the Tower.*

When the great tithes of a parish belonged to the See of Canterbury, it was customary for the Archbishop to make an annual payment to the "perpetual curate" who served the cure. In the case of such a curate, this payment was all the endowment his "living' possessed. The incumbents of Ash, Maidstone, Leeds, Nonington, Folkestone, and Whitstaple, were such perpetual curates. is to be presumed, however, that where the

* British Museum Additional MS. 5,489, p. 342.

It

« PreviousContinue »