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T

XII.

THE CHRONICLE OF CROWLAND.

COMMONLY KNOWN AS 'INGULF.'

HIS chronicle was for long believed to be the actual work of the author in whose name it is written,

Ingulf, the famous Abbot of Crowland, or Croyland, under William the Conqueror. Various anachronisms (e.g., references to Philip Augustus of France, and to the University of Oxford) have convinced modern critics that it is a fourteenth-century production. But it is certainly no mere invention of that century, the writer having used earlier material. He has, for example, embodied the notice of Crowland found in Ordericus Vitalis (1112); and his account of the sack of the abbey by the Danes bears every mark of being also from some contemporary source.

No ancient MS. of this chronicle has survived, though such are mentioned by the historians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was edited by Saville, 1596, and by Gale a century later. A translation is given in 'The Church Historians of England.'

The following are the extracts given :

SECTION

1. Of Bertulf, King of Mercia.

2. Of Ethelwulf, King of Wessex.

3. Of Ethelbald his son.

4. Of the Danes at Nottingham.

5. Of the Danes in Lindesey.

6. How Earl Algar fought with the

Danes.

SECTION

11. How the Danes sacked Crowland
and Peterborough.

21. How the Danes sacked Ely.
22. Of Burghred, King of Mercia.
23. Of King Alfred in Athelney.
24. Of Ceolwulf, King of Mercia.
25. Of the goodness of King Alfred,
and of his death.

THE CHRONICLE OF CROWLAND.

§1. [A.D. 838] Bertulf succeeded to the kingship [of Mercia], and reigned 13 years. . . . A wicked man he was, and, as he passed through Crowland, laid hands on all the many jewels wherewith.... other Kings of Mercia had adorned that holy church-yea, and on all the money he could find in the monastery. Therewith raised he a force to war against the Danes, who, as then, were ravening around London. And by these Heathen was he worsted and put to flight. [A.D. 850. See p. 86.] . . . [Here follows a spurious charter of King Bertwulf's.]

For

§ 2. [A.D. 855] God wrought a signal miracle to the glory of His holy Confessor, St. Guthlac [the founder of Crowland, A.D. 714] . ... so that the Abbot Siward . . . having been tried, like the blessed Job, by deepest poverty, and despoiled of his whole Abbey treasure, even unto the uttermost farthing . . . received the double for all his loss.... His old age, moreover, became still more prosperous by yet another means. Ethelwulf, the far-famed King of the West Saxons, being but newly come back from Rome (whither he had gone, in deep devotion, along with Alfred, his youngest son, to visit the threshold of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and His Holiness Pope Leo) . . . then first endowed the whole Church of England with the tithes of all the land . . . by charter. [Here follows the charter, again spurious.] And this charter did King Ethelwulf, for the more surety, offer upon the altar of Peter the Apostle. And the Bishops sent it to every church in each diocese to be published.

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§ 3. This year Bertulf King of the Mercians, after a reign of thirteen years, died, and after him Burghred took the kingdom. . . At this time Ethelwulf, King of the West Saxons, likewise died, and his sons, Ethelbald and Ethelbert, shared the kingdom between them. The first of these... took to wife his own stepmother, Judith . . . wherethrough all folk were overcome with abhorrence at such enormity of wickedAfter two years thus wallowing in the mire he died, and Ethelbert . . . undauntedly, for five years, held the kingdom. Then was Ethelred, the third brother, raised to the throne.

ness.

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§ 4. In his days waxed the woes of warfare utterly unbearable. On every side the Heathen burst in. Northumbria had they raided, had taken York, had harried East Anglia, had fallen upon Mercia; and at Nottingham were they now wintering, in the year of our Lord 866 [868]. Against them did King Burghred raise a great force, and, being strengthened also by that of Ethelred, King of the West Saxons, and his brother Alfred (for he had wedded their sister), he made the Heathen to quit Nottingham and go back unto York. In this campaign did Earl Algar the Younger show himself a mighty man of valour, and thereby was held in high honour of King Burghred and his brethren of Wessex. Good friend, moreover, was he to our Abbey of Crowland. . . .

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§ 5. But in the next year after [869], as soon as winter was gone, the Heathen host crossed over by ship into Lindesey [Northern Lincolnshire] and laid waste all that land. Now harried they the monastery of Bardney, of old renown, and slew every monk there in the church, without pity. All that summer consumed they the land to ashes; and, about Michaelmas, entered Kesteven [South-western Lincolnshire]; and wasted, and slew, and gave unto the flames all that was therein.

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§ 6. At length, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 870, in the month of September... there gathered together unto Earl Algar the whole youth of Holland [South-eastern Lincolnshire], along with a band from Crowland Abbey, 200 sturdy warriors, . . . led on by Tolius, a lay brother of that House, who, before his conversion, had been a champion of fame throughout all Mercia. . . . Beside these there gathered also, from Deeping, Langtoft, and Boston, some 300 valiant men, and, over all, Morcar, Lord of Bourn, with his household, many and brave. The Sheriff of Lincoln, also, Osgot by name, came in with the men of Lincoln, 500 strong. All these gat them together unto Kesteven; and, on the Feast of St. Maurice the Martyr [September 22], waged battle against the Heathen. And, by the gift of God, theirs was the victory. Three Kings of the foemen were there slain, and of the Host an untold number, and the Christians chased and cut down the savages even to the doors of their tents. There did the Danes make a desperate stand; and nightfall put an end to the fight, and the victorious Earl drew off his army.

§ 7. Throughout that night came there into the Heathen camp from the country round (whither they had raided forth, each in his allotted share) all the rest of their Kings-Guthrum, to wit, and Baseg, and Oskytel, and Halfdene, and Hanımond; and the like number of Earls— Frena, to wit, and Ingwar, and Hubba, and the two Sidrocs, elder and younger; along with their hosts, and untold spoil, and many a [captive] woman and many a child. No sooner was their coming known, than the most of the Christians fled away, panic-stricken, that same night, and of 8,000 men there abode with Earl Algar but 2,000. Yet were all of these ready to die for Christ and Country; they heard Divine Service, they received the Holy Viaticum; and, at dawn, went they forth into the field.

§ 8. The dauntless Earl, seeing his army in evil case, placed brother Tolius and his 500 on the right, as before . . . giving him also . . . Morcar of Bourn with his followers. Osgot, the renowned Sheriff of Lincoln, placed he on the left, . . . with Harding of Ryhall, and all the men of Stamford; and a brave and warrior youth they were. Mad were

the Danes at the slaughter of their men; and very early in the morning they buried their three Kings in the town which of yore was called Laundon, but now, from these same three Kings, is called Threekingham [between Sleaford and Bourn]

§ 9. So few were the Christians that they drew together and formed one troop, in shape like unto a wedge, and all day long stood they firm and still, holding their firm wall of shields against the foemen's arrow

flight, and their dense line of spears against the wild charges of the horse. So stood they unbroken even until nightfall; spent were the foemen's shafts; worn out were their horsemen with long toils. Then, at an afore-planned signal, made they as though to flee, and turned them from the field. Whereon the Christians, at this sight, despite of the word of command, and all that their leaders could do or say, broke line, and scattered all over the field, chasing the Heathen, in unordered throng, and leaderless.

§ 10. Then did the savages turn again, and fell upon them, even as raging lions upon sheep. But, when the valiant Earl Algar and the above-named leaders saw that the best of their army were fallen, then made they one dash all together to where the Christian corpses lay heaped up the thickest. And there to the uttermost of their strength avenged they their blood on all who drew nigh; till at length, pierced with countless wounds, upon the bodies of their brethren fell they, one and all. Hardly did a few young men of Sutton and of Gedney make off, casting away their arms, to a neighbouring wood, and in the following night came unto the monastery of Crowland. There found they Theodore the Abbot and his convent at Mattins,' and even while the office was saying, entered they the church door, and with weeping and wailing told their tidings-how that the Christians were slaughtered, and brother Tolius with them, and all his whole band utterly cut off.

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§ 11. At this news all was confusion. And the Abbot, keeping with himself the oldest of the monks, and a few of the children [of the Abbey School]... bade all those in their prime to take along with them the sacred relics of the monastery (namely the holy body of St. Guthlac, his scourge, and his psalter), and the other chief treasures, and thus to flee into the neighbouring fens. . With sorrow of heart did they his bidding, and, having laden a boat with the aforesaid relics and the charters of the Kings, they cast into the cloister well the frontal of the High Altar (which was covered with plates of gold), along with ten chalices . . . and other vessels. But the end of the frontal, so long was it, always showed above the water; whereupon they drew it out and left it with the Abbot; for ever could they see the flames of the towns in Kesteven draw nigher and nigher, and feared lest the Heathen should on a sudden burst in upon them. So took they boat, and came unto the wood of Ancarig [Thorney] on the southern march of their islet. And here abode they with Brother Toretus, an anchorite, and other brethren, then dwelling there, four days, thirty in all, of whom ten were priests. But the Abbot, and two old men with him, hid the aforesaid frontal outside the church, to the north ; and afterwards he and all the rest, clad in their sacred vestments, met in choir, and kept the Hours of Divine Service according to their Rule. And the whole of the Psalms of David went they through from end to end. After this sang they High Mass, the Abbot himself being Celebrant.

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1 The Midnight Service of the Breviary.

§ 12. Now, when the Mass was drawing to an end, and the Abbot and his deacon and subdeacon and the taper-bearers had already communicated in the Holy Mysteries, came the Heathen bursting into the church. And upon the very Altar, by the cruel hand of King Oscytel, was the venerable Abbot himself sacrified, a true martyr and victim of Christ. All they who stood round and ministered with him were beheaded by the savages; and the aged men and children, as they fled from the choir, were taken and questioned under the bitterest tortures, to make them show the treasures of the church. Dom1 Asker, the Prior, was slain in the vestry, and Dom Lethwyn, Sub-prior, in the refectory. Behind him there followed close Brother Turgar,2 a ten year child, shapely, and of a fair countenance; who, when he saw his superior slain, besought earnestly that he too might be slain with him. But Earl Sidroc the Younger, touched with pity for the lad, stripped him of his cowl, and gave him a Danish cloak [collobio], bidding him follow everywhere his steps. And thus, out of all who abode in the monastery, old and young, he alone was saved; coming and going amongst the Danes throughout all his sojourn amongst them, even as one of themselves, through this Earl's favour and protection.

§ 13. Now when all the monks had been done to death by the torturers, and no whit of the Abbey treasures shown thereby, the Danes, with spades and ploughshares, brake open right and left all the sepulchres of the Saints round about that of St. Guthlac. On the right was that of St. Cissa, priest and anchorite, and of St. Bettelin, a man of God, erst an attendant on St. Guthlac, and of Dom Siward [the Abbot] of blessed memory. And on the left was that of St. Egbert, St. Guthlac's scribe and confessor, and of St. Tatwin, the pilot who guided St. Guthlac to Crowland.... All these did the savages burst open, looking to find treasure therein. And finding none, they were filled with indignation; and piling up all these holy bodies on an heap, in piteous wise, they set fire to them, and, on the third day after their coming, that is to say, on the 7th of the Kalends of October [September 25], they utterly consumed them, church and monastery and all.

§ 14. But on the fourth day off they went, with countless droves of beasts and pack-horses, to Medehampstead [Peterborough]. And there, dashing at the outer precinct [primam collectam] of the monastery, with its barred gates, they assailed the walls on every side with arrows and machines. At the second assault the Heathen brake in, and in the very breach Tubba, the brother of Earl Hubba, fell grievously wounded by a stone cast. By the hands of his guards he was borne into the tent of Hubba his brother, and despaired even of life. Then did Hubba's rage boil over, and he was altogether wild against the monks, so that he slew with his own hand every soul clad in the religious habit; the rest sprang upon the rest; not one in the whole monastery was saved; both the 1 Dominus is thus abbreviated amongst Benedictines. * This name appears in Thurgar-ton, Northamptonshire.

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