long resided.

At a particular time of the year, namely in the summer months, at ten or eleven in the forenoon, the sunbeams fall in the inside of the northern part of the choir; and 'tis there that spectators who stand at the west side of Whitby Churchyard so as just to see the most northerly part of the Abbey, past the north of Whitby Church, imagine they perceive in one of the highest windows there the resemblance of a woman arrayed in a shroud. Though we are certain this is only a reflection, caused by the splendour of the sun's beams, yet report says and it is constantly believed among the vulgar to be an appearance of Lady Hilda in her shroud, or rather in her glorified state."

The seal of Whitby Abbey has on one side St. Peter under a church, with a key in his left hand, his right hand raised in benediction. The legend runs :- SIGILL. SCI: PETRI ET SCE: HILDE: DE WYTEBY : MONAS. On the reverse is a figure of St. Hilda, her left hand on her breast, her right hand holding a crosier, and this legend:-YMAGO VIRGINIS HYLDE.2

St. Hilda holds an important place in the Corporation Seals of Hartlepool. One seal has her full-face figure standing under a pinnacled canopy, holding a crosier in her right hand and a book in her left. On either side is a vested priest, facing inwards with uplifted hands, standing before an altar on which is a chalice. Above the head of each priest is a sacred dove holding the Sacred Host in its mouth. Above the right-hand figure is a six-pointed star, above the left-hand figure a quarter moon. The legend is :SUBVENIAT . FAMUL(IS) NOBIL(IS). HILDA. SUIS. "Let noble Hilda help her servants." In another seal there is a triple-pinnacled canopy. Hilda occupies the centre, a book in her right hand, while the left grasps a crosier. On either side there is a bishop fully vested, facing front, each with a crosier in the left hand, the right hand raised giving the blessing-all stand on a couching hart, probably intended as a punning allusion to the name of the town. The legend is :-S. OFFICII; . MAJORIS. DE . HERTILPOL. "Official Seal of the Mayor of Hartlepool."

1 No matter in what form these local legends have come down to us they are always worth preserving.

2 This seal was discovered at York, affixed to a lease granted by Henry Davel, the last Abbot of Whitby, January 10th, 1538. It was probably made in the time of Abbot Richard II, e.g. Richard de Waterville, 1177-90. Peter's face and some other parts are much damaged (Young's Whitby, Vol, II, Appendix iii, p. 936).

3 Beautiful impressions of the Corporation Seals of Hartlepool were kindly sent to me by the Town Clerk, from which these blocks are reproduced. In the British Museum is a sulphur cast (No. 4328) from a fine impression of a thirteenth century seal of Whitby Abbey, with the same legend. It is two inches in diameter. St. Hilda the abbess, standing on a bracket, in the right hand a crozier, curved outwards, and in the left a book, between two altars, on each

After her death many churches were named in honour of St. At Hinderwell' a well in the churchyard is dedicated to her, as also is the church. At Egton a church was consecrated in honour of her by the Bishop of Damascus (acting for the Archbishop of York), on the 13th June, 1349.2 Hartlepool, South Shields, Danby-in-Cleveland, the chapel below Kildale Park, Thorpe-on-Tees, Bilsdale, Ellerburne, Ampleforth, Sherburn, near Scarborough, and recently Middlesbrough, and Knowstrop, near Leeds, are all dedicated to her, whilst Hackness is dedicated to St. Mary and St. Hilda, and many others.

The abbey which Hilda erected was destroyed by the Danes under Ingwa and Ubba, sons of Radnor Lodbrog, or Rough Breeches, in 866 or 867, when Titus, the then abbot, fled, as was contended, with the relics of St. Hilda to Glastonbury. It lay a

of them a chalice, and before each a priest, standing on a bracket, lifting up the hands to consecrate the mass. Over the head of each priest a bird flying with a wafer in its beak. Above these, in the field, a crescent on the right, and a star of six points on the left; all beneath an arched, churchlike canopy, with a cross on each gable, supported on two slender columns.

1 More properly Hilderwell.

2 Graves' History of Cleveland, p. 283, quoting Torre's MSS. This must have been a re-dedication, as it appears from the Papal Letters (I, 537) that a relaxation of one year and forty days of enjoined penance was granted in 1291 to penitents visiting the church of St. Hilda of Egeton on the four feasts of the Blessed Virgin, on that of St. Hilda, and in their octaves.

In July, 1833, while excavating in "Cross Close," about 135 yards S. E. of the present church of St. Hilda, the workmen came upon the ancient cemetery. Many skeletons were found with their heads resting on small flat stones, as on pillows, and over those other stones marked with crosses and inscriptions, in Runes and Romanesque letters. Two have the Greek letters A . Many were dispersed and lost at the time, but some are now in existence, e.g. one in the Durham Cathedral Library (see "Notes on the History of S. Begu and S. Hild, and on some relics of antiquity discovered on the sites of the religious establishments founded by them. Hartlepool; printed by J. Proctor, High Street," n.d.). That account is illustrated by nine woodcuts representing Hartlepool stones, with their inscriptions, viz. r(eqviesc(i)t . . . . (lo)co

? (fragment) A Hildithryth; Hild

digyth; Ediluini; Ora pro Uermund & Torhtsuid; Orate pro Ediluini; Orate pro Uermund et Torhtsuid; A Berchtgyd; Kanegneub; (Ora)te p(ro) Bregusv.. guguid. This last the writer (D. H. Haigh) thought to be the memorial of Breguswid, the mother of St. Hilda. The latter part may be a portion of another name. There are also notices of memorials at Healaugh and at Hackness. Some of the names are found in the Epistles of St. Boniface addressed to Anglo-Saxon nuns (see Yorkshire Archeological Journal, Vol. III, p. 349, et seq.). 4 Guisborough Chartulary (Surtees Society), II, 389.

5 Lawton's Diocesis Eboracensis (London, 1842), and other sources.

6

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, sub annis 866, 867

7 An annotator of Leland (Collectanea, IV, 39) states that Abbot Titus fled to Glastonbury with the relics of St. Hilda. In a pedigree of the Percy family, printed in the Whitby Chartulary (Surtees Society, II, 689), William Percy, the first abbot of that house (about 1109), is alleged to have acquired by a miracle from Glastonbury the head, arm, and two thighs of the Blessed Virgin Hilda. Bishop Stubbs, in his introduction to the Memorials of St. Dunstan (Rolls Series, p. cxvi), speaking of the alleged removal of St. Dunstan's bones to Glastonbury, and showing that the legend was for the glorification of that house, proceeds :-"King Edmund (941-946) was believed to have removed from the north to Glastonbury the bones of Aidan, Ceolfrid, and Hilda, and these Saints had special commemorations at Glastonbury so early that the invention of the story cannot

heap of ruins for more than two hundred years,' when Reinfrid, 1074, with some willing associates, restored the desecrated monastery.2 A noble building was raised, and the house continued to flourish in great wealth and splendour until the Dissolution, when it was stripped of everything valuable and movable, unroofed, leaving nothing but naked walls, a skeleton of its former grandeur, to battle with those certain causes of decay-Time and the elements.

The existing building has been erected at several periods, but for the most part is Early English in style (middle 13th century). It is built of inferior sandstone, so it is no wonder that:

"The wasting sea-breeze keen

Has worn the pillars carving quaint,

And mouldered in his niche the saint."

The great tower fell on 25th June, 1830. The frontispiece shows the ruins as they were in 1815.

"They dreamt not of a perishable home who thus could build." Little did the men who raised that and other splendid churches, sparing no pains to beautify the House of God, little did they think that a time would come when the words they so often chanted in their service would be literally fulfilled :-"Thine adversaries roar in the midst of Thy congregations, and set up their banners for tokens.

.... But now they break down all the carved work thereof with axes and hammers. They have set fire upon Thy holy places, and have defiled the dwelling-place of Thy Name, even unto the ground."

fairly be ascribed to William of Malmesbury. Edward and Odo were believed to have carried off the body of St. Wilfrid from Ripon to Canterbury. These were cases in which the bodies of the Saints were removed to save them from the profane hand of the Norsemen." See also William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum, I, 56, 60, and Gesta Pontificum, 198, both in the Rolls Series.

1 From about 867 or 870 to 1074.

2 Reinfrid, "miles strenuissimus in obsequio domini sui Willelmi Nothi Regis," eventually became a monk of Evesham, and coming into favour of William de Percy he was granted "the ancient monastery of S. Peter the Apostle, together with two carucates of land in Prestebi in frankalmoign. At that time there were as ancient countrymen have delivered to us about forty cells or oratories, but roofless and in ruins, only the disused and shelterless altars remained." These cells or oratories were probably very similar to the early Christian buildings still remaining in Ireland, as

Scelig Mhichil, St. Michael's Rock, off the
Kerry coast, and the Seven Churches at
Glendalough, County Wicklow. One of
the best examples is on the Brough of
Deerness, in the Orkneys, where there
are the remains of a small church,
surrounded by eighteen cells, all enclosed
by a stone wall. See the plan in
Anderson's Scotland in Early Christian
Times, p. 102. Reinfrid became the
first abbott, and in 1178 was joined
by Stephen, who afterwards became
abbot of St. Mary's, York (Whitby
Chartulary, I, 1). The above shows that
the earlier monastery had grown to
extensive proportions, and had been a
stone structure with massive, strong, and
well-built walls, of which considerable
remains were still standing in 1078 (Ibid.,
Preface, p. xxvi). Many of the stones,
perhaps all, would be used for the present
building, thus preserving its continuity.
3 Phillips' Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-
coast of Yorkshire.

4 Newspaper Records.
5 Psalm Ixxiv, 5, 7, 8.

It is easy to picture their deep sorrow had they lived to see the sad scene of desolation.

"The sacred tapers' lights are gone,

Grey moss has clad the altar-stone,
The holy image is overthrown,

The bell has ceased to toll.

The long-ribbed aisles are burst and shrunk,
The holy shrines to ruin sunk,

Departed is the pious monk,

God's blessing on his soul!"1

Arms of Whitby Abbey:-Azure, three snakes, encircled "roset," two and one, above the shield are placed the head of a cross and a mitre argent, the circlet whereof is or (Tonge's Visitation of Yorkshire (Surtees Society), p. 22).

APPENDIX.

MASS OF ST. HILDA.

(York Missal, Surtees Society, Vol. II, pp. 91, 157.)

OF ST. HILDA, VIRGIN, viii Kal. Sept. (August 25).

Officium (Introit). Dilexisti. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

Oratio (Collect). Omnipotens sempiterne. O Almighty and Everlasting God, grant unto us that with fitting devotion we may rejoice in the feast of blessed Hilda Thy Virgin; that in her departure we may both praise Thy power and obtain the help provided for us, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Or, as in one MS.,

Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we who rejoice in the yearly solemnity of blessed Hilda Thy Virgin, may by her intercession be changed from that which is old into newness of life, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Epistola (Epistle). Qui gloriatur. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord, so that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor., X, 17-xi, 2).

1 The Abbot, Sir W. Scott, ch. viii,