Winchester cathedral close; its historical and literary associations

WINCHESTER^
CATHEDRAL CLOSE

1

DA 690 .W67 V3 1914
Vaughan, John, 1855-1922.
Winchester cathedral close

WINCHESTER
CATHEDRAL CLOSE

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the Internet Archive

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https://archive.org/details/winchestercathedOOvaug_0

WINCHESTER
CATHEDRAL CLOSE

ITS HISTORICAL AND LITERARY
ASSOCIATIONS

BY

JOHN VAUGHAN, M.A,

CANON RESIDENTIARY OF WINCHESTER

London

Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1 Amen Corner, E.G.
And at Bath, New York and Melbourne
1914

Printed by Sir Isaac Pitman &
Sons, Ltd., London, Bath, New
York and Melbourne . 1914

To

The Dean and Chapter

OF

Winchester

PREFACE

The Cathedral Close of Winchester is so full
of literary and historical associations that no
apology is needed for the present volume.
Rather it must remain a matter of surprise
that a work specially deahng with the sub-
ject has been so long delayed. The materials,
moreover, are not scanty, and owing in a
great measure to the labours of the late Dean
Kitchin in transcribing and editing so many
of our old rolls and documents, are easily
accessible. Indeed the result of his labours,
published in the proceedings of the Hamp-
shire Record Society and elsewhere, has
rendered my task a comparatively light one,
and I cannot well exaggerate my indebtedness
to his antiquarian zeal.

In addition to Dean Kitchin's writings I
have, of course, consulted the well-recognised
authorities on Winchester, such as Bishop
Milner's classical History ^'^ the works of Gale,
Warton, Wavell, WilUs, Britton, and Wood-
ward, as well as many other books, documents
and pubHcations too numerous to mention. To

* My references are to the third edition of this work,
vii

PREFACE

the Abbot Gasquet's writings I would grate-
fully acknowledge my obligations, especially to
his great work on the English monasteries, and
to his charming essays on mediaeval libraries.
In the chapter entitled The Cradle of Eng-
lish Prose I found much assistance from an
excellent little treatise on " King Aelfred/*
by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, and from
the Cambridge History of English Literature.
The second volume of Winchester Cathedral
Documents^ edited by the late Dean Stephens
and by Canon Madge our Cathedral librarian,
and published by the Hampshire Record
Society,*' was of much service in connection
with the period of the Commonwealth and the
Restoration ; while in Chapter II (Part II) Sir
George Warner's " Introduction to the
facsimile edition of St. Aethelwold's Benedic-
tional proved to be invaluable.

Some of the chapters in this volume have
already appeared, in whole or in part, in
various reviews and magazines, and I desire
to express my obligations to those editors
who have kindly allowed me to reproduce
them. To the editor of The Treasury my
thanks are specially due, for as many as ten
papers, in a more or less complete form, first
saw the light in the pages of his excellent

viii

PREFACE

magazine. The chapter entitled Bishop
Morley's Library was published in The
Fortnightly ; those headed After the Refor-
mation and At the Commonwealth
appeared as one article in The Church
Quarterly ; ' part of the chapter entitled

St. Swithun's Scriptorium " appeared in The
English Church Review ; while The Birds
of the Close " enjoyed the hospitality of The
Cornhill. To the editors and proprietors of
these publications I tender my cordial and
grateful thanks.

For several of the illustrations and for
the Plan of the Close I am indebted to
Mr. N. C. H. Nisbett, our able architectural
surveyor. I specially desire to place on
record the help I have received from my
esteemed friend Mr. Francis Joseph Baigent,
whose intimate knowledge of Winchester and
whose wide antiquarian learning has ever
been placed most generously at my disposal.

JOHN VAUGHAN.

The Close, Winchester.
Christmas, 1913.

^ For October, 1911, under the title "Winchester
Cathedral Library from the Reformation to the Common-
wealth."

ix

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE vii

PART I
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS

CHAP.

I. IN ANCIENT DAYS 1

II. THE MONASTIC ENCLOSURE . . .11

III. THE CLOSE WALLS 16

IV. THE RUINED CHAPTER-HOUSE ... 24

V. THE prior's hall 33

VI. THE monks' refectory . . . .41
VII. THE MONASTIC UNDERCROFT ... 53
VIII. THE GUEST-HOUSE OR PILGRIMS' HALL . 62

IX. THE PRIORY STABLES .... 74

X. THE LOCKBOURNE 87

XI. CHEYNEY COURT 95

XII. OTHER RELICS OF MONASTIC DAYS . .100

XIII. THE LAST PRIOR 106

XIV. A FAMOUS PREBENDARY . . . .125
XV. THE CLOSE GARDENS . . . .140

XVI. THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE . . .148

PART II
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS

I. THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE . 167

II. THE SCHOOL OF AETHELWOLD . . . 184

III. ST. SWITHUN'S SCRIPTORIUM . . .196

IV. AFTER THE REFORMATION . . . .211
V. AT THE COMMONWEALTH .... 228

VI. BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY 241

VII. IN THE LIBRARY 260

INDEX 277

XI

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE CLOSE GATEWAY . . . Frontispiece

FACING
PAGE

THE prior's hall . . . ... 12

REMAINS OF CHAPTER HOUSE .... 24

DEANERY, SHOWING 13TH CENTURY CLOISTER . 34

THE GUESTS HOUSE OR PILGRIMS' HALL . . 62

„ FACING WEST ... 70

THE CONVENT STABLES 74

CHEYNEY COURT 96

BULLA OF POPE MARTINUS V 102

THE KINGSMILL PANEL 106

ken's PREBENDAL house (now PULLED DOWN) . 136

PLAN OF THE CLOSE 164

INITIAL B. OF THE PSALTER IN VULGATE . . 202

THE MORLEY LIBRARY . . . . . 248

xii

PART I
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS

WINCHESTER
CATHEDRAL CLOSE

CHAPTER I

IN ANCIENT DAYS

The Close of Winchester Cathedral occupies
a site of hoary antiquity. In primeval days
it was doubtless a desolate swamp, with
thick jungles of reeds and rushes, the haunt
of snipe and curlew, of bittern and avocet,
and other wildfowl. In very early times,
however, the position was occupied by some
Celtic tribe, whose flint implements are still
occasionally picked up on the adjacent downs,
where their barrows or burying-places may
be seen. For some three hundred years it
was the site of a Roman settlement, from
which straight roads diverged to Porchester,
Silchester, Sarum, and other stations. If we
may trust our monastic chronicler, Thomas
Rudborne, who quotes from a lost work by
one Vigilantius, 1 as early as the year 169 a

* See Willis' paper in Proceedings of the Archaeological
Institute for 1845, p. 3 w.

1

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Christian church was here founded by the
British king, Lucius, who also estabUshed a
community of monks. During the Diocletian
persecution (a.d. 266), which raged even in
Britain, the church and monastery were
destioyed, and the monks, including St.
Amphibalus, were slain. Later on a new
church was built and dedicated to the mar-
tyred saint. When at length the pagan
Saxons under King Cerdic ruled the land,
the church of St. Amphibalus was converted
into a heathen temple, and so remained for
nearly one hundred and fifty years. Then
came the missionary Birinus, who in the year
635 converted Cynegils the king, and all his
people to Christianity. The king, we learn,
destroyed the heathen temple and set about
building, doubtless on the same spot, a
Cathedral church, which was completed by
his son, Cenwalh and dedicated by Birinus
in the year of Our Lord 648. For more than
three hundred years the Cathedral of Cenwalh,
associated with the names of Kiag Aelfred
and of St. Swithun, remained the mother-
church of the diocese, when it was replaced
by the more magnificent minster of St.
Aethelwold, and duly consecrated in the
presence of King Aethelred, Archbishop

2

IN ANCIENT DAYS

Dunstan, and other notable personages on
20th October, 980. For a time also Winchester
was the seat of a great Scandinavian empire,
and it was over the high altar of St. Aethel-
wold's Cathedral that King Cnut hung up
his golden crown in token of his fealty to
Christ. Later on followed the Norman inva-
sion, when, after the manner of the conquerors,
the Saxon churches were everywhere rebuilt ;
and Bishop Waekelin erected the splendid
Cathedral of which the main portions remain
until this day. The building was consecrated
in 1093 in the presence,'* we are told, " of
almost all the bishops and abbots of Eng-
land,'* and on 15th July the sacred relics of
St. Swithun were solemnly enshrined in the
new church. The Benedictine community,
established by St. Aethelwold a century
before, continued to flourish beneath the
shelter of the great cathedral until the
time of the Reformation, when, with other
similar establishments, it was dissolved by
Henry VIII.

Such, in rapid outline, are some of the
changes which the spot known as the Cathe-
dral Close has witnessed during a period of
over two thousand years. The very names
by which the locaHty has been called bear

3

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

witness to its many vicissitudes. The early
Caer Gwent, the Roman Venta Belgarum,
the tenth-century Winteceastre, the modern
Winchester, all testify to successive stages of
growth and civilisation. Temples of Con-
cord and of Apollo doubtless once stood
within a stone's throw of the present Cathe-
dral. The Cathedral itself is probably the
fifth Christian edifice that has occupied the
situation, while from the second centuiy to
the sixteenth, with certain periods of inter-
ruption, a community of monks ministered
upon the spot.

It is, therefore, not surprising if now and
again during some work of excavation the
spade should reveal relics of bygone history.
This, indeed, has been not infrequently the
case, especially during the time of under-
pinning the Cathedral, including the building
of the new buttresses, carried out during the
years 1905-1912.

The most ancient relic, which takes us
back to a period anterior to Christianity,
consisted of a bronze ring, which was found
embedded in the peat, ten to twelve feet
below the surface, at the south-east angle
of the south transept of the Cathedral. The

find " which was submitted to the authorities

4

IN ANCIENT DAYS

of the British Museum, is pronounced to
be of late Celtic workmanship, " well made,
having a wavy pattern in a groove
round the middle of the outside."^ Its
original use was possibly connected with
harness, and its probable date somewhere
about B.C. 50, the time of Julius Caesar's
invasion.

Considering that Winchester was a Roman
settlement for some three hundred years, it
was not unnaturally expected that some
evidence of Roman occupation would be
brought to light. A few years ago a fine
piece of tesselated pavement was unearthed
in one of the Close gardens, showing con-
clusively that a Roman villa once stood
upon the spot. Early in 1911, while exca-
vating beneath the wall of the south aisle
of the Cathedral, near to Bishop Curie's
slype, the workmen came upon, at a depth
of eight feet below the present surface,
another piece of tesselated pavement. The
fragment, 2 which measured three feet and a
half by two feet, was with great care lifted
entire, and was seen to be of geometrical
airangement in three colours — red, buff, and

^ This relic is now preserved in the Cathedral Library.
* Now in the Deanery vestibule.

5

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

black. The tesserae when first uncovered
were as brilHant as when they were arranged
by Roman workmen at least sixteen cen-
turies ago, but on exposure to the hght and
air the colours gradually faded. It was
interesting to notice that the pattern, both
in design and colour, was similar to that of
another example discovered in Little Minster
Street some years ago and now preserved in
the City museum. Immediately under the
tesselated pavement was found a Roman
coin, which proved to be a sestertius of the
Emperor Nero, and close by a dupondius of
Claudius, thus carrying us back to the first
century of the Christian era. In the same
excavation, but at a slightly lower level,
there was also discovered, in addition to
broken fragments of pottery and a number
of red Roman tiles, a large ovoid dolium or
urn which was found to contain pieces of
bone and other remains of incineration. The
vessel, which measured eighteen inches in
height and had a pointed base, was made
of a coarse, buff-coloured ware, and was
unbroken except for injuries it had received
long ages ago. The rim of the vessel was
missing, and the top had been covered over
with two loose pieces of broken pottery,

6

IN ANCIENT DAYS

through which the water and mud had per-
colated. The custom of using such imperfect
receptacles as depositories for ashes seems to
have been not uncommon, and other examples
have been discovered in the neighbourhood
of Winchester. Close to where the dolium
was found the workmen came upon, at a
depth of nine feet from the surface, a rough
flint wall some eighteen inches in thickness and
of a semicircular shape. That the masonry
was older than the Cathedral was evident,
for the wall ran beneath the present Norman
foundations. Being in the form of an apse,
it was thought at first that the foundation
might have belonged to an earlier Saxon
church ; but the apsidal end pointed to-
wards the west, and in all probability the
wall was the work of Roman masons, and
had some connection with the villa to which
the tesselated pavement belonged.

An extremely rare and interesting relic of
Anglo-Saxon times was dug up in the Close,
on the south side of the Cathedral, in the year
1905. It consists of a circular bronze brooch
a little more than an inch in diameter, and
with the pin and fastenings intact. The
central ornament or disc is surrounded by
a border of five concentric dotted fines,

7

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

across which is inscribed the name HERE-
MOD in a retrograde and blundering
manner. The brooch has been submitted
to the authorities of the British Museum,
and the Keeper of Coins tells us that its
main interest is due to the fact that the
central disc is a copy of the reverse type of
a penny of Edward the Elder, son of Alfred
the Great, from which it only varies in not
having a rosette at each termination of the
straight line above the name HEREMOD
which in the case of the coin is that of the
''moneyer/' It is evident,*' he adds, that
the maker of the brooch copied his design
from an impression of the penny of Edward,
and, as he was probably unable to read, he
only reproduced the impression as it lay
before him, and in consequence inscribed
the name backwards. The inscription is too
crude to suggest that the brooch was cast
in a mould made from the coin itself, in
which case it would not have been retrograde.
Edward's reign extended from a.d. 901 to
925. As, however, the coins of this type
must have been struck somewhat late in his
reign, we cannot put the making of the
brooch earlier than about 920 a.d. It pro-
bably occurred some little time later." It

8

IN ANCIENT DAYS

will be allowed that this ancient ornament,^
in a state of almost perfect preservation,
carrying us back in thought for a thousand
years to a time when King Alfred's shade
was said to haunt the cloisters, is a relic of
rare interest.

Of the period when Winchester was the
centre of a Danish kingdom a striking
momento was discovered, some twelve feet
below the surface, at the south-east corner
of the south transept of the Cathedral. It
consists of a strip or panel of engraved
bronze, ten inches and a half in length, an
inch and a half in breadth, and of about
the thickness of a halfpenny. The panel is
covered with a curious interlacing scroll-
work springing from a cruciform pattern at
the centre, and the ground is indicated by
closely-punched rings.*' The cruciform pat-
tern is of the form of a Greek cross, and
the general style of decoration is one with
which Scandinavian archaeologists are
familiar. The edges of the panel are shghtly
broken in places, but the rivet-holes remain
in an almost perfect condition, and consist
of seven at each end, with a single hole
in the centre. This find '' too, has been

* Now in the Cathedral Library.

9

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

submitted to the antiquarian department of the
British Museum, and it is pronounced to be
an object of remarkable interest, being of
Viking or Scandinavian workmanship, and
of a date probably ranging between the
years 1000 and 1050. With regard to its
use, it is suggested that it may have been
attached to a book-cover, or possibly to a
cofhn. The former suggestion seems to be
the most probable, for no traces of any other
material were found with it, and the panel
is just such an ornament as might have been
affixed to the binding of some valuable manu-
script. The relic is now carefully preserved
in the Cathedral Library.

10

CHAPTER II

THE MONASTIC ENCLOSURE

There is a deep sense of quiet and seclusion
associated with monastic churches and
remains. They retain something of their
ancient peace. The precincts of Westminster
Abbey, the cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral,
the ruins of Tintern or of Netley Abbey, all
testify to mediaeval piety and repose. When
Edmund Burke visited Westminster Abbey,
" the very silence,'' he said, seemed sacred.'*
Similar testimony is borne by Addison and
Gray, by Daniel Webster and Washington
Irving. So, too, with our great Puiitan
poet : —

" Let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antick pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light." ^

Nowhere is this feeling more deeply
realised than in the monastic enclosure of
St. Swithun's Priory now known as the
Cathedral Close of Winchester. Its history

* Milton's Penseroso. 155-160.

11

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

may be roughly divided into two distinct
periods, the one when for over six hundred
years it formed the precincts of a great
Benedictine house, and the other dating
from the Dissolution of the monastery in
the sixteenth century to the present time.
The line of demarcation is a deep one, and
it is sometimes difficult as one wanders
through the well-kept close, with its pictur-
esque houses and tranquil lawns, to conjure
up in imagination the days of old when a
priory occupied the site, and black-robed
brethren moved about the sacred enclosure.

The appearance of the Close has almost
entirely changed since the days of the Bene-
dictine monks. Most of the Priory buildings
have disappeared. The cloisters were des-
troyed in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and
only a few piers and arches of the Norman
chapter-house remain to testify to its former
beauty. The enclosure, however, is still
entered by the ancient monastic gateway,
and girt about with lofty mediaeval walls,
and sheltered by the same mighty cathedral.
The Prior's hall or refectory is still standing
and forms part of the present deanery. The
convent stables may also be seen ; and part
of the guest-house or pilgrim's hall on the

12

THE MONASTIC ENCLOSURE

eastern side of Mirabel Close. In one of the
houses a fine vaulted chamber is used as a
dining-hall. The underground water-courses,
known as the Lockbourne, which formerly
cleansed the monastery, also remain ; and
the swift stream of clear water, introduced
by St. Aethelwold in the tenth century, still
murmurs of monastic peace.

Changed as is the appearance of the Close
since the time of the Dissolution, it yet
remains the very same enclosure which for
six huadred years was dedicated to the
Benedictme duties of work and prayer, and
which has witnessed more than one interest-
ing event in English history. Here are
m.emories of gentle saints like St. Swithun,
of mighty churchmen like St. Aethelwold,
of learned men like Prior Godfrey, of states-
man-bishops such as Wykeham and Wayn-
flete, as Richard Fox, and Stephen Gardiner.
Within the Close flourished, too, for many
centuries a school of art and learning, at one
time the most famous in Europe ; while to
the shrine of St. Swithun there flocked for
many centuries thousands of pilgrims from
every quarter.

Sometimes events of a more historic
character took place within the monastic

13

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

enclosure. The chroniclers declare that the
red-hot plough-shares over which Queen Emma
walked unharmed in the nave of the Cathe-
dral were afterwards buried in the Close
near the refectory. Early in August, 1100,
the body of the Red King, dripping gore all
the way, was borne in a crazy two- wheeled
cart of a charcoal-burner from the New
Forest to St. Swithun's Priory for burial
within the Cathedral church. With the good
brethren of the monastery Richard I feasted
merrily after his return from captivity. In
the Norman chapter-house the worst of
English kings humbled himself at the feet
of Archbishop Langton. On St. James' Day,
1554, amid every accompaniment of splen-
dour, the ill-starred marriage of Queen Mary
and Philip of Spain was celebrated by Bishop
Gardiner in the Cathedral. Later on, in the
days of the great Rebellion, the Close was
looted by the rough troopers of the Parlia-
ment, who found, we are told, large store
of Popish books, pictures, and crucifixes
in the Canons' houses. After the Restoration
we catch glimpses of Charles II, who often
stayed at the Deanery and held his recep-
tions in the long gallery. At that time the
aged Izaak Walton was living in the Close

14

THE MONASTIC ENCLOSURE

with his daughter and son-in-law William
Hawkins who was a Prebendary of the
Cathedral. His kinsman, Thomas Ken, was
also a Prebendary ; and good Bishop Morley
was residing at Wolvesey on the other side
of St. Aethelwold's stream. It is pleasant
to think of the friends taking sweet counsel
together in the old monastic enclosure, and
to remember that three out of the four he
buried in the vast Cathedral. In death
they were not divided."

Such are some of the memories associated
with the Close of Winchester. The conditions
of life have changed indeed since St. Swithun
persuaded the monks and King Aethelbald
to build the original monastic walls. Other
aims and inteiests, other conceptions of life
and duty are now predominant ; even reli-
gion itself is presented in another form.
But the stillness of eternity still rests upon
the sacred enclosure ; the vain noises of the
world are shut out, and folly's dancing
foam melts if it cross the threshold."

16

CHAPTER III

THE CLOSE WALLS

There is a peculiar fascination about old
walls. They speak to us persuasively of the
past, and conjure up thoughts of bygone
legends and history. The Roman walls of
Silchester and of Porchester, the ancient
town walls of Southampton, the monastic
walls of Quarr Abbey in the Isle of Wight,
or of Beaulieu Abbey in the New Forest,
are alike eloquent with echoes of departed
days. Strange plants, too, are often found
on ancient walls where they have maintained
their position perhaps for centuries ; and
birds love to build their nests in the broken
and crumbling masonry.

The Close walls of Winchester, which shut
in the monastic enclosure, are full of interest.
The original wall, on the foundation of which
the present structure is reared, dates back
to the time of Aethelbald in the ninth cen-
tury. It is said that St. Swithun persuaded
the king and the monks to build this wall
around the precinct of the Cathedral against
the incursions of the Danes. There is nothing

16

THE CLOSE WALLS

improbable in the tradition. For the kindly
and sagacious saint, as we learn from the
old chronicles, was a diligent builder of
churches in the diocese, and a repairer of
those that had been ruined/' Moreover, as
William of Malmesbury tells us, he built a
stone bridge over the river Itchen, which
excited gieat wonder and admiration. At
the time when St. Swithun was busy with
his monastic wall, Aelfred was in all proba-
bility living with the good bishop, who acted
towards him as tutor and guardian, in the
palace of Wolvesey hard by, and the boy
must have watched the rising masonry with
interest. The wisdom of the undertaking
was soon manifest, for in the year 860 the
Danes, as we learn from the Anglo-Saxon
chronicle, stormed Winchester,'' though we
do not read that they harried the monastery.
In after years, too, on one occasion at least,
the walls helped to save the priory. In
1264, in the troublous times of Henry HI,
the citizens, fearing lest the monks should
admit Simon de Mont fort into the city,
made a furious onslaught on the convent.
The walls barred their approach, but a fierce
fight took place at the convent gate, and
several of the monks were slain. At length

17

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the citizens, failing to obtain an entry, set
fire to the gate, which, together with the
adjoining King's Gate and the church of St.
Swithun over it, was burnt down.^

The ancient and lofty walls, which with
the mighty grey fabric of the church entirely
surround the Close, give to it a deep sense of
seclusion and security. The present gate,
built in the fifteenth century, is shut and
barred every night, at ten o'clock in the
summer and at nine o'clock in the winter,
when unbroken silence reigns, save for the
hooting of the brown owls whose home is
in the hollow elms of Mirabel Close. The
walls in places are no less than eighteen feet
in height. Built originally of flint and rubble,
the masonry has been repaired again and
again in the course of centuries, sometimes
with stone, and sometimes with thin, richly-
coloured bricks, until at length it presents
an appeal ance of checkered and hoary
antiquity. The wide coping of red tiles
gives to it an additional touch of charm,
while wherever in the crumbling masonry a
wild plant can obtain a foothold it flourishes
happily out of harm's way.

1 Kitchin's Winchester in " Historic Towns " series,
p. 130.

18

THE CLOSE WALLS

It is indeed wonderful what a rich and
varied flora manages to exist on the walls
of the Close. In early spring a number of
tiny plants will be found in blossom along
the coping. The first to flower — a favoarite
with all lovers of our native flora — is the
little Draba verna or whitlow grass. Before
the end of February this humble bat attrac-
tive plant, with small, white flowers, will be
seen all along the crannied walls of the
Close. Later on, when the whitlow grass is
in seed, the mouse-ear chickweed, the rue-
leaved saxifrage, the procumbent pearl-wort,
and several kinds of veronica or speedwell,
will appear in abundance, and in places the
grey walls will be resplendent with the yellow
wallflower. Like several other species which
only frequent walls and ruins, the yellow
stocke gilloflowre,*' as the herbalists called
it, can hardly be considered indigenous, and
some authorities ascribe its introduction into
Britain to the agency of the Romans. But
it is now so completely naturahsed that it
would be sheer pedantry to refuse it a posi-
tion in the British flora ; and on the walls
of the old Priory, and of Wolvesey Castle
hard by, it has doubtless flourished since the
days of the Benedictine monks. As summer

19

3— (2306)

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

advances other and even more conspicuous
flowers will be blooming on the walls. The
coping will be covered with spreading cushions
of the yellow sedum or biting stonecrop, and
masses of the red spur- valerian, a.nd oi Antir-
rhinum majus or great snapdragon with its
varied and richly-coloured flowers, will make
a gorgeous display. Tall spikes, too, of the
great yellow mullein will stand sentinel over
the walls, and add dignity and distinction
to the flora of the Close. Another plant,
though like che wallflower not an indigenous
species, which calls for special notice on
account of its rarity and beauty, is the
Linaria purpurea^ or purple toadflax. Found
nowhere else in Hampshire it blossoms abun-
dantly on the western wall of the Close. A
native of the mountains of Southern Europe,
it is a stately and elegant plant, with tall
thin spikes of purple flowers which render
it very conspicuous.

A near relative of Linaria purpurea is the
lovely little ivy-leaved toadflax which in
places creeps all over the Close walls. In
the sixteenth century it seems to have been
unknown as a wild plant, for both Gerard
and Parkinson speak of it as growing wilde
upon walls in Italy, but in gardens with us.'*

20

THE CLOSE WALLS

It was doubtless, therefore, unlike the pelli-
tory-of-the-wall, a stranger to the monks in
mediaeval times. The latter species, however,
was widely known for its medicinal virtues.
Then, as now,

" The mouldering walls were seen
Hung with pellitory green " ;

and we may think of good brother Walter
de Longestocke, ^ M.A., the physician-monk
or Infirmarian of the Convent in the early
part of the fourteenth century, plucking
many a handful of the precious herb to
make a decoction for the ease and comfort
of those poor brothers troubled with stone
and gravell — a terribly common complaint
in the Middle Ages ; or boiling into a
syrup with honey, a spoonful of which was
to be drunk every morning by such as were
subject to the dropsy." With the pellitory-
of-the-wall are growing on the north walls
of the Close a few plants of the blue flea-bane
a choice and distinguished species.

In places the walls are thickly covered
with dense growths of ivy, which ever loves
to mantle old towers and ruins. Until re-
cently it entirely obscured an interesting

1 Obedientiary Rolls (Hants. Record Society), pp. 78. 101,
122.

21

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

relic of the Stuart period. Among the pre-
bendaries appointed by Bishop Morley was
Dr. John Nicholas, Warden of College, and
a friend of Thomas Ken the author of our
Morning and Evening Hymns. The Warden,
who built School,'' occupied as his pre-
bendal house the one now known as No. 3,
the garden of which is separated from Col-
lege Street by the Close wall. In deference
to the learned prebendary, and in considera-
tion, no doubt, of his double duties as
Warden of College and as Canon of the
Cathedral, the Dean and Chapter permitted
a doorway to be pierced in the Close wall,
through which Dr. Nicholas could conveni-
ently make his way from his prebendal
house to the warden's lodgings. The site of
this doorway had long been forgotten. But
a short time since, in removing a vast growth
of ivy, the bricked-up entrance was dis-
covered. There was the doorway, cut through
the massive masonry of the Close wall,
through which the Warden was wont to
pass to his College duties. He has been
dead now more than two hundred years,
but henceforth the bricked-up doorway,
stripped of its concealing ivy, will serve to
remind succeeding canons, who are privileged

22

THE CLOSE WALLS

to occupy No. 3, of the Prebendary and
Warden who Hes buried, close to Izaak
Walton, in Prior Silkstede's Chapel in the
south transept of the Cathedral.

Another doorway, on the opposite side of
the Close, is associated with the Court of
Charles IL The gay monarch, so it is said,
had the passage made, to suit his own con-
venience, during his repeated visits to Win-
chester, when he not infrequently occupied
the Deanery. It is now, like the doorway
of Dr. Nicholas, blocked up, for the Close is
a sacred enclosure, and not to be lightly
entered by unauthorised ways ; but the
filled-in portals serve to remind us of inter-
esting episodes in the story of the Close
walls, which bear witness to the changes of
a thousand years.

23

CHAPTER IV

THE RUINED CHAPTER-HOUSE

Among the most picturesque remains of the
old Benedictine monastery are those of the
Norman Chapter-house. It was built by
Bishop Walkelin, a kinsman of William the
Conqueror, at the close of the eleventh cen-
tury, partly, it would seem, out of the pro-
ceeds of St. Giles's Fair granted to him by
the Red King. The building stood immedi-
ately south of the dark cloister or slype,
which led to the cemetery of the monastery,
and like most of the Benedictine Chapter-
houses was of rectangular or longitudinal
form, being eighty-eight feet by thirty-eight
feet in size. The vaulted roof was supported
by a large central pillar, and was covered
on the outside, above the dormitories, with
sheets of lead. On the north, south, and
east walls ran an arcade, with round-headed
arches and cylindrical shafts, which formed
stone seats for the brethren attending the
Chapter. On the west side five Norman
arches on laige circular columns with cushion

24

RKMAIXS OF CHAPTKR-HOUSE

THE RUINED CHAPTER-HOUSE

capitals, like those of the triforium in the
south transept, opened to the cloisters, the
middle arch being wider and higher than the
rest. These fine arches remain in an almost
perfect condition, and with their great miono-
lith columns which are beheved to have been
parts of some Roman building, present a
striking appearance as one wanders through
the Close. They also constitute, as it has
been pointed out, ^ a valuable example of
the arrangement of an eleventh-century
chapter-house entrance. On the north wall
the arcade of twenty-three semicircular arches
may also be traced, but the cylindrical shafts
have all unfortunately disappeared.

The Chapter-house was the council cham-
ber of the Benedictine monastery. The word
chapter {capitulum) denoted both the room
of assembly and the assembly itself. It was
the place of business for the whole com-
munity. Its general purpose is nowhere
better described than in the quaint words of
Abbot Ware of Westminster. It is,'' he
says, the Little House in which the Con-
vent meets to consult for its welfare. It is
well called the Capitulum^ because it is the
caput litium (the head of strifes), for there

^ Victoria History of Hampshire, vol. v, p. 59.
25

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

strifes are ended. It is the workshop of the
Holy Spirit, in which the sons of God are
gathered together. It is the house of con-
fession, the house of obedience, mercy, and
forgiveness, the house of unity, peace, and
tranquiUity, where the brethren make satis-
faction for their faults.''^ In the Chapter-
house the community assembled to perform
such important business as the election of
the diocesan bishop and of their own prior.
Here, too, on Ash Wednesday, a suitable
codex was assigned to each of the brethren
for special study during the season of Lent.^
Sometimes the priors were buried in the
Chapter-house. At least, we learn from the
monastic chronicler, that Prior Godfrey, a
wise and learned man whose praises are sung
by William of Malmesbury,^ and who ruled
over the house for seven-and-twenty years,
was interred in it, towards the north-west
corner.''* The Chapter-house was built dur-
ing his term of office, and it was fitting that
the distinguished Prior who had seen the

^ Quoted by Dean Stanley in his Memorials of Westminster
Abbey, 5th ed., p. 372.

2 Rule of St. Benedict, quoted by Putnam. Books and
Their Makers, vol. i, p. 29.

^ Chronicles of the Kings of England, Bohn's " Anti-
quarian Library," Book V, p. 475.

* Milner's Winchester, vol. ii, p. 135.

26

THE RUINED CHAPTER-HOUSE

building rise from the ground, should find
a resting-place within its walls.

Sometimes events of a more national char-
acter and importance took place within the
Chapter-house of St. Swithun's monastery.
Here, for instance, on 20th July, 1213, was
enacted the final scene of that degrading
and dishonourable transaction whereby King
John surrendered his crown and kingdom
mto the hands of the Pope. Already at
Dover, a few months before, he had knelt
before the Papal Legate Pandulf and had
sworn fealty to the Roman See ; but he
I was still under the sentence of excommuni-
cation, and his reconcihation with the Church
took place at Winchester. As Archbishop
Langton, with a number of distinguished
persons, both clerical and lay, approached
the city, the King went out to meet them
on the downs of Magdalen-hill, and on " see-
ing the archbishop and bishops," says the
chronicler, " he fell prostrate on the earth
at their feet, beseeching them with tears to
have pity on him. The Archbishop and
bishops raised the King up, and conducted
him on the right hand and on the left to
the great western door of the Cathedral,
where they chanted the 51st Psalm." They

27

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

did not, however, yet enter the church, the
King being an excommunicated person, but
adjourned to the Chapter-house, where he
was absolved as holy Church ordains/'
The Archbishop then led the King into the
Cathedral, where mass was sung at the high
altar, and John presented a mark of gold. ^
The scene in the Chapter-house when the
King humbled himself at the feet of Arch-
bishop Langton must have left a deep
impression on the minds of the spectators.

Some thirty-seven years later another
royal scene took place in the Chapter-house.
William de Raley, Bishop of Winchester,
had just died in France, and King Henry
HI, anxious to obtain the vacant See for
his half-bi other Audemar, or Ethelmar — an
acolyte of only twenty-three — hastened to
the Cathedral city, and assembling the monks
together in the Chapter-room, himself
preached to them a sermon on the text,

Justice and peace have kissed each other.
The purport of the discourse, which was not
unmixed with threats, was to induce the
Prior, William of Taunton, and the brethren
to choose Audemar for their bishop. The
poor monks were in a painful and difficult

^ Milner, i, p. 180.

28

THE RUINED CHAPTER-HOUSE

position. They knew that Audemar, as the
historian says,^ was ''destitute of every
necessary quahfication for the prelacy :
on the other hand they had only recently
learnt, by bitter experience, the consequences
of thwarting the King's will. At length
with assenting voices, but repugnant
hearts " they yielded, and the half-brother
of the royal preacher became Bishop Elect
of Winchester. On another occasion, when
Henry HI and his gallant son Edward
were at variance on some question of policy,
they appear to have referred the matter to
the Prior of St. Swithun's, and were happily
reconciled in the monastic Chapter-house. ^
Prince Edward seems to have had a great
regard for the Benedictine brethren, for we
find him before starting for a crusade in
1270, taking leave of the monks assembled
in chapter, and commending himself to their
prayers.

For five centuries and a half the Norman
Chapter-house of Bishop Walkelin served the
purpose of its erection. There, successive

^ Milner, i, p. 187. Sec, too, Kitchin's Winchester in
"Historic Towns" series, pp. 125-128.
2 Milner, i, p. 191.

29

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

priors presided over the deliberations of the
brethren. There much of the business of the
monastery was transacted. There spiritual
counsel was given, faults were confessed,
and discipline administered. Since Prior
Godfrey has been laid to rest in the north-
west comer in 1107, all his successors had
been chosen in that room. There, too, the
Bishops of Winchester had been elected by
the votes of Prior and brethren. On occa-
sions, too, kings and other great personages
had played a part within its walls. But
with the dissolution of the Priory in 1540
the conventual buildings were quickly adapted
to meet the new requirements. The Chapter-
house and the cloisters were not, however,
for the moment interfered with. For some
thirty years they remained as in monastic
days — the Chapter-house no doubt continu-
ing to be the place of meeting of the newly-
constituted Dean and Canons, while the
beautiful cloisters ran as of yore along the
south side of the Cathedral nave and around
the cloister-garth. But in the year 1560
Robert Horne was appointed by Queen
Elizabeth to the Bishopric of Winchester.
He had been Dean of Durham under Edward
VI, and during the Marian persecutions had

30

THE RUINED CHAPTER-HOUSE

lived abroad, where he ministered to the
Enghsh congregation at Frankfort-on-the-
Main. He was undoubtedly a man of learn-
ing, but, as Anthony Wood says, one of
the greatest enemies which the monuments
of art and the ancient rites of religion found
at the Reformation."^ At Durham he had
been noted for the barbarous havoc he had
committed. As Bishop of Winchester he
frequently " visited," we are told, the
Cathedral and College, Magdalen, Corpus,
Trinity, and New Colleges, destroying the
images, pictures, missals, painted glass, and
other tokens of the religion and piety of his
ancestors, with a zeal as furious as it was
ridiculous." Winchester suffered severely at
his hands. He cleared every statue from
its niche in the Cathedral." Moreover, dur-
ing his episcopacy the venerable cloisters
were pulled down, and also the Norman
Chapter-house, for the sake, it would seem,
of turning the leaden roofs into money. It
is impossible to condemn this desecration
too strongly. Not only did the removal of
the cloisters seriously weaken the Cathedral
itself, but the appearance of the church on

^ Fasti, Bliss' cd.. vol. ii, col. 180, under 1567. See, too,
Cassan's Lives of the Bishops of Winchester, vol. ii, pp. 26-30.

31

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

its south side has been irretrievably spoilt.
The demolition of the Chapter-house, too,
was a grievous wrong ; but we may be
thankful that the western front with its fine
Norman arches and mighty monoliths re-
main, to remind us of the days that are
past, and to add beauty and distinction to
the Cathedral Close.

32

CHAPTER V

THE prior's hall

Of the domestic buildings of St. Swithun's
monastery still remaining, the most consider-
able is the Prior's Hall or Refectory, which
forms part of the present Deanery. The hall
is a fine perpendicular building of the middle
of the fifteenth century, with a high-pitched,
open-timbered roof, and with five noble
traceried windows on the west side, one of
which is blocked up. The date of the roof is
fixed by an entry in the monastic rolls of
Manydown Manor, ^ which states that in
1459 three huge oak-tiees felled at Many-
|l down were sent to the Prior of St. Swithun's
for the roof of his great hall. There are
evidences, however, as Dr. Milner has pointed
out, 2 that the building itself is of higher
antiquity than the roof and windows — evi-
dences which seem to indicate that there is
nothing improbable in his conjecture that

^ Transcribed and edited by Dean Kitchin {Hampshire
Record Society, 1895), p. 8.
» Vol. ii, p. 139.

38

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

when in the year 1333, Bishop Adam de
Orlton was entertained by Prior Alexander
at St. Swithun's monastery, it was in the
great hall still standing that he listened to
the celebrated minstrel Herbert, who sang
to him the legendary songs of Guy, Earl
of Warwick, overthrowing and killing Col-
brand the Danish giant under the walls of
the city, and of Queen Emma walking unhurt
over the red-hot ploughshares in the Old
Minster."

Interesting as is the Prior's Hall, a far
more picturesque appendage of the Deanery
is the beautiful arcade of groined work which
now forms its main entrance. It is older,
too, than the Prior's Hall as we see it to-day
by nearly two hundred years, going back
to the days of Henry III. It consists of
three fine arches (a fourth is built into the
house) sharply pointed, and with the Pur-
beck marble shafts of the thirteenth century.
This groined cloister abutted on the Prior's
Refectory, and thither no doubt the pilgrims,
who had come to worship in St. Swithun's
church, or on their way to Becket's shrine
at Canterbury, would betake themselves be-
fore leaving the monastery, to receive some
broken victuals from the Prior's kitchen,

34

O

< ^

THE PRIOR'S HALL

and perhaps a few pence from out of the
aumbry still visible in the wall. ^

Above this elegant arcade, which has been
not inaptly called the Pilgrims' cloister,
there was added in post-Reformation times
an audit-house for the transaction of
Chapter business. The old place of meeting
in monastic times had been the Norman
Chapter-house, which was wantonl}/ demol-
ished about the year 1570, and it was doubt-
less shortly after this date that the present
apartment was built.

At the time of the Commonwealth we gain
several interesting particulars as to the con-
dition of the Deanery. A survey* of the
property of the Dean and Chapter was made
in 1649 when the Close was sequestered, and
the Deanery made over to Nicholas Love,
Esq. The Prior's Refectory is described as

a very faire large Hall contayning by
Estimacon twentye yards in length and Tenn
in bredth, with a very faire staircase of
stone. The Roofe of very good Tymber
covered with Tyle, the walls of the said Hall

^ Dean Kitchin's " Introduction " to " The Obedi-
entiary Rolls of St. Swithun's Priory " {Hampshire Record
Society, 1892), p. 11.

' Printed in " Winchester Cathedral Documents "
{Hampshire Record Society, 1897), vol. ii, pp. 76-77.

4— (2306)

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

beinge of stone, the windowes well barred
with iron halfe glazed, the other halfe
shutters of wood, the fioore thereof beinge
supported with extraordinary good Tymber."
The Audite-house " consisted of twoe
roomes adjoyneinge." There were " fower-
teene lodginge chambers,'' one faire dyn-
inge Roome wainscotted and ceeled with
plaine Wainscott," one faire studye wains-
cotted with draw boxes of Wainscott," and
Twoe Courtyards paved." There was also
a large Dovehouse," and three small
Fishponds " in the garden. At that time
many of the features of the Prior's old
quarters still remained. Although the mon-
astery had been dissolved a century before,
yet the great Refectory had not yet been
divided into separate apartments ; and in-
side the thirteenth-century arcade which
formed a sort of vestibule to the house there
existed a courtyard paved with flagstones as
in mediaeval times.

But with the Restoration great changes
were made in the Deanes house." Charles
II had taken a fancy to Winchester, and
preparations were being made for the build-
ing of a splendid palace, after the model
of Versailles, under the direction of Sir

36

THE PRIOR'S HALL

Christopher Wren. In the meanwhile the
King was not infrequently in the Cathedral
city, when he appears to have taken up his
residence at the Deanery, to which important
additions were made. A stately hall and
staircase took the place of the old open
courtyard ; the great Refectory was divided
into two stories, and partitioned off into
rooms, dormer-windows being inserted in
the roof to give light to the upper chambers ;
and the minstrels' gallery at the north end
of the hall was done away with. In addition
to these alterations. Dr. Clarke, who was
Dean of Winchester from a.d. 1665 to 1679,
erected the long, narrow, red-brick building,
appropriately known as the Long Gallery."
This beautiful and imposing apartment,
underneath which runs an open corridor, is
no less than eighty-four feet long, and is
lighted by windows opening to the south
of which the middle one, with good perpen-
dicular tracery, was probably brought from
the south end of the Prior's Hall, perhaps
during the alterations then carried out.
According to tradition, the Long Gallery was
used by Charles II as a reception room on the
occasion of his visits to Winchester. In the
windows are several interesting fragments

37

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

of stained glass, some of them going back
to monastic days. There is a figure of St.
Peter, the heads of two saints, and the
name of Thomas Silkstede, Prior of the
monastery at the beginning of the sixteenth
century. The arms of the See are also em-
blazoned, and those of Edward the Confessor
who was crowned in the Old Minster. Of
heraldic glass of a later date there are several
excellent examples. The visit of King James I
in the year 1621 is commemorated by an
elaborate representation of the royal arms.
Another royal coat of arms recalls the visit
of Charles I with his Queen, Henrietta
Maria, the letters CM.'' standing for
" Carolus, Maria," as in the roof of the
choir of the Cathedral. The arms of Dean
Clarke^ who built the gallery, will be seen
in the perpendicular south window which
also contains some interesting foreign glass
of the seventeenth century, and the arms of
Dean Rennell^ who introduced most of the
panelled woodwork in the south transept of
the Cathedral at the beginning of the last
century.

* Argent, on a fess between these crosses patee, sable,
three plates. Dr. Claire's arms may also be seen on one
of the columns which support the gallery.

^ Azure, on a cross moline or a roundel gules.

38

THE PRIOR'S HALL

Thus the Deanery is a home of many
memories. We are carried back in thought
to monastic days when the Prior's quarters
occupied the site. The fine thirteenth-cen-
tury entrance reminds us of the pilgrims and
wayfarers who in the days of Henry HI
flocked to Winchester. The Prior's Hall,
restored in the fifteenth century, conjures
up scenes of entertainment and hospitality,
and of religious observances as when on St.
Aethelwold's Day the rehcs of the great
prelate were passed round for the venera-
tion of the faithful. The Audite-house,"
above the thirteenth-century arcade, recalls
the days of Queen Elizabeth when, the Nor-
man Chapter-house having been destroyed,
a chamber was needed for the transaction
of Chapter business. The Long Gallery,
facing the sunshine, speaks of the period of
the Restoration, when, after the grim days
of the Commonwealth, the gay monarch held
his court in the stately room. Since then
but few alterations have taken place, and
the Deanery remains — with its striking
archaeological features ranging over a period
of six hundred years ; with its many his-
torical associations ; with its memories of
saintly priors like Henry Woodlock and

39

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Thomas Silkstede, and of distinguished Deans
Uke George Abbot afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, and George WiUiam Kitchin
afterwards Dean of Durham — one of the
most interesting and noble houses in the
land associated with the piety of former
generations.

40

CHAPTER VI

THE monks' refectory

When Dr. Milner published his classical
history of Winchester at the close of the
eighteenth century (1798), portions of the
monks* Refectory were still standing on the
south side of the cloister garth. The
Refectory/' he says/ ''stands east and
west, and projects beyond the south cloister
to the distance of about forty feet. Two
long, narrow windows, in the style of Henry
the Third's reign, are still seen at the west
end of the Refectory ; as likewise four
round-headed windows, partly blocked up,
of Walkelin's work, in its north wall ; against
which are placed the figures of two large
chestnut trees, carved in hard stone and
coloured. This hall was forty-one feet long,
twenty-three broad, and nearly forty at its
greatest height ; being now divided into two
stories. At the east end, between the win-
dows, was the celebrated crucifix, from which
a human voice was reported to have pro-
ceeded, deciding the controversy between
St. Dunstan and the new-established monks

» Vol. ii. p. 136.

41

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

on the one hand, and the ejected canons
on the other. ... At the table, on the
right hand of the crucifix, was the Prior's
place; on the left hand sat the sub-Prior.
The monks were ranged at tables placed on
each side of the refectory, according to their
offices and seniority. On the north side,
between two of the windows, was the reader's
pulpit.'* The floor was covered with straw
or rushes, provided by the Prior, and changed
seven times in the year, thrice in winter
and four times in summer." He also pro-
vided mats for the floor, and coarse hempen
cloths for the tables.

Every vestige of this ancient and interest-
ing building has now disappeared, including
''the figures of the two large chestnut trees,
carved in stone and coloured." There are
still preserved, however, in the Cathedral
archives, several mediaeval documents closely
connected with the Refectory. There is a
valuable fourteenth-century manuscript en-
titled Consuetudines in RefectoriOj'^ and two
most interesting Diet-rolls, ^ all of which

^ A Consuetudinary of the Fourteenth Century, edited by
Dean Kitchin. (Elliot Stock, 1886.)

* Obedientiary Rolls of St. Swithun s Priory, pp. 306-362.
See, too, " Introduction," pp. 66-68 [Hants. Record Society).
To this volume I am almost entirely indebted for the
particulars in this chapter.

42

THE MONKS' REFECTORY

have been transcribed and edited by the
late Dean Kitchin, and which give us a
clear and full account of the daily fare of
the brethren in St. Swithun's monastery.

It appears that it was customary for the
Prior to provide the Refectorian, or officer
in charge of the Refectory, not only with
straw and rushes for the floor ; but, what
was of more importance, with bread, cheese,
and salt, and with beer and wine, for the
whole community. This was no small charge,
to meet which the revenues of certain estates
were assigned to him. The monastic gar-
dener, or hortulanus, found the Refectory
in such vegetables as were then in cultiva-
tion, and also in fruit, chiefly apples, from
the garden called Paradise, for the seasons
of Advent and Lent. These items therefore
do not appear in the Diet-rolls, which deal
only with the supply of meat and fish, and
of such extra dishes as were provided as

pittances or for the use of the minis-
trants " or other important officials. One of
our Diet-rolls runs from Michaelmas 1492 to
Whit-Sunday 1493 ; and the other from
December, 1514, to September, 1515 ; and
from these rolls we get a clear idea of the
daily fare of the brethren m summer and

43

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

winter, on fast-day and festival. Some of
the dishes appear under strange names, but
these, with the aid of a glossary, it is mostly
possible to interpret. Many of them were
of the nature of stews and hashes, which,
in days when forks were practically unknown,
could be conveniently eaten with a spoon. ^
During Lent and on the weekly fast-days
the fare was meagre and unvaried. It
usually consisted of drylynge,*' that is,
salt fish of some kind, usually cod or red
herrings, or sometimes salt salmon ; with a
dish of stewed mushrooms, and perhaps
some mussels or minnows as an entree. So
far as our rolls are concerned, no eggs were
used during Lent, except on Good Friday
apparently in connection with the ceremony
of foot-washing " when a large number were
consumed. Both in 1493 and in 1515 the
provision for Good Friday was exactly the
same. It ran as follows : —

1,000 eggs (for the foot-washing).

Red herrings.

Figs as entree.
The charge for eggs came only to 3s. 4d.,
which in our present money would equal

1 See a most interesting article by Abbot Gasquet,
entitled " Two Dinners at Wells in the Fifteenth Century,"
printed in The Last Abbot of Glastonbury, pp. 166-185.

44

THE MONKS' REFECTORY

about a halfpenny each. On fast-days a
charge for mustard is almost invariably
found. The condiment not only rendered
the insipid food somewhat more palatable,
but was also no doubt a help to digestion.

On high festivals, such as Easter Day,
the fare was naturally of a more generous
nature. Again, in both the years covered
by our Rolls, the menu is practically the
same,' and consisted of the following
courses : —

Spiced vegetables,

Batir pudding.

Eggs,

Nombles as entree,

Mortrells as pittance.

Sew for supper,

Flavons for common pittance,

Beef,

Mutton,

An entree for the Sub-Prior,
Wine to the Prior and others.
On these great occasions the Prior dined
with the brethren, who provided him and
his chaplains with choice wine from the
cellarer's stores, and other delicacies. Nom-
bles,*' a dainty dish of venison, it will be

1 Obedientiary Rolls, pp. 324, 345.

45

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

observed, was also served, and " mortrells/*
that is, a pastie of meat and bread-crumbs
prepared in a tempting manner as a pittance,
A further pittance was placed on the
table in the shape of " flavons,'* a kind of
open custard or cheesecake, coloured with
saffron. For supper on Easter Day the
brethren had a sew,'* a sort of pottage
or broth, made chiefly of onions, with some
other tasty ingredients. What exactly the

spiced vegetables were, it is difficult to
determine. It was clearly a course for great
occasions, for it occurs in our Rolls only for
Easter and for Christmas Day. The exact
expression is In legumine afforciato/*'^ "in
seasoned or spiced vegetable ; and it
probably denoted a dish of herbs dressed
with salt and sugre,*' and served up with

gode mylke of almaunde.*' Milk of almonds
was in high favour among the monks, and,
indeed, spices and condiments generally.
Almonds, we find were brought for the
monastery in large quantities and also
ginger, cinnamon, pepper, mace, saffron,
" galengi,*' and other comfits. These spice-
ries,'* we are told, " were part of the old
botanic medicines, in which spices and pepper

1 Ibid., p. 483.

46

THE MONKS' REFECTORY

and sugar were not so much articles of diet,
as parts of the Pharmacy. The principal
ailments of the monastic and Cathedral life
were neuralgia, rheumatism, sciatica, rheu-
matic gout, and kindred diseases, brought
about by living and serving in the great
damp and unwarmed buildings in the winter
time. Fasting also led to much illness ; our
great comforters, tea, coffee, cocoa, were
unknown, and drugged and spiced wines
had to take their place, when the chilled
and congested liver, kidneys, and stomach
refused to take the gross food of the age.*'^
With regard to the fare on an ordinary
day, let us take, as an example, Monday,
21st August, 1515. For their two meals, at
breakfast and supper-time the monks had : —

Moile,

Eggs,

Nombles as entree.
Sew for Supper,
Beef and mutton,
Calves' feet for ministrants.
Entries for Sub-Prior and Hordarian. ^
The main dish consisted, as usual, of beef
and mutton ; although sometimes, doubtless

1 Obedientiary Rolls, p. 234, note 3.
« Ibid., 359.

47

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

to the satisfaction of the brethren, pork
was substituted. Moile was a very frequent
item in the menu, and consisted of bread
toasted under the roasting meat and soaked
in the dripping. Nombles, as we have seen,
was a choice preparation of venison. It will
be noticed that an extra dish of calves' feet
was provided for the ministrants. The
ministrants ' were the monks who were
told off on the Tabulae Missae, or list, hung
up in some conspicuous place in the convent,
for special duty in the Cathedral, such as
the singing of Mass at the different altars
of the church. It was customary to recog-
nise these duties by the addition of an extra
course to the ministrants at meal-time. The
dishes varied : sometimes a hash of calves'
feet was provided ; sometimes fried mussels
or cockles, or perhaps oysters ; and some-
times a few red herrings were set aside for
supper.

The amount of fish consumed in the
monastery was enormous, and the variety
of it considerable. We learn from the Re-
ceiver's Roll for the year ending Michaelmas

1 IHd., pp. 203 n., 307.

48

THE MONKS' REFECTORY

1335, when the number of the brethren was
sixty-four, that no less than 42,000 red
herrings were used, 11,300 white herrings,
222 salt salmon, while the sum paid for ''salt
mullet, conger, lynge, etc.," came to £36,
or over £400 of our present money. In
addition to this supply of salt fish which,
with the many fast-days, must have become
very wearisome to the brethren, other and
choicer kinds are occasionally mentioned in
the Rolls. In the year 1515, when St.
Swithun's Festival (15th July) fell on a fast-
day, the occasion was marked by the pro-
vision at considerable expense, of fresh
salmon " as an entree both at breakfast and
supper, with plaice as a pittance.' Some-
times the monks would have fresh congers
or eels for supper. Shell-fish — oysters, mussels,

wyrwynckles " (periwinkles), shrympes,*'
— are not infrequently mentioned as a little
extra for the ministrants. Freshwater fish
are met with in the Rolls now and again.
Minnows were apparently a favourite dish,
served up as an entree for supper. So with
lampreys, which formerly abounded in the
clear chalk streams of Hampshire. In the

gurges " on the Test at Nutshallyng they

1 Ibid., p. 355.

49

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

used, we learn, to be netted in thousands,
and sent up to St. Swithun's monastery.^

So far as can be gathered from the Rolls,
cakes and puddings were but rarely served
in the Refectory ; although now and then,
chiefly on fast-days, dried figs and raisins
were allowed. " Batir ''-puddings, stuffed
with meat or with fish, were, however, not
uncommon ; and sometimes we meet with
the entry, tartes for ministrants." The
word lagana,'* perhaps a pancake, also
occurs, and crispa,'' which, doubtless,
denoted a little cake or biscuit made
crisp before the fire. Crisps were pro-
vided on All Saints' Day, and were no doubt
welcomed as a pleasant variety in the
daily fare. Tansy pudding, too, is once
mentioned.

Except during the season of Lent eggs
were used in the monastery in large num-
bers. From five to six hundred a week would
be sometimes consumed even in winter, and
often in summer-time as many as a thousand.
They were doubtless sent in from the vari-
ous monastic manor-farms, which also pro-
vided game and poultry — geese, capons, and

1 Ibid., p. 498

50

THE MONKS' REFECTORY

chickens — for the Prior's table. From the
same farms, and from the downs around
Winchester, came the mushrooms which on
fast-days, and specially during Lent, were
used at St. Swithun's in huge quantities.
Often as much as 3s. 4d., or £2 of our money,
is paid for mushrooms for a single day's
provision. It is clear that they must
have been pickled or preserved in some
way, so as to come in handy during
the winter season. After Lent, when eggs
were again in use, they were less frequently
needed.

Thus, year after year, and century after
century, the task for providing for the mon-
astic Refectory went unceasingly on. The
fare, if somewhat dull and monotonous
according to our modern notions, was at
least ample and wholesome, and probably
better than that to be found in the manor-
houses and farmsteads of the neighbourhood.
There was always, too, a plentiful supply of
good beer and cider which was at least
cheering and comforting. It must also be
remembered that others, besides the monks,
shared in the daily provision. A large num-
ber of dependents fed on the broken meat
left over from the convent tables. From the

51

5— (2306)

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

days of good Prior Godfrey^ in the eleventh
century St. Swithun's Priory had been noted
for its grace of hospitahty/' and it main-
tained that reputation undiminished till the
end.

^ William of Malmesbury, Book V, p. 475.

52

CHAPTER VII

THE MONASTIC UNDERCROFT

In one of the Prebendal houses in the Close
there may be seen a fine apartment, lately
converted into a dining-room, the stone
vaulting of which is supported by pillars
of an Early English character, belonging
probably to the first half of the thirteenth
century. That the building formed part of
the old Benedictine priory of St. Swithun's
is of course certain, but to what portion of
the monastery it belonged, and to what
particular purpose it was put, has been a
matter of much speculation. In an illustra-
tion of the apartment in the third edition of
Dr. Milner's classical History of Winchester^
it is called a conventual kitchen,^ and inas-
much as the monks' Refectory is known to
have been situated hard by, the conjecture has
been made that the vaulted chamber was the
monastic kitchen in which the daily food of the
community was prepared. This supposition
was considered to be strengthened by the
presence in the room of two stone trussels,

1 Vol. ii. p. 140.

53

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

curiously carved, of thirteenth-century work-
manship, and used to support a dresser. It
is well known that on the occasion of the
second coronation of Richard Coeur-de-Lion,
which took place in the Cathedral the King
afterwards dined, not in the Prior's Hall,
but in the monks' Refectory, and the pic-
turesque supposition has been cherished that
the royal banquet was prepared in the
vaulted chamber.

Several considerations, however, militate
against the theory of a monastic kitchen.
In the first place there seems to have been
no original fireplace or chimney in the build-
ing,' a circumstance which in itself would
be conclusive against the hypothesis. The
stone trussels moreover are obviously not a
pair, and have certainly been removed from
some other position. Furthermore, the win-
dows which now light the apartment are all
comparatively modern, and a careful exam-
ination of the existing walls has failed to
reveal any trace of earlier openings
except one which seems to have been a
doorway.

This latter circumstance has led others to

^ See " Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute,"
Winchester, 1845, p. 6.

54

THE MONASTIC UNDERCROFT

the opinion that the vaulted chamber was
originally a cellar, used in monastic days
for the storage of beer, wine, cider, mead,
and other provisions, under the special care
of the cellarer. This theory is strengthened
by the fact that the level of the floor is some
three or four feet below that of the ground
outside.

There is yet another suggestion. It seems
to be probable that the monastic infirmary
was situated in this part of the Priory baild-
ings. The room for the sick and aged monks
would be upstairs, and underneath it would
range, as was customary, and as may still
be seen at the Hospital of St. Cross, an open
portico or ambulatory where in wet or close
weather the infirm brethren could take a
little air and exercise without going into the
cloister-garth. It has been suggested that
what is now a vaulted chamber was originally
the open ambulatory below the monks' in-
firmary, and that some time after the Dis-
solution the portico was walled in, and later
on converted into a kitchen. The question
is one which cannot now be definitely
decided ; but whether the vaulted building
was originally a monastic kitchen, or the
cellarer's store, or an ambulatory beneath

55

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the infirmary, it remains an undoubted and
imposing relic of the thirteenth century, and
one of the most interesting fragments yet
remaining of the once flourishing Priory.

After the time of the Dissolution, when the
monastic buildings were either destroyed or
converted into Prebendal residences, various
alterations were carried out in this part
of the convent. The apartment above the
vaulted undercroft was clearly a stately one,
as is shown by a large Gothic window, the
outline of which can still be traced. In this
room, according to tradition, the body of
Bishop Gardiner lay in state, on its arrival
at Winchester from Southwark, before it
was finally deposited in his chantry on the
north side of the high altar in the Cathedral.
Some twenty-five years after this event, one,
Abraham Browne, S.T.B., was installed a
Prebendary, when he appears to have had
allotted to him as his residence the house
with the groined undercroft. During his
time — he was Prebendary from 1581 to his
death in 1626 — the house seems to have
been entirely recast. The great Gothic
window was filled in with masonry, and
also a rose window in the high-pitched gable,
and a new window of six lights with stone

56

THE MONASTIC UNDERCROFT

muUions inserted. The room which this
window Hghted was panelled with oak, where,
on the finely carved over-mantel, the Preben-
dary's coat of arms may be seen. The initial
of his surname, a big B,'' may also be
noticed carved in stone on a cartouche out-
side the new window. In this window are
inserted some interesting specimens of early
heraldic glass. Among them are the arms of
WiUiam of Wykeham, of Cardinal Beaufort,
of Bishop Langton and of Bishop Fox . There
is also the coat of arms of the White family
of Southwick.^ At the time of the Dissolu-
tion of the monasteries, the Priory of South-
wick was assigned to one John White,
the mean and fawning servant of Thomas
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton and Lord
Chancellor of England who possessed himself
of vast estates belonging to the church.
John White, first owner of ye priory and
manor of Southwick, after ye surrender and
departyng of ye chanons from ye same,"
lies buried in Southwick Church, in an appro-
priated tomb, where his coat of arms may
be seen, and the date of his death, 1567.
One Thomas White, LL.D., who was also

^ Azure, on a cross quarterly or and ermine, between
four falcons clos(3, arg. belled of the second, a fret between
as many lozenges gules.

57

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Archdeacon of Berks and Chancellor of
Sarum, was installed a Prebendary of Win-
chester Cathedral on 21st July, 1554, which
preferment he held till the year 1574, when
he resigned. Thomas was probably a brother
of John White of Southwick, and it is doubt-
less in consequence of his association as -
Prebendary with the residence, that the
White arms came to be inserted in the
window. In the following century another
member of the same family, Robert White,
became steward of St. Cross Hospital, in the
grand church of which foundation a mural
tablet to his memory may be seen with
the family arms and the date of his death,
12th March, 1557.

Among the Prebendaries who have since
occupied the residence above the thirteenth-
century undercroft is one whose close inti-
macy with Gilbert White of Selborne gives
him more than a passing interest. This was
John Mulso,^ who was installed in the year
1770, and who died in September, 1791. He
was also Rector of Meonstoke with Soberton
in Hampshire, and he divided his time be-
tween his parishes on the banks of the Meon

1 Wavell's History, vol. i, p. 80.

58

THE MONASTIC UNDERCROFT

and his residence at Winchester. Mulso was
a typical eighteenth-cent ary dignitary ; the
nephew of Bishop Thomas of Winchester to
whom he owed his valuable preferments ; a
divine of considerable intellectual gifts, but
whose ecclesiastical interests were mainly
associated with vacant benefices. Still, he
was a true and life-long friend of Gilbert
White, and his letters, published a few years
ago, add considerably to our knowledge of
the great naturalist's career. The allusions
to the famous History of Selborne^ published
in 1788, are of distinct interest. Mulso at
once recognised that the volume would
immortalise his friend. Your book,'' he
writes to White, was mentioned with
Respect by our Chapter (a full one), and
the volume ordered to be bought for the
Library." Again, " Mr. Lowth and Dr.
Sturgess (both able men) admire your book,
particularly the Natural History." And once
more, Your Book is everywhere spoken of
with the highest Praises. Among others.
Dr. Warton is excessively pleased with it."
The copy ordered to be bought " by the
Dean and Chapter — a first edition of the
immortal work — is still in the Cathedral
Library, a valued and cherished possession.

59

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Gilbert White often visited his friend at
Meonstoke, and doubtless also in the Close
at Winchester. White was almost as keen
an antiquary as he was a naturalist, and
we may think of him as deeply interested
in Mulso's mediaeval residence. On a table
in the panelled parlour lay, we may be sure,
a copy of The History of Selhorne, for had
not Mulso written to Brother Benjamin to
secure him a first Impression of the Book " ?
But perhaps more interesting to White would
be the heraldic glass in the mullioned win-
dows, and the dark oak panelling with the
arms of Prebendary Browne carved over the
fireplace. The vaulted chamber, too, below,
used in Mulso' s time as a kitchen, with its
elegant Early English pillars, and carved
stone trussels, would appeal to his archaeo-
logical instincts and sympathies. We should
like to know what he thought about it. Had
he any theory, we wonder, as to its original
purpose and intent. Did he discuss the
matter with John Mulso ; or was it a ques-
tion, as we secretly suspect, on which the
easy-going, comfort-loving Prebendary took
but little interest ? At any rate there are
no allusions to the subject in Mulso's pub-
Kshed letters ; but the thought that Gilbert

60

THE MONASTIC UNDERCROFT

White must have visited his friend at
Winchester adds an additional interest to
the house in the Cathedral Close already
distinguished by the thirteenth-century
undercroft.

61

CHAPTER VIII

THE GUEST-HOUSE OR PILGRIMS* HALL

One of the most interesting relics of mon-
astic days is the guest-house or strangers'-
hall. Adjoining, and partly incorporated in,
one of the Canon's houses, it stands in the
south-east portion of the enclosure, known
as Mirabel Close. The building dates back
to the close of the thirteenth century, or it
may be the early years of the fourteenth
century, when it was built by the monks of
St. Swithun's convent for the accommoda-
tion of the poorer pilgrims and wayfarers
who sought shelter at the monastery. The
fine timber roof, ^ with its massive hammer-
beams and rafters of stout oak, showing
clear traces of the smoke which curled up
from the fire on the hearth placed in the
centre of the hall, remains in as sound a con-
dition as when it was originally put up. At
the end of several of the hammer-beams carved
heads may be seen, though the features have

1 An interesting account of the roof, by Mr. N. C. H.
Nisbett, is published among the Proceedings of the Hampshire
Field Club, vol. iii, pp. 71-77.

62

THE GUEST-HOUSE

naturally become somewhat indistinct in
the course of centuries. One represents
a crowned head, another shows the long
hair as worn in the time of the Edwards,
a third the face of a monk wearing a cowl.
The hall originally was of five bays/' and
measured about seventy feet in length by
thirty feet wide ; but after the time of the
Reformation half of it was utilised as a pre-
bendal residence, in the attics of which the
massive roof timbers may be seen. The other
part, now used as a stable, preserves to a
great extent the original features of the
building. The windows, it is true, are of a
more modern date, but the doorways stand
in their old position, and the buttresses on
the eastern side remain. In this hall the
poorer pilgrims, as Dean Kitchin said, with
such rough food as charity or the convent
kitchen provided, rested, and slept after the
weary journey along the line of one or
another of the Roman roads which con-
verge at Winchester. Hence they came forth
to worship at St. Swithun's shrine, and, it
may be, in hopes of cure to spend a night
of vigil in the silent church ; finally, they
betook themselves to the beautiful arcade
of groined work attached to the Prior's

63

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Refectory, and there met by the servants
from his kitchen, who distributed to them
broken victuals from my Lord's table/''

The free and ungrudging hospitality exer-
cised by the monasteries in mediaeval times
is hardly perhaps fully recognised. In the
convents hospitality, like the maintenance
of roads and the repairing of bridges, was
regarded as a religious duty. In days when
inns were few and accommodation indifferent,
guests were constantly arriving at the mon-
astic gates. Princes and nobles and other
great personages would be entertained in
the Prior's Refectory with becoming state
and dignity. This lavish hospitality of tea
proved a serious strain on the resources of
a monastery, and seems to have been not
infrequently abused. Indeed it was found
necessary in the reign of Edward I, and
again in that of his successor, to forbid by
statute anyone to lodge in a religious house
without the formal invitation of the Prior,
unless he were a benefactor of the establish-
ment, and even then his demands were to
be strictly moderate. The poor alone were
to be lodged gratuitously, the King intend-
ing not that the grace of hospitality should

1 Obedientiary Rolls, p. 11.

64

THE GUEST-HOUSE

be withdrawn from the desolate.'* ^ And poor
folk, pilgrims, wandering minstrels, popet
pleyers,'' simple wayfarers, seem to have
been constantly on the road. Hence the
larger monastic establishments possessed
guest-houses or guesten-halls,*' where such
poorer travellers could suitably be enter-
tained. At Battle, the guest-house outside
the Abbey gates, still remains, a beautiful
example of fifteenth-century half-timber
work. Our hall at Winchester, of 3/et more
ancient date, testifies to the same grace of
hospitality.*' And from very early times
St. Swithun's monastery had a good name
for entertaining strangers. William of Malmes-
bury, who wrote during the first half of the
twelfth century, tells us how good Prior God-
frey, who ruled the monastery from 1082 to
1107, " strongly impressed on the monks the
laws of hospitality, who," he adds, to this
day so closely follow the footsteps of the
Prior that they deserve all possible commen-
dation ; indeed, in this house there is a
place of entertainment to any extent for
travellers of every sort by sea or land with
boundless expense and ceaseless attention." ^

^ Statute, 3. Edward I, cap. 1, quoted by J. J. Jusserand
in English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, p. 121.
* Bohn's edition, p. 475. See, too, Milner, ii, p. 140.

65

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

And in those early days a goodly number
of pilgrims visited the shrine of St. Swithun.
It shared with the chapel of St. Joseph of
Arimathea at Glastonbury, with the shrines
of St. Alban, of St. Edmund at Bury, of St.
Cuthbert, and of the Venerable Bede at
Durham, in the suffrages and devotion of
the faithful. For some centuries St. Swithun
seems to have been one of the most popular
healing-saints in England. The monk Wulf-
stan, precentor of the Cathedral in the days
of Bishop Aethelwold, gives an interesting
instance of a wonderful cure which took
place at the saint's shrine. There was a
poor man so sick that he was nigh unto
death. His friends carried him to Winchester,
and were for taking him to St. Josse ; but
as they drew nigh to the gate of the New
Minster one met them who asked them what
they did ? St. Swithun' s bones, he said,
were far more potent in the Old Minster
hard by. To this advice they barkened, and
so laid the sick man under the relics of the
holy Saint Swithun ; and there they kept
watch with him, praying and dozing, through
the night. Towards daybreak they all fell
off to sleep, and to the sick man in his dreams
it seemed as if the shrine above him rocked

66

THE GUEST-HOUSE

and swayed mightily, and someone was tug-
ging at his shoes. And he awoke in fear and
trembling, and lo ! he was healed ; but one
of his shoes was gone, and though men
sought diligently for it, to this day it has
never been found." ^ In pre-Reformation
times the silver shrine of St. Swithun was
the special glory of the Cathedral. It was
adorned with jewels and precious stones, the
offerings of the devout. Some idea of its
splendour may be gathered from the fact
that when, in 1538, it was demolished by
Pollard, the silver alone was reckoned to
" amount to near two thousand marks.'* It
was in order to accommodate the crowds of
pilgrims who flocked to it, that Bishop de
Lucy reconstructed the eastern part of the
Cathedral. The shrine was placed in the
new retro-choir, between the present chan-
tries of William Waynflete and of Cardinal
Beaufort. The pilgrims entered the church
by a Norman doorway in the north transept,
paid their offerings, perhaps on the spot where
the carved figure of the sacristan with his
chequer-board looks down from the sculp-
tured capital, made their way up the steps

^ Quoted by Dean Kitchin in Winchester, " Historic
Towns" series, p 33.

t-7

6-(J3o6)

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

into the retro-choir, visited the sacred shrine,
and returned by the same route, being
stopped on the south side by those fine gates
of wrought iron, still to be seen in the Cathe-
dral though not in their original position,
which are believed to be the earliest example
of wrought-iron work in the kingdom. Some
of the pilgrims would no doubt arrive at
Winchester in a pitiable plight, the result
of exposure on the road, or the victims, it
may be, of one of those dread diseases which,
in days when all rules of sanitary science
were unknown, were so common in England.
To meet such cases the Hospital of St. John
had been founded by St. Brinstan in the
tenth century, and some rolls of the founda-
tion still in existence show how faithfully
the intentions of the bishop were fulfilled. ^
To look after the needs and comfort of
the visitors a special ofi&cial, known as the
" hostiarius or guest-master existed in the
larger monasteries. Among his duties, as
we learn from the Constitution of Archbishop
Lanfranc, were those connected with the
guest-house or strangers*-hall. He was to
see that everything was in due order for
the comfort of the poorer travellers. He
was specially to look to the " seats, tables,

68

THE GUEST-HOUSE

towels, table-cloths, cups, patens, spoons,
basins, etc., wood also for the hearth, bread
and drink and other food/' ' Unfortunately,
among the Obedientiary Rolls of St.
Swithun's Convent, still preserved in the
Cathedral library, we possess no roll of the
hostiarius or guest-master. His duties, how-
ever, would be the same at St. Swithun's
as in other Benedictine houses ; and we may
think of him as busily engaged, after the
good traditions of the convent, in caring,
not only for the more important guests who
would dine in the Prior's Refectory, but
also for the poor and destitute who would
congregate in the strangers'-hall. Here in
winter-time they would gather round the
blazing logs which burnt brightly on the
open hearth ; here they would drink their
ale, and take their fill of rough but whole-
some food ; here they would rest for the
night in quiet contentment, and rising with
the morning star would go on their way
rejoicing.

Up to the time of the Reformation the
guest-house in Mirabel Close had been the
scene of constant hospitality. For the space
of some two hundred and fifty years it had

* Obedientiary Rolls, p. 30.

69

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

sheltered thousands of homeless travellers
on their visits to Winchester. But at the
dissolution of the monastery this condition
of things was abruptly broken. The faces
of crowned monarch and hospitable monk,
carved on the massive oak hammer-beams,
no longer looked down upon a motley assembly
of pious pilgrims, wandering minstrels,
and other wayfarers, gathered round the
central hearth, or resting on rough pallets
against the wall. Silence and desolation now
reigned within the hall, the shelter no longer
of strangers and pilgrims upon the earth,
but only of owls and jackdaws who laid their
eggs and reared their young in the dark
corners and recesses of the timber roof.
The building doubtless became an outhouse
or lumber-shed where any rubbish could be
conveniently thrown. At the time of the
Commonwealth, when great havoc was
wrought in the Close, it seems to have escaped
the attention of the Parliamentary Commis-
sioners, although many of the Canons' houses
were reduced to a state bordering on ruin.

After the Restoration, just before Bishop
Morley died he appointed Dr. John Nicholas,
Warden of Winchester College, to a canonry
in the Cathedral, and the new Prebendary

70

THE GUEST-HOUSE

was duly installed on 2nd April, 1684. The
house assigned to him, perhaps from its
proximity to College, was the one adjoining
the guest-house, and now known as No. 3.
It was in a grievous condition of dilapida-
tion. But the new^ Prebendary was not only
the possessor of considerable wealth, he was
also a man of fine generosity. No sooner had
he completed, in June 1687, the building of
the new schoolroom at a cost of ;^2,600, of
which sum he himself contributed no less
than ;£1,477,' than he set to work, it w^ould
seem, on his prebendal house. The date
1687 still to be seen on the lead guttering
marks the year of the rebuilding or restora-
tion. He apparently employed the same
architect, supposed to have been Sir Christo-
pher Wren, or some at least of the same
workmen, who had been engaged at College.
For in his residence we meet with the same
style of artistic decoration as may be seen
in School." The ceiling at the top of the
central oak staircase has its cornice enriched
with unusual and elaborate plasterwork,
which bears, among other designs, the coat
of arms of Dr. Nicholas impaled with those
of his wife, and th arms of the diocese of

* Kirby's Annals of Winchester College, p. 368.
71

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Winchester. Dr. Nicholas, moreover, wains-
cotted with wide panels of oak the walls of
several of his apartments, including the one
now used as a library, and which occupies
the spot from whence in mediaeval times
the smoke of burning logs ascended to the
roof of the pilgrims' hall.

Dr. John Nicholas passed away, at the
age of 74, on 27th February, 1711, doubt-
less in his prebendal house in Mirabel Close,
beneath the actual roof-beams of the mediae-
val guest-house. He was buried in Prior
Silkstede's chapel in Winchester Cathedral,
where a typical eighteenth-century monu-
ment of vast size celebrates his benefactions.
It consists of a flaming urn, under a Doric
arch, ornamented with sepulchral lamps,
grinning skulls, and family arms. More
interesting, however, as a memorial of the
Warden and Prebendary, is the fine plaster
cornice of the ceiling which overhangs the
dark oak staircase of his residence in the
Close. His coat of arms^ in painted glass
may also be seen over the doorway which
leads into the garden, from whence, through
an opening in the Close walls made for the

1 Argent, a fess wavy sable, between three Cornish
Choughs proper.

72

THE GUEST-HOUSE

express convenience of Dr. Nicholas, direct
approach could be obtained to the Warden's
lodging beyond. His panelled apartment,
where I sit writing these words, is a spot of
sacred memories. It occupies, as we have
seen, part of the actual space once included
within the guest-house. For two centuries
and a half it was dedicated to the grace of
hospitahty. The poor, the maimed, the halt,
and the blind here sat down to supper.
Many angels were doubtless entertained un-
awares. The room is haunted, not with
dread memories of ghastly deeds, but with
gracious influences of homely benevolence.
The figure of the friendly and pious hosti-
arius is gone ; but the echo of the Master's
voice still seems to linger among the beams
and rafters of the strangers' hall : ''I was
hungry and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty
and ye gave me drink ; I was a stranger and
ye took me in."

73

CHAPTER IX

THE PRIORY STABLES

There will be seen, adjoining Cheyney Court,
a long picturesque building formerly used as
a range of stables. The building, with its
fine timber framework filled in with brick
and covered with red tiles, probably dates,
at least in its present appearance, from the
time of the Restoration, when so many of
the Close dwelling-houses were erected or
enlarged. But it occupies the site of the
old Priory stables, even if we do not venture,
with some distinguished authorities, to claim
the building as an actual relic of monastic
days.

Standing within the ancient enclosure, and
presenting an appearance of mediaeval anti-
quity, the range of stables conjures up many
memories of the olden times when a Bene-
dictine Priory lay sheltered beneath the
Cathedral walls, and the manifold activities
of life associated with a great monastic
estabhshment went quietly and steadily on.
The Prior of the monastery was naturally a
personage of much importance and dignity.

74

THE PRIORY STABLES

He had, of course, his own special duties,
as head of a rehgious community, to occupy
his time and energies. There were the church
services to attend, and the daily chapter-
meeting to preside over. The general man-
agement of the convent was under his super-
vision and control. Questions of discipline
and of administration had to be considered.
Guests, too, must be received, and enter-
tained with becoming hospitahty. In addition
to these home duties, there were the convent
estates to be visited, and many pubhc and
social functions which demanded his pre-
sence. And when the Prior went abroad
he did so with considerable state and cir-
cumstance, as became the great feudal lord
that he was. He had his own esquires and
attendants, who wore the Prior's livery after
the manner of other landed gentry. His
palfry was richly caparisoned, and he would
sometimes ride with a falcon on his wrist,
for he was not above enjoying a little whole-
some recreation in the pleasures of the chase.

The Priory stables, therefore, were not an
unimportant part of the establishment ; and
the brethren's visits to the various manor-
houses belonging to the convent, for business
or relaxation, were no doubt regarded as

75

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

delightful breaks in the somewhat monoton-
ous routine of religious duties. Our monastic
rolls contain many allusions to these secular
but most necessary duties that fell to the
lot of my Lord Prior and other of the
brethren, and throw a pleasant light on the
more human conditions of life in St. Swithun's
Priory in mediaeval times.

At Wootton, near Basingstoke, the con-
vent owned a large estate, and the Prior
was not infrequently there, staying some-
times at the manor-house and sometimes at
Manydown manor-house about a mile dis-
tant. To the Wootton manor-house there
was a fine garden attached, and also a park,
which in the year 1377 was fenced in so as
to keep the wild animals, perhaps red deer,
from straying out of it. We learn from the
rolls, published in the Hampshire Record
Society series, ^ many interesting little details
with regard to the management of the estate.
There is haymaking to be done, timber to
be felled in the extensive woods, and tenants
to be looked after. Now a gate leading into
the gardinum de Wottone,'* which was set
round with a thick hedge, needs mending, and
now the chapel windows call for attention.

1 The Manor of Manydown, edited by Dean Kitchin.
76

THE PRIORY STABLES

In the year 1368 a good deal of work has
has to be done on the farm buildings, and
the Prior, Hugh de Basyng, stays at the
manor for five days to give the necessary
instructions. The wide stretches of woodland
were not the least valuable part of the
estate in days when timber was more exten-
sively used for building than at present.
When, for instance, Wilham of Wykeham
was busy reconstructing the nave of his
Cathedral church the convent supphed the
timber from the Manydown Woods. Later
on, in 1459, three magnificent oaks, felled
at Manydown, were sent to Winchester for
the roof of the Prior's hall, where they may
still be seen in a state of perfect preservation.

And while there was business to attend
to, a little sport could be innocently enjoyed
in the woods and coppices. Now and again
there are entries with reference to the Prior's
huntsmen.' Brother Wilham Skyllyng, who
was Receiver of the monastery for some
years, loved to see the hounds run, and he
would sometimes spend a few days at Many-
down manor-house. The Prior himself was
not above these natural inclinations. In the
year 1311 Prior Richard de Enedford, with

^ Ibid., pp. 9. 63. Obedientiary Rolls, p. 34.

77

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

his white mare and roan palfrey, is on
his way to Marlborough to enjoy some
hunting in the forest glades of Savernake.
Later on there is an entry which shows
that the good Prior was taking a little
wholesome recreation in the Park of Free-
mantle. At Crondal, too, in the north
of the county, the convent held property,
and there, in the same year, a serving-
man in charge of seven hares is await-
ing the Prior's arrival for a day's cours-
ing on the open flats of Aldershot. Dean
Kitchin came across an entry of exceptional
interest to the effect that on one occasion
the convent built for the Prior a new
house for his dogs within the precincts of
the monastery. Unfortunate accidents some-
times occurred then, as now, in the purs ait
of sport. In the year 1337, when hunting
in Hempage Wood, some six miles from
Winchester, the famous scene of Bishop
Walkelin's energy in cutting down the king's
forest for the cathedral roof, the nephew of
one John de Torschaghe was killed. It was
owing, perhaps, to some carelessness on the
part of the Prior's people ; at any rate, the
convent paid to the relatives the sum of
twenty shillings and eightpence as " hush

78

THE PRIORY STABLES

money '* or compensation.^ Hunting acci-
dents seem, indeed, to have been not un-
common. The WilHam Rufus episode was
no isolated instance. In Winchester Cathe-
dral may be seen the tomb, not only of the
Red King, but also of another son of the
Conqueror — Richard, Duke of Beorn, slain,
like his brother, by an arrow in the New
Forest.

Besides the red deer which roamed in the
parks at Wootton and Waltham., and in the
unenclosed forests of the district, other kinds
of game found their way to the Priory of
St. Swithun's. Hares were doubtless more
plentiful in the Middle Ages than they are
to-day. Conies, or Coniculi as the rolls call
them, made a pleasant change in the diet
of the brethren, and sometimes new nets are
wanted for the gamekeepers, or a new pair
of gloves. The Priors possessed extensive
rabbit warrens on some of their estates,
which formed a little source of revenue.
Partridges, too, abounded in the open coun-
try, and were taken, as we learn incidentally
from the rolls, in nets, after the manner of
poachers in modern times. In the year 1337
one of the brethren, John le Coucherier by

* Obedientiary Rolls, p. 275.

79

winchf:ster cathedral close

name, was frequently away from Winchester,
in patria, " in country parts/' catching part-
ridges,^ no doubt for the table of the Prior,
Alexander Heriard, who then ruled the
convent.

But if good sport was to be obtained on
the manor-farms, the vermin must be care-
fully looked after. The hawks and buzzards,
in days when falconry was a royal sport,
were left severely alone, and were doubtless
common enough in the great Hampshire
forests. The red kite or glead bred every
season, we may be sure, in Hempage Wood
and at Manydown, and the hen-harrier had
its nest year after year on the Crondal m.oors.
We read nothing in the rolls of payments
for sparrow heads " such as disgrace the
churchwardens* accounts of the eighteenth
century : doubtless the large hawks kept
the number of smaller birds within reason-
able proportions. But in those days foxes
weie regarded as vermin of the most villain-
ous type, and on some of the manors foxes
were plentiful. In the Receiver's roll for the
year 1337 the convent is shoun to have
expended the large sum of 22s. 6d. on buying
nets to catch foxes, as well as rabbits and

1 Obedientiary Rolls, p. 250.

80

THE PRIORY STABLES

partridges. Another entry in the same roll
brings vividly before us how the ways of
country life go on unchanged from genera-
tion to generation. There is a payment
of twelve pence to the talpanarius or mole-
catcher. Perhaps the little creatures had
invaded the garden of one of the manor-
houses, or even of the Priory, where their
presence was unwelcome in the well-kept
beds of pot-herbs or flowers, and the skill
of the mole-catcher was called in to get rid
of them.

In addition to the pheasants and part-
ridges brought in from the country for the
use of the Prior's refectory, it was customary
for the manors to provide a number of
pigeons yearly for the use of the monaster}\
Nearly every manor had its columbare, its
dove-cote or pigeon-house, where a vast
number of birds were reared. There are
many references to these dove-cotes in the
rolls. Even where the interesting buildings
have disappeared, it is often possible to
mark their locality by field-names on ancient
tithe-maps. Thus " Culver Croft,*' in the
parish of Selborne, recalls the site of the
pigeon-house once the property of Selborne
Priory. In a few instances the mediaeval

81

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

dove-cotes are still standing. In my old
parish of Droxford there may be seen at
St. Clair's Farm, on the banks of the river
Meon, a fine pigeon-house built of blocks of
chalk, capable of accommodating a large
number of birds.

Another interesting possession was the
Prior's swannery, probably situated some-
where on the river Itchen, above or below
Winchester, to which allusion is made now
and again in the monastic rolls. In the year
1485, when Thomas Hunt on was Prior, one
John Couper was swanherd, and due pay-
ment is made to him for nesting the Prior's
swans, and later on for carrying home the
Prior's cygnets.* Ten or twelve years later,
when Thomas Silkstede had succeeded to
the office of Prior, the post of swanherd is
held by Thomas Marinor, who receives pay-
ment for similar duties. ^ In mediaeval times
the swan was a bird royal in which no sub-
ject could have property when at large in
a river or creek, except by grant of the
Crown. In creating this privilege the Crown
granted a swan-mark," or " game " of
swans. Thus the Abbot of Abbotsbury in

^ Obedientiary Rolls, p. 385.
» Ibid., p. 388.

82

THE PRIORY STABLES

Dorset, where one of the largest swanneries
in England still exists, had a " game " of
swans in the estuary formed by the Isle of
Portland and the Chesil bank. The monas-
tery of Worcester held a like privilege. Prior
Moore, in his Autobiography written in the
early part of the sixteenth century, likes to
notice the doings of his swans. We read,
for instance, Upon Seynt Dunstan's daye
the swannes at Batnal browt forth fower
synetts in to ye poole.''* The Prior of St.
Swithun's also possessed the privilege of
keeping swans, and it would be interesting
if we knew the swan-mark of the Priory.
But there seems to be no allusion in the
rolls to the marking of the cygnets, an im-
portant function usually carried out in the
presence of the king*s swanherd or his deputy.
When important guests were entertained at
the monastery, a swan from the convent
swannery was, we may be sure, served up
at the Prior's table. In mediaeval times the
bird was accounted a great dehcacy, and
when in season no feast was considered
complete without one.

The sport of falconry was much in favour

^ The Monastery and Cathedral of Worcester, by J. Noake.
p. 153.

83

7— (2306)

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

in ancient days, and the right or Hberty to
hawk was often inserted in monastic leases.
The wide, open country, almost entirely
unenclosed, afforded excellent opportunities
for the pastime, which was no doubt some-
times enjoyed by the brethren of St. Swithun's.
The Prior's falcons may have been kept at
the convent stables, or in the mews hard
by ; and once in the rolls we come across
the interesting entry of new bells for the
falcons. These noble birds were doubtless
of much interest to the brethren, who in
hours of relaxation would stroll round to
the " mews and have a look at the pere-
grine or goshawk of my Lord Prior.'' For
the good monks in this respect were men of
like passions with ourselves, and were not
above deriving pleasure from association
with birds and animals. In a Consuetu-
dinary " of St. Swithun's, written in the
fourteenth century on two skins of fine white
parchment, dealing with the duties of the
different officers of the convent, there is a
most interesting passage which throws a
little light on the daily life of the brethren.
We learn among the duties of the cellarer, who
was to be ''a discreet man, giving to all their
meat and drink in due season," that he was

84

THE PRIORY STABLES

also entrusted with feeding and looking after
the animals acquired from time to time
by the brethren/'^ These were probably
strange pets — apes, or bears, or peacocks —
picked up, perhaps, as Dean Kitchin sug-
gested, at St. Giles's Fair, at which, we learn,
a toll of fourpence was levied on every falcon,
ferret, ape, or bear which was sold there.
Another illustration of the brethren's love
of Nature may be seen in the exquisite
wood-carving which adorns the Cathedral.
In the woodwork of the choir, and of the
Ladye Chapel, representations will be found
of animals and birds which reveal the obser-
vation and dehght of mediaeval artists in
the world of Nature. A fine carving of a
falconer with a noble hawk resting on
his gloved wrist calls for special notice.
It is very pleasant to think of the
good brethren of St. Swithun's monas-
tery, careful in the performance of their
religious duties, and at the same time
feeling an interest in the simple and more
human round of daily life, the condition
of the crops, the welfare of the stock at
the manor-farms, the horses in the Prior's
stables, the nesting of the swans on the

* A Consuettidinary of the Fourteenth Century, pp. 12, 22.
85

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

river Itchen, the ''rearing of Ye Prior's
goshawke/' the destruction of vermin especi-
ally foxes on the Priory manors, the netting
of a few partridges and conies on the up-
lands and warrens, and, above all, the care
of their own pet creatures in the convent
stables.

86

CHAPTER X

THE LOCKBOURNE

Among other mementos of monastic days
still existing within the Close must be
reckoned the swift stream of clear water
which flows through the precincts, and also
the underground watercourses which formerly
drained the Priory buildings. These water-
ways are of considerable antiquarian interest,
not only on account of their origin, bat be-
cause of certain disputes which arose with
regard to them, and which, strange as it may
seem, exercised a marked influence on the
fabric of the Cathedral church.

The Lockbourne^ (a corruption of the
mediaeval Lorteboume), as the watersvays
are now called, dates back to the days of
St. Aethelwold in the tenth century. This
famous prelate was a man of many parts,
and the chroniclers love to dwell on the
wonderful manner in which he improved the
water-supply of Winchester. Before his
time the river Itchen flowed in a single
stream on the eastern side of the city

1 See Plan of Close.

87

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

beneath the celebrated stone bridge built by
St. Swithun a hundred years before. Aethel-
wold, we are told, diverted the course of
the river a little above Abbots Worthy into
various channels, and thus distributed the
water, at much labour and expense, through-
out the greater part of the city. He was
naturally not unmindful of the needs of the
monastery, which he had partly, if not
entirely, rebuilt, and which lay sheltered
beneath the shadow of his new Cathedral,
within the lofty stone walls raised by St.
Swithun against the incursions of the Danes.
The monk Wolstan, in his poetical Life of
St. Aethelwold,*' waxes eloquent over the
manner in which the Bishop brought within
the precincts of the monastery, sweet
floods of water abounding with fish.'* More-
over, he tells us, the runnings-off of the
pond penetrate all the recesses of the build-
ings, and gently murmuring cleanse the
whole coenobium.'* ^ These lines written in
turgid mediaeval Latin, refer to the little
trout-stream which still runs from the Abbey
Mill through the Cathedral precincts, and to
the underground river, which entering the

1 Quoted by Prof. Willis, in Proceedings of the Arch-
aeological Institute, Winchester, 1845, pp. 11-14.

88

THE LOCKBOURNE

Cathedral precincts to the north-east of the
Ladye Chapel, passed under, and acted as
scavenger to most of the Conventual build-
ings. It was divided into two streams just
to the east of the Chapter-house : of these
the one went directly under the Chapter-
house itself, where it received the water
from the monks' lavatory ; thence it scoured
the Refectory kitchen, and so found its way
under the group of buildings which stood at
the south-west comer of the Cloisters to
the river Itchen. The other branch of it
went under the monks' parlour and offices ;
thence under the Prior's outbuildings, and
so on to the river." '

An early and most interesting allusion to
the stream of water introduced by St. Aethel-
wold within the precincts of the Close occurs
in the story of his successor, St. Aelfege,
who afterwards became Archbishop of Can-
terbury and who was martyred by the Danes
at Greenwich. St. Aelfege was a prelate of
fearless character and of deep spirituality.
The monastic chroniclers, Osberne and
William of Malmesbury, tell us that his
austerities were so severe that his body
was reduced almost to a skeleton. His

1 Obedientiary Rolls, p. 249, note 4.

89

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

hands, we learn, were so thin and trans-
parent, that when he elevated the Host the
light seemed to stream through them. When
as Bishop of Winchester, he resided at Wol-
vesey, he was wont, we are told, to come
forth at midnight and, slipping past the
guards through a little postern gate, to
enter the priory stream, and there standing
all night up to his middle in the water, to
chant the divine praises/

It is not difficult to reahse that in the
course of time the underground watercourses
which flushed the offices of the monastery,
and which found an outlet on the south side
of the Close, should have become insani-
tary. We find from the roll of Nicholas de
Haywode,^ Receiver of the Priory, that in
the year 1337 the Lortebourne had beea
cleaned out at a heavy expense to the mon-
astery. Fifty years later a similar entry
shows that the sewers were again choked
with refuse, and were very foul and offen-
sive. Indeed, matters became so bad that
in 1398 an indenture' was drawn up between
William of Wykeham and Thomas Nevyle

^ Kitchin's Winchester, p. 37.
" Obedientiary Rolls, p. 249

* Wykeham' s Register, ed. by T. F. Kirby, M.A., vol. ii,
pp. 508-515.

90

THE LOCKBOURNE

the Prior, in which the convent undertook
to fix an iron grating across the south exit
of the Lortebourne to prevent the refuse
from passing out of the Priory precincts
and so contaminating the river below. The
convent further agreed to halve with the
Bishop the expense of keeping in repair the
wooden bridge over the stream in College
Street just outside the Priory walls. The
agreement settled a long-standing dispute
between the monks and their Bishop, which
for a considerable time had delayed the
work of transforming the Norman Cathedral
of Walkehn into a perpendicular building.
It was therefore due to the Lockbourne, as
Dean Kitchin pointed out, " that the noble
Norman work of the two transepts remain
undisturbed to this day ; for William of
Wykeham had to start so late in life that
as he just begun to touch them he died.
In another year they would have been
completely transformed." ^

At the time of the Reformation we find
from the Boke of Portyons,"2 dated 28th
April, 1541, that among the officials of the

1 Obedientiary Rolls, p. 250 n.

* Printed in " Winchester Cathedral Documents," {Hants
Record Society), vol. i, p. 58.

91

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

newly-constituted Dean and Chapter was
the ''keeper of the Conduyte hedd." The
conduit-head was situated about one mile
up the valley of the Itchen, from whence
the water was conveyed, partly in an open
channel and partly in leaden pipes, into the
Close. Further details are discovered from
a survey of the property of the Dean and
Chapter made by the agents of the Parlia-
ment at the time of the Commonwealth a
hundred years later. " The water that
serves the said Close," we read, hath its
beginnings from the main river a little above
Abbots Worthy, and conveyes itselfe to a
little Howse in a small Channell, which
Howse with halfe an acre of ground both
belong to the said Deane and Chapter, and
hath beene and is allowed to the keeper or
denser of the same. From the said Conduit
head the water is conveyed on stone to the
Water lane in the Soake of Winton as farr
as one Clarks Howse, and from thence into
the said Close in a great pype of Lead, which
pype leades to a great Cesterne of Lead
standing in the Wall of a garden of one of
the late prebends, which water spreadinge
itselfe into severall pypes (runninge in
Lead near Twoe Hundred pearch by estimii)

92

THE LOCKBOURNE

serves the Deane and prebends Howses and
Leaseholdes within the said Close." '

From the same Parhamentary Survey we
gain other interesting particulars as to the
condition of the Close in the year 1649. The
beautiful and balmy situation evidently took
the fancy of the sequestrators. The situation
of the whole Close/' they wrote, beinge very
pleasant on the South of the Citty of Winton,
well walled A good and wholesome Ayre,
and dry, A faire entrance, A very useful
watercourse runninge through the severall
Offices of the said Close.'' ^ The water-
course is frequently mentioned chiefly because
of the leaden pipes which conveyed it to
the different houses, and which, there is
reason to believe, were in most cases removed
and sold for the value of the lead. But
though the leaden pipes were removed,
the underground arched passages remain as
in monastic times. Water still runs through
those ancient sewers which in places are
nearly five feet in height, and which contain
much Early English " masonry, and medi-
aeval brickwork. St. Aethelwold's trout-
stream, too, which has witnessed the changes

1 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 92.
* Ibid., ii. p. 93.

93

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

of a thousand years — the Benedictine rule, the
dissolution of the monastery, the days of the
Commonwealth and of the Restoration, the
long succession of priors and deans, of monks
and prebendaries, of petty canons and lay-
vicars, and of innumerable choir-boys — still
flows through the sacred enclosure, gently
murmuring, with Tennyson^s " Brook,"

" Men may come and men may go
But I go on for ever."

94

CHAPTER XI

. CHEYNEY COURT

1

' Just within the stately monastic gateway of
what was once St. Swithun's Priory there
stands a most picturesque building which

|i claims the almost daily attention of artists
and photographers. Indeed its steep gables,
its barge-rafters, its fine timbered frontage
can hardly fail to arrest the attention of the
most casual visitor. And it enshrines a
story of mediaeval custom as interesting as
the building itself is picturesque.

We are carried back in thought to early
days when in the ancient capital of the
kingdom two distinct jurisdictions existed
side by side.^ There was municipal Win-
chester with its mayor and corporation, and
there was ecclesiastical Winchester with its
all-powerful bishop, who resided at Wolvesey,
at its head. And these two governments
were entirely independent of each other.
Such an arrangement was not, indeed, un-
known elsewhere, for it existed in the City
of London, where the Bishop's liberty "

* See Shore's History of Hampshire, p. 204.

95

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

included the ward of Cornhill. At Winchester,
all the tenements that existed beyond the
East gate, as Mr. Shore tells us, were in the
Bishop's jurisdiction, and were known as
" the Bishop's soke," the word soke "
taking us back to Anglo-Saxon times when
soc meant a liberty. It also included the
Cathedral precincts, the College of St. Mary,
the Hospital of St. Cross, part of the parishes
of St. Faith, St. Thomas, St. Bartholomew,
and of Chilcombe, and the small manor of
Godbiete in the centre of the city itself.
This district was under the sole jurisdiction
of the Bishop, and the civil authorities had
no right of interference therein. How impor-
tant this privilege was may be gathered from
a charter of King John, which granted all
the dues on the river traffic passing through
the Soke, not to the city, but to the Bishop,
Godfrey Lucy, in consideration of the canal
and navigation which that enterprising
prelate had made all the way from the salt
water'* to the town of Alresford, some nine
miles up the Itchen valley from Winchester.'

Now the chief court of this episcopal
jurisdiction was the Cheyney Court, situated
as we have seen, just within the entrance

1 Kitchin's Winchester, p. 169.

96

CHEYNEY COURT

of St. Swithun's Priory. The name is pro-
bably derived from the French word chene^
an oak-tree, beneath the shadow of which
the sessions were originally held.' These
sessions, in the ordinary course, were held
every Thursday, when cases of debt and
such-like minor delinquencies were dealt
with. The Bishop was represented by his
deputy, styled the Bailiff of the Soke,'' an
important personage who had several officers
called tything-men, and a constable under
him. The Bishop had also his own prison
at Wolvesey, and stocks for evil-doers situ-
ated a little east of St. Swithun's bridge
over the Itchen. For the Cheyney Court
had a criminal as well as a civil jurisdiction ;
and twice every year, at Hocktide and at
Michaelmas, a more important session, known
as the burghmote " was held, when twelve
honest and true men residing in the Soke
were to assist in the administration of
justice. The Court also issued licences, and
had cognizance of the weights and measures
used in the district, which at certain seasons
were duly inspected by the bailiff's officers.

Strange to say, this double jurisdiction
was permitted to continue after the time

* Victoria History of Hampshire, vol. v, pp. 47, 48.
97

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

of the Reformation, and even down to com-
paratively modern days. When Queen Ehza-
beth granted her charter to Winchester, the
rights of the Bishop as Lord of the Soke
were duly safeguarded. The legal process
of the Cheyney Court seems in later years to
have been regarded as more speedy and less
costly than that of the City tribunal, and
was consequently in more favour with
litigants, especially for the recovery of debts.

In the year 1835, however, under the
civic changes then introduced, Cheyney
Court as a legal tribunal ceased to exist, and
the Bishop's Soke for all practical purposes,
disappeared. Towards the end of the cen-
tury the Court-house was restored and con-
verted into a dwelling-house, where in one
of the upper rooms may be seen what tradi-
tion affirms, but it would appear without
foundation, to have been a whipping-post.
An early drawing of Cheyney Court, made
in the year 1817, shows the front of the house
entirely encased in plaster. This was removed
during the work of restoration by Dean
Kitchin, when the fine Jacobean woodwork,
which lends such distinction to the appear-
ance of the building and which was found
to be composed of old ships' timber, was

d8

CHEYNEY COURT

revealed. On an oaken beam which runs
across the entrance-hall the date 1639 may
be seen. This probably marks an earlier
restoration, and it is not unlikely that the
quaint gables of the Court-house and its
well-cut barge-boards belong to this time.

8— (aio6)

99

CHAPTER XII

OTHER RELICS OF MONASTIC DAYS

The number of relics belonging to the mon-
astic period brought to light in the course
of preserving the Cathedral during the years
1905-1912 was not so great as might have
been expected. Such discoveries as were
made consisted mainly of stone coffins, un-
covered in digging the foundations of the
new buttresses in the Close, against the
south aisle of the Cathedral, where formerly
the cloisters were situated.

It was a common practice to bury in the
cloisters, and at one spot three stone coffins
were found, lying close together at a depth
of eight feet from the surface. At another
spot, towards the eastern end of the dark
cloister, only two feet below the surface, an
immense coffin, measuring nearly eight feet
in length, was encountered. But the most
interesting was found in digging the founda-
tions of the extreme eastern buttress, beside
the monastic doorway into the Cathedral
unaccountably closed up during the res-
torations " at the beginning of the last

100

OTHER RELICS

century. It was of Purbeck marble and fine
workmanship, and evidently contained the
remains of some important personage. Its
removal was necessary owing to the fact
that it occupied the exact space needed for
the foundation of the new buttress. The
process of removal was carried out with all
possible care and reverence. The coffin was
first raised to the surface by means of a crane
and deposited on the ground. The massive
Hd which possessed two iron rings embedded
in the marble, was then lifted, when the
coffin was found to be full of mud and water.
The water having been spunged up, the
skeleton was seen lying in a bed of sodden
clay. In the course of transferring the bones
to a wooden box, to be re-buried as nearly
as the new buttress would allow to their
original position, a small, round object was
noticed lying by the elbow of the right arm.
It was eagerly picked up, and was at once
seen to be a Papal bulla or seal.^ The
experience was a thrilling one — rubbing off
the wet clay, in order to see the name of the
Pope engraved upon it. The name was that
of Martinus V, the Pope who created our
Henry Beaufort Cardinal and Apostolic

* The bulla is now in the Cathedral Library.
101

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Legate in England. The bulla had originally
belonged to a Papal indulgence or pardon,
to which it was attached by silken threads
of crocus-colour and crimson. The threads
and parchment had of course long since
perished, but the seal remained in as per-
fect a condition as when it was placed in
the marble coffin at the beginning of the
fifteenth century. On one side of the bulla
were the usual representations of the heads
of St. Peter and St. Paul ; that of St. Peter
with the traditional short beard, and that of
St. Paul with the pointed one, with the letters
S.P.E. standing for St. Peter, and S.P.A.
for St. Paul ; and on the reverse side of the
seal the name of the reigning Pope, with
the letters P.P. which signify the striking
and beautiful legend PATER PATRUM,
Father of fathers.*' The silken threads
which originally attached the parchment to
the seal ran through the latter longitudinally,
and the passage was clearly visible. Mar-
tinus V was elected Pope at the Council of
Constance in 1417, and he died in 1431. The
date of the interment was therefore deter-
mined as lying somewhere between these
years or possibly a little later ; but who
the individual was who thus obtained a

102

OTHER RELICS

Papal indulgence which according to the usual
custom was placed with his body in the coffin,
there was nothing whatever to show. He was
an old man as the sutures of the skull clearly
demonstrated, and one who was httle of
stature, for the inside of the marble coffin
only measured five feet nine inches and a
half in length. It was clear, too, that he was
a person of some importance, for a Purbeck
mxarble coffin of such finished handiwork,*
the lid of which was hollowed out as well
as the lower portion and with a separate

I receptacle for the head, would not have
been provided for an ordinary individual.

I The thought of a Benedictine Prior at once
suggested itself ; but no aged prior of St.
Swithun's died within the prescribed limits,
and, moreover, no sacramental vessel had
been buried with the body. The most
probable conjecture seemed to be that the
remains were those of some distinguished lay-
man who had spent his last days in the
calm retirement of the monastery.

In the same excavation there was also
discovered six feet below the surface, what
nmst probably be regarded as the most

* The coffin now rests in the crypt beneath the Ladye
Chapel.

103

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

interesting relic of monastic times found
during the process of underpinning the
Cathedral. It consisted of a massive piece
of Purbeck marble^ which proved to be the
lost top of the fine monumental slab of
Bishop Audemar, half-brother to King Henry
III, who died at Paris in 1260, and whose
heart was buried in Winchester Cathedral.
The recovered fragment bears not only the
missing top of the mitre, but also two admir-
ably carved heraldic shields. How the monu-
ment came to be mutilated is unknown ;
but the recovered piece of sculpture has now
been restored to the bishop*s monument
which stands in the north-east corner of the
retro-choir. It may be added that during
the work of refixing the monumental slab a
leaden box, supposed to contain the bishop's
heart, was found in a recess of the wall
immediately behind it.

One other relic of monastic days may be
mentioned. During the work of under-
pinning the nave-aisle there was uncovered
close to the Cathedral walls the skeleton of a
priest. The body had been clothed in a
rich vestment, fragments of which showing
a profusion of gold thread still remained.
There had also been placed with it the

104

OTHER RELICS

customary funeral chalice and paten, which
were found in an almost perfect condition.
These relics are now in the Cathedral Library.
It is interesting to call to mind that when,
some years ago, the ground to the west of
the Cathedral was lowered, a number of
skeletons of ecclesiastics, each with the usual
sacramental vessels, were brought to light.

105

CHAPTER XIII

THE LAST PRIOR

In the choir of Winchester Cathedral may
be seen some carved oak panels of the period
of the Reformation. They are dated 1540,
and beside the royal coat of arms, the Tudor
emblems of the rose and the portcullis, the
arms of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Win-
chester, and several medallions of a conven-
tional design, is one panel of exceptional
interest. On it is displayed a coat of arms,
the cap of a Doctor of Divinity, and the letters
W. K.'' This panel enshrines the memory of
William Kingsmill, the last Prior of the old
Benedictine monastery of St. Swithun, and the
" first original and modern Dean " of Win-
chester. As Prior he had been known as
William Basynge, from the parish or chapelry
of that name which had already given more
than one prior to the monastery ; but as
Dean he was always called by his family
name of Kingsmill, a family still established
in the county, and bearing the same coat of
arms as that displayed on the Cathedral
panel. ^ The arms, which are charged with

1 Argent crusily of cross crosslet<? fitchee sable, a
chevron ermines between three mill- rinds of the second, a
chief of the third.

1C6

THE LAST PRIOR

three mill-rinds, form an interesting example
of a rebus or punning allusion to the bearer's
surname.

The life of W. K./' Prior and Dean,
embraces therefore the momentous period of
the Reformation, including the destruction
of St. Swithun's shrine, the dissolution of
the Benedictine monastery which had existed
for nearly six hundred years since the days
of St. Aethelwold in the tenth century, and
the estabhshment by Henry VHI of a new
corporation consisting of a Dean and twelve
Prebendaries.

William Kingsmill, of Basing, had been
brought up from boyhood in St. Swithun's
Priory. He belonged to that class of Eng-
lish society from which the monastic houses
were so largely recruited — the devouter
and younger children of our nobihty and
gentry who there received their education
and livelihood." ^ In due time he received
the Minor Orders, and in 1521, as the regis-
ters show, was admitted by Bishop Fox to
the office of deacon, being ordained to the
priesthood in the following year. Later on he
became Hordarian to the convent, an impor-
tant official whose duties were connected

1 Gasquet's Last Abbot of Glastonbury, p. 74.

107

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

with the supply of food for the kitchen.
One of his rolls, the account for the year
1535, is still preserved in the Cathedral
Library. His early years therefore coincided
with a most interesting period in the history
of the Priory and Cathedral. As a boy and
young man he had lived under the rule of
the distinguished Prior Thomas Silkstede,
who himself had once held the office of
Hordarian. He had seen the final comple-
tion of the Ladye Chapel, including the
painting of the curious frescoes in honour
of the Blessed Virgin. He had witnessed
day by day the remodelling of the choir by
Bishop Fox, and the growth of the magnifi-
cent altar-screen. We can imagine the inter-
est with which he followed the making and
decoration of the new mortuary chests, in
which the Bishop enshrined the bones of
the Saxon and Danish Kings, and which may
still be seen on the top of the choir-screens.
How eagerly, too, must he have followed
the building of Fox's elaborate chantry, the
most splendid in the Cathedral ; and how
often, when it was completed, must he have
watched the blind Bishop being led into it
by his chaplain for daily prayer and medita-
tion. He must have been present, too, on

108

THE LAST PRIOR

5th October, 1528, when the good Bishop,
having died at Wolvesey Palace that very
morning, was laid to rest in the afternoon,
as he had desired, in the tomb that he had
himself prepared. He had also witnessed
the erection of the finely carved pulpit bear-
ing the device of Thomas Silkstede which
the Prior placed in the choir, and from
which, it may be, Kingsmill had preached his
first sermon.

Prior Silkstede died in 1524, and was
succeeded by Henry Broke, whose initials
may be seen in several places on the north
side of Fox's new choir-screen. In Prior
Brokers time indications of the coming storm
began to thicken, which before long was to
sweep away the monasteries in England and
to abolish the jurisdiction of the Pope.
In the year after his election Tyndale's
New Testament appeared. The fall of Car-
dinal Wolsey in 1529 paved the way for
the advancement of Thomas Crumwell, who
before long was made Vicar-General in all
matters ecclesiastical. The divorce of Henry
VIII from Catherine of Aragon was pro-
nounced by Cranmer in 1533. In the follow-
ing year the Act of Supremacy " was
passed, and at St. Swithun*s, as elsewhere,

109

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the Prior and brethren were forced to acknow-
ledge the King as supreme Head of the
EngUsh Church/* Then followed the first
\dsitation of the monasteries, and the
suppression of the smaller houses.

At this juncture, in 1535 or early in 1536,
Henry Broke died, and the brethren of St.
S\^dthun's met in the Chapter-house to elect
a new Prior. Their choice fell on WiUiam
Basynge, who, as Hordarian, had clearly
proved himself to be a man of parts and
business. Nothing, however, could now be
settled without the sanction and approval
of Thomas Crumwell, who was accustomed
to exact large fees on occasions of ecclesi-
astical appointments. It appears, therefore,
that Dr. Legh, the monastic visitor, one of
Crumweirs most unscrupulous agents, suc-
ceeded in obtaining from William Basynge
on his election as Prior of St. Swithun's a
promise of £500 (equal to nearly £6,000
of our money) under his writing obliga-
tory,*' to be paid in instalments to the
Vicar-General. ^

This transaction, which at first sight looks
like bribery and corruption of the most

^ See the Abbot Gasquet's Henry VIII and the English
Monasteries, p. 164.

110

THE LAST PRIOR

flagrant kind, brings us face to face with
the question of the visitation of the monas-
teries, and of the methods employed by
Thomas Crumwell to enrich himself and the
King. The story of the great pillage "
cannot be told here, except so far, and that
very briefly, as it concerns St. Swithun's.
For eight years, it will be remembered,
England groaned beneath the rule of Thomas
Crumwell, the most terrible figure,*' as
J. R. Green truly says, in our history/'
The years of his ministration,*' he adds,
form the one period in our history which
deserves the name that men have given to
the rule of Robespierre." It was the English
Reign of Terror. During those years his
influence was supreme — supreme with the
King, in Parliament, and in Convocation.
As Vicar-General " he crushed the Church
beneath his iron heel. Those who opposed
his will, men like Sir Thomas More, Bishop
Fisher, and the noble monks of the Charter-
house, were removed out of the way. The
monastic authorities were helpless. Their
only policy lay in the direction of concilia-
tion. By liberal gifts and pensions they
hoped to buy off the evil day. Immense
sums of money flowed into the coffers of

111

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Crumwell. Archbishops, bishops, abbots
and priors, nobels and commoners, colleges
and cathedral chapters, all sent in their fees,
and new year donations, to propitiate the
favour of the great man." Crumwell's account-
book^ for January, 1639, preserved in the
Record Office — to give but a single illustra-
tion— records money presents for the new
year amounting to £800, or more than £9,000
of our present money. Instances, moreover,
abound in CrumwelFs correspondence, and
in other documents, of large sums paid in
connection with ecclesiastical preferment.
These transactions throw light upon the
incident of William Basynge's election as
Prior of St. Swithun's. That so huge a sum
as ;^500 should have been promised to Crum-
well on the occasion seems incredible, but
his account-books show that it was actually
paid. Moreover, Dr. Legh, the monastic
visitor, further obtained from the new prior
a patent for an annuity of £20 to be paid
to the Vicar-General,'' and to be after-
wards continued to his son Gregory
Crumwell. ^

William Basynge having been installed

^ Gasquet's English Monasteries, p. 148.
2 Ibid., p. 164.

112

THE LAST PRIOR

Prior of St. Swithun's monastery, with the
approval of the Vicar-General, did not have
long to wait for further developments of
Crumwell's policy. In the summer of 1538
orders were issued for the demolition of
every noted shrine throughout the country,
and the appointed officers were to see that
both the shrine and the place where it was
kept be destroyed even to the ground.'' The
notorious Pollard was commissioned to super-
intend the destruction of the famous shrine
of St. Swithun, to which pilgrims had flocked
for centuries, and which, with a few excep-
tions, was one of the most magnificent in
the land.

The shrine having been ruthlessly des-
troyed and immense sums of money trans-
ferred to the royal exchequer, the next step
in the movement was the dissolution of the
larger monasteries. The lesser houses had
already been suppressed in 1536. The abbots
and priors had no choice but to acquiesce
in this fresh act of spoliation. To resist was
useless ; it was only to court the calamities
which befel the monks of Reading, Woburn,
Colchester, Glastonbury, and other places,
who, refusing to make a " voluntary sur-
render," were turned out penniless into the

113

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

world. In conjunction, therefore, with Bishop
Gardiner, a Renaissance prelate of consum-
mate statesmanship, our Prior, William
Basynge, determined to make the best terms
he could with the authorities. No accusa-
tion of irregular conduct had been made
against the monks of St. Swithun's, neither
was there any point of Protestant doctrine
involved ; the question was one of accepting
or resisting the situation. Prior Basynge,
being,'' we are told, severely threatened
on one hand, and inveighed with fair promises
on the other,'' chose the former alternative,
and in due course the deed of surrender, which
made over St. Swithun's Priory to the King,
was signed. The wisdom of this step was
quickly apparent, for when, on 28th March,
1541, the Letters Patent of Henry VIII,
establishing, in the place of the monastery,
a Dean and Chapter of Winchester, appeared,
it was found that Prior Basynge was nomi-
nated, as Willelmum Kyngesmyll, the first
original and modern Dean," and places were
found for most of the monastic brethren in
the new establishment. The more scholarly
were appointed Canons of the new foundation ;
others became Petycanons, of whom there
were twelve, and all, save one specially

114

THE LAST PRIOR

noted as a secular priest/' seem to have
belonged to the dissolved monastery. ^ Doubt-
less other posts, such as those of deacon,
sub-deacon, master of the choristers, sub-
sacrist, or, it may be, of butler, barber, cook,
or under-cook, were found for the remaining
brethren. The new Dean was not, moreover,
unmindful of his poorer kinsfolk. ^ John
Kyngesmyll became porter at the Close Gate ;
perhaps he had already served as Hostiarius
to the Priory ; another, Richard Kyngesmyll,
was enrolled among the almsmen or twelve
pore old men decayed in the Kinges warres
or in his service,*' who were to be present in
church in service time, and to help to clean
the nave and choir, to light and put out the
candles, and to ring the bells, so far as
they can " ; while another member of the
family, Leonard Kyngesmyll, became one of
the twelve students supported by the Dean
and Chapter at the University.

A few weeks after the establishment of
the Dean and Chapter as a corporation,
further Letters Patent were issued, dated
1st May, 1541, granting the old monastic
endowments to the new body. It appears

^ Winchester Cathedral Documents, vol. i, p. 55.

2 Winchester Cathedral Documents, vol. i, pp. 50, 62.

115

9— (i306)

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

that Henry VHI, owing to the concilia-
tory attitude of Gardiner and Kingsmill,
dealt fairly and liberally in the matter.
He restored to the Dean and Chapter
nearly all the manors formerly belong-
ing to St. Swithun's Priory, and added
besides other property taken from sup-
pressed monasteries. The original docu-
ment is preserved in the Cathedral
Library, and is a manuscript of much
interest. The Great Seal is attached to
it, and the headline is illuminated with
an elaborate initial letter. Inside the H.
of Henricus we have Henry VIII on his royal
throne, presenting the Letters Patent to the
Dean and Chapter, who are on their knees
around him. Dean Kingsmill, who is receiv-
ing the book, is in full robes, as are the
others, the twelve Canons ; there is no dif-
ference in dress between them. Each wears
a long full surphce with an amice over it,
with the usual pendant tails of fur round
the bottom of it, for this was the sign or
note of canonical dignity ; under the surphce
is a scarlet robe, which shows at the hands,
neck, and feet ; the Chapter, moreover, all
wear the tonsure. At the King's right hand
Bishop Gardiner will be seen, standing or

116

THE LAST PRIOR

kneeling, with crozier over his right
shoulder."'

Thus, owing to the attitude and manage-
ment of William Basynge, the revenues of
the Priory were retained, and the brethren
of St. Swithun's monastery settled down to
their new duties as members of the Cathedral
Chapter. The new Dean continued to occupy
his old quarters, and the Canons to live in
common, as before. But few alterations were
made in the Cathedral services. St. Swithun's
shrine, indeed, was destroyed, and doubtless
other shrines in the great church. The dedi-
cation of the building, too, was changed to
that of the Holy Trinity, and a new coat of
arms, which may be seen on one of the oak
panels in the choir, was granted to the Dean
and Chapter. But as regards ritual and
mode of worship, no change of any impor-
tance was made. The services were still
sung in Latin, and the Mass was celebrated
as before.

So things continued during the lifetime of
Henry VHL In the last year, however, of
his reign. Archbishop Cranmer was busily
employed by the King in turning the Mass
into a Communion." On the accession of

^ Cathedral Documents, i, p. 67.

117

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Edward VI Injunctions of a distinctly Pro-
testant character were at once issued to the
Deans of all Cathedral churches. The Win-
chester copy, which bears in two places the
signature of Dean Kingsmill, besides mar-
ginal notes in his handwTiting, is still pre-
served in the Cathedral Library, and from
it we learn the nature of the regulations.
Certain sequences in the Communion Office
are to be discontinued, and in their place
Bible-reading is enjoined. The Scriptures
are to be read daily in English ; sermons
are to be preached, and on such occasions

owTe Lady Masse, and prime and howTs "
are to be omitted. The choristers are no
longer to be tonsured, but their Crownes
suffered to growe " ; and from henceforth

neyther the Deane, prebendaries, nor other
ecclesiastical person shall were any maner of
cope." With these new regulations the Dean
and some at least of the Canons had doubt-
less httle sympathy. The prohibition of the
use of the cope probably included that of
other vestments, for it appears that WiUiam
Kingsmill put his mitre carefully away, in
the hope that, in the whirhgig of events,
the time would again come when he should
be permitted to wear it.

118

THE LAST PRIOR

In this expectation he was, however,
doomed to disappointment, for within a
year of the issue of the Injunctions the Dean
died. He was not an old man. Indeed he
does not appear to have been more than
fifty. It was only twenty-six years since he
had been ordained to the priesthood, and but
twelve years since he had been elected Prior.
His handwriting on the Cathedral copy of
the Injunction betrays no sign of age or
weakness. His mother, who had married
again and had come to live at Chilcomb,
was still alive. He had, however, passed
through anxious and trying times, and in
view of what was yet to follow he was, it
may be, felix opportunitate mortis. His will
is fortunately preserved in the Probate Court
of the Winchester Registry, and from it we
learn many interesting particulars.^

It appears that on 19th August, 1548, the
Dean, finding himself somewhat sicke in
body," sent for his chaplain. Sir John Erie,
who had been a monk of St. Swithun's
Priory, and requested him to transcribe his
last will and testament. In deep sorrow —
for the Dean had shown many kindnesses

1 My friend, the Rev. J. F Williams, Vicar of Ashmans-
worth, kindly copied out the will for me.

119

WINXHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

to Sir John — the chaplain prepared his
papers. It is clear from the wording of the
win that Kingsmill died in the full faith of
the old religion. He begins with a commen-
dation of his soul to " Allmyghtye God/'
and the prayer that he may have the
fruity on of His Godhead with the most
blessed Virgin Mary and all other of the
holly company in heaven." He desires that
his body may be buried, according to the
discretion of the Chapter, either within the

Cathedrall churche of the blessed Trinitye
or in the churchyard outside. For the ^' Hie
Altar of the saide Cathedrall churche " he
leaves a sum of money, and also to every
Prebendar}^ and official present at his funeral.
Nor are the poor and destitute forgotten.
To the impotente and pore people " of
Winchester he leaves a donation, and also
to the pore prisoners in the gaile and
Westgate."

Then follow a number of bequests of a
private and personal character. To his chap-
lain he gives the advowson of the church of
Compton a picturesque village two miles
south of Winchester, his short gowme, and
one of the best vestments in his chapel.
The advowson of Compton belonged by

120

THE LAST PRIOR

right to the Bishops of Winchester, but it
appears that, with thoughtful consideration,
Stephen Gardiner had given the next pre-
sentation to his friend William Kingsmill in
the event, as seemed not unlikely amid the
changes of the time, of the Dean needing a
shelter in his old age.

To the two Cathedral sextons William
Friar and Thomas Winslade, and to Roger
Inkpen one of the almsmen, who witnessed
his signature to the will, the Dean leaves
sundry articles — a " gowne of black cloth "
each, a gret chest of the studdy,'' some
silver spoons, and some money. Dean Kings-
mill also possessed some landed property at
Compton, at Henton, and at Silkstede, a
hamlet about four miles from Winchester,
where the monastery had formerly a manor-
house, and his goods at these places — the
household stuffe,'* the " implements,'' the
I cattle, his gelding named Jacke, and another
! gelding named Button — are left to different
relatives, aunts, and cousins and other
kinsmen.

It is clear that at the time of the destruc-
tion of St. Swithun's shrine the Prior had
secured one or two relics out of the pillage.
There was, we learn from the will, the gylt

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WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

pax of Saint Swithun with hangings of the
Carnalles hat/' and there was the golde
ringe of Saint Silvester/' which he carefully
kept in his red velvet purse." This latter
treasure he bequeaths to the Chancellor of the
diocese ; and one wonders what became of it.
Is it possible that the gold ring now preserved
in the Cathedral Library and associated with
the name of Bishop de Blois, but on what
authority is unknown, is in reality the
golde ringe of Saint Silvester bequeathed
by Dean Kingsmill to Mr. Chaunceler ?
The gylt pax of St. Swithun was the
tablet, doubtless of silver-gilt, and bearing
a representation of the Crucifixion or some
other Christian symbol, which had once
belonged to the great Bishop and which
had been prized for many centuries by suc-
cessive Priors of the monastery. It was some-
times the custom during the celebration of
High Mass to expose this sacred relic for the
kisses of the faithful.

After the mention of this ring, and the
gilt pax of St. Swithun, the most interesting
item in the will is the allusion to the Tabard,
the famous monastic Inn, immortalised by
Chaucer, in the Borough. Like many
great ecclesiastics. Dean Kingsmill had a

122

THE LAST PRIOR

lodging there, and when Convocation or
other duties called him to London he would
reside at the Tabard in dignity and comfort.
To his married sister, Margaret Hall, who
lived at Basingstoke, close by the hamlet
of his birth, he left all his goods and imple-
ments," that is to say, all his furniture, in
his loudging within the Taberett in South-
werke,'' including one blewe vestment, and
one redd aulter hangings.''
As executors to his will the Dean appointed
Mr. John White and Alice my mother.''
Mr. John White was one of the Prebendaries
nominated by Stephen Gardiner as Bishop
of Winchester, and he was also warden of
St. Mary's College, Winton, and destined to
become, under Queen Mary, Bishop of Lincoln,
and afterwards Bishop of Winchester. To
Mr. John White the Dean bequeathed his
" best skarlet gowne," and to his mother,
now become Mrs. Tyderige, and residing, as
we have seen, at Chilcombe on the out-
skirts of the city, all the stuff e and imple-
ments which she hath at this present time
within her house." As full executors "
they were finally to dispose of such goods
as remained, all detts being payde, as they
shall thinke best for the health of my soule."

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WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

The exact date of Dean Kingsmiirs death
is unknown, but the will was duly proved
by Ahce Tyderige his mother on 18th
October, 1548. He therefore died some time
in the late summer or early autumn of that
year. He was buried, as he desired, in the
Cathedral, where in the nave a stone for-
merly marked his resting-place. The stone,
as we learn from the antiquarian Samuel
Gale' who wrote in 1715, was ''near the
pulpit'* and close to that of Bishop Horne,
and bore in his time the following inscrip-
tion : —

Willemus Kingsmell prior ultimus.
Decanus primus ecclesiae . . .
Obiit 1548

The stone has now unfortunately dis-
appeared. The only memorial, therefore,
which we possess of William Kingsmill is
the carved oak panel in the choir, where the
Doctor's cap, with his initials and the Kings-
mill arms, reminds us of the good and pious
man who was the last Prior of St. Swithun's
Monastery and the first Dean of Winchester
Cathedral.

* The History and Antiquities of Winchester , p. 37.

124

CHAPTER XIV

A FAMOUS PREBENDARY

Of those who have lived within the Close
since the time of the Reformation, no name
is more celebrated than that of Thomas Ken,
the author of the Morning and Evening
Hymns, for fifteen years a Prebendary of our
Cathedral, and afterwards Bishop of Bath
and Wells. Thomas Ken was born at Berk-
hampstead, in Hertfordshire, in July, 1637 ;
and in his fourteenth year was admitted a
scholar of Winchester College. His name is
still to be seen cut on the stone buttress of
the south-east corner of the venerable
cloisters— " THO. KEN. 1656 "—the year
of his leaving Winchester for the University
of Oxford. Of the boy's life at school be-
tween these two dates we have but scanty
information. It was the age of the Puritan
Revolution, and the College services were
doubtless of a Presbyterian character. The
Warden of Winchester was Dr. John Harris,
a member of the Westminster Assembly of
Divines, and " so noted a preacher that Sir
Henry Savile (who was himself styled the

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WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

magazine of all learning) used often to say
he was second only to St. Chrysostom/' It
may perhaps be permitted to associate the
influence of his eloquence with Ken's re-
markable preaching in after years. Among
his school-fellows were John Nicholas elected
at the same time with Ken, and in after years,
like him, a Prebendary of Winchester Cathe-
dral, and Edward Young, the father of the
author of the Night Thoughts^ who afterwards
preached Ken's consecration sermon, and
Francis Turner, afterwards Bishop of Ely,
with whom he contracted a closely-
cemented friendship.'* Of Ken's conduct
as a boy at College we are told that his

towardly disposition " was an example to
others, and that his parts, application, and
behaviour were well employed and observed."
And it is not unreasonable to suppose
that he exhibited that early piety " which
in his famous Manual^ he afterwards
recommended to the scholars of Winchester.

Of Ken's career at Oxford it is beyond our
province to speak. It will be sufficient to
say that, with his friend John Nicholas, he
was duly admitted a Fellow of New College,
where, after taking his degree, he held for
a time the position of college tutor. He

126

A FAMOUS PREBENDARY

appears to have been ordained, probably
by Bishop Skinner of Oxford, in 1661 or 1662,
with his fellowship as a title ; and in 1663,
after seven years' residence at the Univer-
sity, he accepted from Lord Maynard the
rectory of Little Easton, a small country
parish near Dunmow in Essex. Here he
remained for two years on terms of close
friendship with Lady Maynard, to whom he
acted as spiritual counsellor, and carrying
out his parochial duties on the lines doubtless
of George Herbert's Country Parson."

In 1665, nine years after he had carved
his name on the cloisters in College beside
that of Francis Turner, we find Ken again
in Winchester. The immediate object of his
return is somewhat obscure. But George
Morley was now Bishop of the diocese, and
it may be that he offered Ken the post of
domestic chaplain. In the following year,
however, Ken was elected Fellow^ of Win-
chester College, and in 1667 Bishop Morley
presented him to the living of Brighstone in
the Isle of Wight. Two years later the Bishop
appointed him a Prebendary of the Cathe-
dral, and at the same time transferred him
from the Isle of Wight to the living of
East Woodhay, which position, however, he

127

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

afterwards resigned in order to make room
for his old Oxford friend, George Hooper of
Christ Church, who was also one of Bishop
Morley's chaplains. We may, therefore,
think of Ken at Winchester as fulfilling the
duties of Canon of the Cathedral, of Fellow
of College, and of Chaplain to the Bishop,
while at the same time he undertook the
charge of the poor and neglected parish of
St. John in the Soke on the outskirts of
the city. The life must have been most
congenial and attractive to Ken. The musical
services of the Cathedral would appeal
strongly to one who was accustomed to
have an organ in his own room at college,
and who was wont, as his great-nephew tells
us, " to sing his Morning Hymn to his Lute
before he put on his Cloaths.*' His position
as Fellow would bring him into close rela-
tionship with the children of WiUiam of
Wykeham, for whom he wrote his Manual
of Prayers, His pastoral instincts would
find congenial activity among the poor
people of the Soke. His duties as Chaplain
would introduce him to the wider world of
London, where in the Old Church at Chelsea
his preaching quickly attracted attention.
At Winchester, too, was a considerable circle

128

A FAMOUS PREBENDARY

of friends and relatives with whom Ken was
on terms of happy intimacy. There was the
aged Izaak Walton, who had married as his
second wife Ken's half-sister, and who had
been to him for many years as a foster-
father. Among his fellow-Canons in the
Close was William Hawkins, also Rector of
Droxford, who in 1676 married the only
daughter of the prince of fishermen,'* and
so became connected by marriage with Ken.
His maternal uncle, John Chalkhill, son of
the Elizabethan poet, was a Fellow of Col-
lege, and would sometimes, at any rate, be
at Winchester. There was also the society
of Bishop Morley at Wolvesey.

We get a glimpse of Ken's manner of life
at this period in the brief biography written
by his great-nephew, William Hawkins the
younger. The words, Glory be to God "
were, we learn, his constant prescript to all
his letters and papers. He scrupulously kept
the fasts and festivals of the Church. He
''strictly accustomed himself to but one
Sleep, which often obliged him to rise at
One or Two of the Clock in the Morning,
and sometimes sooner. This grew so habitual,
that it continued with him almost till his
last illness. And so lively and cheerful was

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

his Temper, that he would be veiy facetious
and entertaining to his Friends in the Even-
ing, even when it was perceived that with
difficulty he kept his Eyes open/'

Of Ken's connection with St. John in the
Soke we learn a few interesting particulars.
The income of the benefice was so small that
it was difficult to find anyone to accept it.
Ken undertook the duties gratuitously, and

he kept up there,'* so Hawkins tells us,
" a constant course of preaching, and brought
many Anabaptists to the Church of England,
and baptized them himself." For this purpose
he used the Office of Adult Baptism, which
had been lately added to the Prayer Book,
in the revision of 1662. A curious story is
preserved among the Baker Manuscripts in
the British Museum in connection with Ken's
ministry in the Soke. A young boy, subject
to fits and entirely unable to speak or walk,
was restored to health, it appears, within a
few days of his being baptized by Ken.

The Friday before he was baptized," testi-
fied his mother, Sarah Cante, he had so
violent a fit, that the spectators very much
doubted of his recovery. The force of that
fit turned out his last two teeth by the roots,
so that he then had none left. About a week

130

A FAMOUS PREBENDARY

and odd days after he was baptized, sitting
at the Door in his chair, one of his Play-
mates, a Uttle Girle, called him Tattie ; the
child (which never spake before) answered,
my name is not Tattie, my name is Mathew.
Dr. Kenn has baptized me. About a fort-
night after, sitting at the Door in a chair,
he started up and went among his Play-
fellows, without being bid, and without
leading ; and that very day month following
his Baptism he hath continude well, in
speaking and going, and has fourteen teeth
. . . and is as fine a lad in my eyes as one
in an hundred.*'^ From a passage in Eve-
lyn's Diary, dated 15th September, 1586, it
is clear that Ken regarded the cure as
miraculous, for he afterwards related the
story to James II when staying at the
Deanery, as a greate miracle, happening
in Winchester to his certaine knowledge."
Ken's ministrations in the Soke seem to have
been much appreciated by the poor people,
who crowded to the church, we are told, to
hear him preach.

As Fellow of Winchester, Ken occupied a
room at College next to that of his uncle

^ Quoted by Anderdon, and icpeatcd by Plumtree, i,
p. 91 n.

131

lo- (2306J

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

and co-Fellow, John Chalkhill, which was
situated upstairs over what is now known
as third chamber/' and there for many years
after his death his organ remained. He had,
as Hawkins says, an excellent genius and
skill in music ; and whenever he had con-
venient opportunities for it he performed some
of his devotional parts of praise with his own
compositions, which were grave and solemn/*
For the use of the scholars of Winchester
College he wrote his beautiful Manual of
prayers and meditations on the Holy Com-
munion, and the Morning and Evening
Hymns. The Manual first appeared in 1674,
and has been used since by many generations
of Winchester scholars. It was republished
in 1871 by Dr. Moberly, with a short sketch
of Ken's career. There was also a little book
entitled Bishop Ken's Approach to the Holy
Altar J compiled by Anderdon, partly from
the Manual and partly from Ken's Practice
of Divine Love, which had a wide circulation.
It was out of print in 1884, when Dr. Fear on
the Head Master had it reprinted, and gave
a copy to every Winchester boy who was
Confirmed from 1884 to 1900. During Ken's
Ufetime the Manual passed through many
editions, and some charming copies of those

132

A FAMOUS PREBENDARY

early issues are preserved in the College
Library. The earliest edition which contains
the hymns is the eighth, which appeared in
1695, after Ken had left Winchester. It is
a matter of some controversy as to where
the famous hymns were written. ''The honour
of having witnessed their birth," says Dr.
Plumptre, ''is claimed by nearly as many
places as the cities of Greece which boasted
of having given birth to Homer.*' Brigh-
stone believes that they were composed b}'
their famous pastor as he walked to and
fro along the yew hedge in the rectory
garden. The good people at Wells point to
the terrace on the south of the Palace gar-
dens as the place of their composition. " WE
do think,'* said a farmer from near Long-
leat, " that he wrote those hymns in the big
house there." It will be remembered, how-
ever, that among the directions in the early
editions of the Manual^ addressed to Ken's
ideal scholar, Philotheus, we find this : "Be
sure to sing the morning and evening hymn
in your chamber devoutly." It is not un-
reasonable to suppose that the reference is
here to Ken's own hymns, which seem to
have been printed in leaflet form some years
before they appeared in the Mamial. At

133

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

any rate, Dr. Plumptre, who carefully in-
vestigated the matter, came to the conclu-
sion that they were written prior to the
first edition of the Manual, and that there-
fore Winchester may cherish the thought
that they came from Ken's pen and lips
there, and were accompanied by him on his
lute, or on the organ which was the cherished
treasure of his chamber in the College.'* '
Outside the Psalter, it has been said, no lines
have ever been so familiar to English
Churchmen as Ken's Morning and Evening
Hymns.

Ken was appointed Prebendary of the
Cathedral in 1669, and held the position
until he became Bishop of Bath and Wells
fifteen years later. His signature frequently
occurs in the Cathedral Chapter books, but
we meet with few points of interest with
respect to him. In the year following his
installation a Chapter Order is passed for
the better and more orderly celebration of
Divine service and sacraments among the
Prebendaries, instead of leaving them to be
performed by Vicars or petty Canons." A
little later the Cathedral bells are new
cast," and a new tenor bell added to the

1 Vol. ii, p. 219.

134

A FAMOUS PREBENDARY

peal. Sometimes Ken acts as almoner for
the Chapter, as when ''Mr. Treasurer is
ordered to pay 20s. to Mr. Ken to be
sent to a poor curate in extreme necessity.
The most interesting entry is one dated 27th
June, 1672, to the effect that '' the afternoon
lecture in the Cathedral shall from hence-
forth be estabhshed in Mr. Ken, Prebendary
of this Church, who is to be allowed 20s.
for each Sunday.'' This arrangement doubt-
less met with approval, for Ken's reputation
as a preacher was widely established. His
sweet face, musical voice, and thrilling
earnestness fairly enchanted," we are told,
the congregation that listened to him. We
learn from the Diary of Lady Warwick of
Lees Priory in Essex, one of the devout
and honourable women " of the period, how
deep an impression Ken's sermons made on
her. They moved her heart, she writes,
" to long after the blessed feast " of the
Holy Communion, to " weep bitterly," to
" bless God and to have sweet communion
with Him." Even Charles II could not
resist the spell of his preaching : I must
go," he said, and hear little Ken tell me
of my faults." Bishop Burnet, never favour-
ably disposed towards Ken, admits that

135

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

" he had a very edifying way of preaching ;
but/' he adds, it was more apt to move
the passions than to instruct ; so that his
sermons were rather beautiful than soUd ;
yet his way in them was very taking/* '
Evelyn, in his Diary, bears repeated testi-
mony to his influence in the pulpit, and in
one passage speaks of the wonderful elo-
quence of this admirable preacher " as not
to be expressed." 2

The prebendal house which Ken occupied
stood in the present garden of the Deanery,
about midway between the Long Gallery
and the river. Like other buildings in the
Close, it had suffered much during the period
of the Commonwealth, and had cost the
Chapter a considerable sum of money to put
in " sufficient repair.*' The " Howse," we
learn was built with stone and covered with
lead, and consisted of " one Httle Hall, one
Kitchen with water comeinge into itt through
a pype of Lead, one large dininge-roome and
parlor both wainscotted, seaven Chambers,"
and a number of domestic offices. It also pos-
sessed a stately oaken staircase, and a garden
and orchard contayneinge by Estimation

1 History of His Own Times, p. 383.

2 Under March 20, 1687.

136

A FAMOUS PREBENDARY

half an Acre of ground.'' This house, being
considered to be ill-placed and in poor con-
dition/' was most unfortunately pulled down
about the middle of the last century. It
was the house which Ken had boldly refused
to Nell Gwyn, saying, as his great-nephew
tells us, that a woman of ill-repute ought
not to be endured in the house of a clergy-
man, especially the King's Chaplain." This
incident unexpectedly led to Ken's appoint-
ment to a bishopric. For less than two
years afterwards, the see of Bath and Wells
being vacant, Charles is said to have stopped
all applications for the post with the words,

Odds fish ! who shall have Bath and Wells
but the poor little black fellow who would
not give poor Nelly a lodging."

On resigning his positions at Winchester,
Ken made certain gifts to the College and
the Cathedral. His old school-friend, John
Nicholas, was now Warden of College, and
to him he sent a donation of £30 towards
the new schoolroom, and some scarce and
valuable books for the library : to the Cathe-
dral Library, now enriched by Bishop Morley's
volumes, he also gave some costly works of
theology. And so Ken left his " beloved
retreat at Winchester," with its happy

137

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

associations of College and Cathedral and
parochial visitations among his poor people
in the Soke, for the wider sphere of episcopal
responsibility. In some ways he may not
have regretted the change. Several of his
dearest friends with whom for many years
he had been intimately associated in the old
city had lately passed away. His uncle,
John Chalkhill, had died in 1679, and had
been buried in the south cloister of the
College, where his epitaph, supposed to have
been written by Ken, may be seen. On his
return from abroad, nine months before, he
found that the aged Izaak Walton had
passed to his rest, and had been buried in
Prior Silkstede's Chapel. Bishop Morley,
too, whose death was the indirect cause of
Ken's appointment to a bishopric, had,
within a few months, followed his friend
Walton to the grave, and had been laid to
rest with him in Winchester Cathedral.

A few memorials still exist of Ken's
association with Winchester. His name
may be seen in the College cloisters, and
his coat of arms in ''Schoor' ; his gift-books
remain in the Cathedral Library ; and his
statue, close to that of Izaak Walton, occu-
pies a niche on the great screen in the choir

138

A FAMOUS PREBENDARY

of the Cathedral ; and these, at any rate,
serve to remind us of one whose moral
character/' in the words of Lord Macaulay,
seems to approach, as near as human
infirmity permits, to the ideal perfection of
Christian virtue." ^

^ History of England, Ch. V.

139

CHAPTER XV

THE CLOSE GARDENS

At the time of the Great RebelUon some
fine trees, rehcs of monastic days, were
standing in the Close. In that part of it
known as Mirabel Close there stood, we
learn, an Oake-tree,'' one great Ashe,"
one great Walnut tree," and two old
Elmes," beside several smaller trees. A
single Ewe-tree," valued at " tenn shil-
lings," stood in the old cloister-garth ; and
to the east of the Cathedral, where the
monastic garden, known as Paradise," was
situated, were fower elms," apparently
large trees. ^ All these trees appear to have
been cut down for timber and sold by the
Parliamentary agents.

Indeed, the existing arrangement of the
Close, with its prebendal houses, its fine
lawns and pleasant gardens, dates for the
most part from the time of the Restoration.
When the surviving canons returned to the
Close in 1660, after fifteen years banishment
under the Commonwealth, their property was

1 See " Parliamentary Survsy," 1647, printed in
Cathedral Documents, u, pp. 90, 91.

140

THE CLOSE GARDENS

m a desperate condition. The glorious Cathe-
dral had been shamefully defaced, and the
Chapter Library scattered to the winds. The
deanery and most of the houses were more
or less in a state of ruin. The lead of the
roofs and the pipings, and in some instances
the very timber beams, had been plundered
and sold. Their stately trees — the oake,'*
the great ash,'' the " great walnut,'' the
" old elms," the ewe-tree " — were all gone.
The gardens, with many a choice shrub and
flower such as may be seen figured in Gerard
and Parkinson, were desolate wastes. St.
Aethelwold's ''sweet flood of water, abound-
ing with fish," still flowed through the pre-
cincts, but was choked with weeds and rubbish.

The Dean and Chapter quickly set to work
to remedy this state of things. Between
the years 1660 and 1670 nearly £18,000
was spent '' in reparations or cathedral and
Close, and beautifying and furnishing or
Quire, and building and Repayring the
Deane and Prebend-Houses, and in other
various extraordinary Expenses occasioned
by ye Spoyle and injury done in the time
of Usurpation." During this period and
the years that immediately followed, the
various Close houses were either entirely

141

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

rebuilt or extensively repaired. Important
additions, including the long, red-brick gal-
lery, were made to the deanery. Other
houses reveal by the dates on the lead-work
of their guttering the actual time of restora-
tion. The gardens, too, were put into order,
and the walls that divided them duly repaired,
while new trees were planted in the place
of those cut dow during the time of the
Commonwealth.

In monastic times the office of Hortulanus,
or Gardinarius, was no unimportant one. We
find that from one of the Convent Rolls,
now in the Cathedral Library, that in the
year 1334 the gar diner-monk was one Robert
de Basyng, whose duty it was to supply the
refectory with vegetables and fruit, and the
church with flowers for the high altar on
great festivals. The gardens were probably
situated in the western part of the monastic
enclosure, where a large artificial mound,
not uncommon in mediaeval gardens, may
still be seen. One of the Rolls also speaks
of a South gardyn," which was probably
situated to the south-east of the Guest-
house. There was also another garden or
orchard at the north-east of the Cathedral,
spoken of as Paradise, which was probably

142

THE CLOSE GARDENS

planted with fruit-trees, mainly with apples,
which were much used in Advent and Lent.^
A hundred years after the dissolution of
the monastery we find the garden com-
monly called the Paradise " still well stocked
with fruit-Trees " to the extent of halfe
an acre of grounde " ; while the ground to
the west of the enclosure was divided by
stone walls into several separate gardens
attached to the prebends' houses. In the
Dean's garden " three small Fishponds re-
mained, ^ doubtless those used in monastic
days to maintain the supply of fresh fish for
fast days. These ponds no longer exist ; but
an interesting structure may still be seen on
the banks of St. Aethelwold's stream. This
is an ancient summer-house associated with
the name of Izaak Walton. It is situated in
what was then the garden of Thomas Ken
within a few yards of the river, beneath the
shelter of the Close wall, and shaded with
overhanging trees. It has been rebuilt since
the days of Ken and Walton ; but there is
nothing impossible in the tradition which
associates this spot with the aged fisherman,
and we may be allowed to think of him in

^ Obedientiary Rolls, p. 79.

2 "Parliamentary Survey." Cathedral Documents, vol.
ii, p. 78.

143

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

his declining years in company with Ken,
and Hawkins whom I love/' he wrote,

as my own son/' or it may be with his
old friend Bishop Morley who lived at Wol-
vesey on the other side of the Close wall,
as sometimes sitting beneath the trees, en-
gaged in cheerful conversation, or listening
in silence to the " sweet loud music " of the
nightingale. We may be sure, too, that the
old man, now nearing his ninetieth year,
would sometimes take his little grandchild
Anne, the daughter of William and Anne
Hawkins, into his brother-in-law's garden
and stroll with her along the gliding stream
full of great stores of trout."

Ancient trees have often interesting associa-
tions, and we would fain know more of those
now standing-^ within the Close walls. The

great trees " of the Priory, which were
flourishing a hundred years after the dis-
solution, were, as we have seen, almost cer-
tainly cut down and sold for timber at the
time of the Commonwealth. None of the
existing trees are of a pre-Reformation date,
unless it may be three or four yew-trees.
But many of our trees were planted shortly
after the Restoration. The magnificent elms
in Mirabel Close are associated with the

144

THE CLOSE GARDENS

visits of Charles II to the deanery. The
seventeenth century was an age of tree-
planting, especially in gardens, and the mul-
berry and the fig-tree seem to have been
special favourites. An ancient mulberry in
the garden of No. 3 was probably planted
at this time. William Gilpin, in his classical
work on Forest Scenery pubhshed in 1808,
tells us that In the Deanery-garden at
Winchester there stood lately (so lately as
the year 1757) an ancient fig-tree. Through
a succession of many deans it had been
cased up and shielded from winds and frost.
The wall to which it was nailed was adorned
with various inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek,
and Latin, alluding to such passages of the
sacred writings as do honour to the fig-tree.
After having been presented with several
texts of Scripture the reader was informed,
by way of cHmax, that in the year 1623
King James I tasted of the fruit of this
fig-tree with great pleasure." ^ The tree has
now disappeared, and also the inscription on
the wall.

The lime avenue, leading down to the
great west doorway, forms a beautiful ap-
proach to the Cathedral. There seems to be

^ Gilpin's Forest Scenery, 3rd ed,, vol. i, p. 153.
145

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

no actual record of the planting, but the
custom of making avenues of lime-trees was
borrowed from the French towards the close
of the seventeenth century, and the avenue
probably dates from that time. Moreover,
in Buck's picture of the Cathedral, dated
1736, the avenue is shown, where the trees
are represented as small ones. There is a
second avenue of limes within the walls of
the Close which stretches for some distance
along the right bank of St. Aethel wold's
stream almost as far as the boundary wall.
The trees, like those in the Cathedral avenue,
have been rightly pollarded more than once,
and to this they owe their preservation.
Near the head of the avenue, in what is now
the deanery garden but formerly that of
Thomas Ken, two majestic plane-trees stand
close together. They are fast-growing trees,
and may possibly have been planted about
the year 1780, when Warden Harry Lee is
said to have planted the existing plane-trees
in his garden and College meads. ^ They are
nearly of the same size and appearance, and
are apparently of aboat the same age. Not
far distant will be seen on the lawn a flat
stone with a Latin inscription which records

* Kirby's Annals of Winchester College, p. 371.
14(1

THE CLOSE GARDENS

that the oak-tree overshadowing it was
planted by Dean Garnier in his ninety-first
year, in 1867. The Dean was a great arbori-
culturist, and a fine tulip-tree in one of the
Close gardens is also said to have been
planted by him. A clump of cedars in
another garden owe their origin to some
cones brought from Palestine by Canon
Carus, whose name is commemorated in the
Carus Greek Testament Prizes at Cambridge.

Early in May the appearance of the Close
is at its best. The great elm-trees and the
limes in the avenues are breaking into tender
green. The flowering shrubs are in all their
glory. On the old Priory gateway and on
seveial of the canon's houses the lovely
wistaria is in blossom. The laburnums and
lilacs, the pink and white may-trees, and
the guelder-rose are in full flower, and the
monastic walls are resplendent with the pale
yellow blossoms of the wallflower. The
swifts are again shrieking around the Norman
tower of the Cathedral as they have done
every summer since Bishop Giffard rebuilt it ;
the chiff-chaff and the garden-warbler and the
turtle-dove have returned to their home of
peace, and the cuckoo will be calling from the
magnificent plane-trees in the Dean's garden.

147

II— (3306)

CHAPTER XVI

THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE ^

If it be true, as St. Thomas Aquinas used
to say, Ubi aves, ihi angeli, then the Cathe-
dral Close of Winchester must be haunted
by legions of angels. For it is a very para-
dise of birds. Although situated nearly in
the centre of the city, and with a thorough-
fare for foot-passengers running through it,
which is traversed daily between the hours
of 6 a.m. and of 10 p.m. when the gates are
shut and barred, by a large number of people,
yet the Close possesses many of those natural
features and happy conditions which render
it congenial to our feathered friends. Shel-
tered on the north by the mighty fabric of
the Cathedral, and entirely enclosed by
lofty walls which offer attractive nesting-
places to many species, there is a sense of
safety and seclusion in the ancient Benedic-
tine enclosure which birds are not slow to
recognise. The Close, too, is finely timbered,
and can show some magnificent elms, while
a large portion of it is divided into well-
stocked gardens in which an abundant food-
supply seldom fails. Moreover through the

^ This chapter appeared in The CornhillioT March, 1912.
148

THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE

eastern part of the precincts there runs a
stream of swift and clear water — so attractive
and so essential to bird-life — as full to-day
of stores of trouts " as when, nearly two
hundred and fifty years ago, good old Izaak
Walton wandered along its banks, and
listened to the " heavenly voices of those
little nimble musicians of the air, that war-
bled forth their curious ditties in the
garden of his dear friend and relative, Thomas
Ken, Prebendary of the Cathedral.

The Close, as becomes its ancient and
dignified associations, possesses a rookery of
its own, and last spring between forty and
fifty nests might be counted in the lofty
elm-trees situated in those portions of the
enclosure known as Mirabel Close and Water
Close. Several pairs of rooks also attempted
to take possession of the trees which now
occupy the site of the ancient monastic
cloister-garth ; but for some mysterious
reason which baffles the mind of man, this
proceeding met with the serious disapproval
of the rest of the colony, and the half-formed
nests were deliberately torn to pieces.
" Depend upon it," as Bishop Westcott who
took a keen interest in the palace rooker}^
at Bishop Auckland, used to say, " Depend

149

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

upon it, the rook has a deep purpose in
everything which he does/' What the pur-
pose was in this particular instance we will
not venture to determine. But the rookery
has undoubtedly increased of recent years,
and no slaughter of the innocents ever takes
place within the sacred precincts of the
Close, and it may be that, in solemn con-
vocation, it was recognised that the colony
was already large enough, and that no in-
crease in the number of nests could be allowed.
At any rate, after several vain but spirited
attempts, the intruding birds retired baffled
and disappointed, leaving behind them, as
evidences of their fruitless toil, an untidy
mass of broken twigs scattered over the
green turf beneath the trees. Later on in
the season, when the nesting operations are
well over, and the young birds have become
strong upon the wing, a vast number of
rooks occupy the trees of the Close. To-
wards the end of the summer some three
hundred birds at least might be seen every
evening about sunset wheeling about in the
air before finally settling down for the night
in their lofty roosting-trees.

Needless to say, jackdaws abound in the
Close, as they mostly do in the vicinity of

150

THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE

cathedrals and churches and ancient ruins.
They make their nests in the hollows of the
old elm-trees, as well as on the Cathedral
and among the ruins of Wolvesley Castle.
Very amusing is ''the steeple-loving daw"
but withal very mischievous in his ways.
There is a large pear-tree in my garden
situated in the south-eastern corner of the
Close, which in most seasons bears an abun-
dant supply of excellent fruit ; but just as
the pears begin to ripen, unless a careful
watch be kept, the jackdaw^s will ruin the
entire crop. The presence of a single daw
upon the tree is a sufficient warning to
gather the pears without delay ; otherwise
in the early dawn, before the Close gates are
open, a company of jackdaws will descend
upon the spoil, and with strong, sharp beaks,
will attack the ripening fruit until by break-
fast-time hardly a single sound pear will be
left upon the tree.

Winchester, it is true, cannot boast of
such a colony of half-domesticated pigeons
as frequent the precincts of the British
Museum or of St. Paul's Cathedral, but it
possesses many pairs of the far more hand-
some and interesting wood-pigeon or ring-
dove, which breed every season in the Close.

151

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

There were two nests in my garden alone
last spring, and several in the lofty elms of
Mirabel Close, and the fine birds in their
lovely breeding plumage were a source of
constant interest and delight. For many
years, too, perhaps as long ago as the days of
the Benedictine monks, one or more pairs of
stock-doves had regularly bred in the Cathe-
dral tower, to which every May a number of
swifts return. During the late work of
restoration, when from 1905 to 1910 the
tower was surrounded by scaffolding, and
workmen were constantly about, the stock-
doves were forced to forsake their ancient
home, and the deep stone recesses, where
for generations they had reared their young,
remained bare and deserted. The scaffolding
was removed in the winter of 1910, and early
in the coming spring I began eagerly to watch
the Norman Tower in the hope that the
birds would return to their former haunts.
To my delight, one morning just after sun-
rise in the last week of March, I saw a pair
of stock-doves flying over the Close towards
the Cathedral, where they settled on one of
the window ledges in the tower, near to the
spot utilised in former years as a nesting-
place. By the middle of April two white

152

THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE

eggs were again lying in the old crevice of
the Cathedral Tower.

But the great elm-trees of Mirabel Close
are the home of other species, more striking
and interesting, and far rarer, than rooks
and jackdaws and wood-pigeons. The chief
distinction of the Close, from an ornitho-
logical standpoint, is the presence of those
wise and weird creatures, more often heard
than seen, whose strange and hollow cries
make night hideous or joyful according to
the temperament of the hearer — the white
or barn owl, and the brown or twany owl.
From the earliest times the owl has been
regarded, perhaps not unnaturally, as a bird
of ill-omen. Its strange, half-human appear-
ance, its solitary nature, its nocturnal habits,
its weird and uncanny cries, all lent them-
selves to superstitious fancies. The old
Hebrew prophet sighs with a broken heart
over his native city inhabited only by owls
and satyrs. In classical literature such
epithets as moping and unclean were
generally apphed to this " ill-omened bird.
In our own literature the owl is usually
associated with fearful foreboding and com-
ing disaster. Shakespeare has introduced
the shrieking of an owl into the murder

153

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

scene of " Macbeth " ; and an owlet's
wing " formed part of the ingredients of the
witches* cauldron. The lines of Chatterton
well illustrate the prevailing opinion of our
poets : —

" Down in the dark and solitary vale,
Where the curst screech-owl sings her fatal tale."

But there is another side to the picture.
To most bird-lovers the owl is among the
most fascinating of birds. Its weird, almost
supernatural, characteristics only give addi-
tional interest to its personality. Much as
I love the rooks with their unfathomable
ways, I would rather be without the rooks
than without the owls. We have only, to
my knowledge, one pair of white owls in
the Close ; and their mansion is to be found,
not, as we might expect, in the Cathedral
tower, where not uncommonly, as Tennyson
puts it : —

" Alone and warming his five vnts,
The white owl in the belfry sits ; "

but in the vast hollow of an immemorial
elm-tree. Here, year after year, the succes-
sive eggs are laid, and the young birds reared.
All through the summer months, after the
sun has set, the snoring and hissing of the
owlets will be heard, while the old birds
may be seen — truly a lovely sight — floating

154

THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE

over the gardens of the Close in search of
rats and mice with which to feed their
family.

The brown owl, like its relative the white
owl, is a constant resident in the Close, and
also has its home in the same hollow elm-
tree. The young are hatched in April, but
for a considerable time they remain in or
near the nest ; and there is no prettier
picture than a little company of fluffy owlets,
with large, staring eyes, sitting in a row on
a naked branch near the entrance to their
home. The note of the brown owl is the
well-known hoot, which the poets as a body
regard as melancholy,'* but which to some
persons is a melodious and most musical
sound. It is well to know that this latter
opinion was shared by Shakespeare, and by
Wordsworth. In his exquisite song to
"Winter," at the conclusion ot ''Love's
Labour Lost," Shakespeare sings : —

"Where icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall.
And milk comes frozen home in pail ;
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-whoo !
To-whit I tu-whoo ! a merry vote."

In one of his finest and most touching

155

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

poems, Wordsworth speaks of a young boy
who blew mimic hootings to the silent
owls, that they might answer him " : —

" And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled ; concourse wild
Of mirth and jocund din ! "

Passages to the same effect might also be
quoted from Shelley and Burns and Sir
Walter Scott. Gilbert White, too, held the
opinion that owls have very expressive
notes " ; they hoot, he says, in a fine vocal
sound, much resembling the vox humana,
and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical
key/* When brown owls hoot, their throats,
he tells us, swell as big as a hen*s egg, and
usually, he found by experiment, they hoot
in B flat. What the particular note may be,
I will not venture to suggest, but on a still,
dark night in autumn or winter, it is magnifi-
cent to listen to the brown owls as with
loud, clear hootings — tu-who-o-o " — they
break the silence of the Close. In mediaeval
times the good monks were accustomed to
rise at midnight, and making their way along
the chilly corridors to chant the praises of
God in their glorious Cathedral. The Bene-
dictine monks are gone now, but the praises

156

THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE

of God are still uttered in the midnight,
and sometimes the whole night through, by
the brown owls (in parts of Devonshire they
are known as seraphim " ^) who with loud,
antiphonal rejoicings, and wild, ringing notes
of gladness, answer each other in the mist
from the Close to College meads and from
College meads to the Close. Last Christmas
Eve, I remember, they were loudly jubilant,
and continued to shout forth their merry
notes " till dawn, when the carol was taken
up by other feathered choristers, to wit,
several song-thrushes, a robin redbreast, and
a wren.

In addition to the birds already mentioned,
many species make their home in the Close
throughout the year. Needless to say, spar-
rows and starlings abound ; blackbirds and
thrushes are plentiful ; and there are always
a number of chaffinches, of blue-tits and
oxeye-tits, in the gardens, and a few green-
finches and hedge-sparrows. The rarer and
more timid species chiefly haunt the long
line of trees and brushwood which border
the banks of the stream that runs through
the eastern part of the Close, parallel to the

1 See Bird Life and Bird Love, bv R. Bosworth Smith,
p. 22.

157

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

wall which separates it from the precincts
of Wolvesey Castle. Here, running up the
trunks of the lime-trees, which form a beau-
tiful avenue beside the clear trout-stream,
the interesting little tree-creeper will often
be seen ; here the retiring bullfinch loves
to dwell ; and here, especially in the yew-
trees, the lovely goldcrest, the tiniest of
British birds, less than a quarter of an
ounce in weight, may often be found, flutter-
ing from branch to branch, and uttering its
attractive call. The goldfinch, too, is not
infrequently seen. With the approach of
spring the summer migrants begin to make
their appearance, and add considerably to
the number of residents in the Close. The
chiff-chaff is the first to be heard, and is
soon followed by its near relative the willow-
wren. April sees the arrival of the swallows
and house-martins ; and a little later, when
the Close is in full glory of lilac and laburnum,
of wistaria and whitethorn, the fly-catcher
will appear in the gardens, and the swifts
will return to the Cathedral Tower, and the
soft cooing of the turtle-dove will be heard,
and the cuckoo will announce his arrival.

During the summer months the fruit-trees
in the gardens of the Close offer a great

158

THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE

attraction to the birds. Indeed, unless the
trees are netted, it is scarcely possible to
keep the blackbirds and thrushes away.
But in the garden belonging to the house
once occupied by Warden Nicholas there
stands an ancient mulberry-tree, planted
probably in the days of Charles II, gnarled
and hollow and broken, but still possessing
branches of considerable size. It is impos-
sible to net the mulberry-tree, which most
seasons bears a vast quantity of fruit. When
the berries are ripe the tree is beset from
sunrise to sunset by fruit-loving birds.
Blackbirds, thrushes, and starlings, many
of them young birds, are the most numer-
ous. The tree seems literally alive with
birds gorging themselves on the luscious
fruit. Frighten the birds away, and within
a few minutes individuals will be seen return-
ing from every quarter, and again settling
among the thick foliage. Mulberries seem
to have a greater attraction for some species
than even strawberries and raspberries. Chaf-
finches and willow- wrens flock to the banquet,
and with them the scarcer and more local
garden-warbler. Strange to say, this bird
was entirely overlooked by Gilbert White,
although it doubtless visited Selborne in the

159

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

eighteenth century as it does to-day. It is
a shy and sober-coloured bird, whose song
is hardly distinguishable from that of the
blackcap, and it loves the unfrequented
shrubberies of gardens. It had its nest last
summer somewhere along the thick brush-
wood that borders the river, and it reared
its brood in safety, for there were always
several present, both old birds and young,
concealed in the thick foliage of the mulberry-
tree when the fruit was ripe.

During the autumn and winter months
numbers of sea-gulls will fly over the pre-
cincts of the Close, and sometimes a few will
settle, with loud cries, along the course of
the stream, and splash about in the water.
Wild-duck, too, in the morning and evening
flights, may be heard passing overhead ;
and even a solitary heron may be seen on
its way to the water-meadows. Now and
again, but not often, a pheasant finds its
way * into the Close, and, evidently ill at
ease in its strange surroundings, tries to
hide among the brussels-sprouts and currant-
bushes. Another occasional visitor is the
long-tailed tit, which, unlike the wandering
game-bird, is entirely at home in the Cathe-
dral Close ; and there is no more engaging

160

THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE

sight than a colony of bottle-toms flitting
along from tree to tree and from branch to
branch in perfect harmony and contentment.
Hawks are but seldom seen, and Winchester
cannot, hke Sahsbury, boast of its peregrine-
falcons ; but a kestrel may sometimes be
noticed hovering about the Cathedral tower.
And early one morning last autumn a great
falcon, which, however, turned out to be a
trained goshawk escaped from captivity,
struck down a song-thrush as it was flying
over the Close, leaving a pitiful litter of
fluttering feathers on the lawn. As becomes
an enclosure which can show several fine
clusters of wild mistletoe on its lofty trees,
the missel-thrush is a constant resident, and
in autumn, when the hollies are bright with
berries, several of these handsome birds may
frequently be seen feasting together. At
this season, too, our lawns are visited by
the so-called " grey " wagtail, whose long
tail and delicate yellow colouring render it
one of the most elegant and graceful of
British birds.

As Christmas approaches the Close be-
comes the haunt of a number of birds seeking
food and shelter during the privations of
winter. The great fabric of the Cathedral,

161

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

and the lofty Close walls help to break the
violence of the rough winds, and the Canons'
gardens afford many a snug nook and corner
against the severity of frost and snow. And
a supply of food is not lacking. More than
one household in the Close remembers the
birds. A table on the lawn, plentifully sup-
plied with suet and bread-crumbs and hemp-
seed and split cocoa-nuts appeals to the
wants of different species. And all day long,
from earliest dawn, the table, fixed on a
pole so as to be out of the reach of prowling
cats, is frequented by tits, robins, sparrows,
starlings, chaffinches, greenfinches, hedge-
sparrows, thrushes, and blackbirds. Now
and again a nut-hatch will feed on the suet
or cocoa-nut. But last winter a far more
uncommon bird than any of the above
regularly visited the table. As a general
rule there is no more retiring bird than
the hawfinch or grosbeak, but on the morn-
ing of 16th January, after a cold night,
when the thermometer had registered four-
teen degrees of frost, and a slight mantle
of snow covered the ground, there was a
hawfinch on the table. It was a male bird,
and very handsome and conspicuous he
appeared, with his rich chestnut-brown

162

THE BIRDS OF THE CLOSE

plumage and a large conical bill. Although
the table was only a few yards from the
library window, he showed no signs of alarm
or apprehension. Cold and hunger, and
perhaps the love of hemp-seed, or it may
be a sense of security in the Close, overcame
the natural shyness of his disposition, and
he took his breakfast in leisurely comfort
and content. Never would he allow any
other bird to be present when he was taking
his fill of hemp-seed. The moment he alighted,
he cleared the board of tits and sparrows,
and even the starlings stood in awe of his
dangerous beak. For over a month he regu-
larly frequented the table, and when the
spell of cold weather was over, and the more
genial days of spring appeared, he did not
forsake the hospitality of the Close, but
evidently remained to breed, for later on
in the season I saw several young hawfinches
busy after the green-peas in the garden.

la— (2306)

163

PART II
LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS

CHAPTER I

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE

At Winchester King Aelfred created our
prose literature. Before him England pos-
sessed in her own language the great poem
of Caedmon and a number of ballads and
battle-songs. But of prose literature, as
J. R. Green reminds us, she had none. The
mighty roll of the prose books that fill her
hbraries begins with the translations of
Aelfred, and above all with the chronicle of
his reign.'' ^ It is, indeed, said Dean Kitchin,

a source of legitimate pride for Winchester
that within her walls Aelfred made the first
and greatest history book of the English
people.''^ As Whitby has been called the
Cradle of English Poetry, so may Winchester
claim to be the Cradle of English Prose.

The early days of the great King were to
a large extent spent at Winchester under
the care and guidance of the wise and kindly
St. Swithun. Among the memories of his
boyhood was doubtless his father's famous

Donation " to the Church, in which, as

* History of the English People, vol. i, p. 80.
2 Winchester, p. 14.

167

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the Chronicle has it, he booked the tenth
part of his lands to God's praise and his
own eternal welfare/'^ This charter, which
is still preserved in the British Museum, was
written at Winchester, and laid with much
solemnity on the high altar of the Cathedral
church in the presence of Bishop Swithun
and the assembled Witan.

His early inclination to literature is well
illustrated by the story, related by Asser,
of the Queen showing her sons an illuminated
book of Saxon poetry, and saying, " Which-
ever of you first learns the songs shall have
the volume for his own/' Aelfred, we are
told, took the book out of her hand and
went to his master to read it, and in due
time brought it to his mother and recited
it/' On the death of his father Aethelwulf,
whose remains lie in one of the coffers on the
choir screen of the Cathedral, Aelfred doubt-
less resided almost entirely with the bishop
at Wolvesey. It must have been an occasion
of great grief to him, when, in his fourteenth
year, his kindly preceptor died. The boy
doubtless stood by in sorrow as they laid
the aged bishop to rest, not within his Cathe-
dral, but at his own desire in the churchyard

^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under a.d. 855.

168

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE

outside amongst the common people, where
his grave might take the sunshine and the
rain.

Some eight or nine years later, on the
death of his last surviving brother Aethelred,
Aelf red, now in his twenty-third year, ascended
the throne of Wessex, which he was destined
to occupy for a period of nearly thirty years.
This period may be conveniently divided
into four parts. The first part was almost
entirely occupied in warfare with the Danes,
and concluded with the Peace of Wedmore
in the year 878, when, comparatively speak-
ing, the land had rest for fifteen years.
This second period was utilised by the King
in giving good government to his people, in
fostering the arts of peace and war, and in
producing those literary works with which
his name will ever be associated. This benefi-
cent occupation was rudely broken in 893
by the invasion of the terrible viking Hasting,
who for four years gave the King unceasing
trouble. At length, however, baffled by the
genius and vigilance of Aelf red. Hasting
broke up his army and went southwards
oversea to the Seine.'* Some three or four
years of life yet remained to Aelfred, and
during this last period he was enabled to

169

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

complete those literary undertakings which
have shed undying lustre on his reign.

For the first few years after the Peace of
Wedmore, Aelfred was entirely occupied in
consolidating his kingdom. He soon, how-
ever, began to gather learned men about
him. From Mercia he invited Werfrith
Bishop of Worcester, and Plegmund whom
he afterwards appointed Archbishop of Can-
terbury, and two priests, Aethelstan and
Werwulf, whom he made his chaplains. He
induced St. Grimbald to come over from
Flanders on the promise of making him
Prior of the new minster he proposed to
build at Winchester, and John the Old-
Saxon from the monastery of Corbie, a
man learned in all kinds of literary science,
and skilled in many other arts.'* Asser,
also, Bishop of St. David's, who afterwards
became his biographer, he prevailed upon

to spend at least six months of every
year " with him. " I was accustomed at
these times,'' says Asser, to read to him
whatever books he liked, for it was his usual
habit, both day and night, amid his many
occupations either himself to read books, or
to listen while others read them." We also
learn from the Saxon Chronicle how some

170

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE

learned men came to him from Ireland :
Three Scots came to King Aelfred in a
boat without any oars from Hibernia, whence
they had stolen away because they desired,
for the love of God, to be in foreign parts,
they recked not where. The boat in which
they came was made of two skins and a half,
and they took with them food sufficient for
seven days : and about the seventh day
they came on shore in Cornwall, and soon
after went to King Aelfred. Their names were
Dubslane and Macbeth and Maelinmun.'' ^

It was in the year 887, if Asser's story
is to be literally accepted, that the King
personally began his literary career. And
it happened thus : On a certain day, Aelfred
and Asser were talking together when the
Bishop quoted a sentence which took the
King's fancy. Write it down for me,*'
said the King, and he pulled out of his
bosom a httle book. But,'' says Asser,
I could find no empty space in the book,
for it was already full of various matters."
He proposed, therefore, that the King should
begin a new book, and hastily preparing a
sheet, he wrote down the quotation. " On
the same day," he adds, I wrote three

^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a.d. 891.

171

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

other quotations which pleased him/' The
King, by divine inspiration/' says Asser,
was at once eager, not only to read, but to
interpret in Saxon, that he might teach
others. The book, thus began, grew until
it became almost as large as a Psalter,"
and the King called it his manual or hand-
book, because he kept it by him day and
night, finding, as he said, no small comfort
therein. It was on St. Martin's Festival,
11th November, 887, that King Aelfred thus
began to interpret in Saxon " on behalf
of his people.

It was the King's object to give his people
books in their own tongue. He took, there-
fore, some of the popular manuals of the
age — books that are most needful for all
men to know " — and translated them freely
into English. Among these were the Pastoral
Care of Pope Gregory ; the History of the
World by Orosius ; Bede's Ecclesiastical His-
tory ; and The Consolation of Philosophy by
the Roman Senator Boethius.

It is not possible, nor is it important, to
determine the chronological order of Aelfred' s
works. ^ It is clear, however, that his Manual

^ An excellent account of Aelfred 's works is to be found
in the Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. i,
Ch. VI.

172

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE

or commonplace book was the earliest of his
compilations. The handbook consisted, it
seems, of passages from the Bible and the
Fathers translated into English, of personal
observations on various matters, and also,
as we learn from William of Malmesbury,
of some historical notes and details. It is,
indeed, a great misfortune that this book,
the one we could least spare of all his works,
is now entirely lost. With regard to his
other works, priority has been claimed for
Gregory's Pastoral Care ; but if this is so,
the book cannot have been completed before
the year 890, for in the Preface Aelfred
speaks of Plegmund as Archbishop, and
Plegmund was not consecrated until that
year. In the Preface, however, we get so
clear an idea, not only of the decay of learn-
ing in England, but also of the King's method
of working, and of his determination to dis-
seminate knowledge, that we may well give
it a prior consideration. After lamenting the
ignorance that generally prevailed, and de-
fending the use of the vernacular tongue in
literature, the King goes on to say : —

When I call to mind how the know-
ledge of the Latin tongue had before this
fallen away throughout England, and yet

173

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

that many could read English writing, then
began I, amidst other divers and manifold
occupations of this kingdom, to turn into
English the book which in Latin is named
PastoraliSy and in English Shepherd's Book ;
sometimes word for word, sometimes mean-
ing for meaning, as I had learned it from
Plegmund my Archbishop, and Asser my
Bishop, and from Grimbald my mass-priest,
and from John my mass-priest. When I
had learnt it so that I understood it, and so
that I could quite clearly give its meaning, I
turned it into English. And to each bishopric
in my kingdom I will send one, and in
each there shall be an 'aestel* worth fifty
mancuses. And I command, in God's name,
that no man take the ' aestel ' from the
book nor the book fiom the minister. It is
unknown how long there may be such
learned bishops as now, thank God, are
nearly everywhere. Therefore I would that
they should be always kept in that place,
except the Bishop wish to have the book
with him, or it be lent out anyw^here, or
anyone be making a copy from it." ^

We must think, therefore, not only of the
King and his helpers reading and translating

^ Stopford Brooke's King Aelfred, p. 11.

174

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE

the Cura Pastoralis, but also of the scribes
in the Scriptorium of St. Swithun's monas-
tery busy in making copies of the EngUsh
version to be sent to the various bishoprics.
One of these copies is preserved in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford. It is an actual
copy made at Winchester, and sent by the
King to Bishop Werfrith of Worcester. The
manuscript begins : This book is for Wor-
cester. King Aelfred bids greet Bishop
Werfrith with loving and friendly words.''

From a literary point of view, Aelfred's
preface to his translation of Gregory's Cura
Pastoralis is the first important piece of
Enghsh prose we possess ; while linguistic-
ally it is, on account of its age, of unique
value. The book itself was, of course, speci-
ally designed for the use of the clergy, who
sadly needed guidance and encouragement ;
but the King was far from unmindful of the
needs of the laity. For the nation at large,
as well as for the Church, he translated the
histories of Bede and of Orosius that his
people might know somewhat of the story
of their own land and of the countries beyond
the sea. With regard to Bede's Ecclesiastical
History of the English, the King omits large
portions of the original. He passes over

175

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the theological discussions, the Pope^s letters,
the famous ecclesiastical conference at
Whitby, and many details of purely local
interest ; while on the other hand it is
disappointing to find that very little new
matter is inserted. It was otherwise with
his English version of Orosius, which has
been well called a truly astonishing pro-
duction/' Orosius was a young Spanish
ecclesiastic, a friend and disciple of the great
Augustine, at whose desire he undertook the
task of compiling a history of the world
" from Adam to Alaric." The work, which
he dedicated to his master, was regarded in
the tenth century, and indeed for a long time
afterwards, as the standard authority on
universal history. Aelfred selected this book
as the best medium for enlarging the out-
look of his people with regard to history
and geography. With this object " he
abridges, paraphrases, and enlarges at dis-
cretion, often leaving out whole chapters,
and in places inserting entirely new matter.'*
This new matter is often of very considerable
interest, as when he gives an account of the
geography of Northern Europe, or tells the
story with gossip worthy of Herodotus *'
of the famous sea-voyages of Othere and

176

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE

Wulfstan along the coast of Norway and
the shores of the Baltic. These early ex-
plorers the King invited to Winchester,
where we may think of him, as Mr. Stopford
Brooke conjectures, sitting at his desk, pen
in hand, while they related to him their
strange and thrilling adventures.

It may have been the work of editing these
historical books that led Aelfred to consider
the matter of the old Saxon Chronicle. That
there were several recensions of this record
in existence before the time of Aelfred has
been clearly shown by Professor Earle. But
they seem to have been in a fragmentary
and unsatisfactory condition. At any rate,
about the year 891 the King undertook the
task of re-editing the older portion of the
Chronicle and of continuing the history up
to his own time. At Wolvesey Castle,''
writes Dean Kitchin, with the help of the
brethren of St. Swithun's Convent, the
earlier part of the book was compiled and
copied, an annalist's simple record of facts
down to the time of contemporary history.
Copies of this earliest part were sent to
different places; one to the Scriptorium at
Burh or Peterborough, another to the monks of
Christ Church in Canterbury, and elsewhere ;

177

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the mother-manuscript being kept at
Wolvesey fastened to a desk by a chain,
that all who would and could might read it
as it grew from year to year/' ^ This latter
part, dating from the accession of his brother
Aethelred, and including the account of his own
reign up to the year 891 and probably be-
yond it, is believed to have been written
by the King himself. The actual manuscript,
perhaps penned by Aelfred's own hand, is
said to be the one now preserved in the
library of Corpus Christi College at Cam-
bridge. If not the original document it is at
any rate an early copy made at Winchester
shortly after the King's death. It is a thrill-
ing thought that in gazing on the Corpus
copy of the Chronicle, bequeathed to the
College by Archbishop Parker, one is gazing
on the oldest manuscript of the oldest
historical work written in any Teutonic
language.*'

It was during the brief period of peace
that intervened between the departure of
Hasting in 897 and his own death that
Aelfred occupied himself with the transla-
tion of Boethius' De Consolatione Philoso-
phiae. The work, written by the Roman

1 Winchester, pp. 14-15.

178

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE

senator in prison, had an immense reputa-
tion through the Middle Ages. Its influence
may be traced in Dante's Divine Comedy/'
and in Chaucer's poems. Gibbon speaks of
it as ''a golden book not unworthy the
leisure of Plato or Tully/' and Dr. Hook
calls it the handbook of the Middle Ages
for all who united piety with philosophy."
It has been w^ell described by Mr. Stopford
Brooke as the last effort of heathen philo-
sophy, and so near to a part of the spirit of
Christianity that it may be called the bridge
between dying paganism and living Chris-
tianity." ^ Aelfred's translation is executed
with much freedom, showing the hand of
one accustomed to literary undertakings ;
while the numerous additions give the book
a special character of its own. Indeed,
nearly one-third of the translation " con-
sists of original matter, in which we touch,
as it were, the lonely heart of the King,
reminding us in a way of the Thoughts of
Marcus Aurelius, or the Confessions of St.
Augustine. To the Consolation of Philosophy
Aelfred adds the consolation of the Christian
religion. The prayers are utterances of
extreme beauty ; while the sentences on

1 King Aelfred, p. 19.

179

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the Divine nature, steeped in reverence, awe
and love, soar with ease into that solemn
thought and adoration which we may well
believe filled the silent hours of the King's
meditation on his own stormy life and on
the peace of God/'^

Several other works have, with more or
less probabihty, been ascribed to Aelfred.
There is an Anglo-Saxon version of St.
Augustine's Soliloquia which has been imputed
to him, and which, in the opinion of Mr.
Stopford Brooke, is very probably his. There
is also among the Cotton Manuscripts a col-
lection of proverbs or sayings, of a date
considerably later than the ninth century,
which the compiler attributes to Aelfred.
The work is at any rate of interest as show-
ing the reverence which after-generations
felt for the memory of the King. The stanzas
or paragraphs into which the compilation is
divided begin with such phrases as these :

Thus quoth Aelfred, England's comfort,"
or England's herdsman," or England's
darling." We learn from William of Malmes-
bury2 that at the time of his death Aelfred
was engaged on a translation of the Psalter ;

1 King Aelfred, p. 20.

2 Bk. II. Ch. IV.

180

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE

and it is fitting, as old Fuller says, that
" a royal text should meet with a royal
translator/' There now exists in the Biblio-
theque Nationale at Paris an eleventh-cen-
tury manuscript of the first fifty psalms in
Anglo-Saxon prose, and this, not unnaturally,
has been taken to be the work of Aelfred.
It seems, however, from the investigations
of Dr. Douglas Bruce of Pennsylvania, that
Aelfred's authorship of the Paris Psalter
is doubtful.^ Still, there is no reason to
question the statement of William of Malmes-
bury that the King died just as he had
begun a translation of the psalms." We
know nothing as to the cause of his death
which occurred at the early age of fifty-two.
The Saxon Chronicle simply contains the
brief entry: ''This year, 901, died Aelfred,
the son of Aethelwulf, six days before the
mass of All Saints.'* He was buried, we are
told, in a coffin of porphyry marble, which
— as his own foundation of the New Minster,
over which St. Grimbald was to preside,
was not yet completed — was placed in the
old Cathedral church, which had been
founded in the middle of the seventh

1 See Stopford Brooke's King Aelfred, p. 25. n. ; and
The Cambridge History of English Literature, i, p. 106.

181

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

century by Cenwalh King of Wessex, and
where lay the remains of Aethelwulf, Aelf red's
father. It appears, however, that the pre-
sence of the body of the great King over-
awed the canons of the Cathedral, for they
affirmed that the royal spirit, resuming its
earthly dress, wandered nightly through the
church and cloisters, and sadly disturbed
the peace of the little community. So
Edward the King removed the body of his
father, and gave it a quiet resting-place in
St. Grimbald's minster.

More than a thousand years have passed
away since the death of Aelfred. I have
wished,'' he wrote towards the end, " to
live worthily while I lived, and to leave to
those who should come after me my memory
in good deeds." The lapse of time has only
served to bring out more clearly the great-
ness and nobility of his character. " Lord
of the harp and liberating spear," he was
the warrior and ruler, the statesman and
law-giver, the singer, and father of his people.
He was also, as we have seen, the creator of
our English prose literature. By his trans-
lations, made at Winchester, and copied by
the monks of St. Swithun's monastery, he
spread knowledge among the clergy and

182

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH PROSE

nobles alike. By his work on the Saxon
Chronicle, compiling the earlier portion, and
himself writing, it may be, the account of
the Danish wars and the record of his own
reign, he produced the first vernacular his-
tory of any Teutonic people/' A saint
without superstition, a scholar without osten-
tation, a warrior all whose wars were fought
in the defence of his country, a conqueror
whose laurels were never stained by cruelty,
a prince never cast down by adversity, never
lifted up to insolence in the day of triumph
— Aelfred,'' wrote Professor Freeman, " is
the most perfect character in history/'

183

CHAPTER II

THE SCHOOL OF AETHELWOLD

The efforts of King Aelfred to spread know-
ledge among his people met with but indif-
ferent success. The condition of the monas-
teries at the time of his death, which according
to the Saxon Chronicle took place in the
year 901, was far from satisfactory, and the
lamp of learning burnt low. Still, it was
not suffered to be altogether extinguished.
Inspired by the memory of his high example,
the brethren of St. Swithun's monastery
doubtless continued to make copies of his
translations of Bede and Gregory, of Orosius
and Boethius, which would circulate beyond
the bounds of the royal city. And some
years later, as one result of the Benedictine
revival, the literary impulse given by the
great King was renewed in so striking a
manner that during the second half of the
tenth century the School of Aethelwold
became the most famous centre of art and
learning in the kingdom.

Born at Winchester in the reign of Edward
the Elder, the son of noble parents, Aethel-
wold early evinced so sharp a wit as to

184

THE SCHOOL OF AETHELWOLD

mark him out for the ecclesiastical profes-
sion.^ At the desire of the King, he became
a novice at St. Swithun's Priory, and was
eventually ordained to the priesthood, on
the same day as his friend Dunstan, by
Bishop Aelphege of Winchester. Shortly
afterwards he accepted the position of chap-
lain to the bishop, and studied, we are told,
theology under him. Later on he followed
his friend Dunstan to Glastonbury, where
he became dean or prior of the establishment.
Some years later he was appointed to the
abbacy of Abingdon, an ancient but deserted
monastery, which the King was desirous of
refounding, and which he and his royal
mother richly endowed. From Abingdon,
where he had established the Benedictine
rule, he was recalled to Winchester on the
recommendation of Dunstan, who now had
become Archbishop of Canterbury, to under-
take the oversight of his native diocese.
This was in the year 963. It would be
pleasant to think that his parents were still
alive, and that they had the satisfaction of
witnessing their son's success. On coming
back, as Bishop of Winchester, to the home

* Cassan's Lives of the Bishops of Winchester, vol. i,
pp. 122-127.

185

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

of his early days he found, we are told, the
Old Minster of St. Swithun in a state of
''horrible disorder/' Finding the secular
canons deaf to the voice of warning, he at
length, supported by the King, ejected them
from their stalls, and filled their places with
Benedictines from his old abbey of Abingdon.

No sooner were the monks comfortably
established in their new quarters than Aethel-
wold began to organise his school of novices.
As a preliminary step, and at the desire of a
council held at Winchester, he drew up a
version of the Benedictine rule, under the
title Regularis Concordia Anglicae Nationis
Monachorum Sanctimonialiumque. It being
found, however, that many of the newly-
admitted postulants were unable to read the
Latin language, the bishop, at the request
of King Edgar, undertook to translate the
Regularis into English, in acknowledgment
whereof the King granted him the manor
of Sudbourne in Suffolk.^ There are several
manuscripts of this Saxon version of the
Regularis in existence, which carry us back
in thought to the far-off days of the Bene-
dictine revival, which took place nearly a

1 See Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. i,
Ch. III. p. 114.

186

THE SCHOOL OF AETHELWOLD

thousand years ago in the, even then, old-
world city of Winchester.

But the bishop was not content with
merely framing regulations for his newly-
established communities at Winchester and
elsewhere. He himself is said to have been
an enthusiastic teacher, who did not disdain
to explain the difficulties of Latin grammar
to the novices attending his school. By the
young men and boys he was, we are told
greatly beloved, for he was a most encourag-
ing and inspiring teacher. Several distin-
guished scholars were trained by him at
Winchester. Of these the most notable was
Aelfric,^ afterwards Abbot of Eynsham, who
in the preface to his Vita Aethelwoldi speaks
with warm appreciation and gratitude of the
debt he owed to his great master. Besides
writing a Latin Grammar for the use of the
novices at Winchester, and a long series of
EngKsh Homilies, to Aelfric also belongs the
honour of being the first translator, to any
large extent, of the Bible into Enghsh. To
him are attributed a paraphrase of the
first seven books of the Old Testament and
parts of the books of Job and Esther. The
school of Aethelwold may well have been

» Ibid., 115.

187

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

proud of this accomplished alumnus of St,
Swithun's monastery, for he was, as it has
been claimed, not only the greatest prose-
writer, but also the most distinguished
English-writing theologian in his own time,
and for some centuries afterwards/' ^

In addition to Aelfric, there was Wulfstan,
precentor of the Cathedral, who celebrates
in turgid Latin the marvels of Aethelwold's
minster, and also the wonderful manner in
which the bishop brought sweet floods of
water abounding with fish within the pre-
cincts of the monastery. Wulfstan was also,
according to William of Malmesbury, ^ the
author of a learned work on The Harmony
of Sounds ; while as precentor he doubtless
took an important part in the preparation
of that most interesting document known as
the Winchester Troper/' A t roper or
tropary was a book of ecclesiastical music
compiled for the use of the organ, and in
the Winchester troper we have the actual
tones and cadences used in the services of
St. Swithun's in the tenth century. ^ There
are two MSS. of this famous tropary, one
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the

^ Cambridge History of English Literature, i, p. 127.

2 Bk. II, Ch. VIII.

3 Kitchin's Winchester, p. 31.

188

THE SCHOOL OF AETHELWOLD

other in the Library of Corpus Christi College
at Cambridge. The Bodleian MS. seems to
be the earlier of the two, and is shown from
internal evidence to have been written be-
tween the years of 979 and 1016. It is
sometimes known as the tropary of Aethelred,
since that King is mentioned in the Litany
as the reigning sovereign. The Corpus MS.
is considered by some critics to be a little
later, about the middle of the eleventh cen-
tury, but it contains hymns and musical
notations of rare interest not included in the
Bodleian MS., and possesses, moreover, a
far purer text, in consequence of which it
has been taken as the basis of the reproduc-
tion of the Winchester Troper,'* published
by the Henry Bradshaw Society.

But the school of Aethelwold, under the
guidance and inspiration of the bishop, not
only revived the literary traditions of the
reign of Aelfred, it also became the most
famous centre in England for the art of
copying and illuminating manuscripts. Of
this fascinating work many interesting ex-
amples still exist. The most precious is,
beyond question, the Benedictional^ of St.

* See Sir George Warner's valuable " Introduction " to
the facsimile edition issued in 1910.

189

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Aethelwold now in the possession of the
Duke of Devonshire in the hbrary at Chats-
worth. As the name impUes, a benedictional
is a collection of forms of episcopal bene-
diction, appropriated to the different Sundays,
Saints' days, and other festivals throughout
the year, and used at a certain stage in the
celebration of the Mass/' The main interest
of St. Aethelwold's Benedictional lies in the
splendid series of miniatures and illuminated
borders with which many of its pages are
decorated.

This superb volume, the finest example of
the Anglo-Saxon art of manuscript illumina-
tion in existence, consists of 119 leaves of
good vellum, measuring 11 J inches in height
by 8J inches in width, in a state of most
wonderful preservation. In spite of a few
mutilations, the codex retains, in a more or
less perfect condition, as many as forty-nine
richly-decorated pages, of which thirty con-
sist of miniatures. The rest have illuminated
borders only, while the text is written in
letters of gold. It is these magnificent
illuminations, especially the full-page minia-
tures, that give the manuscript its unique
value. Of the miniatures, the most interest-
ing is the last in the volume, in which a

190

THE SCHOOL OF AETHELWOLD

bishop, doubtless Aethelwold himself, is re-
presented as giving the benediction to the
congregation. In the background we have
a drawing, sketched only in outUne, of the
Cathedral-church rebuilt by the bishop, the
praises of which are sung, as we have noticed,
by the monk Wulfstan. We see the central
bell-tower and the wonderful golden weather-
cock on which the poet dilates with enthusi-
asm. " Up there he stands aloft,'* cries
Wulfstan, over the heads of the men of
Winchester, and up in mid-air seems nobly
to rule the western world."

The volume was executed, as we learn
from the preface, at the express command
of Aethelwold, and for his own use in the
Cathedral he had built. Indeed, it is quite
possible, as Sir George Warner suggests, that
the volume was prepared among others with
the express object of providing the new
Cathedral with service-books on a fitting
scale of magnificence, and that the final
benediction, *'in dedicatione ecclesiae," associ-
ated with the miniature of the Cathedral-
church, was recited from it for the first time
on the memorable occasion when, on 20th
October, 980, the building was solemnly
dedicated by Archbishop Dunstan, in the

191

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

presence of King Aethelred and many of
the nobles of the realm. We also learn from
the preface the name of the scribe who
wrote the volume. Let all who look upon
this book/' he says, pray always that
after the term of the flesh I may abide in
heaven. Godeman, the writer, as a suppliant,
earnestly asks this.'' This Godeman was
Bishop Aethelwold's chaplain, and was after-
wards made by him Abbot of Thorney.^
It is interesting to notice that his name
occurs in the Liber Vitae^ of the New
Minster, but not among the brethren of the
house. He was, doubtless, a monk of St.
Swithun's monastery, in the scriptorium of
which the great Benedictional was produced.

It is probable that the binding of this
fine volume corresponded to the splendid
character of its internal decoration, and it
was doubtless religiously preserved among
the treasures of St. Swithun's Priory until
the time of the Reformation. As it was not
only a service-book of exceptional splendour,
but also, like the cup of St. Aethelwold, a
relic of the good bishop, it was probably
kept, as Sir George Warner suggests, not in

^ Warner's "Introduction" to the Benedictional, pp.lv, Ivi.
2 Printed by the Hants. Record Society, 1892, p. 24.

192

THE SCHOOL OF AETHELWOLD

the monastic library, but in the sacristy of
the Cathedral, and was exposed at festivals
on the high altar. How this priceless trea-
sure came to be lost to the Cathedral is
unknown. It was probably one of the seven
books, the outer parts of them being plates
of silver and gilt,** mentioned in an inventory
of Cathedral furniture delivered to Thomas
Crumwell, as Vicar-General of Henry VHI,
at the time of the dissolution of the mon-
asteries. If so, it may have been seized on
that occasion, or at any rate despoiled of
its rich covering ; or it may have remained
in the Cathedral for a century longer, till
the fanatical soldiers of the Commonwealth
ransacked the Chapter-house and muniment
room, and flung its treasures to the winds.

In whatever manner the Benedictional dis-
appeared, in the year 1720 it is found to be in
the possession of William Cavendish, second
Duke of Devonshire. At that time Robert
Harley, Earl of Oxford, was engaged in forming
his famous collection of MSS. which still bears
his name, and he was anxious, we learn, to
obtain possession of the treasure. In the
diary of Humphry Wanley, the Earl's libra-
rian, under date 18th January, 1719-20,"
we meet with the following entry : Certified

193

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

that His Grace the Duke of Devonshire
thinks himself bound not to part with St.
Aethelwold's book, given him by General
Compton, although he hath no great value
for it/' Further negotiations followed, but
with no better result, and the manuscript
still remains one of the chief glories of the
Chatsworth library. Its present binding is
of mellowed red morocco with a richly-
tooled back, and a simple panel on the
sides.'' The binding dates, says Sir George
Warner, from about 1670, and is apparently
the work of Samuel Mearns, bookbinder to
Charles II, though there is no reason to
suppose that the volume ever was in the
royal library.

The Winchester School, founded by Aethel-
wold, continued to flourish for a considerable
period. Alike in the old monastery of St.
Swithun, and in the new monastery of St.
Grimbald removed to Hyde just outside the
walls of the city in the year 1110, scribes
were constantly employed in the sacred task
of copying and illuminating manuscripts.
A few of these works still fortunately exist.
In the Cathedral Library there is a fine copy
of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglomm, written on vellum, by a writer

194

THE SCHOOL OF AETHELWOLD

who names himself Aedelmus. A monk of
this name appears in the Liber Vitae^ of
the New Minster early in the eleventh cen-
tury, and it is not impossible that he was
the copyist of our manuscript. Other codices
written at Winchester about this time, may
be seen in the British Museum, and else-
where. But the Benedictional of St. Aethel-
wold remains the most splendid example of
manuscript illumination of the period, and
the most striking witness of the art and
culture associated with the name of the
great prelate whose figure is represented,
clasping the precious volume in his hand,
on the altar-screen of Winchester Cathedral.

1 Printed by The Hants. Record Society, 1892. p. 138.

195

CHAPTER III

ST. swithun's scriptorium

There is no more attractive feature in the
daily routine of an ancient Benedictine house
than that connected with the copying and
the illuminating of manuscripts. Nearly all
our early manuscripts are in some way
associated with monasteries. For the scribes
busied themselves not only with the pro-
duction of sacred works, of Psalters, Missals,
Books of Hours and the like, but also in
transcribing the classical treasures of anti-
quity. At the time of the invention of print-
ing it was monastic transcripts that pro-
vided the copy for the editions of Cicero
and Virgil and other classical works first
issued in Italy and Germany.^ It must
futher be remembered that most of our
knowledge of mediaeval Europe we owe to
the monastic chronicles. Without them we
should be almost entirely ignorant of the
history of our own country. We have only
to call to mind the names of Gildas, of the
Venerable Bede, of Abbot Ingulphus of
Crowland, of William of Malmesbury,

* G. H. Putnam's Books and their Makers, vol. i, p. 25.
196

ST. SWITHUN'S SCRIPTORIUM

Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry of Hunting-
don, Richard of Devizes, and our own
Thomas Rudborne, to realise our debt of
gratitude.

The work of copying and illuminating
manuscripts was usually carried out in little
studies or cells, only large enough to contain
a single person. The cells, or carrels^ as
they were called, were often the window
recesses of the cloister, partially screened
off and fitted up with '* a deske to lye there
books upon." But in many of the larger
houses a special room, known as the scrip-
torium, was set apart for the purpose of
writing. And this apartment was regarded
as not the least sacred part of the establish-
ment. Indeed, the work of a scribe was
recognised as one of deep religious signifi
cance. A short prayer for the dedication of
the scriptorium has been preserved, which
shows the spirit in which the devout student
approached his work : " Vouchsafe, 0 Lord,
to bless this workroom of Thy servants, and
all that dwell therein ; that whatsoever
writings may be here read or written by
them, they may receive with understanding,

* Sec Gasquet's Old English Bible, p. 36. (i. H . Putnam's
Books and their Makers, vol. i, p. 149.

197

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

and may bring the same to good effect."^
Thus, at the famous monastery of St. Albans,
we find the Abbot Paul, who presided over
the house from 1077 to 1093, instituting a
scriptorium, to which he induced some
wealthy friends to present valuable codices, ^
a list of which may be found in the Gesta
AbbatiuMj a chronicle of the Abbey. So,
at the monastery of St. Martin's at Tournai,
we have the pleasant picture of the Abbot
Odo, at the close of the eleventh century,
confiding the management of the temporal
affairs of the house to Ralph the Prior,
that he might have greater leisure for read-
ing, and for supervising the work of the
scriptorium.^

At St. Swithun's monastery, here at Win-
chester, a scriptorium doubtless existed.
When Walkelin erected his mighty Norman
Cathedral he also rebuilt the Saxon monas-
tery of St. Aethelwold that adjoined it.
While the work was in progress the bishop
was happy in having as prior of the convent
one of the most learned and enlightened men
of the time. This was Prior Godfrey, who

1 Quoted by G. H. Putnam in Books and their Makers,
vol. i, p. 61.

2 Ibid., 69.

» Ibid., pp. 76. 77.

198

ST. SWITHUN'S SCRIPTORIUM

ruled over the house for twenty-seven years,
from 1080 to 1107. A native of Cambray, he
had been educated at St. Swithun's monas-
tery, and became, as Bishop Milner says,
the most celebrated of all its priors for
literature, as well as for piety and religious
discipline. His character and career are
admirably portrayed by William of Malmes-
bury, who was a contemporary, and not a
far distant neighbour of the prior, and who
doubtless wrote from personal knowledge
and acquaintance. The earlier part of the
passage may be quoted in full. Nor ought
the memory of Godfrey, Prior of Winchester,
to decay, who was celebrated in these times
for his learning and his piety : his learning
is attested by many works and epistles com-
posed in his own familiar and pleasing style,
but chiefly by his epigrams, written after
the manner of satires, and his verses in
praise of the chief personages of England.
At St. Swithun's he restored every Divine
office to its right condition, by touching
them with his own grace, even though they
had become obsolete from antiquity. The
laws of religion and of hospitality he im-
pressed on the monks, who to this day follow
the footsteps of their prior : indeed, in this

199

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

house there is room for all, for travellers by
land or sea, with boundless expense and
ceaseless attention. Humble, too, was this
holy man, in spite of his mighty erudition,
so that nothing but what savoured of
modesty and sweetness proceeded from this
singular depository of philosophy/'^

The last years of this distinguished man
were passed, so William of Malmesbury writes,

in the furnace of chronic sickness,*' and for
some time before his death he seems to have
been almost entirely bedridden. He died in
1107, the year in which the great tower of
the Cathedral fell, but whether before or
after that event we do not know, and
was buried in the Norman chapter-house,
towards the north-east corner of the
building. 2

Under Prior Godfrey, the literary tradi-
tions of St. Swithun's, associated with the
names of Bishop Daniel, of King Alfred and
his scribes, of Aelfric and Wulfstan and the
monk Godeman who wrote the magnificent
Benedictional of St. Aethelwold, were worthily
maintained, and the copyists were kept busy in
the monastic scriptorium. A volume of Prior

1 Book v.

2 Milner, ii, p. 135.

200

ST. SWITHUN'S SCRIPTORIUM

Godfrey's epigrams is still happily preserved
among the Cottonian manuscripts. Several
of the priors, too, who succeeded him were
men of literary ability. Prior Robert and
Prior Walter, in the second half of the
twelfth century, both left valuable writings
relating to the diocese and the Cathedral,
which are quoted by the historian, Rudborne,
and which seem to have been carefully pre-
served in the conventual library up to the
time of the Reformation. During their time,
and indeed throughout the twelfth century,
the work of illuminating manuscripts, for
which the monastery had long been famous,
was diligently carried on. Some splendid
examples of this beautiful art remain.
Among them may be mentioned the mag-
nificent Psalter enriched with exquisite
miniatures which was made at Winchester
for Bishop Henry de Blois some time before
the year 1160, and which is now preserved
in the British Museum ; and the splendid
copy of the Vulgate, which is still the pride
of the Cathedral Library. This manuscript
of the Latin Bible was originally in two large
and heavy folio volumes (now rebound in
three volumes) written throughout in a very
line, clear hand, and all of it, said the late

201

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Dean Kitchin/ the work of the same scribe.
The numerous illustrations in it, he goes on
to say, were done by two different monks,
the one taking lesser capitals, etc., in rather
a coarse and common style of design and
colouring, without gold or much finish of
any kind, and the other painting the large
illuminated capitals in very fine style : in
design, subjects, colouring, and use of bur-
nished gold, these artistic letters are a grand
specimen of the art, as fresh and bright to-
day as when they were first issued from the
scriptorium. Several in the second volume
were stolen, cut out with a sharp knife,
more than half a century ago ; and unfor-
tunately the artist-monk who had charge of
the work did not live to complete it. After
we get beyond the middle of the codex,
signs of the unfinished state begin to appear,
first we notice that the inscriptions on the
scrolls held in the hands of the personages
portrayed are missing ; then, as we turn
over the leaves, we see that only some of
the colours have been laid on, and these not
finished off ; then again, there is nothing
except the gold-leaf, which evidently was
done first, and worked up by the artist ;

^ Introduction to Obedientiary Rolls, p. 89.

202

ST. SWITHUN'S SCRIPTORIUM

and lastly, we find examples of outlines
only, beautifully executed both in design
and workmanship, in a faint brown ink. In
a few cases the capital letter is not even
begun.'* It is a pathetic thought, this of
the artist-monk, having devoted his life to
the work of illuminating the precious codex
in the scriptorium of St. Swithun's, at length,
gradually failing in health and power, until
unable to continue his beloved task, he
enters the monastic infirmary, where he
lingers on, it may be, for many months, in
pain and weariness, until at last the sum-
mons comes, and he is laid to rest in the
cemetery within the precincts of the
monastery.

Shortly after the good monk's death the
brethren were in danger of losing their pre-
cious manuscript altogether. At least, this
codex is not impossibly the book referred
to in the following story preserved in the
mediaeval Life of St. Hugh, Bishop of Lin-
coln, now reprinted in the Rolls Series.^ In
expiation of the murder of Thomas a Becket,
Henry II vowed to establish three religious
houses. One of these was the Carthusian

1 Lib. ii, Cap. XIII, pp. 92, 93. See, too, a paper by
Canon Madge in the Winchester Diocesan Chronicle for
March, 1910.

203

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

monastery of Witham, in Somersetshire. In
the year 1175, Hugh of Avalon, procurator
of the Great Chartreuse, was appointed prior ;
and the great man, having completed the |
monastic buildings and organised the duties
of the brotherhood, began to look about
him for manuscripts, especially of the Holy
Scriptures, which the brethren might copy.
Prior Hugh, who from the first had won the
warmest regards of the royal founder, was one
day lamenting to his patron the dearth of
manuscripts, when the King gave him ten
marks wherewith to buy parchment, and
promised that he himself would supply a copy
of the Bible. Hearing that a splendidly
illuminated copy had recently been made at
Winchester, Henry begged the same on loan
from the prior, and forthwith despatched it
to Hugh at Witham. The brethren were
delighted with the royal gift, never sus-
pecting that it belonged to St. Swithun's
monastery. At length the chance visit
of a Winchester monk revealed the King's
meanness, as well as the grief of the brethren
of St. Swithun's at the loss of their treasure.
Prior Hugh, with noble generosity and
lofty principle on which the old chronicler
enlarges, insisted upon returning the book

204

ST. SWITHUN'S SCRIPTORIUM

to Winchester, and at the request of the
monks promised not to mention the matter
to the King. And at Winchester the
precious manuscript remains. How it
escaped destruction at the Reformation, and
again at the time of the Commonwealth,
when Waller's troopers twice ransacked the
Cathedral Library, and flung its treasures
into the streets, cannot now be explained.
Perhaps its splendid illuminations, being of
a Biblical character, were regarded as not
unedifying, and so the volume was allowed
to remain at Trinity Church " as the great
Cathedral of St. Swithun was then called.
The next notice we get of the priceless codex
is in the notes of Beriah Botfield, the learned

investigator of the neglected contents of
Cathedral Libraries" in the earlier half of the
nineteenth century. In the chapter on the
Library of Winchester, we meet with the
following passage : "I am happy to notice
the timely rescue of the noble manuscript
of the Latin Vulgate Bible, in three imperial
folio volumes, from the neglect by which it
was for a long time suffered to lie unpro-
tected in the church. It is written,'' he adds,

in the Roman character, apparently by
an English hand, with large and beautiful

205

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

illuminations upon very fine vellum ; and
the three volumes are now appropriately
bound in olive morocco, with gilt leaves,
by the liberality of the late Dean/'^ We
are grateful to Dean Rennell for the care
he bestowed upon the most precious relic
of the ancient scriptorium of St. Swithun's
now remaining in the Cathedral Library,
but we could have wished that the edges
of the manuscript had not been pared and
gilded, and that the two volumes had not
been converted into three.

In gazing on these exquisite specimens of
monastic art, such as the Winchester Vul-
gate and the Psalter of Henry de Blois, the
wish sometimes arises that we knew the
names of the scribes who thus dedicated
their lives to the work of copying and illumi-
nating manuscripts. Very seldom, however,
is our curiosity gratified. Sometimes, indeed,
as in the case of the Benedictional of St.
Aethelwold, and of the Historia of Bede
now in the Cathedral Library, the names of
the writers have been preserved ] but gener-
ally they are absolutely unknown. " How-
ever carefully," says the Abbot Gasquet,

^ Notes on the Cathedral Libraries of England (1849),
p. 468.

206

ST. SWITHUN'S SCRIPTORIUM

" we may examine the folios which come
from some great writing school, such as
Corbie, or Tours, or St. Albans, we shall in
vain look for any indication of the names
of those monks who have written them."^
The individual was lost in the community.

The labourer toiled at his desk for a day,
or a year, or a lifetime, knowing that if,
when the pen dropped from his fingers the
work was not completed, there would be
another hand ready to carry it on to the
desired end." ^

So from generation to generation the work
went steadily in the Scriptorium of St.
Swithun's monastery. From the time of
St. Aethelwold to the eve of the Reformation
there were monks always busy in their
private carrels or in the larger workroom.
Sometimes a brother of greater literary ability
would arise who devoted his time, not to
copying manuscripts but to writing history.
Such an one, for example, was Richard of
Devizes, a native, no doubt, of Devizes, but
a monk of St. Swithun^s convent, in the
time of Prior Robert at the close of the
twelfth century. He wrote a chronicle of

* Gasquct's " Monastic Scriptorium " in Old Eyiglish
Bible, p. 44.

• Ibid., p. 49.

207

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the deeds of King Richard L The story is
told in a happy and facetious style, for
Brother Richard had a pretty gift of humour.
There is a copy of this chronicle, known as
Geista Ricardi, in the library of Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, and with it is
bound up the Annates de Wintonia, which
is thought by some authorities to be also
the work of Richard of Devizes. In the
middle of the fifteenth century our Win-
chester historian, Thomas Rudborne, flour-
ished, from whose writings much of our
knowledge with regard to the Cathedral and
the diocese in mediaeval times is derived.

Just before the time of the dissolution of
the monasteries, when the last prior, William
Basynge, ruled the convent, the armarius or
librarian, must have had a large number of
manuscripts under his care. Indeed, it was
probably one of the finest collections in the
country. A few of the more valuable codices
which were happily saved from the havoc
wrought at the Reformation, we have had
occasion to mention. A number of other
manuscripts, once the property of St.
Swithun's monastery, are to be seen in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford, at Cambridge,
at Rouen, and in other collections. There

208

ST. SWITHUN'S SCRIPTORIUM

was, too, a Bihlia glossata^ in two volumes,
most valued on account of its annotations,
which was, we learn, bequeathed to the
Prior and Convent by Nicholas de Ely,
Bishop of Winchester. 1 Several of the
St. Swithun manuscripts are still in the
possession of the Dean and Chapter, a sorry
remnant of the once magnificent collection.
The beautiful illuminated Vulgate remains
with us, and the fine copy of Bede's Historia.
Two manuscripts, one a work of St. Augustine
on the fourth Gospel, and the other a com-
mentary on the Psalms, each contain an
entry in a fourteenth-century hand, to the
effect that the volume belonged to the mon-
astery : — " Iste liber est ecclesiae Sancti
Swythini, Wynton." One other relic may
be mentioned. It is a fine volume in perfect
preservation, in the original oak boards
covered with leather, and contains among
other treatises, a copy of the scarce work
Promptorium Parvulonmi^ which may be
regarded as the first Enghsh-Latin dictionary.
The interest of our copy is considerably
enhanced by the fact that it was the pro-
perty of Thomas Silkstede, one of the most

* F. J. Baigent " Crondal Records " [Hants. Record
Society), p. 408.

209

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

distinguished priors of the monastery. His
name appears on the fly-leaf at the beginning
of the volume, and the date in Roman
numerals, a.d. 1494. On the reverse of one
of the fly-leaves at the end is also written :
Iste liber est de domo Sancti Swythini,
Wynton/' followed by the anathema fre-
quently met with in mediaeval manuscripts :
" Qui eum alienaverit anathema sit. Amen."

210

CHAPTER IV

AFTER THE REFORMATION

We wonder how the fine hbrary of St.
Swithun's Convent fared at the time of the
dissolution. Were the treasures of the old
Benedictine house handed over intact to the
new Dean and Chapter of Winchester ? or
did the spoliation of the Library coincide
with that of the Cathedral ? Were the
beautiful manuscripts allowed to slumber
in peace for another century till the
fanatical troopers of the Commonwealth
plundered the muniment room ? or did their
dispersion date from the period of the Re-
formation ? Was, for instance, to take a
conspicuous example, the magnificent Bene-
dictional of St. Aethelwold lost to Winchester
at the time of the dissolution or at the time
of the Commonwealth ?

That at the Reformation the monastic
libraries were in many cases wantonly des-
troyed is abundantly proved by overwhelm-
ing evidence. Indeed, the wholesale destruc-
tion of manuscripts is one of the saddest
and most heartbreaking features of the

211

15— (2306)

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

English Reformation. " The Enghsh monks,"
says Thomas Fuller, " were bookish of them^-
selves, and much inclined to hoard up
monuments of learning ;^ and he goes on
to tell us how John Bale, a man sufficiently
averse from the least shadow of popery,
hating all monkery with a perfect hatred,' '
had left on record his experience as to the
scandalous way in which manuscripts were
treated. They were put to every vile and
common use. Some were sold to the
grocers and soap-sellers, and some were sent
oversea to the book-binders, not in small
number, but at times whole ships full.*'
I know a merchant-man,*' says John Bale,
who shall be nameless, that bought the
contents of two noble libraries for forty
shillings price ; this stuff he hath occupied
instead of gray paper, by the space of more
than these ten years ; and yet he hath
store enough for as many years to come."^
Well might Fuller exclaim : —

What beautiful Bibles, rare Fathers,
subtle Schoolmen, useful Historians, ancient,
middle, modern ; what painful comments
were here amongst them ! What monuments

1 Church History of Britain, Book VI, Sec. iv, ch. iii, 1,
p. 246.

2 Ibid., p. 248.

212

AFTER THE REFORMATION

of mathematics all massacred together ! seeing
every book with a cross was condemned
for popish, with circles for conjuring. Yea,
I may say, that then holy divinity was
profaned, physic itself hurt, and a trespass,
yea, a riot committed on the law itself.
And, more particularly, the history of former
times then and there received a dangerous
wound, whereof it halts at this day, and,
without hope of a perfect cure, must go
a cripple to the grave." ^

How far this deliberate destruction of
manuscripts took place at Winchester at
the time of the Reformation there is no
evidence to show. Dean Kitchin^ was of
opinion that inasmuch as the Prior became
Dean, and some of the brethren were made
" first and original " prebendaries, the manu-
scripts continued undisturbed in their pos-
session, books and rolls alike ; and that
they slumbered happily till the days of the
Commonwealth. But indications are not
wanting which conclusively show that the
dispersion began at the Reformation. Seven
service-books belonging to the Cathedral,
" the outer parts of them being plates of

1 Ibid., p. 248.

* Introduction to Obedientiary Rolls, p. 1 .

213

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

silver and gold, and the ' book of the four
Evangelists/ written all with gold, and the
outer side of plated gold " did not, we know,
escape the notice of Thomas Crumwell. The
spirit of ignorance and fanaticism which
wilfully destroyed painted glass, and beautiful
statues, fragments of which may be seen in
the feretory, would not be likely to reverence
illuminated manuscripts. And even if, at
the actual time of the dissolution, the volumes,
many of them with beautiful and costly
covers, embelUshed with curious bosses and
clasps, and perhaps in some instances with
precious stones, escaped the attention of
those cruel cormorants, who, with their
barbarous beaks and greedy claws, rent, tore,
and tattered inestimable pieces of antiquity,*'
the same good fortune could hardly have
been the case when Bishop Ponet ruled the
diocese, and a layman. Sir John Mason, Kt.,
was Dean of the Cathedral ; or when, a few
years later, Robert Horne became Bishop of
Winchester. Of Horne it is recorded, that
"he visited Winchester Cathedral and
College, Magdalen, Corpus, Trinity, and
New College, destroying the images,
pictures, missals, painted glass, and other
tokens of the religion and piety of his

214

AFTER THE REFORMATION

ancestors, with a zeal as furious as it was
ridiculous/' ^

But whatever havoc Bishop Horne may
have wrought among the missals and service-
books which he found at Winchester, the
dispersion of the treasures of the ancient
conventual library clearly began before his
episcopate. Within a few years of the dis-
solution, several important St. Swithun's
manuscripts came into the hands of one
Thomas Dackcombe, who seems to have
recovered them after they had been alien-
ated from the library. His name may be
seen on the fly-leaf of the so-called Ramsay
Benedictional, on the Psalter reputed to have
belonged to King Athelstan, and on two
valuable Winchester cartularies both en-
dorsed with the date 1550,'' now preserved,
among other manuscripts acquired by him,
in the British Museum. Indeed, in the
opinion of Sir George Warner, ^ Thomas
Dackcombe was the means of saving most
of the surviving Winchester manuscripts.
It is b. point of interest that the evidence

* Anthony Wood's Fasti, Bliss' ed., vol. ii, col. 180,
under 1567.

* Formerly Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museum,
to whom I am indebted for several particulars with regard
to Dackcombe. See, too, his " Introduction " to The
Denedictional of St. Aethelwold, pp. xxxii, xhii.

215

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

of the connection of the above-mentioned
Psalter with Athelstan rests on an inscrip-
tion in Dackcombe's handwriting on the
first page : Psalterium (sic) regis Ethel-
stan/' foUowed by the date 1542/' The
statement, Hkely enough on internal evidence,
was probably grounded on some early entry,
known to Dackcombe, but now lost, on a
fly-leaf or elsewhere, as in the case of other
manuscripts given by Athelstan to various
churches.

A few particulars about this interesting
person, to whose scholarly instincts and love
of ancient things we are so deeply indebted
will be welcomed. Sir Thomas Dackcombe,
or Daccombe, (for his name after the manner
of the age is spelt in various ways), came of
an old Dorset family, which in the time of
Henry VI had settled at Iwerne Steepleton,
near Blandford. He was instituted to the
rectory of St. Peter's Colebrooke, in the city
of Winchester, on 15th December, 1519, on
the presentation of the abbess and convent
of St. Mary's Abbey This living he resigned
about the year 1533, when he w^as appointed
to the vicarage of Nutley near Basingstoke.

1 F. J. Baigent's History of the Parish Church of Wyke,
pp. 15, 16 and note. To this excellent little booklet I
am indebted for several details about Dackcombe.

216

AFTER THE REFORMATION

He doubtless owed this preferment to the
influence of his intimate friend, Dr. Nicholas
Harpesfeld, a leading dignitary in the diocese
of Winchester, whose uncle was the chief
landowner in the parish of Nutley. This
small country benefice he held till 1541,
when he was reappointed to his former
rectory of St. Peter's Colebrooke. It will
be noticed that the date of his return coin-
cides with that of the establishment of the
Dean and Chapter of Winchester. Now^ in
the " Boke of Portyons,'' dated 28th April,
1541, which is still preserved in the Cathe-
dral Library, we have a list of the twelve
original petycanons.*' Among them, the
last on the list, we find the name of Thomas
Dackhinson,'* a ''secular priest." The other
peticanons had evidently been monks, doubt-
less brethren of the dissolved monastery ;
otherwise the fact of Thomas Dackhinson
being a secular or parish priest would hardly
have been recorded. Now it may be taken
as reasonably certain that this Thomas Dack-
hinson, " petycanon of the Cathedral, is
the same secular priest '* whom we know
already as rector of St. Peter's Colebrooke.
If so, the Vicar of Nutley returned to Win-
chester, not only as rector of his old parish,

217

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

but also as one of the first minor or peti-
canons of the new foundation. This fact
will throw some light on his association
with the Cathedral Library, of which it is
not impossble that he acted as librarian. It
is pleasant to think of this good and cul-
tured man, at the time of great religious
upheaval and fanaticism, quietly doing his
duty as rector of a city church and as minor-
canon of the Cathedral, and at the same
time interesting himself in collecting
mediaeval manuscripts which had been scat-
tered abroad at the time of the dissolution.
In addition to these occupations we also
find him at this time ministering to the
spiritual needs of a little body of nuns who
had belonged to St. Mary's Abbey. When
the convent had been dissolved, in 1540, a
few of the inmates continued to live to-
gether in community, with Dame Elizabeth
Shelly, the lady abbess, at their head ; and
Thomas Dackcombe, not unmindful of the
kindness of those who in the days of their
prosperity had presented him to his first
living, acted towards them in the capacity
of chaplain. In 1550 he lost his old friend.
Dr. Nicholas Harpesfeld, who died on the
15th day of March at Wyke, where, in the

218

AFTER THE REFORMATION

little church just outside the city he lies
buried, with a quaint inscription suggestive
of a mediaeval manuscript above his grave,
written in all probability by Thomas Dack-
combe. Dr. Harpesfeld bequeathed the sum
of 40s. to his friend and neighbour, who had
also witnessed his will, Syr. Thomas
Dackcombe, prest."

In the year 1549 Syr Thomas was
presented to the rectory of Tarent-Gunvil,
not far from Steepleton Iwerne, his ancestral
home. He appears for a time to have held
his Winchester living in conjunction with this
benefice, for at a visitation held on 7th Sep-
tember, 1555, he was still rector of St. Peter's
Colebrooke. It is interesting to notice that
his passion for collecting did not desert him
in his old age, for among the manuscripts
preserved in the British Museum is one
acquired by him in his Dorset retreat, with
this endorsement, "Liber dni Thome Dack-
comb 1557, rectoris de Tarant Gunevyll."
Another volume printed on vellum which,
according to Beriah Botfield,^ would do
honour to any collection, however curious
and however vast,*' was purchased by

1 Botfield's Notes on the Cathedral Libraries of England,
pp. 4G1. 462.

219

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Dackcombe in 1563, of one John Avyngton,
formerly a monk of St. Swithun's convent.
This precious book, a copy of Johannes
Latteburius, In threnos Jeremie, (Oxon.
1482), now reposes, as we learn from Botfield,
in the library of Westminster Abbey. Thomas
Dackcombe died in the year 1567 at Tarant-
Gunvil, where part of the massive stone
placed originally over his grave may now be
seen built into the chancel wall on the out-
side of the church, which, with the exception
of the tower, was entirely rebuilt in the year
1843. It is much to be regretted that this
church, associated with the ministry of the
last years of so scholarly and interesting a
person, should, like that of St. Peter's Cole-
brooke, have been demolished. His name,
however, written on many an ancient manu-
script— on no less than eleven in the British
Museum alone — will be sufficient to rescue
from oblivion the memory of one, who,
though in a humble ecclesiastical position,
was yet the means of preserving from des-
truction many priceless examples of mediaeval
art. The inscription on his memorial stone, to
which we have alluded, now inserted, beneath
the arms^ of the Dackcombe family, on the

^ On a chevron between three roses, three steeples.
220

AFTER THE REFORMATION

south wall of the chancel, is so curious, and
bears so striking a resemblance to that of
Dr. Harpesfeld in the church of Wyke, and,
moreover, seems to be so characteristic of a
mind imbued with the hieroglyphic fancies of
mediaeval writing, that we venture to quote
it as the almost certain composition of Dack-
combe himself. The stone is oblong, and the
inscription which occupies four lines, runs
thus : —

" HERE + LITIE + S + T + D + PARSON
AIL + FOWRE + BE + BVT + ONE
EARTHE + FLESCH + WORME + AD
BONE + M + CCCCC + LXVII " ; i

which is, being interpreted : Here lieth Sir
Thomas Dackcombe, Parson. All four be but
one, earth, flesh, worm, and bone. 1567."

In the Injunctions of the Commissioners
of Edward VI, issued in 1547 to all Deans,
etc., of Cathedral Churches, of which the
Winchester copy endorsed with the signa-
ture of Dean Kingsmill remains in the
Library, the authorities are ordered to
make a librarie in some convenient place
w'thin ther churche within the space of one
yere next ensuing.'' They are further in-
structed to ley in the same " copies of
certain of the Fathers, and of Erasmus and

^ Hutchius' History of Dorset, vol. ii, p. 166.
221

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

other " goode writers woorks/' The Dean
and Chapter did not, it is clear, at once
comply with these injunctions, for fourteen
years later, at the Bishop's visitation in 1561,
they are again ordered " within the months
next followinge " to prepare within the
precincts of the sayde Cathedrall Churche a
place both decent and convenient to make
and erect a librarie, with both deskes and
seates commodiouslie and husbandlie " ; and
further to furnish the same with books, to-
wards which there shall be spent on this
syde the feast of the Nativitie of our Lord
God the sum of twenty pounds, to be
followed by a " yeerlie expenditure of five
marks." Whether the bishop was more suc-
cessful than the Edwardian Commissioners
had been in enforcing his injunctions on the
Chapter we do not know ; but some authori-
ties have thought that the present Cathedral
Library situated over the dark cloister be-
tween the wall of the south transept and
the Norman Chapter-house, dates from this
time. When, however, the bookcases were
removed, in the course of repairs, a short
time since, it was discovered that there were
arched recesses in the thick masonry of the
walls, some of which recesses had originally,

222

AFTER THE REFORMATION

as was clear from the grooves in the stone-
work, been fitted with doors and shelves ;
and that the walls in places were decorated
with mediaeval frescoes. It was evident,
therefore, that a room of some kind existed
over the dark passage in pre-Reformation
times. Moreover the east window, which
lights the long, low room, bears on its mould-
ings, in addition to the arms of the Cathedral,
the initials T. S.,'' which stand for Thomas
Silkstede, who was Prior of the monastery
from 1498 to 1524. And though it is of
course possible that this window originally
occupied some other position, yet on the
other hand it seems not unlikely that it was
placed there by the great Prior, and that
he himself arranged the room as a library
to contain the splendid collection of illumin-
ated manuscripts which was the pride and
glory of St. Swithun's convent.

How far the Dean and Chapter carried
out the Bishop's injunction to " spend
yeerhe five marks on the purchase of
books, we cannot tell, but by degrees the
collection grew larger. Now and again we
find one or another of the prebendaries
presenting a volume to the library. Indeed,
several of our scanty number of codices

223

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

were added to the collection between the
dissolution and the Commonwealth. Among
the prebendaries was Dr. John Bridges, who
was a benefactor in this way. For forty-five
years he was prebendary of the Cathedral,
and during the greater portion of that time
he held his canonry in conjunction with the
Deanery of Salisbury. Indeed, he did not
resign his position at Winchester until six
years after he had been consecrated Bishop
of Oxford. He was a controversialist of
some note, and one of his writings, a pon-
derous quarto of over 1,400 pages, was
written in support of the government of
the English Church against the attacks of
Calvinistic writers such as Thomas Cart-
wright and Theodore Beza. The chief, indeed
the only, interest attaching to this volume,
entitled A Defence of the Government estab-
lished in the Church of Englande for Ecclesi-
asticall Matters^ lies in the fact that it was
the immediate cause of the Martin Marprelate
controversy. The first two of the Marprelate
tracts are directed against this work, in one
of which Dr. Bridges' literary style receives
scathing criticism : — A man might also run
himselfe out of breath before he could come
to a fullpoint in many places of your booke."

224

AFTER THE REFORMATION

It does not appear that Dr. Bridges gave
any of his polemical writings to the Cathe-
dral, but three manuscripts presented by
him may be seen in the library. One is a
collection of historical and romantic works,
written in Latin on vellum by a fourteenth-
century hand, and includes the Historia
Britonum by Geoffrey of Monmouth. This
manuscript originally belonged to the Cathe-
dral of Southwell. Another volume contains
among other treatises, a Life of St.
Nicholas," and is embellished with large,
ornamental capitals ; while a third is a
" Harmony of the Gospels," known as IJnum
ex Quaiuor, written on vellum in the thir-
teenth century, with illuminated initials in
red and blue.^

Long as was Dr. Bridges* connection with
the Cathedral, it was exceeded by that of
Dr. John Ebden, who held his canonry for
the extraordinary period of fifty-two years.
For a short time he was also Archdeacon of
Winchester, but this position he doubtless
found too onerous, for after a trial of only
four years he resigned it. Dr. Ebden, like
his contemporary Dr. Bridges, presented the

^ These MSS. are now preserved in a glass case in the
Library.

225

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Cathedral with a manuscript volume which
still remains in the Library, and also with
an early printed commentary on the book
of Exodus. The codex is a thirteenth-cen-
tury writing, in double columns, with orna-
mental initials, and contains, in four books,
a Compendium of Theology, but without
title or author's name.^

Other members of the Chapter followed
this good example, and sometimes no doubt
the authorities would expend a few pounds
in purchasing some printed books. And
so by degrees, but not to any great extent,
the collection increased in size and value.
In 1639 we find Archbishop Laud, who
was a great lover of learning, impressing
upon the Chapter the need of improving their
library, which was henceforth to be under
the special charge and supervision of the
Dean. Later on, after the downfall of the
monarchy, we meet with a Hst of books
which had formerly belonged to the Cathedral
Library, and which must have been accumu-
lating during this time. There is reason,
therefore, to believe that before the year
1642 when the troopers of the Common-
wealth ransacked the Cathedral, a goodly

1 Also in the glass case.

226

AFTER THE REFORMATION

collection of books, some in manuscript and
some printed, some the property of the old
Benedictine monastery — priceless illuminated
codices, rescued, perhaps, by the faithfulness
and assiduity of Sir Thomas Dackcombe —
and some of more recent acquisition, were
to be seen in the Library of Winchester
Cathedral.

i6— (2306)

227

CHAPTER V

AT THE COMMONWEALTH

At the time of the Commonwealth the
Cathedral Library and muniment room were
twice ransacked by the soldiers of the Parlia-
ment. The story of these raids is to be found
in nearly all contemporary records ; and,
fortunately, the good chapter-clerk, Mr. John
Chase, has left us, in a paper folio of some
hundred leaves still preserved among the
Cathedral documents, an account of his per-
sistent efforts to recover some of the charters
and records dispersed at the time.

The first raid occurred in the year 1642.
Of this we have an account in a curious
book, entitled Mercurius Rusticus, written
by a strong Royalist, one Bruno Ryves.
From this book we get a graphic picture,
drawn, it must be remembered, by a strongly
partisan hand, of the sacrileges, prophana-
tions, and plunderings committed by the
schismatiques in the Close and Cathedral
of Winchester. It appears that a force of
Parliamentary soldiers, under Sir William
Waller, sate down before the city of
Winchester on Tuesday, 12th December, 1642,

228

AT THE COMMONWEALTH

about twelve of the clock. That same after-
noon, between the hours of two and three,
they entered the city, and instantly fell upon
the Close, under pretence of searching for
CavaHers. They seize upon the Prebends'
horses, and demand their persons with many
threatening words : that night they break
into some of the Prebends' houses, and
plundered their goods/' On the following
day, the Castle having in the meanwhile
surrendered, they spent the time in pillaging
the town, but chiefly, as we learn from
another source, some Papists' houses, and
the sweet Cathedralists, in whose houses and
studies they found great store of popish
books, pictures, and crucifixes, which the
Soulders carried up and down the streets
and market-place in triumph, to make them-
selves merry." But on Thursday morning,
14th December, between nine and ten of the
clock hours set apart for better imploy-
ments," that is for divine service), the great
pillage began. The soldiers violently broke
open the great western doors of the Cathe-
dral, and entered the church with Colours
flying, their Drums beating, their Matches
fired." A troop of horse accompanied them
on their march, and rode up through the

229

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

body of the church and quire, until they
came to the altar, where they begin their
work.'* ''They rudely pluck down the table
and break the rail, and afterwards carrying
it to an alehouse, they set it on fire, and
on that fire burn the Books of Common
Prayer, and all the singing-books belonging
to the quire. They throw down the organ
and break the stories of the Old and New
Testament, curiously cut out in carved work,
and beautified with colours.*' From thence
they turn to the monuments of the dead :
some they utterly demolish, others they
deface. The chests or coffers on the north
side of Bishop Fox's screen, which contained
the remains of Saxon Kings and bishops,
they throw to the ground, scattering the
bones all over the pavement of the church ;
and then proceed to destroying the painted
windows of the quire by flinging at them
the bones of Kings, Queens, bishops, con-
fessors and saints, so that the spoil done
on the windows will not be repaired for a
thousand pounds.*' Having destroyed most
of the beautiful painted glass, the soldiers
'' seize upon all the Communion Plate, the
Bibles, and service-books, rich hangings,
large cushions of velvet, all the Pulpit Clothes,

230

AT THE COMMONWEALTH

some whereof were of Cloth of Silver, some
of Cloth of Gold/' They then ''break up
the Muniment house, and take away the
common Seal of the church, supposing it to
be of silver : they tear the Evidences of
their Lands, and cancel their Charter."
Being at length satiated with the work of
destruction, the troopers, clad in surplices,
and with such hoods and tippets as they
found," rode through the streets, carrying
broken organ pipes and mangled pieces of
carved woodwork in their hands, that the
citizens might see how glorious a victory
they had won."^

The above account gives hardly an ade-
quate impression of the havoc wrought by
the soldiery among the manuscripts in the
muniment room. Charters, deeds, and records
of all kinds were, as we learn from the

memoranda " 2 of John Chase, strewed
about the Cathedral and city. Some were
burnt, some were flung into the river, some
into the gutters. The good Chapter-clerk
quickly got to work to rescue his treasures,
and to reduce to some sort of order the

^ Mercurius Rusticus (1685), pp. 144-152.

' Partly printed in " Cathedral Documents {Hants.
Record Society), vol ii, pp 57-64. Sec, too, " Introduction "
to the volume, pp. xx, xxiv.

231

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

condition of chaos that prevailed. A large
number of scattered documents he recovered
by persuasion or purchase," including many
Saxon charters and writings relative to the
Chapter estates, which he carefully arranged in
separate boxes. His memoranda clearly
indicate the vast amount of labour expended
on the work, which he had only just com-
pleted when the second and overwhelming
disaster occurred. On 1st and 2nd October,
1646, Oliver Cromwell being in commiand of
the Parliamentary forces, another pillage at
the Cathedral and muniment room took
place, even more disastrous than the pre-
vious one. Divers Charters were burnt,
divers throwen into the River, divers large
parchments being made Kytes withall to
file in the aire, and many other old books
lost, to the utter spoyhng and destruction
of the muniment and chapter-house." It
might well be thought that the spirit of
John Chase was well-nigh broken at this
second catastrophe ; his labour during the
last three years had been " labour in vain " ;
charters and manuscripts under his care
were again scattered to the winds. But once
more with undiminished energy he set to
work to recover his lost treasures, and to

232

AT THE COMMONWEALTH

re-arrange the surviving manuscripts. We
still possess his ''remembrance'* of such
" books, accompts, rolls, writings, and muni-
ments as I found again after the Muniment
House was the second time broken up by
the soldiers, and the writings carried away
and imbeziled, 1646/' He gives us a list,
occupying fourteen pages, of documents
which at this time he found and got into
his custody again/' Some of these had, as
we are told, an almost romantic escape."
A very fine charter of the time of Henry
IV, still happily in the Cathedral Library,
was given him by Tupper the butcher, who
found it all soyled in the gutter of Win-
chester High Street." Another charter, much

eaten by rats," was given him by the
same person. A bundle of divers counter-
partes of leases which were throwen in the
river," were fortunately taken up about
St. Crosses forth of the river by Giles King,
a brother of St. Cross," ^ and presented by
him to the Chapter-clerk, who also recovered
the two Saxon charters still remaining in
the Cathedral Library.

A comparison of the ancient documents
now in the keeping of the Dean and Chapter

* Cathedral Documents, ii. p. 28.

233

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

with the Ust made by Chase of those sur-
viving the first pillage in 1642, will show
how grievously the Library suffered in this
second raid of 1646. Many of the Saxon
charters and mediaeval cartularies which
then existed in the Library are now lost to
Winchester, though some of them may be
seen in the British Museum and elsewhere.
How far the books suffered with the deeds
and muniments does not clearly appear ;
but Chase expressly mentions many old
books as lost in the pillage ; and it
is possible that the Benedictional of St.
Aethelwold, the Psalter of Henry de Blois,
the Tropary of Ethelred, and other priceless
manuscripts were lost on this occasion.
Such books and codices as remained, includ-
ing the Latin Bible cum picturis in two
volumes, the Historia of Bede, and other
mediaeval volumes, the whole valued by
Brother Ellis, one of the ministers,'* and
Warden Harris of Winchester College, at
the sum of 200s., were sequestered by order
of Parliament, and assigned to the use of
ministers in the city.^ It appears, however,
that the whole collection was seized by one
Thomas Matthews a grocer, and Augustus

1 See Cathedral Documents, vol. ii, pp. 72-74.
234

AT THE COMMONWEALTH

Garland, M.P., who claimed that they had
" bought the Close at Winchester with the
Library and books/' which latter they forth-
with removed to London in order to dispose
of them to better advantage. The matter
created some excitement, and eventually
came before the Parliamentary Committee.
Thomas Matthews, the grocer, having died
within a few weeks of the scandalous trans-
action, Mr. Garland was called upon to
" restore the books or show cause why they
were taken away." Three months passed
by, and no answer having been vouchsafed,
the Secretary of the Parliamentary Com-
mittee wrote again : We renew our request
for a speedy answer to our letter about the
Books of the Dean and Chapter said to be
purchased by you.'' Whether this further
communication received any attention is not
recorded ; but three weeks later, on Thurs-
day, 27th May, 1652, a Parliamentary Order
was made that " the books and manuscripts
late belonging to the Library of the Dean
and Chapter of Winchester be sent down to
the Library of Winchester College, there to
remain for publick use " ; and further it was
ordered that an examination be made by
the Committee of Hampshire as to who

235

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

hath imbezzled the said books and manu-
scripts/' and that care should be taken that
they be inventoried and carried to the
said Library of Winchester College/' An
examination of the College Register shows
that this arrangement was carried out, and
that before the end of the year some fifteen
manuscripts and nearly 200 volumes of
printed books, the property of the late
Dean and Chapter, were brought from Lon-
don to Winchester, at a cost of ,^3, and
deposited in the College Library.^ We learn
further, from the same source, that the
matter was arranged at the instance of
Nicholas Love, the chief Parliamentarian
authority at Winchester, who prevailed upon
Oliver Cromwell, Protector Reipublicae
Angliae," to present for a very trifling con-
sideration, the residue of the Cathedral
Library to Winchester College. This aston-
ishing transaction marks the final stage in
the dispersion of the ancient Library which
had gradually grown up since the days of
St. Aethelwold in the tenth century. Rifled
by rapacious hands at the time of the Refor-
mation, plundered by still more violent
methods in the days of the Civil War, the

1 Kirby's Annals of Winchester College, p. 345.
236

AT THE COMMONWEALTH

heartrending work was at length completed
by handing over the miserable remnant of
books and manuscripts to the custody of
Winchester College.

Most of these manuscripts and printed
books, eventually found their way back to
the Cathedral Library, as we shall notice in
the next chapter, and these scanty remains
are all that are left to us of a once magnifi-
cent collection. And their preservation is in
a great measure due to the zeal and faith-
fulness of John Chase the Chapter-clerk,
whose notes and memoranda clearly indicate
how lovingly he had cared for the ancient
documents under his care.

We would fain know more of this excellent
man, but it is only possible to glean a few
scanty particulars of his career.^ He was
the son of Richard Chase, of Liphook, in the
county of Hants., and he married one Eliza-
beth Woodford, by whom he had a family
of two sons and two daughters ; but the
dates of his birth and marriage are alike
unknown. He settled in Winchester, in the
part of the city known as ''the Soake,"
that is, under the jurisdiction of the Bishop

* For these I am mainly indebted to Canon Madge in
Introduction to Cathedral Documents, vol. ii, pp. 19-21.

237

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

of Winchester^ some time before 1620^ in
which year he was made BaiUff of the
Liberties of the Dean and Chapter in the
County of Southampton/' and two years
later he was appointed Chapter-clerk. He
seems to have celebrated his appointment
by the purchase of a new Chapter-book,
which begins with the General Chapter of
25th November, 1622, and closes with the
dispersion of the Cathedral body in 1645.
In this volume, which he kept in his pos-
session during the period of the Common-
wealth, he carefully noted down against the
names of the prebendaries the dates of their
decease as one by one they passed away
in their exile.'' The last death he entered
is that of Dr. John Harris on 21st August,
1658, and since on the re-assembling of the
Chapter in 1660 his name as Chapter-clerk
does not appear, it may be reasonably in-
ferred that he had died some time between
these two dates, shortly before the Restora-
tion. It is sad to think, as it has been
said, that the poor man was thus denied
the happiness of witnessing the return of
the old order of things. He had hoped, too,
that his son, John Chase, junior," would
in due course succeed him in his office of

238

AT THE COMMONWEALTH

Chapter-clerk, and, indeed, the Dean and
Chapter, as appears from an entry in the
Chapter-book, had virtually agreed to this
arrangement ; but the Civil War had inter-
vened, and when the Chapter, after an interval
of fifteen years, met again at the time of the
. Restoration, John Chase was dead, and his
[i son seems to have left Winchester for London.
• Some ten years before, the Chapter-clerk had
lost his wife, and he chronicles her interment
in the choir of St. John's Church in the
Soke, and a few months later that of his
brother-in-law, who was buried at the
south end of the little hill or bed which
lyeth nere the west door of Trinity Church.'*

And so, the exact date unknown, John
Chase, the faithful servant of the Dean and
Chapter during the troublous times of the
Civil War, passed away to his rest, and was
doubtless buried beside his wife in the chancel
of St. John's Church. He deserves to be
gratefully remembered. With Thomas Dack-
combe, peticanon of the Cathedral in the
days following the Reformation, he shares
the honour of having preserved from des-
truction many ancient documents belonging
to the Cathedral. What Dackcombe did in

* Cathedral Documents, ii, p. '21.

239

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the way of collecting and preserving the
scattered manuscripts of St. Swithun*s priory,
that John Chase did, with regard to the
charters and muniments, at the disastrous
time of the Civil War. The treasures still
in existence are, indeed, but a sorry remnant
of what once was a fine collection ; but such
as they are, their preservation is due, in no
small degree, to the zeal and intelligence of
these two men, whose names at any rate
we are privileged to know and reverence —
Syr Thomas Dackcombe Rector of St.
Peter's Colebrook and Minor Canon of the
Cathedral, and John Chase Gent " Chapter-
clerk to the Dean and Chapter.

240

CHAPTER VI

BISHOP MORLEY'S library

When, at the time of the Restoration, the
surviving members of the Chapter of Win-
chester again entered the venerable precincts
of the Close, they must have done so with
strangely contradictory feelings. The Dean,
Dr. Young, had passed away, and five out
of the twelve prebendaries. Happy on the
one hand at the turn pubUc events had
taken, and at being again, after fifteen years'
banishment, in possession of their rights and
dignities, yet the prospect that presented
itself was enough to dismay the stoutest
heart. The attempt to pull down the
Cathedral had, indeed, happily failed, owing
to the protests of the citizens — the original
copy of the petition against the destroy-
inge and puUinge downe of Trinitye Church "
is still preserved in the library — but the
sacred building was in a grievous condition
of dilapidation. The Deanery and most of
the Prebendal houses were in a state border-
ing on ruin — " 4 out of 13 only left standing,"
states a contemporary document with perhaps
a little pardonable exaggeration — and the

241

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

library, as we learn from the same source,
was demolished.

The new Dean, Dr. Alexander Hyde, a
cousin of Lord Chancellor Hyde afterwards
Earl of Clarendon, was installed on 8th
August, 1660, and with him two newly-
appointed prebendaries ; and a few days
later, on Sunday, 19th August, Dr. Edward
Stanley, one of the surviving prebendaries,
preached the sermon in the nave of the
Cathedral to commemorate the return of
the Chapter. His sermon, dedicated to
Bishop Morley, was printed, and a copy is
preserved in the Cathedral Library. In it
he thus happily refers to the return : This
is one of Christ's miracles, that He hath
stilled the raging of the sea ; that though
we were unworthily cast out, yet we are
met again, in nave Ecclesiae ; and whether
it be the Quire, or the Body of the Church,
it matters not ; but here we are by God's
mercy, and the Ship itself is, we hope,
secured ; though much torn and ransack'd,
as you see." Three weeks later, the first
Chapter meeting of the new body was held,
when, under the presidency of Dr. Hyde, a
petition was drawn up to the King asking
for a grant of money towards rebuilding

242

BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY

and repairing the Cathedral property, and
also for an allowance of convenient timber
— " Church timber having been so generally
wasted and destroyed " — that they may
" rebuild their demolished cloisters, library,
and dwelling-houses/'

The library here mentioned was probably
the long low room over the dark cloister
which runs between the south transept of
the Cathedral and the old Norman Chapter-
house. It is thus referred to in the Survey
of the Close, made by the Parhamentary
Commission in 1649 : " Alsoe one faire
Roome called the Library with some bookes
in itt lyeing between the Howse lately be-
longinge to the Deane and the Cloysters
built with stone, the Roofe covered with
Lead, with a very faire payre of Stone
Stayres leadinge out of the said Cloysters
up to the said Library.'* This room, which
still bears traces of mediaeval frescoes, and
of arched recesses once used as a receptacle
for books was perhaps fitted up by good
Prior Silkstede, whose initials may be seen
on the stone moulding of the east window,
and was probably used as a library in pre-
Reformation times. It was almost certainly
the Cathedral Library in the days preceding

243

17— (2306)

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

the Civil War. During the period of the
Commonwealth the roof had doubtless been
stripped for the sake of the lead valued at
" twoe hundred and Twenty e pounds six-
teene shillings/* and its timbers sold, as
happened in the case of several of the pre-
bendal houses, and the room presented a
deplorable condition.

But not only was the library demolished/*
but such manuscripts and books as had
escaped the pillage that followed the Refor-
mation were gone. The fine collection of
illuminated manuscripts which had been the
pride of the Benedictine monastery, had
dwindled down to some fifteen or twenty
codices, and these, together with a collec-
tion of printed books, valued at £200, had,
as we have seen, been imbezzled ** during
the period of the Commonwealth, and car-
ried up to London. The books and manu-
scripts were at length, after much trouble,
recovered, when, at the instance of Nicholas
Love, the chief Parliamentary authority at
Winchester, they were presented by Oliver
Cromwell to Winchester College. The Col-
lege, as the bursar's accounts clearly show,^
bore the expense of removing the books " a

1 Kirby's Annals of Winchester College, p. 345.
244

BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY

Londino ad Collegium/' where they arrived
early in the year 1653, and were duly
incorporated in the library.

It was a heavy task that confronted the
Dean and Chapter on their return to the
Close in the autumn of 1660, and one that
took several years to accomplish. " The
first thing which was thought most neces-
sary/' as we learn from the proceedings
of the Dean and Chapter " still in existence,
" was to rebuild the house of God, w^^ was
done with all possible expedition to a very
great expense of money, and in the next
place to rebuild the deanery and the houses
of those Prebendaries w^^ were totally
demolisht." Considerable progress was made
in the work by the end of the year 1667,
when some £15,000 had been expended ;
but the library yet awaited restoration.
Shortly before Christmas good Bishop Morley
wrote to his very loveing freinds the Dean
and Chapter of Winchester," touching the
" building and repayring of such of y^ howses
as are yet unbuilt or want reparation.'' And
he adds : I wish you had a Library too,
I mean a convenient Receptacle for such
books as will probably from tyme to tyme
be bestowed upon you. I am sure you are

245

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

likely to have all or most of mine, and I
hope mine and your successors will follow
mine and your example/' In answer to
this appeal the Chapter set about " rebuild-
ing and repayring the long room over the
dark cloister, covering it with the sloping
roof which we see to-day.

The work of restoration seems to have
been completed by the end of 1670, but
some years elapsed before the library was
furnished with books. The sorry remnant
of the old collection remained in the safe
keeping of Winchester College ; and Bishop
Morley, in spite of his three score years and
ten, continued to rise about 5 o'clock in
the morning, winter and summer, and to go
to bed about 11 at night, and in the coldest
mornings never to have a fire, or his bed
warmed at night.'* Two years before his
death the good Bishop, not unmindful of
his promise to the Dean and Chapter, caused
a catalogue of his books to be written on
vellum, in a folio volume bound in calf, and
presented to the Cathedral authorities, as
appears from the following statement entered
upon the last leaf of the catalogue itself : —

" Memorandum, — That this Catalogue of Bookes was
presented to the Dean and Chapter of Winchester, from the
Right Reverend Father in God, George Lord Bishop of

246

BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY

Winchester, upon the 28th day of November, 1682, as being
a Catalogue of all the Bookes in his Lordship's Library,
bequeathed by his Lordship's Will to the Cathedral of the
Holy Trinity of Winchester, and which the longer his
Lordship lived, he declared by his letter should be the more
and not the fewer : which Catalogue his Lordship appointed
to be kept by the Treasurer for the time being, and the
delivery of which is attested by us.

" William Douthwaite,

" Thomas Cranley, Notary Public."

After the delivery of this catalogue into
the safe keeping of the treasurer of the
Cathedral, the Dean and Chapter had still
some little time to wait before they obtained
possession of the library. But towards the
close of October, 1684, Thomas Ken, one of
the prebendaries, was summoned from Win-
chester to Farnham to attend the Bishop*s
death-bed. The end came '* about three
o'clock in the morning of the 29th of October,
when the most worthy and pious bishop
surrendered up his soul to God in Farnham
Castle," doubtless in the tiny bedroom under
the staircase of Fox's tower, in the 80th
year of his age." Only a few months before
his death Morley's dear friend, Izaak Walton,
had passed away at the patriarchal age of
" full ninety years and past," and had been
buried in Prior Silkstede's chapel in Win-
chester Cathedral. And as the two friends
had been lovely and pleasant " together

247

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

in their lives, so in their death they were
not divided/' for a few days after his decease
the body of Bishop Morley was conveyed
from Farnham to Winchester, where it was
laid to rest in the nave of his great Cathedral,
at the foot of the steps leading to the choir
on the north side, opposite the tomb of
Bishop Edyngdon.

Shortly after the bishop's death his books
were removed to the long room over the
dark cloister known henceforth as Bishop
Morley's Library. And with the books were
transferred the oaken presses or bookcases
which contained them. At least, tradi-
tion has always associated the bookshelves
as well as the books with the gift of this
munificent prelate. And a close inspection
of the bookcases lends abundant confirma-
tion to the tradition. They are of dark oak,
with curiously carved cornices, ornamented
with knobs and pinnacles, after the style of
the seventeenth century. And that they
were made originally for another room, and
have been adapted to their present position,
is evident from several considerations. On
the original cornice of the oak panelling
which now covers the walls of the window-
recesses may be seen the labels which

248

J'ltoto by i'. y. (iiiin, W'nulusier

THE MOKLKV I.IliKAKY

BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY

formerly indicated the number of the shelves
beneath. When the cornice was adapted to
the panelling, the labels were not removed
and may easily be distinguished. The supply
of moulding, too, was not sufficient to go
entirely round the walls, and in several
places material of another design had to be
employed. The pinnacles, again, especially
in the window-recesses, were too high for the
low ceiling, and some of the spikes had to
be shortened or removed. Tradition, there-
fore, is probably right ; and the bookcases,
enriched at the four corners with the arms
of the diocese, doubtless once ornamented
the library of the good bishop.

An examination of the official catalogue,
made in 1682, reveals the nature and extent
of Bishop Morley's gift. It consisted of
nearly two thousand volumes, bound for the
most part in sombre calf or in antique vellum,
and protected in some cases with iron clasps
and bands. Of the two thousand volumes,
nearly 700 were in folio, 500 in quarto, and
the rest in octavo or duodecimo ; with some
twenty-four bound volumes of pamphlets.
More than half the volumes were in the
Latin tongue, a few in Greek and in Hebrew,
nearly 150 in French or Italian, and about

249

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

700 in English. The hbrary represented just
such a collection of books as we should
associate with a wealthy high-church scholar
and divine, of strong royalist opinions, in
the second half of the seventeenth century.
The classics in fine folio editions are well
represented. There are excellent copies of
the Greek and Latin Fathers, mostly in folio,
and bound in calf. As became an ardent
royalist and a strong supporter of the House
of Stuart, there are the works of King James
I, and of King Charles the Martyr in two
folio volumes. The residence of Morley on
the continent during the period of the Com-
monwealth is illustrated, not only by the
inclusion in his library of the works of his
foreign friends Samuel Bochart and Claude
Salmasius the antagonist of Milton, but also
by his collection of French and Italian books.
Among the latter there is a copy of the
sermons of Savonarola, but there is no
evidence of an interest in Dante.

Of Reformation theology there is an abun-
dant display, including the works of Erasmus,
of Martin Luther, and of Melancthon. But
it is chiefly in English controversial litera-
ture that the library of Bishop Morley is
richest and most representative. A large

250

BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY

number of these writings are now entirely
obsolete ; but the library contains an excel-
lent collection of the works of the seventeenth-
century divines. To mention but a few of
the better-known and more interesting
volumes, there are fine folio copies of Arch-
bishop Laud's famous Conference with
Fisher, of Jewell's Apology for the Church
of England, of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity^
and of Pearson's Exposition of the Creed.
There are the works of Bishop Morley's old
friends, fellow-canons of Christ Church, Dr.
Hammond and Dr. Sanderson ; also of
Bishop Andrewes, of Archbishop Ussher,
and of Dr. Donne. Of the latitudinarian
divines, while the great work of Chilling-
worth on The Religion of Protestants is
absent, the school is well represented by
the Rational Account of the Protestant Reli-
gion of Edward Stillingfleet, by the famous
sermons of Tillotson, and by the Golden
Remains of the ever memorable Mr. John
Hales of Eton College. The Cambridge school
of Christian Platonists is excellently repre-
sented by the works of John Smith, of Ralph
Cudworth, and of Henry More. No fewer
than nineteen volumes of Richard Baxter's
controversial writings are to be found in the

251

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

library, but, strange to say, his most endur-
ing monument. The Saint's Rest, is wanting.
We should have expected among the works
on ecclesiastical history, which include Bur-
net's History of the Reformation and Peter
Heylin's volume on the same subject, the
more celebrated Church History of Britain
by the immortal Fuller, but this, too, is
absent. It is also curious that George Herbert
is only represented by his prose work, A
Priest to the Temple, and that no copy of
his more famous poems is to be found among
the Bishop's books. But poetry, it is clear,
did not appeal to the theological instincts
of our good prelate. His library of two
thousand volumes contains only a few ex-
amples of the English poets. There is a
folio copy of Spenser's Faerie Queen, and
also an edition of Butler's Hudihras, and a
first edition of the poems of Dr. Donne.
Shakespeare is absent, and Herrick, and
Wither, and Quarles, and Crashaw, and Henry
Vaughan. But as if in some measure to
make up for this deficiency, the Bishop
possessed a copy of the first edition of
Milton's Paradise Lost.

It is interesting to find copies of Sir Thomas
Browne's Religio Medici, of Burnet's Life of

252

BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY

Sir Matthew Hale, and of John Seldon^s
History of Tithes ; while the collection of
pamphlets contains the famous tracts on the
Smectymnus controversy. One or two omis-
sions in the Bishop's collection of books
is certainly curious. There was no copy
of Banyan's Pilgrim's Progress in his library.
Theological prejudice cannot account for
its absence, for Morley possessed works of
Baxter and John Owen, and William Penn,
and other Nonconformists. But stranger still
is the fact that no copy of Ken's Manual of
Prayers J or of Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler,
was to be found among the Bishop's books.
Ken was Morley's chaplain and one of his
most trusted friends, while with Izaak Walton
the Bishop had been for many years on terms
of the closest intimacy. His library, it is
true, possessed copies of Walton's Lives (now
lost), and also of his last work, the Life of
Dr. Robert Sanderson, which, dedicated to
his old friend Bishop Morley, he published
in his eighty-fifth year ; but there was no
copy of his more famous work, which, as
Charles Lamb said of it in after days,
" would sweeten a man's temper at any time
to read it." Fishing, it may be, was taken
to be akin to poetry, being a " contemplative

253

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

man's recreation ; and poetry, as we have
seen, found no response in the heart of
Bishop Morley.

It will be noticed that in his letter to the
Dean and Chapter the good Bishop had pro-
mised that the longer he lived the number
of books he bequeathed to the Cathedral
Library should be the more and not the
fewer/' This promise was clearly carried
out ; and when, shortly after the Bishop's
death, his executors handed over to the
Chapter the Morley Library, they included

the more books " which had accumulated
between the delivery of the catalogue in
1682 and the Bishop's death two years later.
These additional volumes were duly entered
in the Bishop's official catalogue, which seems
to have been the only catalogue in use for
many subsequent years. The Dean and
Chapter were doubtless gratified with their
new possession, and it must have been a
matter of some congratulation that at length
the old bookroom, associated with the name
of Prior Silkstede, was once again fitted
with presses and furnished with a library
of at least two thousand volumes.

The Bishop had expressed the hope that
other people might be found to follow his

254

BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY

example and to present books to the Cathe-
dral Library. Perhaps the first to do so was
his friend and chaplain, Thomas Ken, who
within a few weeks of the Bishop's death,
and indeed in consequence of it, was pro-
moted to the bishopric of Bath and Wells.
In commemoratoin of that event he pre-
sented to the library a few folio volumes,
bound in calf, which still remain.

The gift of Thomas Ken, following on that
of Bishop Morley, must have reminded the
Chapter of that collection of books and
manuscripts, the property of the Cathedral,
which at the instigation of Nicholas Love
had been made over by Oliver Cromwell to
Winchester College. It had been a most
scandalous proceeding, and the College
authorities were doubtless not well pleased
with it. At any rate, an effort has been
made, but unsuccessfully, to erase the record
of it from the College Catalogue. Now a
few months before Morley's death a canonry
of the Cathedral had fallen vacant, and the
Bishop had appointed Dr. John Nicholas,
Warden of the College. John Nicholas had
been an old school-fellow of Thomas Ken —
they were admitted scholars at the same
time, and they had been up at New College

255

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

together — and for a few months they were
fellow-canons of Winchester Cathedral. The
subject of the old Cathedral Library must
have been discussed between them. It was,
of course, a delicate matter, and one not
lightly to be brought forward. However,
within a few months Ken left Winchester
for Wells, and Warden Nicholas, busy with
his new Schoolroom and with his prebendal
house in the Close, had more than enough
to occupy his energies. But a few years
later, in 1695, it came about that Dr.
William Harris, Head Master of Winchester
College, was also appointed Canon of the
Cathedral ; and thus the Warden and the
Informator were on the Chapter together.
The opportunity had now come, and we are
inclined to venture the opinion that it was
during the time when Dr. Nicholas and Dr.
Harris were canons together, viz., between
the years 1695 and 1700, that the manu-
scripts and books were returned to the
Cathedral Library.

That the great majority of those literary
treasures have been restored is no longer a
matter of conjecture. With regard to the
manuscripts, some fifteen in number, it has
long been recognised that, although the time

256

BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY

and circumstances of their return is unknown,
they now repose in the Cathedral Library.
One single codex remains at College, a con-
cordance or canon of the Gospels with notes
and index, on the fly-leaf of which is written
the following memorandum : This beautiful
MS., the most superbly embellished one of
the College to which it belongs, is not only
defective at the beginning and at the end,
'but in very many other parts, and most of
the illuminated letters have been cut out.
It belonged to the Dean and Chapter of
Winchester, and is one of the valuable MSS.
which, with a quantity of books, belonging
to the Dean and Chapter, Oliver Cromwell
allowed the College to acquire in 1653, when
the Dean and Chapter were suppressed.
There is a tradition that the illuminated
letters were cut out by former College porters
and given to visitors ; but it seems more
likely that the MS. suffered mutilation while
it was in the custody of the Dean and
Chapter." We need not discuss the question
of mutilation : it is sufficient to note that
while the College retains this one beautiful
Codex the rest of the manuscripts were duly
returned to the Dean and Chapter, and now
safely repose in the Cathedral Library.

257

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

With regard to the quantity of printed
books belonging to the Dean and Chapter,"
considerable obscurity as to their fate existed
until quite recently. It seems to have been
generally supposed that most of them at
any rate remained in the possession of Win-
chester College. The supposition is wrong.
My investigations have conclusively proved
that when the MSS. were returned to the
Dean and Chapter, the printed books were
returned with them. Of the 124 works con-
tained in the 176 volumes which Oliver
Cromwell made over to Winchester College
in the year 1653, the great majority are now
to be found in the Cathedral Library. It
has been found impossible, partly owing to
bad writing and faded ink, and partly to
inadequate description, to trace the whole
of the volumes, but there can be little doubt
that all the books that could be identified
as belonging to the Cathedral were honour-
ably returned by the College authorities.
When the volumes were restored the Cathe-
dral librarian entered their titles as far as
possible in their right alphabetical position in
the Morley Catalogue, which, as we have seen,
was used for many years as the general cata-
logue of the library. After much painstaking

258

BISHOP MORLEY'S LIBRARY

labour, a little more than two-thirds of
the printed books have been satisfactorily
identified. With regard to the remaining
third, some, it seems to be clear from an exam-
ination of the College Catalogue, could not be
traced at the time of transference ; while others,
owing to partial or inaccurate description, can
no longer be identified. It is probable, how-
ever, that most of these are reposing with their
fellows on the shelves of the Morley Library.

It is pleasant, therefore, to know that, as at
Lambeth so at Winchester, the volumes which
had been alienated at the time of the Common-
wealth eventually found their way back to their
old home. By the close of the seventeenth
century — 150 years after the pillage at the era
of the Reformation, and fifty years after that of
the Commonwealth — we may think of St.
Swithun's library as again containing a respect-
able number of books. Bishop Morley's muni-
ficent gift formed the bulk of the collection.
In addition to this there were a dozen or more
illuminated manuscripts most of which had
belonged to the old Benedictine monastery,
nearly 200 volumes which had accumulated
between the establishment of the Dean and
Chapter in 1541 and the Civil War, and a
few books given by private individuals.

259

1 8— (3306)

CHAPTER VII

IN THE LIBRARY

Any account of the literary associations of
Winchester, which run back to the days of
King Alfred and the Saxon Chronicle, would
be incomplete without a brief indication of
a few of the more interesting books now to
be seen in the Cathedral Library. ^

With regard to the MSS., the fine collec-
tion once sheltered within the walls of St.
Swithun's Priory was, as we have seen,
grievously dispersed at the time of the
Reformation, and again during the troubles
of the Civil War. Putting aside charters
and cartularies, there are now only seventeen
MSS. remaining in the library, and of these
several have been given since the dissolution
of the monastery. ^ The illuminated Vulgate
is beyond question our most priceless posses-
sion, and is indeed a codex of almost price-
less value. The Bede, too, is an interesting

1 It will of course be understood that I have mentioned
but a very few of our more interesting volumes, and those
by way only of illustrating various aspects of bibliography.

* See pp. 225, 226.

260

IN THE LIBRARY

copy, not only on account of its early date
and marginal notes, but because it was
written at Winchester and was once the
property of the convent. This latter reason
gives additional interest to the copy of St.
Augustine on the Fourth Gospel ; and to
the collection of treatises bound up together
in the original oak boards, presented to the
library by good Prior Silkstede. ^

There is a special interest attaching to
early printed books, especially to those
which appeared before the year 1500, com-
monly known as Incunabula. Of these we
have unfortunately only a few examples in
the Library. Our earliest printed book is
a copy of the Homilies of St. Chrysostom,^
printed at Brussels in 1479 by the Brothers
of the Common Life.''^ The good brethren,
who had been celebrated for their work of
copying manuscripts, set up a printing-press
at their house called Nazareth " in the year
1476 ; so our volume was one of their early
issues. Like most printed books of the
period it bears a strong resemblance to a
manuscript. The wide margins, the curious

^ p. 209.

* Now preserved in a glass case.

• See Putnam's Books and their Makers, vol. i, pp. 88-90.
Early Printed Books. E. G. Duff. pp. 107-108.

261

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

type, the initial letters in black and red ink,
combine to give it a strangely mediaeval
appearance ; while, in common with many
early books it contains no title-page, the
sheets are unnumbered, and it possesses a
colophon at the end of the volume which
gives the date of printing and other par-
ticulars. Another volume in our scanty
collection of Incunabula is a fine folio, which
has unfortunately been rebound, of the works
of the learned and pious Gerson, Chancellor
of the University of Paris and Canon of
Notre Dame. This book,^ which was printed
at Paris in 1489, has manuscript initials in
green and red, and contains a colophon but
no title-page. An interesting Latin entry on
the reverse side of a full-paged engraving
placed at the beginning of the volume,
reveals the fact that the book once belonged
to the sisters of St. Agnes' Convent, in
Lothem."

There are several early-printed Sarum
Missals in the Library. One of these,^ a
small folio in black letter, printed, as we
learn from the colophon, at Paris, in the
year 1500 by the celebrated printers Higman
and Hopylius, shows on the title-page a

^ Shelf number, xxxii, a, 4. * In a glass case.
262

IN THE LIBRARY

curious woodcut known as St. Gregory's
Pity. The same woodcut also appears on
another page, and beneath it a blank shield
for the insertion of the name or arms of
the owner. But the illumination, intended
to have been done by hand, had never been
carried out. The volume also contains, as
is not infrequently the case, a full-paged
engraving of the Crucifixion before the Canon
of the Mass. Another copy^ of the Sarum
Missal, issued by the same house in 1510,
has the first page of the Canon of the Mass
printed on vellum. This portion of the
service book, being the most frequently
used, would naturally wear out sooner
than the rest of the volume ; hence the
custom sometimes adopted of printing
it on vellum. Our copy, which is enriched
with many woodcuts, formerly belonged to
one Barthelemy Hussey, perhaps a monk of
St. Swithun's Convent, whose name appears
in several places. We also meet with the
following pathetic entry, scribbled on the
margin of one of the pages, in the year before
the death of King Henry VIII : I praye
God,'' writes poor Barthelemy, " I may lyve
to see the Masse to be saide again, for that to

1 In a glass case.

263

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

see hit wolde glade my harte so much as
any thinge in this worlde/'

From Roman Missals we turn not un-
naturally to English Prayer-books ; and it
is noteworthy to find that the Library pos-
sesses original editions of the two Prayer-
books of Edward VI, and also the Winchester
copy of the sealed Prayer-book of Charles II. ^
The Prayer-books of 1549 and of 1552 are
works of considerable commercial value, and
of great doctrinal interest, and most instruc-
tive is it to compare the differences between
the two editions. In both will be found the
following petition, now happily removed
from the English Litany : — From the
tyrannic of the bishoppe of Rome, and all
his detestable enormities. Good Lorde deliver
us.'' The sealed copy of the 1662 Prayer-
book does not contain the strange service
used at The Healing,'' or touching for the
king's-evil ; but in an edition, ^ published at
Oxford in 1721, and lately presented to the
Library, it will be found immediately before
the Thirty-nine Articles of ReHgion.

Of English versions of the Bible we possess
a copy of The Bishops' Bible, ^ printed by

^ In glass case. ' xviii, c. 4.

Shelf number, xlii, F. 7.

264

IN THE LIBRARY

Christopher Barker in 1585, and containing
Archbishop Cranmer's Preface. This massive
foho is sometimes known as the treacle
Bible " because of the quaint rendering in
Jeremiah x. 22, Is there not tryacle at
Gilead ; is there no Physician there ? "
There is also a copy, in handy octavo, of
the Geneva or Breeches " (Gen. iii. 7)
Bible, ^ printed in London in 1606. It is in
the original binding, with brass bosses and
remains of clasps, and contains the Apocrypha
and Sternhold and Hopkins' metrical version
of the Psalms. There is also an edition of
Dr. Fulke's New Testament^ published at
Rheims. But our most valuable printed
book is the copy of John Eliot's translation
of the Bible into the Indian language, which
was printed at Cambridge in New Eng-
land" in 1663, and dedicated to Charles II.
This was the first Bible printed in America,
and is now a very scarce book.^

Of other seventeenth-century volumes one
or two call for special mention. Not the
least important, to judge from its influence
on English history, was the Eikon Basilike,
" a Portraiture of His sacred Majesty in His
Solitudes and Sufferings," generally supposed

^ ii, A. 10. ' ii, D. 5. 3 In glass case.

265

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

to have been written by King Charles I, but
almost certainly the work of Dr. John Gauden,
one of his chaplains.^ No less than forty-
seven editions of this book were issued with
surprising rapidity. Of these we have copies
of three editions in the Library. One of
these is a first edition^ printed in 1648 ; ^
and another the Latin translation made by
John Earles and published at the Hague in
the following year.^ A copy of the first
edition of Milton's Paradise Lost^ is among
the treasures of the Library. The first edition
of this immortal poem is distinguished by
no less than eight different title-pages, accord-
ing to the time of issue between the years
1667-1669. The whole edition was printed
off in 1667, but the sale proving slow, the
publisher adopted the unusual expedient of
issuing only a limited number at a time,
furnishing each batch with a fresh title-page.^
Our copy is dated 1669, and belongs, there-
fore, to the seventh or eighth issue. An
original edition of Dr. Donne's Poems,^

^ See Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. vii,
p. 161.

2 In glass case.
^ xxvi, F. 3.

* In glass case.

5 How to Collect Books, by J. H. Slater, p. 69.

* xxviii, D. 24.

266

IN THE LIBRARY

published after his death, will be viewed with
interest by those who venerate the memory
of the great Dean of St. Paul's. First editions
of the three parts of Butler's Hudibras'^ also
rest upon our shelves.

It is interesting to find in a library almost
wholly theological several works dealing with
science and natural history. There is a first
edition of Fuchs' magnificent Herbal, De His-
toria stirpium,^ published at Basle in 1542.
The full-paged woodcuts, which have been
coloured by hand, are of exceptional merit,
and render the Herbal perhaps the most
beautiful ever produced. In our copy the
title-page is most unfortunately missing, but
the named portraits of the draughtsmen who
assisted Fuchs in his great work will be
found at the end of the volume. We also
possess magnificent folios of Gesner's famous
Historia Animalium^ in three volumes,
printed by C. Froschover at Zurich, between
the years 1551 and 1558. The beautiful
woodcuts, like those in Fuchs' Herbal, were
printed in outline, the work of colouring
being purposely left to the rubricator. It
is interesting to notice that in our copy
some of the drawings have been painted,

* xxviii, F. 30. ' xix, b. 2. ^ix, c. 2.

267

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

and some left in their original condition.
Of English books on natural history none
is more famous than Gilbert White's Sel-
horne^ which appeared in 1789. A fine copy
of the first edition, in quarto, reposes in our
Library.^

The vast majority of our earlier books are
works of Theology — ponderous fohos of the
Fathers, and of the Reformation divines,
with numerous works on religious contro-
versy. The chief interest associated with
many of these volumes is to be sought, not
so much in their subject-matter, as in the
printing-presses from which the works eman-
ated. Among the early presses justly regarded
as celebrated, are those of the Brothers of
the Common Life,*' the Aldine Press at
Venice, the Elzevir Press, the Plantin Press
at Antwerp, and the Ascension Press at
Paris. Of books printed in these famous
presses we are fortunate in possessing several
examples. The beautiful copy of the Homihes
of St. Chrysostom, printed at Brussels by the
Order of the Brothers of the Common Life,"
has already been mentioned. The Aldine
Press, founded at Venice in 1495, became
celebrated for its splendid editions of the

1 Hi, D. 1, see p. 59.

268

IN THE LIBRARY

classics. A folio copy of Suidas' Greek
Lexicon^ ^ printed by Aldus the Elder in 1514,
and bearing on the title-page his well-known
mark of an anchor entwined by a dolphin,
may be seen in our Library ; and also an
edition of Livy,^ printed by Aldus the
Younger in 1555, showing the Aldine anchor
surrounded by an oval border as adopted in
that year. There are several productions of
the Elzevir Press. One beautiful little book^
in the original vellum binding with over-
lapping edges, shows on the title-page the
famous mark of the house known as The
Old Sage," and is further of interest as
affording an example of the peculiar form
of numeration, sometimes adopted in the
seventeenth century, known as the inverted
C." The Plantin Press of Antwerp is well
represented on our shelves. As examples
we may cite a quarto edition of the Hebrew
Bible ^ printed in 1566, and a very fine folio
copy of the Roman Missal^ printed by
Christopher Plantin in 1574. In the early
years of the sixteenth century the Ascension
Press in Paris became one of the most cele-
brated in Europe. It was founded by

^ xviii, D. 2. ^ xxvi, e. 1. ^ xxxiii, e. 3.
2 xxi, D. 8. * ii. A. 3.

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Jodscus Badius Ascensius, a man of great
learning, and at one time Professor of
Humanity at Lyons, and press-corrector to
Trechsel the famous printer. Of TrechseFs
work we have a specimen in the Dialogues
of Occham,'^ printed in 1495; while of the
Ascension Press there is a massive folio, in
the original oak boards covered with leather
and with the iron clasps remaining, of the
works of Bruno, ^ patriarch of the Carthusians
at Paris. On the title-page there is an en-
graving of the famous Ascension printing-
press, with the date 1520. At the end of
the volume we have a Life of Bruno,'*
illustrated by a number of woodcuts, in
which the saint is usually represented with
the name Bruno engraved beneath his
figure. Another production from the same
house, giving in the colophone the date 1519,
also shows the printing press on the title-page.

Of early English presses, those of Caxton,
Wynkyn de Worde, the schoolmaster of
St. Albans,'' John Lettou, and William de
Machlinia, we have no examples in our
Library. We are happy, however, in pos-
sessing a few leaves printed by Richard
Pynson in 1504. They are to be found at

^ In glass case. ^ iy, b. 1.

270

IN THE LIBRARY

the end of our Sarum Missal^ printed by
Higman and Hopylias at Paris in 1500, and
possess a colophon stating that they were
printed in " fletestrete signo sancti Geoigii,
10 Kal., Jan. 1504/' together with the
Pynson device, consisting of his initials cut
in wood, so as to print white on a black
background.

It was often the custom, among the
printers of the sixteenth century, to utilise
old manuscripts and sheets of early printed
books as materials for binding. After the
Reformation, service-books were largely used
for this purpose ; while no less than 10 per
cent, of the books printed in England before
1530 are only known to us through frag-
ments rescued from bindings.^ Of this
lamentable practice we have several illus-
trations in our Library. The boards of our
copy of Fuchs' Herbal,^ printed in 1542,
are lined with leaves of paper manuscript.
So is the fine volume^ of Bruno's works
printed by the Ascension Press in 1524 ; and
the folio of Brentius^ published at Frank-
fort in 1558, and several other foreign works.

1 In glass case.

2 Early Printed Books, E. Gordon Duff, p. 196.

* xix, B. 2.

* iv, B. 1 .
» ix, D. 6.

271

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

A fragment of an incunabula ^ consisting of four
sheets, printed at Venice in 1496, may also
be seen, bound up at the beginning and
end of a folio copy of Dr. Field on The
Church,^ printed at Oxford in 1628.

There is a distinct and pecuhar interest
attaching to books with a pedigree,'' en-
tirely independent of the subject-matter of
the volumes. A book that has belonged to
some famous man in former times, that
contains perhaps his name, written, it may
be, with his own hand, or with his coat of
arms stamped upon the cover, cannot but
appeal to the dullest student of bibliography.
We have already noticed the additional
interest associated with several of our manu-
scripts, as having belonged to the old Bene-
dictine monastery. The great bulk of our
sixteenth and seventeenth-century volumes
were once the property of good Bishop
Morley, and they still rest in the very same
oak bookcases that adorned his library. On
the death of William Kingsmill the last Prior
and first Dean of Winchester, a layman, one
Sir John Mason, Kt., a diplomatist of some
distinction, was appointed by Edward VI
to the Deanery. On the accession of Queen

1 xxix, A. 10.

272

IN THE LIBRARY

Mary he resigned the position ; but a
memento of the strange anomaly may be
seen in a massive foho, ^ in the original oak
boards and binding, on the title-page of
which is the following inscription : — Ex
dono Do. Jo. Masonii eq'tis clariss. — 1566."
Another of our early Deans, appointed by
Queen Elizabeth, was, like his contemporary
Dr. Turner Dean of Wells the Father of
English Botany,*' a Doctor, not of Divinity
but of Medicine. Dr. John Warner was the
first Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford,
and for ten years had been a Prebendary of
Winchester when, in 1559, he was appointed
to the Deanery. I was much interested to
find in our Library two scientific folios — a
copy of the De Materia Medica of Dios-
corides, 2 and of Ruellius' De Natura
Stirpium^ — both bearing on the fly-leaf the
name of John Warner, M.D., nuper decani,
Wynton.** The books, interesting in them-
selves, acquired an additional interest as
having belonged to our distinguished medical
Dean. For ten years, from 1599 to 1609,
George Abbot (afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury) was Dean of Winchester. On
our shelves may be seen two large folio

^ xxxiii, c. 2. ' xxi, E. 3. » xx, d. 2.
273

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CLOSE

volumes, the covers of which are stamped
with the arms of the See of Canterbury
impahng those of George Abbot. These
volumes came into the possession of Thomas
Ken, who, when he resigned his canonry at
Winchester for the bishopric of Bath and
Wells, presented them to the Library.^ Con-
temporaries of Ken on the Chapter were
Dr. John Nicholas, Warden of Winchester
College, and Dr. William Hawkins, the son-
in-law of Izaak Walton, and it is interesting
to find that both these Prebendaries be-
queathed books to the Cathedral Library.
There is also a fine edition of Laud's Con-
ference with Fisher,^ which belonged to
Bishop Morley. But the cover of the book
is stamped with the arms of the See of
Canterbury impaling those of Laud ; and
it is, therefore, not improbably the actual
copy which once belonged to the Archbishop's
library. Dr. Peter Heylin, the Archbishop's
chaplain, was a voluminous writer, and
among his many works was one on the

^ It further appears, from Archbishop Abbot's will, that
he bequeathed twenty-five volumes to the Dean and Chapter
of Winchester "to be put into their library." The books
were to be chosen by his executors " with the advice of the
Dean or Sub-Dean " from among those in his study at
Croydon. I have identified one only of those volumes,
viz., xxxi, B. 5.

2 xxix, B. 11.

274

IN THE LIBRARY

duty of obedience to Kings. A copy of this
book, entitled, The Stumbling-Block^ ^ stamped
with the royal arms, and containing a ful-
some dedication to Charles II in Heylin's
own handwriting, is now in our Library.
One other book with a pedigree may be
mentioned. It is an original copy of Jeremy
Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery with a
dedication, probably in the handwriting of
the great preacher, to The Lord Bishop of
Winchester, From the Author. Mar. 12, 1663."

Such are a few of the volumes to be seen
in the Cathedral Library. The Library is not,
of course, an important one, either in size
or richness ; but it possesses an interest of
its own, and it contains several MSS. and
incunabula of undoubted value, while many
of the volumes belonging to the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries would add grace
and dignity to any collection.

' Ix, A. 10, ' In glass case.

19— {2306)

275

INDEX

Abbot, George, Archbishop,

273. 274 ; Dean of Win-
chester, 40, 273 ; his will,

274, n.

Abbotsbur}^ Swannery of,
82

Abbots Worthy. 88. 92
Abingdon Abbey, of. 186
Aedelmus, 195

Aelfred, King. 9, 165-183, 184
Aelfege, Archbishop, Story of,

89-90 185
Aelfnc, 187, 200
Aethehed. King, 2, 169, 192
Aethelbald, King, 15, 16
Aethelstan, King, 215, 216
Aethelwold, St., 13, 66. 87, 107,

141. 146, 184, 207, 236
, Benedictional of, 189-

195, 206, 211

. School of, 184-195

Aethehvulf. King. 168. 182
Alban's. St., Monastery. 207
Aldershot, 78

Aldine Press. The. 268. 269

Alexander. Prior, 34

Amphibalus, St.. 2

"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," The,
quoted, 17, 168, 171, 181, 184

Anderdon. quoted. 132

Anglo-Saxon remains, found
in Close. 7. 9

Annales de Wintoyiia. 208

Aquinas. St. Tho.. quoted. 148

Archaeological Institute, Pro-
ceedings of, 1, 54, 88

Ascension Press, The, 268, 269.
270

Asser. quoted, 166. 170
Audemar, Bishop (or Ethel-
mar). 28. 104
" Audite-house." The, 36
Augustine. St.. Compassions of,
179 ; Soliloquia of. 180

Baigent, F. J., ix. 209, 216
Bale, John, quoted. 212
Basynge, Wm., Prior. 110. 112

: {Also see Kingsmill, Dean.)

I Basynge, Robert, 142

i Battle Abbey. 65

j Baxter, 251, 252. 253

• Beaufort, Cardinal. 57, 67, 101

■ Becket. Thomas, 34 . 203
Bede's Historia, 172, 175, 194,

206, 209, 260
Bible, Enghsh Versions, in

hbrar^^ 264, 265
Btblia glossata. 209
Birds of the Close. 148-163
Birinus. St., 2

Blois, Psalter of Bishop Henrj"

de. 201, 206
Bodleian Libran.-, 175, 188,

208

' Boethius' Consolations of
Philosophy, 172, 178
Boke of Portyons, The, 19,
! 217

' Botfield. Beriah. quoted. 205.
206. 219
Breeches Bible, in Library-.
265

I Bridges, Dr. John, Preben-
I darv. 224. 225
j Brinstan. St.. 68
I British Museum Librar>^ 168.
I 201,219.234
I Broke. Prior Henr>', 109, 110
Brooke, Rev. Stopford A.,
! quoted, viii. 174. 179, 180,
i 181

I Brothers of the Common Life.
I 261, 268

I Browne, Prebendary A.. 56
; Bruce. Dr. Douglas, 181
: Bulla. Papal. 101. 102
' Burnet. History of His Oum
Times. 135. 136

277

INDEX

Burke, Edmund, quoted, 11
Butler's Hudibras, 252. 267

Cambridge History of Eng-
lish Literature, 172, 181.
186, 188, 266

Cambridge Platonists, The,
251

Carus, Canon, 147
Cassan's Lives, quoted, 31,
185

Catherine of Aragon, 109
Cavendish, Wm., Duke of

Devonshire, 193, 194
Celtic remains, found in Close,

5

Cenwalh, King, 2, 182
Cerdic, King, 2

Chalkhill, John, 129, 132, 138
Chapter-house, The, 24-32
Charles I, 38, 250
II, 14. 23, 36, 37, 135,

137, 275
Chase, John, Chapter Clerk,

228, 231, 237-240
Chatterton, quoted, 154
Cheyney Court, 74, 95 99
Chroniclers, monastic, 196, 197
Chrysostom, St., Homilies of,

261

Clarke, Dean, 37, 38

Cloisters, The, 12

Close, The, 1 1 ; doorways of,
22, 23; birds of the, 148-
163 ; gardens, 140, 147 ;
flowers of, 19-21 ; walls of,
16-23. {See Mirabel Close.)

Cof&ns, stone, found in Close,
100-103

Corpus Christi College, Cam-
bridge, Library of, 178, 189,
208

Couper, John, swanherd, 82
Cnut, King, 3
Compton, 120 ;
Coucherier, John le, 79
Cranmer, Archbishop 109, 117,
265

Cromwell. Oliver. 232. 236. 255

Crondall, Manor of, 78
Cross, St., Hospital of, 58
Crumwell, Thomas. 109, 110.
Ill, 193, 214

, Gregory, 112

Curie, Bishop, 5
C}aiegils, King, 2

Dackcombe, Thomas, 215-

221. 227, 239, 240
Daniel, Bishop, 200
Dante, 179, 250
Diet-rolls, 42-51
Dioscorides, De Materia

Medica, 273
Donne, Dr., works, 251, 252.

266

Dove-cots, mediaeval, 81, 82
Devizes. Richard of. 197. 207.

208
Droxford, 82

Duff, E. G.. Early Printed
Books, quoted. 261, 271

Dunstan, Archbishop, 2, 41,
185. 191

Earles', John, Latin trans-
lation of the Eikon Basilike,
266

Earle, Professor, 177

Easton, Little, 127

Ebden, Dr. John, Prebendary,

225, 226
Edgar, King, 186
Edward the Elder, King, 8. 184

. Prince. 29

I. King. 64

VI, Kmg, 30, 272; his

Injunctions, 221
Eikon Basilike, The, 265. 266
Elizabeth, Queen. 12. 30. 39.

98, 273

Ely, Bishop Nicholas de, 209
Elze\'ir Press, The, 268, 269
Ehot's, John, Indian Bible,
265

Emma, Queen, 14, 34
Enidford, Prior Richard de.
77

278

INDEX

Erie, Sir John. 119. 120
Ethelmar. {See Audemar.)
Evelyn, John, quoted, 131.
136

Falconry. 83, 84 . 85

Fearon, Dr.. Head Master of
Winchester College, now
Archdeacon of Winchester,
132

Flowers of the Close, 19-21
Fox. Bishop, 13. 57, 107. 108,
247

Freeman, Professor, quoted,
183

Friar, Wm.. 121
Fulke's, Dr., New Testament,
265

Fuller, T.. quoted, 212, 213
Fuchs' Herbal, 267, 271

Gale, S„ 124

Gardiner, Bishop Stephen, 13,

106, 116, 121
Gardens. The Close. 140-147;

" Paradise." 140, 143
Garnier. Dean, 147
Gasquet. The Abbot, viii, 44,

110. 112. 197. 206, 207
Gauden. Dr. John, 266
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 197,

225

Gerson, Chancellor, works, 262
Gesner's, Conrad. Historia, 267
Gibbon, 179
Gifford. Bishop. 147
Giles. St.. Fair. 24. 85
Gilpin. Wm., Forest Scenery,

quoted, 145
Godeman, writer of St. Aethel-

wald's Benedictional, 192,

200

Godfrey, Prior. 13. 26. 30. 65.
198-200

Green, J. R., quoted. 111, 167
Gregory's, Pope, Pastoral Care,

172, 175
Grimbold, St., 170, 181, 182
Guy, Earl of Warwick, 34

Guest-house, the, 62-73

Hall. Margaret. 123

Harley Collection of MSS., 193

Harris, Dr. John, 125

. Dr. William. 256

Harpesfeld. Dr., 217, 218, 221
Hasting, 169

Hawkins. Dr. W., Prebendary,

15, 129. 144. 274
Hawkins, the younger. 129,

130

Haywode, Nicholas de. Re-
ceiver, 90

Hempage Wood. 78. 80

Henry of Huntingdon, 197

King. H, 203

King, HI. 17, 28, 34, 39,

41

King, Vni,3, 109. 116.

117.263
Herbert, George, 127. 252
Heriard, Prior A., 80
HeyHn, Dr. Peter, 252. 274,

275

Hook, Dr.. 179
Hooper, George, 128
Home. Bishop. 30, 214, 215
Hortulanus, The, or Gardiner,
I 142

I Hostiarius, The, 68, 69, 73

i Hugh, Prior of Witham, 203.

I 204

I Hunton, Prior, 82
i Hussey. Barthelemy. his en-
try. 263. 264
Hutchins. History of Dorset,

quoted. 221
Hyde, Dean, 242

Incunabula in Library, 261.
262

[ Infirmarian, The, 21

} Infirmary, The monastic, 55

I Ingulphus of Crowland, 196

I Itchen, River, the, 82. 86, 87.

I 89. 92. 97

I Inkpen. Roger, 121

279

INDEX

James I. 38, 145, 250
John, King, 14, 27, 96
Josse, St., 66
Jusserand, quoted, 65

Ken. 15.22,125-139.143,146,

149, 247, 255. 274
Kingsmill, Dean, 106-114. 221,

272. {See also Basynge,

Prior)

, John. 115

. Leonard, 115

. Richard. 115

Kirby's Annals of Winches-
ter College, quoted, 71, 90,

146. 236. 244
Kitchin, Dean. vii. 18. 33. 35,

40. 42. 43. 63. 67. 76. 78. 85.

91. 98. 165. 202. 213

Langton. Archbishop, 14. 27
Lamb, Charles, quoted, 253
Lambeth, 259

Langton, Thomas. Bishop of
Winchester. 57

Langfranc, Archbishop, his
Constitutions quoted, 68

Laud, Archbishop. 226 ; Con-
ference with Fisher, 251.
274

Lee, Warden. 146

Legh. Dr., Monastic visitor,

110. 112
Liber Vitae. 192. 195
Library. Cathedral, 235. 236.

237. 243. 260-275
Library. The Morley, 241-259
Libraries, Mediaeval, 197, 198
Lockbourne, The, 87-94
Longestocke. Walter de. In-

firmarian. 21
Love. Nicholas, 35, 236
Lowth. Prebendary. 59
Lucius, King, 2
Lucy, Bishop Godfry de, 67, 96

Macaulay. Lord, quoted, 139
Madge, Canon, viii, 203

Malmesbury. Wm. of, 17. 26

52. 65. 89. 173. 188. 196. 200
Manuscripts. Cathedral. 209.

210. 225. 226. 234. 260. 261 ;

used as bindings, 271, 272
Manydown Manor, 33, 76, 77,

80

Marcus AureHus, 179
Marinor Thomas, Swanherd,
82

Mary. Queen. 14. 272. 273
Martinus V, Pope. 101
Mason, Sir John. Dean of
Winchester. 214. 272, 273
Maynard. Lord. 127

. Lady. 127

Mearns, S.. 194

Mercurius Rusticus, quoted.
228-231

Milner. Bishop vii, 33, 41. 53,
65, 199

Milton, quoted, 1 1 ; Paradise
Lost, first edition. 252. 266

Mirabel Close. 13. 18. 62. 69.
140. 144

Missals, Sarum, in Library, 262-
264

Moore. Prior of Worcester. 83

Moberly, Dr.. 132

Morley. Bishop. 15. 70. 127.

129. 137, 144. 245. 247. 248
. his Library, 248-272.

274

Mulso, Prebendary John, 58-
61

Nero, 6

Nevyle, Prior Thomas, 90
Nicholas. Bishop of Ely. 209
Nicholas. Dr. John. 22. 70-73.

126, 137, 159. 255. 256. 274 ;

his Doorway. 22
Nisbett. N. C. H. ix. 62

Odd. Abbot. 198

Orlton, Bishop Adam de. 34

Orosius. 172, 176

Osborne, the Chronicler, 89

280

INDEX

Pandulf, Papal Legate, 27

Parker, Archbishop, 178

" Paradise," garden called,

140, 143 i
" Pedigree," Books with a, !

272-275 ;
Philip of Spain, 14
Pilgrims', The, Hall, 62-73
Plantm Press, The, 268, 269
Plegmund, Archbishop, 170,

173. 174
Pollard, 67. 113
Prayer Books, early, in Librar\-,

264

Plumptre, Dr., quoted, 133,
134

Prior's Hall, 12. 33-40
Putnam's Books and The

Makers, quoted, 26, 196,

197. 198, 261
Pynson, Richard, printer, 270, '

271 I
Ponet, Bishop. 214 '

i

Raleigh. Bishop, de, 28
Ramsey, The Benedictional, ■
215

Refectory. The, 41, 42. 64. 69
Rennell, Dean. 38, 206 !
Richard I, 14, 54. 208

. Duke of Beom, 79

of Devizes, 207, 208

Robert, Prior, 201, 207 \
Roman times, 1, 25

remains found in Close,

5. 6, 7. 25
Rudbome, the Winchester his-
torian. 1, 197. 201. 208
Rufus, William, 14, 24, 79
Ruellius' De Natura Stirpium, i
273

Ryves Bruno, Mercurius Rus-
ticus. quoted 228-231

Salisbury Cathedral, 161 |
Savemake forest, 78 |
Scandinavian relics, found in
Close, 9, 10 I

Scriptoriun, Monastic, 197, 198,
207

Selborne, 81 ; History of. 59,
60

Shakespeare, quoted, 154, 155
Shelly, Dame Ehzabeth, 218
Shylling, Wm., Receiver, 77
Silkstede, Prior, 38, 40, 82,

108, 109, 209,223, 243, 254.

261

Silvester, Ring of St., 122
Simon de Montfort, 17
Shore, T. W., quoted. 95, 96
Skinner, Bishop, 127
Skylljmg, Wm., Receiver, 77
Slater, T. H., How to Collect

Books, quoted, 266
Smith, R. Bosworth, quoted,

157

Soke, the Bishop's, 96-98, 128

, St. John's, in. 128, 130

Spenser's Faerie Queen, 252
Stables, The Priory, 74, 75, 86
Stanley, Prebendary E., his

Sermon, 242
Sturgess, Prebendary, 59
Survey, Parliamentary, 35,

93, 140, 143, 243
Sudbourne, Manor of, 186
Swannery, The Prior's, 82
Swithun's, St., Pax of, 122
Swithun, St.. 13, 16, 66. 88.

168

Taunton, Prior William of, 28
Taylor Jeremy. Dissuasive

from Popery, 275
Tennyson, quoted, 94, 154
Thomas, Bishop, 59
Torschaghe, John de, 78
Tournai, Monastery of St.

Martin's, 198
Trees of the Close, 140. 141.

144. 147
Troper, The Winchester, 188
Turner. Bishop of Ely. 126.

127

Turner, Dr., Dean of Wells,
273

281

INDEX

Tyderige, Mrs.. 123. 124

Undercroft, The Monastic,
53. 61

Vaughan, Henry, 252
Versions of the Bible, in

Library. 264. 265
Victoria History of Hampshire,

quoted, 25, 97
Vigilantius. 1

Vulgate, Our Twelfth Century,
201-206, 209, 260

Walkelin, Bishop, 3, 24, 29,

41,78. 198
Walls of the Close, 16
Walter. Prior. 201
Walton. Izaak. 15. 23. 129, 138,

143. 149. 247, 253, 274
Ware. Abbot, of Westminster,

quoted. 25
Warner. Dean. 273
Warner. Sir George, viii. 189.

191. 194, 215
Warton, Dr., vii, 59
Warwick. Lady, quoted. 135
Waynfiete. Bishop. 13, 67
Westcott. Bishop, quoted, 149
Whitby. 167

White. John, of Southwick,
57, 58

White, John. Bishop. 123

White, Gilbert. 159; his His-
tory of Selborne, 59, 268

, Thomas. Prebendary. 57

. Robert. 58

Wild flowers of the Close. 19-21

Williams, J. R. Rev.. 119, n.

Willis, Professor, 1, 54. 88

William of Malmesbury, quo-
ted. 17, 26, 52, 65, 89, 188

Winchester College. 235. 236.
244. 246, 255

Winslade. Thomas. 121

Witham, Monastery of. 204

Wolsey. Cardinal, 109

Wolvesey, 19. 90, 109

Wood, Anthony, quoted, 31,
215

Woodcock, Bishop Henry,

Prior of St. Swithun's. 39
Woodhay East. 127
Wootton Manor. 76
Worcester. Monastery, 83
Wordsworth, quoted, 156
Wren, Christopher, Sir. 39, 71
Wulfstan, Precentor. 66, 188,
200

. quoted. 88, 191

Wyke, 216, 218. 219
Wykeham, Bishop William of,
13, 57, 77, 90

Young, Edward, 126
1 Young, Dean. 241

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The first edition of the work contains about 1 ,000 biographies of
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BIOGRAPHY, ETC.

JOHN BUNYAN: His Life, Times and Work. By the Rev. Johm
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" The best Life of John Bunyan." — Literary World.

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IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE BRONTES. By Mrs. Ellis H. Chad-
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THE LIFE OF DANTE. By the late E. H. Plumptre. D.D., Dean of
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THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. By James Boswell,
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2

BIOGRAPHY (contd.)

BISHOP WALSHAM HOW. A Memoir. By his Son, Frederick
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GEORGE MACDONALD. A Biographical and Critical Appreciatioa.
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3

COLLECTIVE BIOGRAPHIES jcontd.)

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THE POETRY OF ROBERT BROWNING. By Stopford A. Brookb,
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JOHNBUNYAN; HIS LIFE. TIMES AND WORK. By John
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4

FICTION

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S

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ARCHBISHOP PARKER. By W. M. Kennedy. B.A.

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GENERAL WOLFE. By Edward Salmon.

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NATURAL HISTORY, ETC.

THE A B C OF POULTRY. By E. B. Johnstone. In crowa Svo,
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NATURAL HISTORY. ETC. jcontd.)

CATS FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT. By Miss Frances Simpson.

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INSECT LIFE : Its Why and Wherefore. By Hubert G. Stanley,

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ASTONISHING ANATOMY. An anatomical and medical skit pro-
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ATHLETIC TRAINING FOR GIRLS. Compiled and Edited by C. E.
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THE AMERICAN STATESMAN'S YEARBOOK. From Official
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Advices, and Foreign Documents. Edited by J. Walker
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THE HOUSE IN GOOD TASTE. By Elsie de Wolfe. In royal
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" The House in Good Taste " differs from the usual book on
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and is a record of personal experience. The book then has a double
interest. It has a friendly autobiographical flavour, becauseits author
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8

MISCELLANEOUS (conid.)

practical, because the problems discussed are actual rather than
theoretical. It is the chronicle of a decorator's experiences — not
a rehash of theories and principles that have been laid down before
by countless writers — informal in style, and illustrated with
unusually interesting photographs.

CHART OF THE HEALTH INSURANCE ACTS. Size 41 in. by 31 in.,
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The operations of the highly complex National Insurance Act
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sheet of paper. The method of arrangement enables anyone
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to himself and to all brought within its jurisdiction. The duties
and powers of each group of persons are concisely stated in plain
language, and without reading through two lengthy Acts (couched
in obscure legal terminology) one may see instantly the legal
relation between all concerned, from Insurance Commissioners to
Insured Persons.

DICKENS IN YORKSHIRE. BeingNotesof a Journey to the Delightful
Village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge. By C. Eyre Pascoe.
In foolscap 4to, with four illustrations in colour and 1 1 black and
white illustrations. Is. 6d. net.

THE FEDERAL SYSTEMS OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE
BRITISH EMPIRE. Their Origin, Nature, and Development.
By A. P. PoLEY, B.A., of the Inner Temple and Midland Circuit,
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FRENCH PROSE WRITERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND
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Literary and Bibliographical Notes in English. By Victor
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FOR HOME SERVICE AND OTHER STORIES. By Lyde Howard.
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HOME GYMNASTICS FOR OLD AND YOUNG. By T. J. Hartelius.
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HYPNOTISM AND SUGGESTION. In Daily Life. Education, and
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TRAVELLING PALACES. Luxury in Passenger Steamships. By

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0

i

MISCELLANEOUS jconid.)

LIGHTER MOMENTS. From the note-book of Bishop Walsham
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OVERHEARD AT THE ZOO. By Gladys Davidson. With 2
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The author has catered for all children who love animals. Her
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PUBLIC SCHOOL LIFE. Each in foolscap 8vo, cloth, with 32 full
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THE REVERIES OF A BACHELOR : Or, A Book of the Heart.

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ROODSCREENS AND ROODLOFTS. By F. Bligh Bond, F.R.I. B.A.,
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THE BOOK OF THE CHILD. An Attempt to Set Down what is in the
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MYSTICISM AND MAGIC IN TURKEY. An Account of the
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THE NEW MAN : A Portrait Study of the latest type. By Philip
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10

MISCELLANEOUS jcontd.)

THE PERSIAN PROBLEM. By H. J. Whigham. With maps and
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SCIENCE AND THE CRIMINAL. By C. Ainsworth Mitchell,
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SYMBOLISM OF ANIMALS AND BIRDS Represented in English
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THE SUNLIT ROAD : Readings in Verse and Prose for Every Day
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PITMAN'S STUDIES IN ELOCUtlON. A guide to the theory and
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THE BEGINNINGS OF THE TEACHING OF MODERN SUBJECTS
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THE INNER LIFE OF GEORGE ELIOT. A Study of the Mental
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ALL THE PAPERS. A Journalistic Revue. By the authors of
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POETRY, CRITICISM, & LITERARY HISTORY

THE POETRY OF ROBERT BROWNING. By Stqpford A. Brooke.
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" The most satisfactory and stimulating criticism of the poet yeL
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TENNYSON : HIS ART AND RELATION TO MODERN LIFE. Bv
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11

POETRY, ETC. {eontd,)

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12

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14

THEOLOGICAL (contd.)

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THEOLOGICAL {contd.)

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16

THEOLOGICAL jcontd.)

THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. By the late Bishop Thorold. Ib
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THE SIMPLE LIFE. By the same Author. Translated from tho
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17

THEOLOGICAL yconii.)

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history of the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar in
England during the centuries between the planting of Christianity
here and the reign of Mary Tudor.

IN OUR LADY'S PRAISE. An Antholog>^ of Verse. Compiled by

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IN ANSWER TO PRAYER. Testimonies of Personal Experiences. By
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THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE. An account of the leading
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THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. By E. Hermitage Day, D.D.,

F. S.A.

THE ATHANASIAN CREED. By the Rev. Canon Douglas
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Other Volumes in preparation.
18

THEOLOGICAL jcontd.)

THE SOCIAL RESULTS OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. By C. Schmidt.

Translated by Mrs. Thorpe. With Preliminary Essay by R. W
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EDUCATION AND SOCIAL LIFE. By the Rev. J. Wilson Harper.
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MODERNISM. A Record and Review. By the Yen. A. Leslie
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BODY AND SOUL. An Enquiry into the effects of Religion upon
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THE CHURCHMAN'S GUIDE. A Handbook for all persons, whether
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19

THEOLOGICAL {contd.)

COMPANION TO HYMNS, A. AND M. By the Rev. C. W. A. Brooke.
M.A., In crown 8vo, cloth, 200 pp., 3s. 6d. net.

A compact book giving full details of the hymns, tunes, authors,
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the centuries when they lived, and the countries to which they
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An anecdotal note of each tune ; A notice of each author ; A notice
of each composer ; The characteristic of each hymn ; Verses which
have been omitted and other versions of many hymns ; Numerous
tables of Hymns for each day of the Calendar, and each Sunday,
Festival, Saints Day, and Feast in the Church Year ; The Sources
of the texts at the head of each hymn, etc., etc.

THE SOCIAL WORKERS' GUIDE. A Handbook of Information
and Counsel for all who are interested in Pubhc Welfare. Edited
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Diocesan Social Service Committee, with assistance from Fifty
Experts. In crown 8vo, cloth, 500 pp., with over 500 articles.
3s. 6d. net.

" A book of reference of more than average value. The need
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tion which attempts to supply it. The notes are arranged in
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exhaustive. " — Guardian .

HOW TO TEACH AND CATECHISE. A Plea for the Employment
of Educational Methods in the Rehgious Instruction of Children.
By the Rev. J. A. Rivington, M.A., formerly Second Master at
St. Paul's Cathedral Choir School. With a Preface by the Lord
Bishop of Gloucester. Cheaper Edition. In crown 8vo, cloth
gilt. Is, 6d. net.

" This is an invaluable httle book . . , it might well be put
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A POPULAR HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN WALES From the
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THE LONDON CHURCH HANDBOOK. Being a Compendium of
Information upon Church Affairs in the County of London [Dioceses
of London and Southwark]. Second year of issue (1913-14). In
crown 8vo, cloth, 400 pp., 2s. net.

THE SPRING OF THE DAY. Spiritual Analogies from the Things
OF Nature. By the late Hugh Macmillan, D,D,, LL.D, In
crown 8vo, cloth gilt. 3s. 6d, net.

20

THEOLOGICAL [cpyUd.)

THE CLOCK OF NATURE. By the late Hugh Macmillan, D.D.,
LL.D. In crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. net.

An attempt to bring out the ^vise lessons which the objects of
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Christ by the revelation of God in Nature.

THE POETRY OF PLANTS. By the late Hugh Macmillan, D.D.,
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A collection of popular studies, showing the many points or beauty
and interest about some of the commonest of our trees and wild
flowers.

TRAVEL, TOPOGRAPHY, AND SPORT

THE ADVENTURER IN SPAIN. By S. R. Crockett. With 162
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WANDERINGS ON THE ITALIAN RIVIERA. The Record of a leis-
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7s. 6d. net.

" The Italian Riviera ... is practically unknown to the majority
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to expound." — World.

THE IMMOVABLE EAST. Studies of the People and Customs ol
Palestine. By Philip J. Baldensperger. With Biographical
Introduction by Frederic Lees. With 24 full-page plate illus-
trations and map. In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 7s. 6d. net.

" Notliing so intimate has yet appeared upon the subject as this
book. To those who know already something of the people and the
life described, there is no book we should recommend more strongly
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Countries and Peoples Series

Each in imperial 16mo. cloth gilt, gilt top, with about 30 full-page
plate illustrations, 6s. net.

ITALY OF THE ITALIANS. By Helen Zimmern.

' The knowledge and judgment displayed in the volume are truly
astounding, and the labour the author has expended on it has made
It as indispensable as Baedeker to the traveller, as well as invaluable
to the student of modem times." — Datly Telegraph.

21

TRAVEL, TOPOGRAPHY, AND SPORT jcontd.)

FRANCE OF THE FRENCH. By E. Harrison Barker.

" A book of general information concerning the life and genius
of the French people, with especial reference to contemporary
France. Covers every phase of French intellectual life — architec-
ture, players, science, and invention, etc." — Times

SPAIN OF THE SPANISH. By Mrs. Villikrs-Wardell.

" Within little more than 250 pages she has collected a mass of
ordered information which must be simply invaluable to any one
who wants to know the facts of Spanish life at the present day.
Nowhere else, so far as we are aware, can a more complete and yet
compendious account of modem Spain be found." — Pall Mall
Gaxeite.

SWITZERLAND OF THE SWISS. By Frank Webb.

" Mr. Webb's account of that unknown country is intimate,
faithful, and interesting. It is an attempt to convey a real know-
ledge of a striking people — an admirably successful attempt." —
Morning Leader.

GERMANY OF THE GERMANS. By Robert M. Berry.

"Mr. Berry abundantly proves his ability to write of Germ my
of the Germans in an able and informing fashion. — Daily Telegraph.

TURKEY OF THE OTTOMANS. By Lucy M. J. Garnett.

" There could hardly be a better handbook for the newspaper
reader who wants to understand all the conditions of the ' danger
zone.' " — Spectator.

BELGIUM OF THE BELGIANS. By Demetrius C. Boulger.
" A very complete handbook to the country." — World.

HOLLAND OF THE DUTCH. By the same author.

"... It contains everything that one needs to know about
the country. Mr. Boulger has the seeing eye, and everything is
described with vivacity and sympathetic msight." —Aberdeen Free
Press.

SERVIA OF THE SERVIANS. By Chedo Mijatovich.

" It is a useful and informative work and it deserves to be widely
read." — Liverpool Daily Courier.

JAPAN OF THE JAPANESE. By Professor J. H. Longford With
map,

" A capital historical resume and a mine of mtormation regard-
ing the country and its people." — London and China Telegraph.

TRAVEL. TOPOGRAPHY. AND SPORT jcontd.)

AUSTRIA OF THE AUSTRIANS AND HUNGARY OF THE
HUNGARIANS. By L. Kellner, Paula Arnold and Arthur
L. Delisle.

RUSSIA OF THE RUSSIANS. By H. Whitmore Williams, Ph.D.

GREECE OF THE HELLENES. By Lucy M. J. Garnett.

Oth^r Volumes in preparation.

The " All Red" Series

Each volume is in demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with 16 full-page plate
illustrations, maps, etc., 7s. 6d. net.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA. By the Hon. Bernhard
RiNGROSE Wise (formerly Attorney-General of New South Wales;.

Second Edition Re\'ised.

" The ' All Red ' Series should become known as the Well- Read
Series within a short space of time. Nobody is better qualified to
write of AustraUa than the late Attorney-General of New South
Wales, who knows the country intimately and writes of it with
enthusiasm. It is one of the best accounts of the Island Continent
that has yet been published. We desire to give a hearty welcome
to this series." — Globe.

THE DOMINION OF NEW ZEALAND. By the late Sir Arthur P.
Douglas, Bt., formerly Under-Secretary for Defence, New Zealand,
and previously a Lieutenant, R.N.

" Those who have failed to find romance in the history of the
British Empire should read The Dominion of New Zealand. Sir
Arthur Douglas contrives to present in the 444 pages of his book an
admirable account of life in New Zealand and an impartial summary
of her development up to the present time. It is a most alluring
picture that one conjures up after reading it." — Standard.

THE DOMINION OF CANADA. By W. L. Griffith, Secretary to
the Office of the High Commissioner for Canada.

" The publishers could hardly have found an author better
qualifietl than Mr Griffith to represent the premier British Dom mi on
... an excellent plain account ot Canada, one of the best and most
comprehensive yet published trustworthy.' — Aihen:r-um

?.3

TRAVEL,' TOPOGRAPHY, AMD SPORT jcontd.)

THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. Their History, Resources, and Pro-
gress. By Algernon E. Aspinall, Secretary to the West India
Committee.

"... hence the value of such a book as Mr. Aspinall has
compiled so skilfully. Its treatment of current topics is copious,
up-to-date, and full of varied interest . . . every visitor to the
West Indies will be well advised if he takes Mr. Aspinall's book as
his guide." — Times

THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA. With chapters on Rhodesia and the
Native Territories of the High Commission. By W. Basil Worsfold^
Sometime Editor of the " Johannesburg Star."

"... The promoters of ' All Red Series ' got the right man for
the work. Mr. Worsfold's considerable experience of the making
of the country from within, combined with his training as a jour-
nalist, have enabled him to cope with the task in a way that would
have been impossible to a less skilled and well-informed annalist.
Into 500 pages he has compressed the main outlines of the history
and geography of that much-troubled dominion, the form of its
new Constitution, its industrial developments, and social and
political outlook. The volume is an encyclopaedia of its subject."
— Yorkshire Post.

THE EMPIRE OF INDIA. By Sir J. Bampfylde Fuller, K.C.S.I.,
Formerly Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal.

" Sir Bampfylde Fuller was well qualified to write such a book as
this which will serve admirably for an introduction to the study of
Indian conditions and politics. Sir Bampfylde Fuller presents a
complete picture of the Indian Empire — the country, its people,
its government, and its future prospects." — Times.

" No western mind more practically versed in and sympathetic
with the Indian spirit could be found than his, and his long adminis-
trative experience could not fail to lead him to compile a well
balanced volume." — Times of India.

WINTER LIFE IN SWITZERLAND. Its Sports and Health Cures.
By Mrs. M. L. and Winifred M. A. Brooke. New Edition.
In crown 8vo, cloth, 290 pp., with coloured frontispiece and many
full-page plates, maps, and other illustrations, 3s. 6d. net.

This book is so full of description and useful information on
all points as to be an indispensable possession to anyone intending
a winter visit to Switzerland.

Sir Isaac Pitman <k Sons, Ltd., 1 Amen Corner, London, E.C.

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