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PL.X
Drawn by F. Mackenzie. Engraved bv J.Le Keux.
BAT MI AMEY CMTUHtCM,
TART OT PRIOR BIRDS MOOTKECTTAX CHASTTRY. To sir BENJAKIN HOBHOTJST. bar? t.r.4 A.S. &«.£<: this -plate is inscribed from motives of esteem "bv the
i t' nlTUnt
LendotxJhblUiwd bu zhtAutiwr.Burton Street, JtuteWZi
Pbnlfd (JrHa.J'tt'artl
THE
HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES
OF
BATH ABBEY CHURCH
INCLUDING
Biographical Stoertrotess
OF THE
MOST DISTINGUISHED PERSONS
INTERRED IN THAT EDIFICE;
WITH AN
<£&iag on <£pttaj)!tf,
IN WHICH ITS
PRINCIPAL MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS
ARE RECORDED.
Ulugtratdr tig a Sbtxitz of lEngrabmgs.
' A* If
IF A l'OSSIL, A PLANT, OR AN INSECT, BE ACKNOWLEDGED AS A FIT SUBJECT FOR RATIONAL INQUIRY AND ENGRAVED DISPLAY, SO ALSO A NOBLE CHURCH, WHEN CONSIDERED AS A PRODUCTION OF THE BEST FACULTIES OF MAN, MUST BE REGARDED AS HAVING PECULIAR DEMANDS ON THE ATTENTION OF THE HISTORIAN AND ANTIQUARY, AND WORTHY OF THE BEST EFFORTS OF GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION.
By JOHN BRITTON, F.S.A.
ETC. ETC.
LONDON :
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, BURTON-STREET ; LONGMAN AND CO., PATERNOSTER-KOW ; TAYLOR, 59, HIGH IIOLBORN ; AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS OF BATH, &C.
1825.
LONDON ; — PRINTED BV J. MOVES, BOL" V£RJ Jt S3KJSET.
®o fljc lEsteemeo' Jfflemorrj
of lljc late
ftrttmfr Bfofon Stasias Conpbeare, ffl.%.
5HJo comrrinelr tn fjts ofon person tfje profound an& motrest Sbcfiolar, tjje liberal anft enligfitenefc ©ritt'c, tfje crutrite JWtneralogtst, rfie acute anttquarg, rfce amiaole an& cfiart'table ^arisS Uicar, tfie sincere JtfeniJ anto affectionate IMattbe;
©fife Folnme is InscrtbeJf, aSlttfi sentiments of real personal regartr, anil sorrow for fife loss,
3Sj) tf)t %utf)Qr.
ISurton Street, Eontfon, 3tll» 1, 1824.
JRepttateB, Sanitate 1825.
CONTENTS.
PAG I
Address vii
Preface viii
CHAPTER I.
Origin of Bath, 1. — Fabulous Account of its Antiquity and Magnificence, 2, 3. — Legend of Bladud and his Swine, 4. — Discovery of the Hot Springs, 4. — British History of Bladud, 5. — Ety- mology of the Name of Bath, 7.— Roman Occupation of this City, 8. — Particulars of the Temple of Minerva, 8. — Site and Remains of Ditto, 9. — Apology, 10.
CHAPTER II.
Bath under the Saxons, 11. — Foundation of a Nunnery, 12. — Early History of the Abbey Church, 13, 14. — Expulsion of the Secular Clergy, 15. — Account of Abbot Elphegus, 15. — Suc- cession of the Abbots, and Coronation of King Edgar, 15, 16. — Saintly Relics, 17. — The City, &c. granted to the Abbey Church, 18.— Bishop John de Villula, and Removal of the See from Wells to Bath, 18, 19. — Bishop John's Gifts, 20,21. — Bishops Godfrey and Robert, 21, 22.— Disputes con- cerning the Episcopal Seat, and the Title of Bath and Wells given to this Bishopric, 22. — Bishops Fitz-Joceline and Savaric, 23, 24. — Joceline de Welles, 24. — Bishop Roger, 25. — Priors of Bath, 25 — 29. — Dissolution of the Monastery, 29. — Learned Monks of Bath, 29, 30. — Weaving Business, 30. — Ecclesiastical Persecution, 30. — Grants of the Monastic Property by Henry VIII. and Edward VI. 30, 31.
CHAPTER III.
Erection of the present Church, 32. — Account of Bishop Oliver King, and Uncertainty of his Burial-place, 32. — His Vision, and consequent Foundation of this Fabric, 33 — 35. — His Injunctions to Prior Birde, 35. — Progress of the Building, 35, 36. — Poetical Account of Prior Holleweye, 36. — Successive Masters of the Works, 37, note. — State of the Abbey Church in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, 37. — Given to the Corporation, 39. — Repaired' by Chapman, Bellot, and others, 39, 40. — Solicitude of Sir John Harington to complete it, 41 — 44. — Bishop Montague induced to continue the Work, 44. — Improvements recently made, 44 — 46. — Discovery of Roman Baths under the Abbey House, 46. — Ditto of Monastic Vestments, 47. — Arms in the Monks' Parlour, 47, 48.
CHAPTER IV.
Situation and General Features of the City of Bath, 48.— Architectural Description of the Abbey Church, with reference to the accompanying Prints, 50 — 67.
b
VI CONTENTS.
Plate page
I. Ground Plan 50—55
II. Interior : Details of Groining 57
III. Exterior : View of the West Front ib.
IV View from the South-east 60
V. View of the East End ib.
VI. Interior : Details from different Parts of the Church 61
VII View of the Nave ib.
VIII View across the Nave looking South-west ib.
IX Elevations of Parts of the Choir, Tower, and Nave 62
X. Title Page : Part of Prior Birde's Chapel 63
State of the Choir, 64. — Reflections on the Sepulchral Memorials in the Abbey Church, 65. — General Remarks on Monumental Incongruities, 66 — 68. — The Custom of Interring the Dead within Churches reprehended, 67.
CHAPTER V.
An Essay on the Origin and Characteristics of Epitaphs, with Examples of various Classes from the Abbey Church of Bath, 68 — Epitaphs in Latin Verse, 72. — Ditto in English Verse, 72, 73. — Ditto in Latin Prose, 78. — Ditto in English Prose, &c. 82.
CHAPTER VI.
Biographical Anecdotes of the most distinguished Persons interred in the Abbey Church — (Vide Index for the names) — 84 — 137.
Num. APPENDIX.
I. Grant of Bath Abbey to Bishop John de Villula, by King WilliamRufus 138
II. Grant of the City of Bath to the same Bishop, by King William Rufus 139
III. Letter of Bishop Drokensford ib.
IV. Injunctions of Bishop King 140
V. Certaine Remembrances, &c. touching the Reparation of the Church of St. Peter and
Paul in the Cittie of Bathe, since the maine Ruins of the same 141
List of distinguished Persons, &c 148
Index 152
Anecdotes of Bath 155
ADDRESS.
Nearly the whole of this volume was printed and ready for publication in August last, when a fire at the office of the printer consumed the entire Impression, and the author has been obliged to have the Work reprinted, which has consequently delayed its appearance. This interval has not, however, been neglected by him, nor has the Work suffered, either in style or matter, by the delay : for the author has revisited Bath Abbey, and endeavoured to render the volume more correct, not only by his own re-examination and investigation, but by the suggestions of friends, to whom he has submitted a copy that was saved from the flames.
January 1825.
A PREFACE,
Besides serving to explain the origin and object of the Work to which it is attached, is also intended to propitiate the professed and discri- minating Critic, — whose passport is fame, or whose censure is con- demnation. It likewise enables the writer to render due acknowledg- ments for favours, and thus record the names of those persons who have contributed to mitigate the labour of investigation, and enlighten the public by imparting useful facts. Perhaps there is no branch of literature in which an author has so much occasion for co-operation — for friendly assistance — for the aid of intelligent correspondents — as that devoted to Topography and Antiquity; for there is none that involves more varied, extensive, and dissimilar subjects, for inquiry and elucidation. Almost every department of art and science, as well as of history, biography, statistics, &c, are, or ought to be, familiar to the antiquary ; for without such attainments he can never do justice to the manifold subjects that come under his review. Devoted to this department of literature, and that zealously and actively, for the last twenty-five years, the author has had frequent and mortifying occasions to witness the deficiencies of some of his predecessors and contempo- raries ; and has endeavoured to avoid their defects, but to profit by their best writings, in his own literary works. His aim has been to exemplify the motto in the title-page, being fully convinced that an antient Cathedral presents an interesting and commanding subject for history and for dis- quisition. It is a monument of Art and Science, — an imposing record of the customs, manners, and taste of our ancestors; — it fastens on the eye and fancy by the most powerful appeal; it shews what our fore- fathers were, what they did, and how they operated; — it serves at once to make us wise and humble, as it induces us to emulate their merits and to question our own. As an object of beauty, of curiosity, and of a remote age, — as venerable in its economy and sacred rites, — and as
PREFACE. IX
dedicated to the most sublime purposes, — it may be safely said that no work of man is to be compared with the grand antient Christian Church ; its aggregate effect excites astonishment ; its details afford pleasure. Unlike the gigantic, and in some respects appalling ex- cavations of India; and equally unlike the heathenish and heavy Temples of Greece and Italy, the Churches, miscalled Gothic, are light, comparatively cheerful, replete with beauty, and abound in picturesque variety: —contemplated in a pristine and a perfect state, they awaken admiration, and afford permanent delight. In their varied stages of ruin, they awaken the mingled sentiments of pleasure and melancholy. The casual observer, however, notices them merely as masses of Masonry and Sculpture ; but the philosophical and scientific antiquary analyses their design and execution, and thence endeavours to appreciate the charac- teristics of the age, and of the artists, when and by whom they were raised. In their chronological history they clearly shew that Genius and Imagination were unrestrained on those subjects at the respective ages of their erection; and that the result was a progressive improve- ment, and a regular advancement in the principles of beauty and taste ; from the middle of the eleventh to the middle of the fifteenth centuries this is evinced, but the dissolution of monasteries in England effected, among other revolutions, a vast change and degradation of our national architecture.
Bath Abbey Church is mostly of a protestant age, although its design is monastic. Hence, we clearly perceive in its execution and detail, a palpable contrast to the splendid and gorgeous Chapels of King's College at Cambridge, and Henry the Seventh's at Westminster ; both the works of Catholic devotees, and raised under the influence of their domination.
This Church is one of the latest examples of English Ecclesiastical Architecture ; it having been founded but a very few years previously to the Dissolution, and not completed till the reign of James the First. Its general plan accords with that of most of our Cathedral Churches ; but there are many peculiarities in its arrangement and details which distinguish it from those Buildings, and render it particularly deserving
X PREFACE.
of graphic and descriptive illustration. The circumstances which led to its erection are extremely curious : — The mystic Vision of Bishop King did not, like Shakspeare's " insubstantial pageant faded," resolve itself into " thin air," without leaving " a rack" behind ; for the whole Church furnishes a signal proof of the powerful impression which the good Prelate's Dream had made upon his mind. But it is not alone the singular circumstances which are associated with its modern history that give celebrity to this edifice ; it derives additional importance from its connexion with a very antient Monastic Establishment, honoured in the Norman Age by being converted into a Seat of Episcopacy, and re- markable during many subsequent centuries for its extent, influence, and splendour.
By referring to original sources for information, the Author has been enabled to collect and embody such a variety of interesting and curious facts respecting this Building, as will probably both surprise and gratify those who are most conversant with the published works on the same subject. On another account, also, this Church is de- serving of consideration ; for within it have been interred many persons of talent and superior attainments. Of the most eminent of those so gifted, succinct Biographical Memoirs are given ; and the best of the Sepulchral Inscriptions which crowd the walls are incorporated in, and form the elucidations of, an Essay on the various Styles and Classes of Epitaphs, by the late Rev. J. J. Conybeare.
The mention of this highly-gifted, amiable, and accomplished man and scholar, recalls the author to the origin of this work, to his acquaint- ance with that gentleman, and to other associations belonging to its pro- gress and execution. Connected with, and attached to Bath, for more than thirty years, he was attracted by its Abbey Church before he had seen any Cathedral, except that of the metropolis, and after having been accidentally induced to study, and consequently admire, the Architectural Antiquities of England, he employed an artist to make Drawings of the former building. Having published an historical and illustrated work on the famed church of Redcliffe, at Bristol, he was tempted to under- take a corresponding volume on the Abbey Church of Bath. This
PREFACE. XI
has been preparing for more than ten years, and is at length respect- fully submitted to the public. Though thus long in progress, it is proper to observe, that the whole of the literary part, excepting Mr. Conybeare's essay, has been written during the year 1824; and its appearance at this time is chiefly owing to the valuable assistance the author has experienced from his old friend and early topographical associate, Mr. Brayley*. Progressively, almost incessantly, engaged in public and private offices and duties, the author has lately found them trespass on his literary pursuits, engross nearly every moment of his time, injure his health, and abstract him from much of that friendly intercourse, as well as those delightful associations with art, and popular literature, which constitute the most permanent pleasures of human
* In the year 1799, this gentleman and the author commenced the Beauties of England and Wales, vainly fancying to complete such a work in six volumes, octavo. It imper- ceptibly extended to twenty-five volumes; thirteen of which were jointly and separately written by Messrs. Brayley and Britton, and were the result of extensive travelling, cor- respondence, and investigation. The other volumes were beyond their control ; and for any defects in them they cannot be deemed responsible. Knowing that the county of Somerset has been very imperfectly treated in that work, the author is induced to make this statement to exonerate the original authors, who have been deeply engaged in various literary works from that time to the present. A list of the principal of his own will be found at the end of this volume ; and he cannot think it irrelevant to notice the following, written by Mr. Brayley, viz. : —
1 . " The History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster ; including Notices and Biographical Memoirs of the Abbots and Deans of that Founda- tion," &c. : illustrated by 61 engravings, from drawings by J. P. Neale, 2 vols, folio and quarto.
2. Descriptions to accompany a Series of Views in Islington and Pentonville ; from original drawings, by Augustus Pugin, 4to. 1818.
3. Lambeth Palace, illustrated by a Series of Views, representing its most interesting Antiquities in Buildings, Portraits, Stained Glass, &c, in conjunction with W. Herbert ; imperial and royal quarto.
4. Popular Pastimes ; quarto and octavo.
5. The History of the Isle of Thanet, 2 vols, small octavo.
He also published " The Works of the late Edward Dayes ;" the topographical part of which has just reappeared from the press of Messrs. Nichols and Son, intituled, "A Picturesque Tour through the principal Parts of Yorkshire and Derbyshire;" royal octavo, 1825: 2d edition.
Xll PREFACE.
life. All the engagements made for literary works *, he pledges himself, shall, if health permit, be scrupulously and conscientiously fulfilled ; and then he hopes to retreat from the endless solicitudes which accompany the many pleasures belonging to " the life of an author."
At the time of concluding this volume, he has finished another, which had suffered in the same conflagration, relating chiefly to the Topography of North Wiltshire, in which the ancient monasteries of Malmesbury and Lacock, and the still more ancient monument at Avebury, are fully described. The latter work, in its original state, must certainly have been the most curious, and most stupendous of any in Britain.
The various notes of reference, which will be found in this volume, shew that it has not been hastily nor credulously written: for every work herein quoted and referred to, has been carefully examined and compared. In addition to which the author has been favoured by cor- rective remarks, or information, from the following persons, to whom he now offers very grateful acknowledgments : — Sir Benjamin Hob- house, Bart. ; Doctors Parry and Sherwin; the Rev. Joseph Hun- ter; the Rev. R. Warner; Messrs. Braham, Wiltshire, Goodridge, Davies, Barratt, Crutwell, Upham, Godwin, Windsor, Collins, and Mrs. Thomas. It is scarcely necessary to name the late Rev. J. J. Conybeare and Mr. W. Meyler; for the personal kindness and literary assistance of the former gentleman, are demonstrated in this volume ; and it is but justice to the memory of the latter to say that he was uni- formly intelligent, communicative, and kindly disposed towards the author upon many occasions, as he was to most literary persons who had the pleasure of being once introduced to him.
J. BRITTON, July 29, 1824.
Burton Street, London.
Revised, January 15, 1825.
# The following are in different stages of progress: — Histories of the Cathedrals of Exeter and Peterborough — a Chronological History, &c. of Antient Ecclesiastical Architecture — a Dictionary of Architectural Terms of the Middle Ages — a History and Illustration of Antient Stone Crosses.
THE HISTORY
BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN OF BATH FABULOUS ACCOUNT OF ITS ANTIQUITY AND MAGNIFICENCE
LEGEND OF BLADUD AND HIS SWINE DISCOVERY OF THE HOT SPRINGS
BRITISH HISTORY OF BLADUD ETYMOLOGY OF THE NAME OF BATH ROMAN
OCCUPATION OF THAT CITY — PARTICULARS OF THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA, ITS SITE AND REMAINS APOLOGY.
Tradition has ascribed the origin of the City of Bath to the dis- covery of its salubrious waters by Bladud, the son of Lud-Hudibras, a British king ; who, according to the " British History," translated by Geoffrey of Monmouth, reigned between seven and eight centuries before the Christian era. But although that History has assigned the founding-of the city to Bladud, it makes no mention of his pigs, through which, according to other authorities, he attained a knowledge of the sanative virtues of its springs ! — The whole circumstances, indeed, connected with this portion of Bladud's story, are so romantic, that they can be classed only among the wildest fictions of an uncivilised age.
It is a subject much to be regretted, that the love of the marvellous should, even in minds above the vulgar, be sometimes so predominant, as to betray its unreflecting votaries into a full belief in legendary absurdities, however improbable in themselves, or however opposed to rational deduc- tions from authenticated history. In remote ages of the world, when learn- ing was confined to a few persons, superstition and ignorance would neces-
B
2 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
sarily retard the spread of knowledge, and render the mind weak and cre- dulous ; but in more enlightened times, we cannot but wonder at the cre- dulity of those whose education and station in life ought to keep them far above giving credence to vague and popular traditions, when unsupported by historical testimony.
These remarks will not appear misplaced, when reference is made to the legend of Bladud and his pigs, and to that extensive credit which it has received, not only from the populace, but also from corporate bodies, and from writers of scientific pursuits and general erudition. Dr. Jones, a Phy- sician, who published his " Bathes of Bathes Ayde," in the time of Queen Elizabeth, about 1572, and Wood, an Architect, in his " Description of Bath," printed in the early part of the reign of George the Third, may be especially enumerated in the latter class. So fully, indeed, was Dr. Jones convinced of the truth of Bladud's history, that he has traced his genealogy up to Adam ! — and Wood, whose strong passion for British Archaeology induced him to refer every thing in which antiquity was concerned to Druid- ism, has given such a particular account of Bladud's life and acquirements as might lead one to imagine, that he had himself been honoured with his friendship ! It may not be uninteresting to insert a few extracts from his Preface, in order to shew the credulous weakness of his understanding on antiquarian subjects.
From the ' circumstances which he has collected,' he says — " Bladud, the British Prince, ninth King of our island, in the time of Brute, appears to have been a great prophet, and the most eminent philosopher of all anti- quity. He was the renowned Hyperborean high priest of Apollo, that shined in Greece at the very time Pythagoras flourished ; and among the Grecians he bore the names of Aithrobates and Abaris — names implying the exalted ideas which that learned race of people had of his great abilities." —
" To this famous prince, priest, and prophet," he continues, " the city of Bath owes her original : an original so illustrious that no city upon earth can boast of a greater, since with it the Druids of the western world seem manifestly to have taken their rise. Bath was not only the summer seat of Apollo himself, but the place where the British Druids worshipped that god with greater pomp and ceremony than he appears to have been ever honoured [with] in any other part of the world.
*' The chief seat of Apollo must of course become the chief seat of his
LEGEND OF BLADUD. 3
priests ; and upon that consideration, no pains have been wanting to collect such things as are necessary to prove the city of Bath to have been the metropolitan seat of the British Druids; whose University having been founded by King Bladud, the building still so far exists, within eight miles of our hot fountains, as to prove the work to have been a stupendous figure of the Pythagorean system of the planetary world. It is a monument that Egypt herself might boast of amidst her proudest structures ; and it is a monument that confirms what Caesar says of the Druids in respect to their astronomical learning*."
Another extract from these " archaeological visions," as they have been justly styled, will prove what extravagant ideas have been current respecting the original foundation and extent of this city. " Bath, like Alexandria, was founded for the capital seat of a famous King ; and seems to have consisted, from the very first, of three principal parts, whose centres were widely detached from one another. The most material part of the three lay imme- diately round about the hot springs : the next in degree stood eight miles westward from them, at a place now called Stanton-drue ; and the third lay ten computed miles south of the second, and fifteen of the same miles southward of the hot fountains, at a place now bearing the name of Okey: so that the centres of the three principal parts of the city formed the angles of a triangle whose base line extended fifteen computed miles in length ; its shorter side eight of the same miles ; and its longer side ten of the like miles : and therefore, the magnitude of this city, in its ancient state, could not have been less, in respect to the land of its whole area, than that of Babylon when Cyrus took it. Now, if the city had been originally surrounded with a wall, Bath, in respect to her private buildings, had appeared at this day what Babylon herself once wasf."
The substance of the legend relating to the discovery of the Bath waters by Bladud, as delivered by traditionary fabulists, is this : —
Bladud, when a young man, being afflicted with leprosy, was banished by Lud-Hudibras, his father, from the British court. Before his departure the
* The monument referred to, in the above extract, is the Bruidkal Temple at Stanton Drew ; which, whatever it might have been originally, is now reduced to a few detached, upright, and fallen blocks of stone. See account of it in Saver's " Memoirs, &c. of Bristol," 4to. vol. i.
t " Description of Bath," chap. iv. p. 41.
4 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
Queen gave him a ring, and enjoined him to preserve it, as a token by which he might be recognised, should his disease be ever cured. Soon after his exile, the Prince exchanged clothes with a poor shepherd, and became the servant of a Swineherd, who resided near the present Keynsham. But mis- fortune still pursuing him, the pigs entrusted to his care caught the leprosy ; and Bladud, to keep this disaster from his master's knowledge, drove them beyond the Avon, which he crossed at Swinesford. Whilst addressing the morning sun, and soliciting for a mitigation of Heaven's wrath, his swine, as though seized with frenzy, ran wildly up the valley, and plunged into the warm and oozy bog, which at that time covered the spot where the sana- tive springs of Bath emerge from their boiling fountains. From this place Bladud was unable to get them away, until excessive hunger, and the power- ful attraction of a bag of acorns, which he shook before them, overcame their obstinacy.
Having fixed on a convenient place, the anxious Prince made distinct crues, or pens, for all his swine, concluding that by keeping them separate and clean, the infection would be the sooner eradicated : and he observed, though without adverting to the cause, that some of the herd, on being washed from the filth of the bog, had already shed their leprous scales. Shortly afterwards, he lost one of his best sows ; but after a week's diligent search he accidentally discovered it, wallowing, with apparent gratification, amidst the hot mire about the springs. On washing her, it appeared that every trace of the distemper was removed ! —
The result may be readily guessed. Bladud quickly recovered his health, by plunging night and morning into the sedge and balmy waters ; and his pigs were equally fortunate. He then delivered up his charge to the Swineherd, and returned to court, where he soon found an opportunity, whilst his parents were dining in public, of putting his ring into a glass of wine intended for the Queen ; who, on perceiving the precious token, ex- claimed in rapturous accents, " Where is Bladud, my child ?" The Prince, making his way through the crowd, prostrated himself at her feet, and was presently known and acknowledged as the heir apparent to the crown. He could not, however, be prevailed upon to disclose by what means, or where, he had obtained his cure.
When the rejoicings for his recovery were over, Bladud went into Greece ; and fixing on Athens for the chief place of his abode, he continued eleven
BRITISH HISTORY OF BLADUD. 5
years abroad, studying philosophy, necromancy, and mathematics. After his return to Britain, and the decease of his father, he ascended the throne, and immediately began to construct cisterns, or baths, about the hot springs which had so miraculously contributed to his cure : he also built a palace near the baths, and founded a city there, to which he removed with his whole court ; and which, under the appellation of Caer-bren, became the principal seat of the British kings. —
Such is the legendary origin of Bath ; but as the story of Bladud admits of some amusing additions, a few passages are here inserted from Thompson's translation of Monmouth's " British History;" — Book 11, p. 45*.
On the decease of Lud-Hudibras, " his son Bladud succeeded, and reigned twenty years. He built Kaerbadus, now Bath, and made hot baths in it for the benefit of the Public ; which he dedicated to the goddess Minerva, in whose temple he kept fires that never went out, nor consumed to ashes, but as soon as they began to decay, were turned into balls of stone f- About this time the prophet Elias prayed that it might not rain for three years and six months. This prince was a very ingenious man, and taught necromancy in his kingdom ; nor left off pursuing his magical operations till he attempted to fly to the upper region of the ah% with wings he had prepared, and fell down upon the temple of Apollo, in the city of Trinovantum, where he was dashed to pieces."
In the rhyming history of " Unfortunate Princes," written by Boccace,
* The translator, in his Preface, argues very strongly in support of the truth of the original history, as well as of the fidelity of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who first translated it into Latin. Geoffrey's veracity, also, has been ably vindicated by the late Mr. Ellis, in his " Specimens, &c. of English Metrical Romances ;" and the Rev. P. Roberts, A.M. has given a new translation of the " British Chronicle " from the " Brut Tysilio," collated with some ancient Welch MSS. Geoffrey was deficient in the latinizing of Welsh names, although in the original copies they exist in a regular and intelligible form. Hence Rhun Paladr-fras (Rhun of the thick shaft) has been cor- rupted into Lud-Hudibras ; and Blaiddyd his son, into Bladud. The passage relating to Bath, in Roberts's translation, is as follows :— " He (Bladud) built Caervaddon, and formed there a warm unguent to be a perpetual remedy for the diseased. Moreover, by sacrificing to the enchantress called Minerva, he kindled an inextinguishable fire there : which, when it appeared to burn out, rekindled in balls of fire." In a note to this passage, the author states, that in other copies the word Dewines, or enchantress, is Duwies, a. goddess.
f It is a curious fact, that every thing relating to Minerva in the above extract is derived from a passage in Solinus, a Roman author who lived about the middle of the third century after Christ, and whose testimony will be more particularly referred to in a succeeding page.
6 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
who lived about 1450, and translated by Dan Lidgate, Bladud is made to speak thus : —
" Some say, I made the holesom Baths at Bath,
And made, therefor, two burning tuns of brass ; And other twain, seven kinds of salts that have
In them inclos'd ; but these be made of glass ;
With sulphur fill'd, wild-fire emixt there was : And in four wells these tuns, so placed, heat, for aye, The water springing up before it pass away. —
" I must confess, by learned skill I found
These native wells, whence springs that help for men : But well thou know'st, there runs from under ground Springs sweet, salt, cold, and hot, even now as then, From rock, saltpetre, alum, gravel, fen ; From sulphur, iron, lead, gold, silver, brass, and tin, Each fountain takes the force of vein it coucheth in.
The city eke of Bathe I founded there, Renowned far by reason of the Wells :
And many monuments that ancient were,
I placed there, thou know'st the story tells ;" &c.
Camden briefly passes over the legend of Bladud ; but his words are sufficiently pointed to evince how very little credit he considered it to deserve. " The discovery," he says, " of these baths, our fabulous history refers to the British King Bleyden Cloyth, that is, Bleyden the Magician, with what probability let others determine. Pliny tells us, the ancient Britons practised magic with so many ceremonies, that they may seem to have taught it to the Persians; but I dare not refer these baths to magic power*."
In Warner's " History of Bath," p. 11, it is stated inadvertently, that " the story of Bladud and his swine was firmly believed for some centuries, and is attested in the works of almost all our early historians" Unfortunately for our Bath Historian no mention of Bladud's pigs has been made by any early writer of established authority, without adverting to the absurdity of
* Gough's Edit, of the "Britannia," vol. i. 1789.
TOM coriat's bladud. 7
the legend ; and not three of our ancient chroniclers can be named who have mentioned it at all*.
Bath, according to Camden, was called by the Britons Yr Ennaint Twymin, which H. Lloydf has corrected into Caer yn nant Twymin, or the City in the warm Vale; but no antiquities whatever, that can with propriety be referred to that nation, have ever been found in this place. On the con- trary, all the ancient remains which, in different ages, have been discovered here, are of Roman workmanship ; and its coins, altars, sculptures, baths, sudatories, masonry, and inscriptions, all attest its long-continued occupation by the Romans. Its appellations of T^ara S-e^a, Aqua Calidai, or warm waters, and Aquce Solis, by which it is first mentioned in authentic history, prove it, equally, to have been of Roman origin; and, from the known
* The legend of Bladud was formerly inscribed in " a great Table," which was long affixed against the wall in the King's Bath, but which was removed in the time of Charles the Second, in consequence of the keen satire of the witty but profligate Rochester, who is said to have made the citizens ashamed of their credulous belief. Tom Coriat, the celebrated peripatetic, (that is, if Guidott, in this instance, has not assumed his name, (see the " Appendix" to his Treatises concerning Bath,) has very whimsically paraphrased Bladud's story in the following lines, written in the " Zomerzetzhire" dialect.
Lud Hudibrass, a meazel voule, did zend his zun a graezing,
Who vortuend hither vor to cum, and geed his pigs zum peazun ;
Poor Bladud he was mangee grown, his dad, which zum call vather,
Zet Bladud pig, and pig Bladud, and zo they ved together.
Then Bladud did the pigs invect, who, grunting, ran away,
And vound whot waters presently, which made 'em vresb and gay.
Bladud was not so grote a vool, but zeeing what pig did doe,
He beath'd and wash'd, and rins'd and beath'd, from noddle down to toe.
Bladud was now (gramercy pig !) a delicate vine boy ;
So whome he trudges to his dad, to be his only joy :
And then he built this gawdy Town, and sheer'd his beard spade-ways,
Which voke accounted then a grace, though not so now-a-days.
Thwo thowzand and vive hundred years, and thirty-vive to that,
Zince Bladud's zwine did looze their greaze, which we moderns cal vat.
About that time, it was alzo, that Ahob's zuns were hang'd ;
A Jezabel, their mam (curz'd deel !) caus'd Naboth to be stone-bang'd.
Chee cud zay more, but cham aveard voke will account this vable —
O, Invidles ! if ye woon not me, yet chee pray believe the Table.
t Fragm. " Descr. Brit.," p. 16. 8vo.
8 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
partiality of the Romans for warm bathing*, and from the style and execution of the architectural fragments which have been dug up in this city, there can be little doubt but that it was one of their principal settlements in the west. Ptolemy, who, in his Geography, has recorded its latitude and longitude under the first of the above names, has merely noticed it as one of the principal towns of the Belgae ; both Antoninus and Richard of Cirencester mention it in their respective Itineraries, under the name of Aqua Solis.
At what particular time the Romans established their residence here is uncertain ; but there is every probability that it was as early as the reign of Nero (circa A.D. 50) ; : as a great number of Roman copper and brass coins were found of that emperor and his successors, Trajan, Adrian, and the Antonines, on digging the foundations for the New Hot Bath and other works, about the year 1776. A coin of Vespasian has also been found here ; as well as other coins of different emperors down to Valentinian the Second, who reigned in A.D. 375 f.
There is a passage in SolinusJ, in which, though speaking of Britain generally, he must be understood as especially referring to this city, except in respect to the rivers; his words are these: — " In quo spatio magna et multa flumina sunt, fontesque calidi opiparo exculpti apparatu ad usus mor- talium ; quibus fontibus praesul est Minervae numen, in cujus sede perpetui ignes numquam canescunt in favillas, sed, ubi ignis tabuit, vertitur in globos saxeos." —
In this very curious extract we see the origin of that notice of the temple of Minerva and its perpetual fires, which is found in the story of Bladud ; but, however remarkable in this respect, it is still far more so, from the information it affords in regard to this city in the Roman times. We learn from it that the Romans had not only formed the hot springs into elegant baths for general utility and accommodation, but likewise that they had erected a temple near the spot, in honour of the goddess Minerva, whom they considered as the presiding deity over the springs, and on whose altar, as in the temple of Vesta at Rome, a fire was perpetually burning. With these particulars is connected the singular intimation, that the fires on
* Boadicea, in her address to the goddess Andraste, when on the eve of battle, reproaches the Romans for their effeminacy and luxurious habits; and particularly for their custom of bathing in warm waters. Vide Dio. 1. xii. 6.
f See Guidott's " Treatises relating to Bath," chap. ix.
X Vide " Poly-histor." cap. xxv.
TEMPLE OF MINERVA. 9
Minerva's altar were kept burning with fossil coal; as intimated by these words of Solinus, " the perpetual fires never wither into ashes, but when the fire is deadened, it (the fuel) turns into stone balls."
The late Rev. John Whitaker, who in his review of Warner's " History of Bath *," has taken uncommon pains to investigate the Roman antiqui- ties of this city, and more particularly, as to every circumstance and remain which may be supposed to relate to the temple of Minerva, states that a species of coal of a slack or powdery kind, is dug up at Newton, about three miles from Bath, which has the property of caking or soldering into hard masses ; and he thence infers, that the Newton coal was employed by the Romans to support their perennial fires, heref.
An opinion has been very generally entertained, that the present Abbey Church at Bath stands on the site of the ancient temple here spoken of; and this opinion may be distinctly traced to Camden's time. Dr. Stukeley, in the year 1724, says, " The Cathedral is a beautiful pile : here they sup- pose (with probability) stood the Roman temple of Minerva, patroness of the baths J." Dr. Guidott, in 1676, speaking of Bath, says: — " There is a tradition that there was formerly a temple dedicated to Minerva, where now the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, commonly called the Abbey Church, stands ||." Camden says, " Report tells us there anciently existed a temple sacred to Minerva, where now the Cathedral Church is § :" and by reciting this without reproof, he implies its probability.
Notwithstanding the respectable tenour of these authorities, there is reason to believe, from the arguments adduced by Whitaker, that the tradition was an erroneous one, however extensively the lapse of time had contributed to its strength and prevalence. The temple, this critic affirms, after an atten- tive examination of the numerous antiquities which have been discovered on and near the spot, " actually stood upon the western half of the present Pump-room, ranging along the eastern side of Stall-street;" and he pro- ceeds to shew that it was converted into a Christian church, and under
* Vide " Anti-Jacobin Review," vol. x. anno 1801.
t Ibid. pp. 232, 233. This passage in Solinus, says Whitaker, " gives us the very first intimation in all the Roman history, even the only intimation in the whole history of Britain, concerning the Roman use of fossil coals in Britain."
| " Itinerarium Curiosum," vol. i. p. 1 16.
|| " Briefe Discourse," p. 8. edit. 1659. § " Britannia," vol. i. p. 61. edit. 1789.
c
10 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
the appellation of St. Mary de Stalls — " the niches in that, namely, the Temple, being denominated stalls in this" — was in part remaining, though ruinous, at so late a period as the end of the sixteenth century. This latter conclusion is substantiated by a Leiger-book of Bath Abbey, now in the possession of the Marquis of Bath, wherein are the following entries : —
" Hie jacet Alexander de Alneto, et Erneburva uxor ejus et Eulius de Alneto filius eoru, et Lucia de Marissis filia eoru, et Jordanus de Marissis filius ejusdem Lucie, et Willelmus de Marissis filius ejusdem Jordani."
" Est istud epitaphiu sculptu a dextra in ostio ruinosi templi quonda Minerve dedicati et adhuc in loco dicto sese studiosis offerens. 1582. 7° Decemb. In Civit. Bathon.*"
Since the date mentioned in the latter paragraph, the Church of Stalls has been utterly desecrated ; and with it, as a building, every vestige of the ruined temple of Minerva. Among the antiquities, however, still preserved in Bath, are various sculptural remnants, which were connected with the fane of that goddess. The Gorgon shield for the portico of her temple is, for the most part, remaining, together with different fragments of the entabla- ture f. There is, also, the head of a female in bronze, which Whitaker, with much probability, conceives to be that of Minerva herself, and to have belonged to her statue within the temple : an altar to Sulinis Minerva, that is, the Solar Minerva, or Minerva Medica ; and a sepulchral cippus in memory of Caius Calpurnius, the " received priest" of the goddess.
To pursue the early history of Bath to a greater extent, is foreign to the design of this work ; and perhaps some apology may be requisite for having entered so fully both into the legendary and the rational account of its origin, as has been done in these pages. But as the subject is curious in itself, and as it has never hitherto been placed in that distinct point of view, of which it appeared to be susceptible, it is hoped that this attempt to extinguish the ignis-fatuus of tradition, and throw a clear light on the foundation of so distinguished a city, will receive the approbation of the candid reader.
* Vide Warner's " History of Bath," Appendix, p. 48.
f See Lysons' " Remains of two Temples, and other Roman Antiquities discovered at Bath," plate iv. In plate v. of the same work, the portico is represented as restored from existing fragments.
CHAPTER II.
BATH UNDER THE SAXONS FOUNDATION OF A NUNNERY, AND EARLY HISTORY
OF THE ABBEY CHURCH EXPULSION OF THE SECULAR CLERGY ACCOUNT
OF ABBOT ELPHEGUS SUCCESSION OF THE ABBOTS CORONATION OF KING
EDGAR SAINTLY RELIQUES — THE CITY AND ITS APPURTENANCES GRANTED
TO THE ABBEY CHURCH ACCOUNT OF BISHOP JOHN DE VILLULA REMOVAL
OF THE EPISCOPAL RESIDENCE TO BATH BISHOP JOHN'S MUNIFICENCE AND
GIFTS DISPUTES CONCERNING THE EPISCOPAL SEAT THE TITLE OF BATH
AND WELLS GIVEN TO THIS BISHOPRIC ACCOUNT OF THE BISHOPS FITZ*
JOCELINE AND SAVARIC ALSO OF JOCELINE DE WELLES, AND BISHOP ROGER
SUCCESSIVE PRIORS OF BATH DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERY LEARNED
MONKS OF BATH INTRODUCTION OF THE WEAVING BUSINESS GRANTS OF
THE MONASTIC PROPERTY BY HENRY VIII. AND EDWARD VI.
The distractions of the Roman Empire occasioned the Romans to withdraw their troops from this Island at the commencement of the fifth century ; and as the flower of the British youth had already been abstracted to recruit the armies of Rome, the Scots and Picts embraced the opportunity to extend their incursions into Britain, and to plunder and destroy its defenceless natives with unrelenting ferocity. In a moment of despair the British chief- tains invited the Saxons to their aid ; but those treacherous allies seized on the country they had undertaken to defend, and after many arduous conflicts, effectually succeeded in establishing their dominion here. Before, however, they obtained possession of Bath, the Saxon hordes are stated to have been twice defeated, with immense slaughter, on Mons Badonicus, perhaps Bannerdown, in its immediate vicinity, by the British King Arthur, in the years 493 and 520. They proved victorious, however, in 577, when their chiefs Cuthwin, and Ceawlin King of "Wessex, defeated the British kings Commail, Condida, and Farinmail, at Dyrham, about eight miles distant, and took the three cities of Ba)an ceaj-cep, Cirencester, and Gloucester*.
* " Saxon Chron." p. 26. Ingram's edit, anno 1823.
12 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
Under the sway of the Saxons, Bath received the appropriate names of Hat Bathun, or Bathum, and Acemannes-cestre, or the Sick Man's City; by these appellations, and their derivatives, Balnea, Badonia, Badonessa, Bathonia, Acamanni, Achamanni, and Achumanensi, it is subsequently designated in the Saxon and Monkish chronicles.
After the subjugation of this city by the Saxons, Osric, King or Sub- regulus of the Huiccii, or Wicci, with the consent of Kentwin, King of Wessex, founded a Nunnery at Bath in the year 676*. To Bertana the first abbess, he granted one hundred tenants adjacent to the place, for the purpose of raising a monastery for holy virgins -f.
To Bernguida, the second abbess, forty ' manentes,' or tenants, in Scepi, were granted by Vighardus, with the consent of Wlpher king of MerciaJ; and lands were given to the same abbess by " one Ethelmod, a great man, by the leave of King -ZEdelrede||."
It is impossible to trace the vicissitudes which this establishment expe- rienced, or to identify the period when it changed its original destination. According to Tanner, the nunnery being destroyed by the Danes, King Offa, about the year 775, is said to have rebuilt the Church of St. Peter, and to have placed secular canons therein §. Leland, from whom this account seems to have been adopted, speaks, in his " Itinerary," with considerable dubiety regarding Offa; his words are — " The Prior of Bath told me that after the Nunnes tyme ther wer Secular Chanons in S. Peter's Chirch at Bath ; para- venture Offa, King of Merches, set them ther; for I have redde that Offa did a notable Act at St. Peter's, in Bath. Or els the Chanons cam yn after that the Danes had racid the Nunry thereby." That the Nunnery was not destroyed by the latter, prior to 775, is evident from the " Saxon Chronicle," which states, that the first appearance of the Danes on the English coast
* Leland, " Collectanea," vol. i. p. 80. " Itinerary," vol. ii. fol. 38.
f Dugdale's " Monasticon," new edition, vol. ii. p. 264.
t Warner's " History of Bath," App. II.
|| See " Itinerary," ibid. § " Notitia Monastica."
IT " Itin." vol. ii. fol. 38. In a preceding passage, Leland says, — " The Book of thantiquite of the Abbay of Bath raakith no great mention of any great notable Doyng of Offa, king of the Merches, at Bathe." It is probable that the Book thus referred to by Leland, is the Manuscript, No. CXI. now preserved in Bibl. Corp. Christ. Coll. at Cambridge ; and from which Warner has printed several grants, &c, in his Appendix to the " History of Bath."
BY WHOM FOUNDED. 13
was in 787 ; and their devastations were then confined to the northern parts of Britain.
In his " Collectanea," Leland says expressly, that the Church of Bath was founded by OfFa * ; yet there is no such foundation mentioned by Matthew Paris, in his life of that sovereign, nor does Leland refer to any authority for his affirmation. We find, however, from Hemming's " Chartu- lary," that Heathored, Bishop of Worcester, assigned to King OfFa, (who had conquered Wessex, and annexed it to his Mercian dominions,) the monastery of Bath, with thirty cassates of land on the south side of the river Eafen (Avon), in compensation for certain lands belonging to King Ethelbald, which the Bishop had detained |. The monastery thus assigned to OfFa, was, doubt- less, that which Osric had founded ; but whether the nuns had been pre- viously ejected, or were then displaced by the King, to make room for secular canons, it is impossible to ascertain.
Camden, after speaking of the nunnery, says, " King OfFa built another church; both were destroyed in the Danish wars." " From their ruins," he adds, " afterwards arose a new Church, dedicated to St. Peter, in which Edgar the Peaceable was crowned J." This passage has given rise to some strong assumptions, although its strict verity is very questionable. Wood has fixed on the year 878, when King Alfred retired to Athelney, for the destruc- tion of the church by the Danes || ; and Warner, more indefinite as to time, but more precise as to circumstances, tells us, that " the splendour of Offa's monastery terminated in the middle of the ninth century, when it fell into the hands of the Danes ; and to the horrible excesses of these savages the monas- tery was exposed, its inmates probably slaughtered, and the building reduced to ruins §." Notwithstanding this particularity, there is no valid historical document by which it can be corroborated ; nor is it certain that the Danes had ever obtained possession of Bath at the period spoken of. Had the whole of Wessex been conquered by them at the time of Alfred's mysterious retirement, this city must of course have submitted to their power, and been exposed to their ravages ; but we know that Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Somer- setshire, are celebrated for their resistance to the Danes, and that the brave
* Ecclesia Bathoniensis ab OfFa rege fundata est. — " Collectanea," vol. ii. p. 26. edit. 1774. f Hemming's " Chartulary," pp. 224, 225 ; and " Mon. Ang." vol. i. p. 568 : new edit. J " Britannia," vol. i. p. 62. edit. 1789. " Malmesbury," says Gough, " expressly intimates, that Edgar was crowned in the church built by OfFa." Gest. Pont. ii. 144. c.
|| " Description of Bath," vol. i. p. 183. § " History of Bath," p. 100.
14 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
inhabitants of those counties composed the army with which Alfred com- pletely defeated the invaders at Edington, in Wiltshire *.
King Athelstan, in* 931, ' granted to Almighty God and St. Peter, and the venerable family established in the celebrated place, called by the country people, JEt Bathum, &c, ten manses in Pristan, and five in iEstun, &c, on condition that they should daily offer for him to God, most salutary masses and harmonious modulations of psalms ; and incessantly fight for him with spiritual arms against invisible enemies f.' Leland says that, being in the library at Bath, he saw several books, not unlearned, and very ancient, which were presented by Athelstan, the Anglo-Saxon King, to the monks ; one of which, De Synodis Pontificiis, he removed to the library of Henry VIII. £
In the year 956, King Edwy granted to the monastery of St. Peter, " quod situm est in Bathonia ubi terme amene calidis e fontibus dirivan- tur," thirty mansions (mansas) at Dyddenham, in perpetual fee ; and in the following year he gave ten mansions " at For da," (Bathford) to the same monastery,—" quod in Bathonia mira fabrica constructum cognoscitur." In both grants Wulfgar is named as presiding over this establishment || ; the possessions of which were further increased by different Saxon kings, and particularly by Edgar, in the years 965 and 970. JEscwig is mentioned as abbot in both Edgar's grants ; and St. Peter's church described as being- situated " in urbe Achumanensi," and " cet Hatum Bathum."
About this period an important change was effected in the state of this foundation, through the influence of the Papal See, and the active bigotry of Archbishop Dunstan, and the Bishops Oswald, of Worcester, and Ethel- wald, of Winchester. The church of Rome, finding the Monks more com- pletely devoted to its ambitious purposes than the Secular Clergy, exerted the most strenuous efforts to expel the latter from their establishments, and
* The invasion of Wessex, the retirement of Alfred, and the final defeat of the Danes, all happened in the year 878 ; and although, previously to their defeat, the Danes were in great force at Chippenham, and ravaged the adjacent country, we have no proof of their having been at Bath : that city was probably fortified against their attacks. In the account of Wiltshire, " Beauties of England," vol. xv. is a review of the opinions and statements of different authors, on the much- disputed site of Alfred's decisive defeat of the Danes at " iEthandune."
t Warner's History, App. No. III. Ex Cod. MS. Bibl. C. C. C. Cant. 61.
I Fabricii Bibl. Med. ii. 39. The King is said to have been the author of these books, upon the direct authority of William of Malmesbury. Ibid.
|| Vide Warner's " Hist." App. Nos. IV. and V. Wulfgar was to retain three cottages ibr his own exclusive use out of the estate at Dyddenham.
ACCOUNT OF ABBOT ELPHEGE. 15
supply their places by the former. These measures were most zealously supported by King Edgar, at the instigation of the bold and unprincipled Dunstan ; and among the other victims of this crafty policy, were the canons of Bath, who were ejected, according to Tanner and other writers, about the year 970, and a convent of Benedictine monks was introduced in their stead.
Elphegus, or Elpkege, a monk of Deerhurst, who was eventually raised to the See of Canterbury, is reputed to have been the first abbot of Bath after the expulsion of the seculars*. He was born at Weston, probably near Bath ; and, according to Gervase of Canterbury, was of a good family. Osbern saysf, that dreading the resistance of his mother to his becoming a monk, he prayed to God to point out his destiny, which being done by Divine means, he relinquished his paternal inheritance, and was professed in the priory of Deerhurst ; but not finding the regimen there strict enough, he became prior of Glastonbury, and thence abbot of Bath ; where he built a house for himself to reside in as an anchoret. The nobility flocked to him for spiritual advice, and loaded him with presents. Many persons, also, took a religious habit under him, whom, when he had completed a very large dwelling, through various benefactions, he placed under a rule of disci- pline; and having appointed a proper superintendent to supply them with food, betook himself to a very small house, whither the monks resorted to him for instructions and orders in all business of consequence. The Golden Legend states, that " he bylded there that fayr abbacy at Bath, and endowed it ; and was himself therein the fyrst abbot and founder J." Elphege succeeded St. Birstan in the bishopric of Wilton, and was translated to Winchester in 984. In 1004, according to Ralph de Diceto, or, as Simeon of Durham says, in 1006, he was advanced to the See of Canterbury. He was massacred by the Danes, at Greenwich, when fifty-nine years old, on the 13th of the kalends of May, 1012 1|.
During the government of Elphege, king Edgar was crowned, or, in Saxon
* In the two grants made by Edgar, as mentioned above, in 965 and 970, iEscwig is expressly called abbot; but that appellation does not appear, from any former grants, to have been ever before borne by the superior of this establishment. Now, as we know from the Saxon Chronicle, that Edgar expelled the religious from several churches in 965, and replaced them with monks, may it not be assumed, with probability, that he ejected the seculars from Bath at the same period ; and that iEscwig was in reality the first abbot on the new foundation ?
t " De Vita S. Elphegi," in " Anglia Sacra," pars ii.
X Ed. Jul. Notary, fol. lxxv, [| " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 105.
16 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
phraseology, " hallowed to king*," with much pomp, in Bath church, viz. on Whitsunday, (May 11th,) anno 973. " Mickle bliss," says the Saxon Chro- nicle, " was enjoyed at Bath, on that happy day;" when " a crowd of priests, a throng of monks, in counsel sage, were gathered there -|\" William of Malmesbury, speaking of Edgar, says, — " From the 16th of his years, when he was appointed King, till the 30th, he reigned without the insignia of royalty ; but at that time, the princes and men of every order assembling generally, he was crowned with great pomp at Bath." The same author (in his Gest. Pont. lib. ii. Episc. Wellens.) states, that Edgar, " delighted with the magnificence of the place, as well as because he was crowned there, had enlarged the abbey J."
Very little is known of this church from the promotion of Abbot Elphege till after the Norman Invasion ||. Leland, but without specifying any distinct period, says, " Alpharus, Erl of Merch, that was a scurge of Monkes, expellid them for a tyme." In the Domesday Book, Vlward is mentioned as being abbot in Edward the Confessor's reign. His successor was Stigand, a friend and favourite of William the Conqueror, whom he accompanied into Nor- mandy, where Stigand soon after died. Wlfwold and jElfsig next occur, as joint abbots, in a lease of lands and cattle made by the whole convent of Bath to William Hosett, on condition that he should serve in war at the king's summons, and pay the king's tallage §. During the supremacy of iElfsig, or Aldsius, as he is sometimes called, and who died in 1087, several manu- missions were made of Villani, or Villains, belonging to the lands of this
* " to cynje gehalgob." " Saxon Chron." by Ingram, p. 158.
\ Ibid. p. 159 ; from a sort of ode on the solemnity. In commemoration of that event, and of the favours bestowed by Edgar on the town and monastery, a statue of that King was erected in front of the Guildhall. Leland, in the second volume of bis " Itinerary, p. 39, says that, in his time, the inhabitants continued the custom of electing yearly, on Whitsunday, a King among themselves, in joyful remembrance of Edgar, and that the richest men of the town made it a rule to feast their monarch with all his attendants. From this practice, probably, originated the title of King of Bath, bestowed on Beau Nash and some of his successors in the office of Master of the Ceremonies.
X " Monasterium Batoniense rex Offa construxit, quod post rex Edgarus, sicut alia monasteria, reparavit." MS. in Bibl. Cott. Vitell. E. xii.
|| We learn from the " Saxon Chronicle," that the Danish king Sweyne took possession of Bath in 1013, and that Alderman Ethelmar, and all the western thanes, submitted to him there, and gave him hostages.
§ " Dug. Mon." vol. ii. p. 265 : new edit.
RELICS. 17
monastery*. In his time, also, the Domesday Survey was taken; from which record it appears that this Church, independently of its other posses- sions in Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, had belonging to it, in Bath, twenty-four burgesses, who paid twenty shillings, a mill which produced the like sum, and twelve acres of meadow. The total amount of its revenues in Edward the Confessor's reign, was 47/. 3*. 6d. ; in the Conqueror's time, they had risen to 71/. 13*. Qd.
It appears from the Corpus Christi manuscript, that Bath Abbey, about this period, possessed a very abundant collection of Relics — those estimable treasures, by which Catholicism partly upholds her power, and engrafts the very essence of absurd belief on the superstitious minds of her weak votaries. The following articles, with many others, are enumerated in the lists of this " precious" assemblage : — the bones of St. Peter, and part of the garment of our Lord ; the heads of St. Bartholomew, St. Lawrence, and St. Pancras ; the knee of St. Maurice, the Martyr ; the ribs of St. Barnabas ; the arm of St. Simeon ; fragments of St. Margaret, the Virgin ; part of the Holy cross and napkin ; the vest of Christ ; the clean cloth in which our Lord's body was wrapped; the hair and some of the milk of the Virgin Mary; fragments of her dress; part of the pillar to which Christ was bound; part of the cross of St. Andrew ; part of our Lord's sepulchre ; remains of St. John Baptist, and some of his blood ; of the sponge and sandals of Christ ; stone from the fountain at Siloa ; part of the back of St. Samson ; and some of the hair of Mary Magdalene !
According to the " Saxon Chronicle," Bath and all the adjacent country was plundered, in the year 1088, by Gosfrith, Bishop of Coutances, and Robert the Peacebreakerf ; who had joined the conspiracy of Bishop Odo and others, against William Rufus, in support of the claims to the crown made by Robert, Duke of Normandy, his elder brother. Warner states, that the monastery here was f totally burned down," in the insurrection ; yet there
* " Dug. Mon." vol. ii. p. 265 : new edit. See also Madoxii Formul. Anglic, p. 416. The original documents, in the Saxon language, are in the Corpus Christi MS. before referred to. These documents throw much light on the servile state of the lower classes at the time when the enfranchisements were granted. Alfsius, or Elsi, abbot of Bath, is noticed by Florence of Worcester as being present at the Synod of London, in 1075 ; he was also present at the Council of London, held in 1082.
t Probably Robert de Mowbray, the bishop's nephew.
D
18 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
does not appear to be any valid authority to warrant his statement. About that period, however, a great change took place in respect to this establish- ment, which appears to have been seized by the King, in order to grant it, with all its appurtenances, to John de Villula, Bishop of Wells, his chaplain, in augmentation of the See of Somersetshire, and for the purpose of trans- ferring the episcopal seat to Bath*.
This Bishop, who was both a native and a priest of Tours, in France, and thence also called Johannes Turonensis, was a physician ; and is conjec- tured by Wharton to have purchased the See of Wells with the profits of his profession; for simoniacal practices had been traced to him in other respects-!". He succeeded Giso' in the above See, anno 1088, in which year the gift of Bath Abbey is, in the register of Wells, said to have been made to him J ; but the charter of William Rufus, by which the abbey was given to Bishop John, bears date on the 6th of the Kalends of Feb. 1090-91 1| . About the same time, by another charter, he granted " to God, and St. Peter in Bath, and to John the Bishop and his successors, the whole of the city of Bath, in free alms, with all its appurtenances, to hold and possess in as free and honourable a manner as he himself held any city in England, together with its mint and all the accustomed rights, both within and without the same, with the toll-money arising as well in the fields as the woods, as well in the market as the meadows and other lands, that with the greater honour he may fix his pontifical seat there §."
The Canon of Wells, whose history of the Bishops of this See has been published in the " Anglia Sacra," says that John de Tours, or Villula, purchased the city of Bath from William Rufus and his successors, for 500 marks of silver. He states, too, that that prelate, besides removing the see
* William of Malmesbury says, in his " Gest. Pont." lib. ii. Episc. Wellens. — " Cum ver6 ijs successisset Joannes, natione Turonicus, professione medicus, qui non minimum qusestum illo conflaverat artificio, minoris gloria putans si in villa resideret inglorius, transferee thronum in Bathoniam animo intendit. Sed cum id inaniter vivente Willielmo patre seniore cogitasset, tem- pore Willielmi filij effecit."
f Wharton's note in " Anglia Sacra," pal's i. p. 559. John de Villula is reported to have prac- tised physic at Bath ; and his effigy is said to have been sculptured in alto-relievo on an ancient stone, now defaced and broken, fixed up in the wall of an ordinary house opposite Walcot church. Vide Warner's " Hist, of Bath," p. 63.
% " Anglia Sacra," pars i. 560.
|| See Appendix to this Volume, No. I. § Ibid. No. II.
GRANTS OF HENRY I. 19
from Wells to Bath, transferred also the revenues belonging to the abbatial table of the monastery to his own episcopal table, and caused himself to be called Bishop of Bath*. Ralph de Diceto places the removal of the episcopal seat in the year 109 If ; but Rudborne and Matthew Paris have both assigned it to the year 1092 : Rudborne says, by " bribery to the King;" and Paris, more covertly, though with similar implication, " through anointing the Kings hand with white ointment^."
Henry the First, by three different charters, granted in the early part of his reign, confirmed and extended the privileges thus obtained by Bishop John ; and, in addition to the grant of Rufus, gave to that prelate and his successors, " the hidage or Danegeld, hitherto exacted of the borough, after the rate of the twenty hides at which it had been assessed from the reign of Edward the Confessor, together with all pleas and other judicial rights and privileges." He also exempted the monks and their possessions from all civil jurisdiction, except in cases of murder and robbery.
Leland says, — " This John pullid down the old Chirch of St. Peter at Bath, and erectid a new [Church], much fairer, and was buried in the middle of the Presbyteri thereof, whos Image I saw lying there an 9. Yere sins, at the which tyme al the Chirch that he made lay to wast, and was onrofid, and wedes grew about this John of Tours sepulchre||." The Canon of Wells and William of Malmesbury both state, that he built the church from the foundations ; and the latter adds, " with a great and elaborate circuit of walls§." He also gives the following character of the Bishop: "John easily obtained the abbey from the King, and at first behaved harshly to the monks, because they were stupid, and, in his opinion, barbarians ; taking away the lands allowed for their subsistence, and only dispensing to them scanty pittances by his own lay servants. Being latterly much altered, he treated the monks with more kindness, and allowed the prior some lands for better support of the society, and hospitality. He began and completed many
• " Anglia Sacra," pars i. 560.
f Abbrev. " Chron." auctore R. de Diceto, col. 490.
X " M.XCII. Eodem anno, Johannes Wellensis praesul, natione Turonicus, consensu Willielmi Regis, albo unguento manibus ejus delibatis, transtulit in Bathoniam, sui cathedram preesulatus." " Hist. Angl." p. 17. a Watts.
|| " Itinerary," vol. ii. fol. 39.
§ " Sepultus est in ecclesia S. Petri, quam a fundamentis erexerat magno et elaborato parietii ambitu." " Gest. Pont." lib. ii. Episc. Wellens.
20 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
things nobly in ornaments and books, and filled the abbey with monks eminent for literature and discharge of their duties. According to report, his medical knowledge was founded more upon practice than science. He enjoyed literary society, but indulged in sarcasm more than was fitted to his rank. He was a wealthy man, and of liberal habits ; but could not be induced, even on his death-bed, wholly to restore their lands to the monks*."
In the latter assertion, Malmesbury is completely in error, as may be seen by the deed or charter which this Bishop solemnly granted to the monks in the year 1106, in the presence of numerous witnesses. By that instrument, he not only restored to the monks all the lands which they had formerly possessed, but he also gave them several estates, and other pro- perty of various descriptions. The rents, or issues, from the city of Bath, he appropriated to the perfecting of the new work — unquestionably the Church — he had begun : — ■■" ad perficiendum novum opus quod incepi-\."
* " De Gest. Pont." lib. ii. Episc. Wellens.
t The whole Instrument is curious ; it may be thus translated : — " In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I, John, by the grace of God, Bishop of Bath, to all Bishops my successors, and to all the sons of the Holy Church, greeting. — Be it known unto you all that for the honour of God and St. Peter, I have laboured, and at length effected, with all decent authority, that the Head and Mother Church of the Bishopric of Somerset shall be in the City of Bath, in the Church of St. Peter ; to which holy apostle, and to the monks his ser- vants, I have restored their lands, which I formerly held unjustly in my own hands, in as free and ample a manner as Aldsius the late abbot held them before me ; and if I have improved them, and whatsoever of mine shall be found thereon, I give to them to their own use and property. I also give them for farther supply of their food and clothing, and to increase the convent of the holy brethren serving God there, and to reimburse the treasury what I took from the Church, those lands which I have acquired by my own travail, or bought with my own money ; — to wit, those five hides in Weston, which I purchased of Patricius de Caurcia ; and the land of Hugh with the Beard, to wit, Claferton, Docne, Mersfield and Eston, together with Herley and Arnemude on the sea-coast, and whatsoever belongs to them ; and one house in Bath, and one other in Winchester : — But as to the city of Bath, which first of all King William, and after him, his brother King Henry, gave to St. Peter for their alms, I have, pursuant to my vows, determined that all issues and profits arising from it be laid out in perfecting the new work I have begun. Besides, what I have acquired of church ornaments, in copes, in palls, in cur- tains, in dorsals, in tapestry, in crucifixes, in robes, in chalices, and in phylacteries ; and whatsoever of my own 1 have added in the episcopal chapel, my whole armoury, my clothes, my bowls, my plate, and all my household furniture, I give to St. Peter and his monks for ever, to their own use and property, for the remission of my sins. Whosoever, therefore, shall infringe on this my gift, may the curse of God, and of his holy apostles and saints, light on him, and
GIFTS OF JOHN DE VILLULA, AND OTHERS. 21
The munificence of John de Villula excited other pious devotees to assist in endowing his new foundation. " Walcuinus de Douay gave to God and the Church of St. Peter, and Bishop John and the ministers of the same Church, the church of Bath-Hampton, with half a hide of land, and all the tithes of that manor. By the same charter, Ramarus his brother, and Gerard his steward, conjointly gave to the same grantees, a hide of land called Foxcumbe ; and Gerard separately gave the church of Brocton, with one virgate of land ; to which the wife of Walcuinus, in concert with her sons, added half the tithe of Carey, the church of Brigg, or Bridgwater ; and the wife of Gerard the chaplain, sixty shillings and a missal*."
Bishop John erected an episcopal palace on the west side of the monas- tery, of which, in Leland's time, a great square tower and some ruins were remaining. According to Wood, he likewise constructed two new baths within the limits of the monastery, for the public use, calling the one the Bishop's Bath, and the other the Prior's Bath f ; but from the circumstances attending the discovery of the ancient baths, which will be mentioned hereafter, it is probable that the baths alluded to had been originally constructed by the Romans, and that Villula merely altered them. In the " Decern Scriptores," (coll. 247,) this Bishop is said to have died on the day after Christmas-day 1123, having been taken suddenly after dinner with a pain in the heart. In the " Anglia Sacra" he is stated to have died very old, December 29th, 1122 J.
Godfrey, a Belgian by birth, who was chaplain and chancellor to the Queen, Adeliza, was presented to the See of Bath, about Easter 1123; he was consecrated on the 26th of August following. In his time, Henry the First granted to this church the valuable manor of Dogmersfield, in Hamp- shire, which afterwards became a summer residence of the Bishops. After a vain attempt to recover the lands and supremacy of the Church of Wells,
by the authority of me, though a sinner, let him be accursed, and for ever cut off from the community of the Church. Done A.D. 1106; in the reign of Henry, son of William, Duke of Normandy, and King of England, Anselm being archbishop; of my ordination the 19th, and of the indiction the 12th. And that this my Deed may remain more firm and unshaken, I have with my own hand signed it with the sign of the Holy Cross + ."
* Warner's " History of Bath," p. 115, and App. No. XIX. t " Description of Bath," vol. i. p. 186.
J Vide Wharton's Note in " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 560. Henry de Huntingdon calls the Bishop simply " Johannes Medicus." Ibid, pars ii. p. 700.
22 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
King Henry, and Roger, Bishop of Sarum, supporting John, Archdeacon of Wells, against him, this prelate died on the 16th of August, 1135, and was buried in his cathedral church*.
Robert, a native of Normandy, and a monk of Lewes, whom Henry, Bishop of Winchester, had appointed to the temporary government of St. Swithin's, in that city, was, by the influence of the same prelate, promoted to the vacant See on the death of Godfrey. During his episcopacy, the whole city was destroyed by fire, on the 29th of July, 1137, together, according to Stow, with St. Peter's churchf. The Canon of Wells, without adverting to the latter circumstance, merely says, that Bishop Robert finished the Church of Bath which John of Tours had begun J. He also endowed the monastery with the manor of South-Stoke, a mill there, and twenty measures of salt, yearly : these and other donations, including the whole tithe of Bath and Lincumb, the tithe of the Vines of Lincumb, the churches of Forde and Estun, the village of Combe, and divers lands, were confirmed to the monks by Archbishop Theobald, in 1150.
After the removal of the seat of this diocese from Wells to Bath, great dissensions arose between the canons of the former city and the monks of the latter, respecting the episcopal residence ; the canons affirming that the translation of the See by John de Villula, " could not be held good, because it was made against their consent, with disregard of right, and without any necessity or legitimate cause ||." The dispute was eventually referred to Bishop Robert, who decreed that the Bishops should neither derive their title from Wells, as in old, nor from Bath, as in modern times, but that they should in future take their names from both Churches, and be called Bishops of Bath and Wells : that the monks of Bath, and the canons of Wells, should, on a vacancy of the See, appoint an equal number of delegates, by whose votes the Bishop should be chosen, (the Dean of Wells being the returning officer,) and that he should be enthroned in both Churches §. This prelate died either in the year 1165, or 1166, and was buried with his predecessors, at Bath.
* " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 560. f " Chronicle of England," p. 144.
% " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 561. || Ibid. pp. 555, 556.
§ Vide Collinson's " Hist, of Som." vol. iii. p. 379 ; and " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 561. The composition, or decree, is extant in Register Drokensford; it was made before the year 1139. " Anglia Sacra," ibid.
FITZ-JOCELINE AND SAVARIC. 23
After his decease, Henry the Second retained possession of the See till the year 1174, when he gave it to Reginald Fitz-Joceline, whose father was an Englishman by birth, and Bishop of Sarum, but from surname and educa- tion he was regarded as a Lombard*. This Prelate, described to be a man of ability and many excellent qualities, was much addicted to hunting and hawking ; and he obtained from Richard Cceur de Lion the confirmation of an alleged right to keep dogs for sporting throughout all Somersetshire. From some services rendered to the monks of Canterbury, they were induced to elect him their archbishop, on Nov. 27th, 1191 ; but whilst preparing for his new See, he was taken ill at his manor of Dogmersfield, in Hampshire, and putting on a monk's cowl, he died there on the 26th of December following!. He was interred near the high altar at Bath, on St. Thomas's
dayt
Savaric, the son of Goldwine, Archdeacon of Northampton, and Treasurer of Sarum, being elected to succeed Reginald by the monks of Bath, though without the knowledge or consent of the canons of Wells, was ordained priest on the 19th of September, 1192 ; and, as Wharton thinks, consecrated Bishop on the following day || . Savaric was related to Henry VI. Emperor of Germany, who, to oblige his kinsman, made it one of the conditions of the release of King Richard, whom he then held in captivity, (the King having been basely imprisoned on his way from the Holy Land,) that Savaric should be appointed Bishop of Bath and Wells ; and that the wealthy abbey of Glas- tonbury should be annexed to his diocese, for its aggrandisement and advan- tage §. Henry de Solis, the abbot of Glastonbury, who was of the blood royal, was induced to consent to this arrangement, on being promoted to the bishopric of Worcester; but the monks strenuously opposed it, though in vain. Stow affirms, on the authority of a record of Henry the Third's time, that Savaric procured the imprisonment of Richard, in order to annex Glas-
* " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 562. Bishop Joceline is said to have had this son before he was ordained. f Ibid.
t " Decern. Scrip." col. 667. Hoveden says, he was buried at Bm ; for so Bath is deno- minated, (vide Hoved. " Script." post Bedam. p. 405. B.) possibly from some presumed analogy to the Roman Bairn.
|| " Anglia Sacra," par* i. ,,p. 563.
§ Vide Dugdale's " Monasticon/'new edit. vol. i. p. 5. 'from Johan. Gbst.
24 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
tonbury to his see*; and the King is reported to have declared that the annexation of the abbey was obtained from him by force and terrorf. But, whatever the truth may be, in these respects, it appears that Richard profited by the opportunity sufficiently to induce the Bishop to surrender to him the city of Bath, which was then valued at 100/. per annum. Savaric assumed the title of Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury ; and he granted the arch- deaconry of Bath to the prior and convent there. He died at Scienes, on the 8th of August 1205 ; and was buried in this church. The following monkish rhymes, expressive of the rambling inquietude of his disposition, are said to have formed his epitaph : —
Hospes erat mundo, — per mundum semper eundo, Sic suprema dies — fit sibi prima quies.
Joceline de Wells, called Joceline de Troteman in the " Annales Marga- nenses," who had been made a Justice of the Common Pleas in September 1204, was consecrated Bishop of Bath, in St. Mary's chapel at Reading, on the 28th of May, 1206J. He was elected by the joint chapters of Bath and Wells ; with this new arrangement, that the prior of Bath should proclaim the bishop elect, who should always be first enthroned in the church at Bath || . During his episcopacy, the monks of Glastonbury, after great exer- tions, and an appeal to the court of Rome, obtained a dissolution of their enforced union with this see : yet not till they had agreed to surrender to the bishop the valuable manors of Winescombe, Puckle-church, Blackford, and Cranmore, together with the advowsons of several churches. This arrangement was duly confirmed by a bull of Pope Honorius the Third, dated at Rome, on the 16th of the kalends of June, 1218 § ; and Joceline then resumed the title of Bishop of Bath and Wells, which has ever since been used by the successive prelates of this see.
* "Chronicles of England."
t See Adami. de Dom. Mon. Glast. Hist. Cont. inter Epis. Bathon. et Mon. Glast. " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 578.
X Ibid. p. 564. || Ibid.
§ See Dugdale's " Monasticon," vol. ii. p. 269. Num. xix. Bishop Joceline dictated the oath taken by Henry the Third, at his coronation at Gloucester; and, with Peter, Bishop of Winchester, crowned him. Matt. Paris " Hist. Angl." p. 243.
PRIORS OF BATH. 25
Bishop Joceline having incurred the high displeasure of King John, by interdicting the nation pursuant to the Pope's command, in the year 1208, was obliged, soon after, to quit the kingdom. During his absence, the King retained the temporalities of the bishopric ; and in the 14th of his reign, anno 1212, Thomas Peverel, his escheator, accounted to him for the profits of it: the net amount in that year was 213/. 14*. 6cl* After an exile of five years, this prelate returned to England, and built the greater part of Wells cathedral. He died on the 19th of November, 1242, and was buried in the middle of the choir, in that edifice f.
In the following year, the monks of Bath elected for their Bishop, Roger, precentor of Sarum ; but this being done without consulting the canons of Wells, an appeal was made to the Pope, who decided that the right of election was jointly in the two chapters. Roger, however, having conciliated the canons, the monks, (who promised a stricter observance of the compact in future,) had their choice confirmed, and the Bishop elect was consecrated at Reading, on the 11th of September, 1244. This prelate died on the 21st of December, 1247, or, as other accounts, in January 1248J. He was^the last of the Bishops interred at Bath ; which, about this period, appears to have become subordinate to Wells in episcopal authority and power. It will not therefore be requisite to introduce, in this place, any account of the sub- sequent bishops of this See, as in the " History and Antiquities of Wells Cathedral," biographical anecdotes of the most eminent of its Prelates have been recorded.
PRIORS OF BATH.
It has been said, that from the period this abbey was annexed to the see of Bath, by John de Villula, till the year 1159, " the establishment was governed by a sub-prior, acting under the directions of the bishop ;" yet we find the names of John and Benedict, who were Priors of Bath before that
* Vide " Comp. Epis. Baton, de anno integro." Mag. Rot. 14. Joh. rot. i. 6. By that instrument it appears that the Bishop's establishment comprised a train of huntsmen, a noble pack of harriers, and thirteen other dogs of different descriptions, besides other articles of luxury.
f See " History," &c. of " Wells Cathedral."
X " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 565. In " Annal. Wigorn." ibid. p. 492, it is said .that the Pope?* made Roger de Sarum Bishop of Bath, on account of the dissensions between the chapters of Bath and Wells.
26 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
year : the former presided during the time of De Villula, and the latter in 1151*. In 1159, Peter was constituted prior, and his name again occurs in 1175. His successor appears to have been Walter, sub-prior of Hyde and Winchester, " a man of much science and piety." He presided, except during a short retirement, at Wherwell in Hampshire, till his decease, on the 31st of May, 1198 ; and was interred at Bathf. About the year 1190, Hugh occurs as prior % ; he probably held that office during Walter's re- tirement.
Robert was prior in September 1198. In his time, King John, who had previously to his accession founded two Benedictine priories at Water- ford and Cork, in Ireland, and annexed them to this monastery, granted to the " Church of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul at Bath, and to the prior and monks serving God there ||," his Berton, or Barton, a farm near the city walls, together with an exempt and separate jurisdiction, in consideration of two payments into the Exchequer of 10/. each. This was in his 5th year, anno 1204 : three years afterwards, he bestowed many important privileges on the monks of Bath, conjointly with the canons of Wells ; such as having toll, theam, and infangenthef on all their property, together with two ordeals of water and fire, and the privilege of execution ; with exemptions from all suits and attendances in courts, whether general or local, and from all juries, assizes, &c.§ In October 1223, Prior Robert, by the influence of Bishop Joceline, was made abbot of Glastonbury ; but the violent conten- tions which arose between him and the monks there, — (he having been chaplain to Savaric, whom the latter considered to have subverted their privileges,) — occasioned him at length to return to Bath, (where he died in tranquillity in Passion week, 1234,) on a pension of 60/. per annum f .
In 1228, Thomas was prior, and his name occurs in various years, till his decease on the Eve of St. John Baptist, 1261**. In his time, and in
* Dug. " Monasticon," vol. ii. pp. 257, 258 : new edit.
t " Anglia Sacra," pars i. " Anna). Winton." ibid. p. 304.
% Dugdale's " Monasticon," vol. ii. p. 258.
|| Warner's " History of Bath," p. 117, and Appendix, Nos. XXVIII. and XXXIX. The grant made by King John in 1204, is the first in which this church is styled St. Peter's and St. Paul's ; and it is remarkable, that in his second grant, anno 1207, it is called St. Peter's only. In all succeeding grants, it has the duplex appellation of St. Peter's and St. Paul's.
§ Ibid. IT Adami. de Dom. in " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 583.
** Dugdale's " Monasticon," vol. ii. p. 258.
PRIORS OP BATH. 27
that of his predecessor, this city, with the adjoining barton, was held on lease by the prior of Bath, at the pleasure of the King, and on payment of the annual rent of 30/. into the Exchequer*. Walter de Aona, receiver of the monastery, was elected prior in July 1261, and his name again occurs in 1275. During his supremacy, Edward the First, anno primo, assigned Bath, with its barton and appurtenances, to his consort Eleanor, in dower, for the term of her natural life ; and a writ to that effect issued to the prior and convent, the then lessees of the premises. But this assignment must have been speedily retracted, as the same monarch, in his third year, granted to Richard Burnell, bishop of Bath and Wells, and to his successors, and the churches of Bath and Wells, the whole of this city and its suburbs, &c. " except the Berton of Bath, which the prior and convent of Bath hold of us in fee-farm-)"."
Thomas de Wynton, who was made prior in 1291, resigned on the 4th of the ides of April, 1301. Robert de Cloppecote was prior in 1303 : and in the following year, King Edward granted to him and his convent the liberty of holding two fairs annually, the one on their manor at Lyncomb, the other on their manor at Barton. Cloppecote oppressed the monks so grievously, that the bishop, John de Drokensford, by an objurgatory letter, dated in August 1321, commanded him to render them justice, and to rectify the abuses of which they complained. By his negligence, also, the Abbey Church is stated to have been suffered to fall to such decay, that the Bishop judged it requisite to issue a circular letter throughout his diocese, in the autumn of 1324, for a general collection towards its repair; and the work was completed in the ensuing year. In 1329, Prior Cloppecote was mulcted by the crown, for appropriating the church of Corston to his monastery, con- trary to the statute of Mortmain: he died on Ash- Wednesday, 1331. In the following March, Robert de Sutton was chosen prior, but the Pope not approving the choice, nominated Thomas Christi, or Christy, and Sutton resigned, on
* " Prior Bathoniae reddit competum de xxxl. de firma civitatis Bathonise tenende per talem firmam quamdiu regi placuerit." Mag. Rot. Hen. III. 9 ann. In the twentieth of John [Henry] the lessee was obliged to pay into the Exchequer the sum of 13Z. lis. over and above his rent, for the charge of the repairs that were then wanting in the King's houses and baths, which the prior had suffered to dilapidate. Rot. Pip. 20th Hen. III. Warner's " History of Bath," p. 168, note.
t This grant of Bath was in exchange for the patronage of Glastonbury abbey, and the service of the lands belonging to it, with fines, emoluments, &c. Vide Warner's " History of Bath," p. 170 ; and Appendix, Nos. XLVI. andXLVH.
28 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
September 24, 1332 ; the priory of Dunster, and several pensions to the amount of 36/., having been assigned to him by the convent*. Christy was confirmed on the 8th of the kalends of October, but did not long survive. His successor Robert, the fourth of that name, was prior in June 1333. John de Iford, or Yford, who next occurs as prior, was cited to appear before the bishop of his diocese in August 1346, for committing adultery with Agnes Cubbel, at Hammeswell; and on this charge he either resigned or was deprived in the following yearf. In 1363, John occurs as prior, probably the same as John de Berevnke, whose name occurs in 1370, and as John de Berkelye, mentioned by Warner.
John de Forde was prior in 1371; and afterwards John de Walcote. John Dunster, prior in 1406, died February 6th, 1412; and John de Telesford was elected on the 10th of March following: he was summoned to a convocation in St. Paul's, anno 1415, and died in 1425. During his time, there was a great dispute between the convent and the mayor and citizens of Bath, concerning the ringing of the bells in the parish churches ; but at length, after the dis- sensions had continued several years, it was decreed, at an inquisition held at Frome, in the 9th of Henry V. " that no one should ring any bells within the precincts of Bath in the day-time, before the prior had rung his bells ■ nor in the night-time, after the prior had rung his curfew J." On the 20th of April, 1426, William Southbroke became prior : he appears to have been cited to a council at Ferrara in 1438, and he died on the 7th of June, 1447. On the 16th of September, in the same year, Thomas Lay cock was named prior by Bishop Stafford, with consent of the monks, and he was in office anno 1451. In 1476, Richard was prior ; and he is said, in the Register of Beckington, to have been present at the baptism of Richard, son to George, Duke of Clarence, at Tewkesbury, on October the 7th, in that year.
In 1489, John Cantlowe was made prior : in his time, anno 1494, Archbishop Morton visited the monastery: he died in August 1499. On the 31st of the same month, William Birde was elected ; and although his admission was at first opposed by the Bishop, Oliver King, he was eventually instituted by that prelate, and he became his most effective coadjutor in the rebuilding of this church: he died May the 22d, 1525. His successor, William Holway, or Holleweye, alias Gybbs, was elected on the 5th of July following ; and after his
* Bibl. Harl. MS. 6955, p. 66. -f- Dugd. " Monasticon," vol. ii. p. 260.
\ Collinson's " History of Somersetshire," vol. i. p. 56.
PRIORS OF BATH. 29
appointment, he ardently applied himself to the completion of the Abbey Church. This was scarcely effected, however, before he found it requisite to surrender his monastery to King Henry the Eighth, which was done on the 27th of June, 1539 ; five years previous to which the annual value of its possessions was returned by the King's commissioners (who on that occasion were, Sir Henry Cassell, knt., Henry Covell, late mayor of Bath, and John Browne,) at the sum of 617/. 2*.* Speed gives the value, at the period of the dissolution, as amounting to 695/. 6s. An annual pension of 80/., " with certain perquisites arising from the baths, and a tenement in Stall's- street of the rent of 20*.," was granted to Prior Holway ; nine pounds yearly was granted to John Pyth, the sub-prior ; and smaller sums were given to the other monks, who were nineteen in number. Browne Willis states, that the King would have advanced Holway to good preferment, but that he refused the same, and concluded his days in privacy and retirement |.
Among the very few members of this establishment who have been recorded as eminent for learning, is the monk Adelard, or Athelard ; who lived at the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th centuries. Leland says, that he went to France to study, and was a close follower of Aristotle. He adds, that from the preface to his " Natural Questions," it appears that he lived in the time of Henry I.J Bale says, that Adelard had travelled over Egypt and Africa || . He wrote a Dialogue of the Causes of Natural Objects, between himself and his nephew, the preface of which is published in Martenne's " Thesaurus Anecdotorum§." Pits mentions other works, viz. : 1. A Book of the Seven Arts ; 2. Another, De sic et non sic ; 3. A Work on the Astrolabe ; 4. A Book of Seventy-six Problems, or Natural Questions, much commended by Leland ; 5. Another, on the Doctrine of the Abacus ; 6. A Translation of Euclid's Geometry from Arabic into Latin; 7. A Work on the Seven Planets; — perhaps Japhar, the Mathematician's, whose Introduction to Astronomy was translated from the Arabic by this Adelard^]".
* Warner's " History of Bath," pp. 126 — 129, and Appendix, No. LXX1V. from the original in the First Fruits' Office.
f " History of Mitred Abbeys," vol. i. p. 221. J " De Script. Brit," p. 201.
|| " Illust. Mag." vol. ii. p. 69. h Vide vol. i. p. 292.
If See Oudin. torn. ii. In Leland's " Collectanea," the titles of a few MS. volumes are men- tioned, which were in the monastic library at the time of the Reformation : viz. " Isagoge Joannicii ;
30 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
Under the auspices of the monks of Bath, the art of weaving Woollen cloth was established in this city soon after its introduction into England, about the year 1333; and it was carried to such perfection during the course of the 14th century, that Bath became one of the most considerable places in the west for that manufacture. Wood states, that the shuttle, the chief implement in the art, " was introduced, with the arms of the abbey, as an ornament in front of the abbey-house, and was remaining there in his time ; a trophy of the industry of the monks of Bath*." But if the inmates of this establishment excelled some of their brethren in industry, they we're not inferior to any of them in their endeavours to stifle the voice of reason, and keep the inquiring mind involved in superstition and credulity. A particular instance of this kind occurred in the year 1459, when Agnes, the wife of Thomas Cole, of Bath, was prosecuted in the ecclesiastical court at Wells, for having said " that it was but waste to give to the Holy Trinity at Bath ; and equally absurd to go on pilgrimages to St. Osmund at Salisbury ; and that she wished the road thither was choaked up with bremmel [brambles and thorns], to lette [hinder] people from going thither." She was sentenced to recant the heretical and disrespectful words she had thus uttered, before all the congregation in the great church of Bath-)".
In the year 1542-3, (34th of Henry VIII.) the King, by his letters patent dated March the 16th, in consideration of the sum of 962/. 17*. Ad., already paid into the court of Augmentation, granted the hospital of St. John, at Bridgewater, the priory of Dunster, with its appurtenances, " as part of the possessions of the late priory of Bath," the monastery or priory of Bath itself, with all " the houses, buildings, gardens, orchards, barns, dove-houses, stables, pools, warrens, fish-ponds," &c. within the site and precincts of the same ;
Libellus Galeni ad Msecenatem ; Hiponosticon Laurentii Dunelmensis Carmine de Veteri et Novo Testamento ; Galenus de Morbo et Accidenti ; Liber de Febribus, quem transtulit Constantinus monachus Cassinensis ex lingua Arabica ; Commentarii Csesaris." " Collectanea," vol. iv. p. 156. There is probably a mistake in the title of the second work, which connects Galen with Maecenas, as the most celebrated individuals known under those appellations lived at different periods.
%" Description of Bath," vol. i. p. 191. Warner says, that " the shuttle was incorporated into the arms of the monastery," (History of Bath, p. 122); but he has evidently mistaken the passage in Wood to which he refers. There is no appearance of the shuttle in either of the coats engraved as the arms of this monastery in Tanner's " Notitia Monastica."
f Warner's " History of Bath," p. 122, from excerpt. " Reg. Wellens." in Bibl. Harl. No. 6964, sub anno 1459.
GRANTS OF EDWARD THE SIXTH. 31
together with various messuages, lands, tenements, (including the Prior's park,) in Lyncombe, Wydcombe, Hollway, and Walcot ; and the capital messuage or mansion of Combe, with its appurtenances, as possessed by the monastery of Bath, toHumfrey Colles, Gent., his heirs and assigns, for ever; " together with all such court-leets, view of frank-pledge, assize of bread, wine, and beer, knights' fees, wards, and marriages, escheats, heriots, fairs, markets, tolls, customs, commons, free-warrens, goods and chattels, waifs and strays, profits, commodities, emoluments, and hereditaments whatsoever, as the abbots and priors of the said monastery heretofore held and enjoyed." The mansion of Combe was to be held in capite, by the fortieth part of one knight's fee, rendered yearly ; and the late site and possessions of the priory of Bath, by an annual rent of eight shillings and four pence*. In the following year, an act of Parliament was passed, by which the Dean and Chapter of Wells were empowered to make one sole chapter for the Bishop of Bath and Wells. About nine years afterwards, namely, on the 12th of July, 1552, Edward the Sixth granted to the corporation of Bath, such lands and tenements within the city and its suburbs, as formerly belonged to the priory, and were then in the pos- session of the crown, for the maintenance of ten poor aged people, and for the instruction of the youth of the city, by a proper master, in the Latin tonguef.
* Warner's " History of Bath," p. 134 ; and Appendix, No. LXXIX.
t Wood's " Description of Bath," vol. i. pp. 197, 199. The Hospital of St. Catherine, at Bath, called the Bimberries, from being situated in Bimberry-lane, had its origin from this grant of Edward VI.
CHAPTER III.
PROGRESS OF THE ERECTION OF THE PRESENT CHURCH ACCOUNT OF BISHOP
OLIVER KING HIS VISION, AND CONSEQUENT FOUNDATION OF THIS FABRIC
HIS INJUNCTIONS TO PRIOR BIRDE PROGRESS OF THE BUILDING POETICAL
ACCOUNT OF PRIOR HOLLEWAYE STATE OF THE CHURCH IN QUEEN ELIZABETH'S
REIGN REPARATIONS OF THE SAME BY CHAPMAN, BELLOT, AND OTHERS- SOLICITUDE OF SIR JOHN HARINGTON TO COMPLETE THE CHURCH BISHOP
MONTAGUE INDUCED TO CONTINUE THE WORK IMPROVEMENTS NEAR THE
CHURCH ROMAN BATHS UNDER THE ABBEY CHURCH DISCOVERY OF MO- NASTIC VESTMENTS.
The Church which Bishop Robert had completed experienced so much neglect from the monks, that it had become very ruinous before the close of the fifteenth century. It appears, indeed, (as well as the affairs of the monastery in general,) to have been most shamefully neglected long prior to that time — a letter being still extant, which was written to Prior Robert, on " the miserable state of his convent," by Bishop John de Drokensford, in August 1321*; and, three years afterwards, that prelate caused a collection to be made throughout his diocese, for the repairs of the Church. During that, and the succeeding century, it was again so utterly neglected, that, to employ the strong expressions of Bishop King, it became ruined to the foundations — imo funditus dirutam\, — in consequence of the monks expending their large income in pleasurable indulgences, instead of appropriating some part thereof to the necessary reparations of the fabric. It was in this forlorn state, when Dr. Oliver King, who was eminent both as a divine and a politician, was translated from Exeter into the episcopal chair of Bath and Wells; in which he was enthroned, on the 12th of March, 1496. This pre- late was one of the Fellows of King's College, Cambridge, and he after- wards became Archdeacon of Taunton, Registrar of the Order of the Garter, Canon of Windsor, and principal Secretary of State to Edward the Fourth, Edward the Fifth, Henry the Sixth, and Henry the Seventh ; by the latter
* Vide Appendix, No. HI. t Ibid. No. IV.
ACCOUNT OF BISHOP OLIVER KING. — HIS DREAM. 33
of whom he was employed in France to conclude a treaty of peace with Charles the Eighth, which mission he executed with great success : he was promoted to the see of Exeter in 1492, and thence to Bath and Wells on November the 6th, 1495. He died on the 29th of August, 1503*.
This Prelate, who is thought to have been perfectly conversant with the Pointed style of architecture, is said to have been influenced to commence the rebuilding of this Church by a dream, or vision, which he very simply mistook for a divine communication. Of this vision, which, Wood says,' occurred to the Bishop when he came to Bath " to institute Prior Birde into his office," in the year 1499, Sir John Harington gives the following pleasing and familiar account : —
" Here I may by no meanes omitt, yet I can scant tell how to relate the pretty tales that are told of this Bishop King, by what visions and pre- dictions he was incouraged and discouraged in the building of this churche, whether some cunning woman had foretold him of the spoyle that followd, (as Paulus Jovius wrytes how a Witch deceaved his next successor Hadryan, Bishop of Bathe) ; or whether his own mynde running of it, gave him occa- sion, sleeping, to dream of that he thought waking ; but this goes for currant,
* There is some degree of uncertainty as to the real burial place of Bishop King ; who, according to the Red Book, or Register of Wells, died on the 29th of August, 1503, as men- tioned in the text; and not on the 24th of January, as. stated by Godwin, and others. By his Will, which was proved on the 24th of October in the above year, he directed his body to be interred in the choir of the new church of Bath, near the first arch on the north side towards the altar ; but his tomb (of grey marble) is reputed to be in the south aile of St. George's Chapel at Windsor, within a sepulchral or chantry Chapel, which was founded by himself, and still retains his name. So far, therefore, the evidence preponderates in corroboration of his remains having been depo- sited at Windsor, notwithstanding the contrary directions of his Will ; and as there is no tomb at Bath that has ever been assigned to him, nor any record of his burial there, we may safely conclude, that Windsor was the actual place of his interment. The full length portraitures and armorial bearings of the four Sovereigns to whom he was secretary, are painted on the pannels of an oaken screen, forming part of the inclosure of the choir, opposite to his chantry at Windsor ; and under them is the following incomplete inscription, in black letter ; which he, doubtless, had placed there previously to his translation to Bath and Wells : of late years the portraits have been repainted — " Orate pro Dno Olivero Kyng, Juris Professore, ac illustris Edwardi primogeniti Regis Henrici Sexti, et Serenissimorum Regum Edwardi Quarti, Edwardi Quinti, et Henrici Septimi, Principali Secretario, dignissimi Ordinis Garterij Registrio, et huius Sacri Collegii Canonico, A0, Dfii 1489 : et postea per dictum Illustrissim. Rege Henrici Septm. A" Dfii 1492, ad sedii Exoniensem comedato." See Carter's " Ancient Sculpture and Painting."
F
34 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
and confirmed with pretty probabilities — that lying at Bathe, and musing or meditating one night late, after his devotions and prayers for the pro- sperity of Henry Vllth and his children (who were then all or most part lyving), to which King he was principal Secretary, and by him preferred to his bishoprick ; he saw, or supposed he saw, a vision of the Holy Trynitie, with angells ascending and descending by a ladder, neer to the foote of which there was a fayre Olive tree, supporting a crowne, and a voyce that said — '■ Let an Olive establish the Crowne, and let a King restore the Church.' Of this dreame, or vision, he took exceeding great comfort, and told it divers of his frends, applying it to the King his master in parte, and some part to himselfe. To his master, because the Olive being the emblem or hieroglifick of peace and plentie, seemed to him to allude to King Henry Vllth, who was worthely counted the wisest and most peaceable King in all Europe of that age. To himself, (for the wisest will flatter themselves somtime), because he was not only a chiefe councellor to this King, and had bene his ambassador to conclude the most honourable peace with Charles the 8. who paid (as Hollinshed wryteth) 745 thousand ducketts, beside a yearly tribute of 25,000 crowns ; but also he carried both the Olive and the King in his own name ; and therefore thought he was specially designed for this church-worke, to the advauncement of which he had an extraor- dinary inclynation. Thus though (as St. Thomas of Aquin well noteth) all dreames, be they never so sencible, will be found to hault in some part of their coherence ; and so perhaps may this ; yet most certaine it is, he was so transported with his dreame, for the tyme, that he presently set in hand with this Church, (the ruins whereof I rue to behold even in wryting theis lynes) ; and at the west end thereof he caused a representation to be graved of this his Vision of the Trynitie, the angells, and the ladder ; and on the north side the olive and crown, with certain French wordes, which I could not reade ; but in English is this vearse, taken out of the book of Judges, chap. 9.
Trees going to chuse their King Said, ' be to us the Olive King.'
All which is so curiously cut and carved, as in the west part of England is no better worke than in the west end of this poor church ; and to make the credit of all this more authentique, he added this worde to it, ' de sursum
ACCOUNT OF BISHOP OLIVER KING. 35
est,'' it is from on high. Thus much the stones and walls (though dumb wit- nesses, yet credible,) doe playnly testifie*."
Under the powerful impression of this dream, Bishop King issued Injunc- tions, anno 1500, to the Prior and convent of Bath, peremptorily decreeing that the expenditure of their revenues should be reduced in the manner he assigned, and that the residue should be absolutely expended in erecting a new Church f. At that period the annual income amounted to 480/. 16*. 6d. ; of which rental the Bishop directed that eight marks per annum should be allowed to the Prior, and eighty pounds to the sixteen monks, for their due support : for repairs on their different manors he assigned 40/., and 10/. for the wages of servants, besides some smaller allowances : the remainder he appropriated to his intended building; which he soon after- wards commenced at a short distance, westward, from the old Church, the walls of which were standing in Leland's time J. The Bishop pursued the work with zeal, " and declared," according to Wood, " his disregard to any extraordinary expense, so that he could but see it finished ; but he died before the south and west parts of the building were covered in, or even all the walls were raised to their proper height ||." He was ably assisted by Prior Birde, who carried on the work after the Bishop's decease, and built a monumental chapel for himself within the choir : his rebus, a W, and a Bird, is yet to be seen on various parts of the edifice. Warner, in his amplification of Wood's statement, says, that Birde's liberality, in respect to this structure, was so unbounded, as " to swallow up the whole of his fortune, and reduce him to poverty." Wood's account is, that " he expended
* Harington's " Nugse Antiquae," vol. ii. p. 136 — 138. Park's edition. The words which the worthy knight calls French, are supposed to be the following in Latin, being a translation of the English lines given above :
" Jerunt ligna ut ungerent super se regem, Dixeruntque Olivae, impera nobis."
f Warner's " History of Bath," Appendix, No. XLIX.
X " Oliver King began of late dayes a right goodly new Chirch at the west part of the old Chirch of St. Peter, and finishid a great peace of it. The residue of it was syns made by the Priors of Bathe; and especially by Gibbes, the last Prior ther; that spent a great summe of mony on that Fabricke. — Oliver King let almost al the old Chirch of St. Peter's, in Bath, to go to ruine : the walles yet stande." Itinerary, vol. ii. p. 40 : edit. 1744. :
|| " Description of Bath," vol. i. p. 195.
36 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
so much money as impoverished him, and made him die very poor," in May 1525 * . Prior Holleweye, alias Gybbs, continued the work ; and, according
* Prior Birde, on the authority of Ashmole, is commonly reputed to have applied himself to ■the study of chemistry, or rather of alchemy ; but a comparison of dates will shew that Holleicexje must have been the person really meant, for he, and not Birde, was Prior of Bath at the time of the Dissolution. The chemical knowledge of Prior Holleweye must be estimated from the character of the age in which he lived. Chemistry had not then attained the rank of a science, but consisted merely of a few detached facts, relating chiefly to the properties of metallic bodies, and a vast mass of wild speculation ; accompanied with fallacious instructions for forming the Elixir of Life, the Philosopher's Stone, the Universal Panacea, and other imaginary preparations, which were supposed to possess the power of bestowing on the industrious Adept, riches, health, and long life, if not immortality ; but which uniformly conducted the deluded victim of false science to poverty and distress. Such is said to have been the fate of Our Prior ; of whose presumed studies and mis- fortune? a curious account is preserved, in a poetical treatise on Alchemy, published by Ashmole, in his " Theatrum Chemicum," P. I. This piece is intituled " The Breviary of Naturall Philosophy, compiled by the unlettered scholar, Thomas Charnock, the first of January, A.D. 1557." Charnock professes to have derived a considerable part of his knowledge from the Prior of Bath, of whom he thus speaks : —
" And now to obteyne thy purpose more rathe
Let thy fire be as temperate as the Bath of the Bathe. Oh what a goodly and profitable Instrument Is the Bath of the Bathe for our fiery intent ! To seeke all the World throughout I should not finde For profit and liberty a Fire more fitt to my minde. Goe or ride where you list for the space of a yeare, Thou needest not care for the mending of thy fire. A Monke of Bathe, which of that house was Pryor, Tould me in seacret he occupied none other fire ; To whom 1 gave credit, even at the first season, Because it depended upon very good reason. He had our Stone, our Medicine, our Elixir, and all Which when the Abbie was supprest he hid in a wall : And ten dayes after he went to fetch it out, And there he found but the stople of a cloute. Then he told me he was in such an Agonie, That for the loss thereof he thought he should be frenzie ; And a toy took him in the head to run such a race, That many a yeare after he had no setling place : • And more, he is darke and cannot see,
But hath a Boy to lead him through the country. . I hapned to come on a day where as he was, And by a word or two that he let passe
ITS NEGLECTED STATE. 37
to Leland, " spent a great summe of mony on that fabricke :" but all the exertions of the Prior were unable to carry into effect the liberal design of Bishop King*. A great change had taken place in the public mind: the Reformation was daily gaining ground, and the dissolution of monastic esta- blishments fast approaching. The pious zeal which had raised so many splendid ecclesiastical edifices, at a vast expense, was rapidly cooling ; and but little aid could now be obtained beyond the precincts of the cloister. On the contrary, part of the lead, intended for the roof, was stolen, and the money, which had been collected to proceed with the work, was intercepted by profane hands, and applied to secular purposes^.
It is not unlikely that Bishop King had fully anticipated the gathering storm, which the corruptions of the Romish church had engendered ; and which, though in some instances of a destructive tendency, was happily the means of freeing this country from Papal tyranny and Catholic imposition. — " I heard by one Flowre of Phillips Norton," says Harington, speaking of the new Church, that '" this Bishop would wishe he had paid above the price of it, so it might have been finisht, for if he ended it not it would be
I understood streight he was a Philosopher, For which cause I drewe to him neare ; And when the Company was all gone, And none but his Boy and He and I alone, Master, quoth I, for the love of God and charity, Teach me the seacrets of Naturall Philosophy."
Warner, on the authority of Ashmole's notes to this poem, says that Birde " died poor and blind;' but if Charnock's poetical relation be correct, it must be concluded that both Warner and Ashmole are altogether mistaken ; and that Gybbs, alias Holleweye, who was certainly the last Prior of Bath, was the blind and unfortunate Alchemist with whom Charnock formed an acquaint- ance, and whose skill he celebrates.
* " Itinerary," ut sup. In the 28th of Henry the Eighth, Prior Gybbs granted the reversion of the office for life, of " Master of all the Works" of the Convent, " commonly called Freemasonry" to John Multon, freemason, in reward for his former diligence and faithful service ; together with an annual salary of forty shillings. Edward Leycester, Multon's predecessor in that office,- is mentioned in the same grant. Vide Warner's " Bath," Appendix, No. LVIII. It is remarkable, that in this instrument the Holy Saviour is named, with the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, as a tutelar of the Church of Bath, '
f " Anglia Sacra," pars i. p. 576:—" quando sacrilegi quidam, favente temporis iniquitate,- laminas plumbeas abripuerunt, et pecuniam ad opus perficiendum collectam interverterunt,"
38 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
pulld down ere it were perfected*." From the same author, we learn that whilst the Church was yet in a neglected state, and " since the 43d yeare of Queene Elizabeth," the following lines " were written by an English gentleman,"— probably Harington himself, — " on the church wall with a charcoale :" —
" O Church ! I waile thy wofull plight,
Whom King nor Card'nall, Clerke nor Knight, Have yet restor'd to auncient right."
Alluding herein, as Fuller has remarked |, " to Bishop King, who began it; and his four successors, in thirty-five years, viz. Cardinal Adrian, Cardinal Wolsey, Bishop Clark, and Bishop Knight, contributing nothing to the effectual finishing thereof."
After the surrender of the monastery, in 1539, the Commissioners, says Harington, " in reverence and compassion of the place, did so far strayne their commission that they offerd to sell the whole Church to the towne under 500 marks : but the townsmen fearing they might be thought to cosen the King if they bought it so cheape, or that it might after (as many things were) be found conceal'd, utterly refused. Whereupon certeine Merchants bought all the glass, iron, bells, and lead ; of which lead alone was accompted for (as I have crediblie heard) 480 tunne, worth at this day 4,800/. J"
Shortly after the monastic estates had been granted to Humphry Colles,
* " Nugse Antiquse," vol. ii. p. 139. Bishop King died on the 24th of January, 1503-4.
-f " Worthies of England," vol. ii. p. 277 : edit. 1811. On some other lines, which Harington says were written for " the comfort of this Church, by a Captaine of an other contrie ;" and We thus given by him :
" Be blythe, faire Kerk, when Hempe is past, Thine Olyve, that ill wynds did blast, Shall flourish green, for ay to last :"
Fuller remarks, " By Hempe, understand Henry the Eighth, .Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, King Philip, and Queen .Elizabeth. The author, as I suspect, had a tang of the cask ; and being parcel- popish, expected the finishing of this Church at the return of their Religion ; .but his prediction was verified in a better sense, when this Church was finished by James Montague, Bishop of this See, disbursing vast sums in the same, though the better enabled thereunto by his Mines at Mynedep, so that he did but remove the seed from the bowels of the earth to the roof of the Church ; wherein he lies enterred under a fair Monument." Ibid. p. 278, X " Nugae Antiquse," vol. ii. p. 141,
REPARATIONS. 39
as before stated, that gentleman disposed of the site and buildings of the Priory to Matthew Colthurst, Esq. ; whose son Edmund, immediately after the decease of his father, in the beginning of the year 1560, " made the city a present of the carcass of St. Peter's church, with the ground upon the east, west, and north sides of it * ;" and the whole is still the property of the Corporation. The Abbey House, which had been the residence, in succession, both of the Abbots and Priors, and which stood on the south of the Church, together with its immediate precincts, tenements, appur- tenances, &c, in Bath, and the Prior's Park, near Combe Down, were sold by the said Edmund Colthurst, on the 27th of January, 1569, to Fulk Morley, Esq., from whom the Abbey estate has descended through the late Duke of Kingston to the present Earl Manvers. The Prior's Park estate is now the property of John Thomas, a quaker, who purchased it of the representatives of the late Lord Hawarden, to whom it had devolved from the Aliens f.
The first attempt to improve the state of this Church after the Dissolution, was made by a military officer, named Peter Chapman, who was the eldest son of a clothier, mentioned by Leland, by whom, " in hominum memorial with two others in the same trade, of the names of Style and Kent, " the Toun of Bath florishidj." He was born in 1506, and having served in the wars in France and the Low Countries, in the reigns of Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth, he attained to the rank of a Serjeant Major, and when in his 82d year, in 1588, led a brigade of 800 veteran soldiers to Tilbury Camp || . This gentleman repaired the east end of the north aile, about the year 1572; and soon afterwards the Queen's letters patent were obtained, authorising collections to be made for seven years in every part of the Kingdom, for the completion of this Church, and the rebuilding of St. John's Hospital. With the produce, the latter purpose was effected ; but all that was done to the Church, was by erecting a timber roof, covered with blue slate, over the east, the north, and some of the south part of the fabric,
* Wood's " Description of Bath," vol. i. p. 199.
t The present mansion at Prior Park was built by Wood, for Mr. Allen, the amiable prototype of Fielding's Airworthy, and was, during the life of its first possessor, frequently occupied by the most distinguished wits of the age. It may be said to have been the Attic seat of Genius : but it has lately presented a lamentable contrast. Part of this finely picturesque estate is now a stone quarry.
\ " Itinerary," vol. ii. p. 39 : 2d edit.
]| Wood's " Description of Bath," vol. i. p. 201 : from Chapman's Epitaph.
BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
and roofing and flooring the tower*." The uppermost windows on the north side of the choir were glazed, at the expense of Thomas, Earl of Sussex, Lord Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth, prior to 1584 ; and 10/. was given towards the glazing of the opposite windows, by Walter Calicut of Williamscote, in Oxfordshire. The work then stopped for several years, nor was j it again proceeded with till some time after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, when, from the liberality of Lord Burleigh, and Thomas Bellot, or Billet, Esq., his steward, and afterwards his executor, the choir was inclosed, and fitted up for Divine service; the latter gentleman f having been at the expense of 60/. for repairing and glazing the great east window only. The Church was then re-consecrated, and dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul.
The south part of the transept, and most of the nave, were still unroofed^
* Wood's " Description of Bath," vol. i. p. 201. It appears, both from Camden's account, and from a letter of Sir John Harington's, published in his " Metamorphosis of Ajax," or a Jakes, in 1596, that some part of the money which had been collected by means of the Queen's brief, had been improperly diverted to private uses. Queen Elizabeth had been twice at Bath, and had given directions for the improvement of the baths, &c. Speaking of her first visit, prior to 1591, Harington says — " The fair Church her Highnesse gave order should be re-edified stands at a stay, &c. Wherefore if your Lordship [probably Lord Burleigh] would authorise me, or some wiser than me, to take a strict account of the money by her Majesty's gracious grants gathered and to be gathered, which, in the opinion of manie, cannot be lesse than ten thousand pounds, {though not to wrong them, I thinke they have bestowed upon the point of 10,000 pounds, abating but one cipher,) I would not doubt, of a ruinate Church to make a reverent Church, and of an unsavorie town a most sweet town." Ibid. pp. 75, 76.
t The following passage relative to this generous benefactor to the Abbey Church, is extracted
from an article in Peck's " Desiderata Curiosa," No. IV. lib. vi. intituled — " The Observations
of Mr. John Bowles, Chaplain to the Lord Treasurer, Sir Rob. Cecill, Earl of Salisbury, as to
the carriage of the said Earl in his last sickness, after he went from London to Bath, until the
time of his death ; being a true copy of the account which the said Mr. Bowles delivered unto the
right reverend James Montague, Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells." — " This daie my lord removed
his lodginge, and was desirous to see the great Church in Bathe, where ould master [Thomas]
Bellot [his father's steward, and one of his executors] had bestowed some money of his father's,
committed to his trust ; and a great part likewise of his owne substance. The Church he much
liked, and the liberalities of such benefactors as had brought it to soe good perfection. Addinge,
' that he would himself bestowe some good remembrance to the fynishing thearof.' And (because
oulde Mr. Bellot had spent all uppon charitable uses, and left nothinge for his kinsman,) my lord-,
in the Churche, saide, ' I give to my servant Bellot 201. a yeare, duringe his naturall life.'" Lord
Salisbury had visited Bath, in the hope of deriving benefit from the waters. He expressed a wish
to be interred in the Abbey Church, in case of his death happening at Bath : but after a short
stay in that city, he was removed to Marlborough, wheTe he died, May 24, 1612.
PROGRESS OF THE CHURCH. 41
and otherwise incomplete; and in this state they remained till about the accession of James the First, when Mr. Bellot contributed a further sum of 200/. towards finishing the transept: in 1604, Sir William Paston, of Nor- folk, knt., gave 100/., and smaller contributions were made by divers persons ; yet the work went but slowly forwards till after the promotion of Dr. James Montague to this See, in March 1608. The situation of the Church at that period may be readily appreciated from Harington's account of Bishop King : — " Thus speedily it was pull'd down," says the worthy knight, " but how slow it hath rysen again, I may blush to wryte. Collections have bene made over all England, with which the chauncell is covered with blew slate, and an alms-house built, ex abundantia ; but the whole body of the Church stands bare, ex humilitate. The rest of the money never comming to the townsmen's hands, is laid up (as I suppose) with the money col- lected for Paul's steeple, which I leave to a melius inquirendum. And thus the Church lies still, like the poore traveller mentioned in the 10th of Luke, spoiled and wounded by theeves. The Priest goes by, the Levites go by, but doe nothing : only a good Samaritan, honest Mr. Billet (worthy to be billeted in the New Jerusalem,) hath powr'd some oyle in the wounds, and maintained it in life*." —
Sir John Harington, who was the godson and kinsman of Queen Elizabeth, and whose mansion was at Kelston, near Bath, was particularly solicitous to procure aid to complete the Church ; and there is a tradition extant, that Bishop Montague was led to direct his bounty into that channel, by the knight's ready conception and address ; as thus : — Whilst the Bishop was at Bath, walking in the Grove, on his primary, visitation, he was suddenly caught in a violent shower, which induced him, on the invitation of Sir John, to seek shelter in the Church. The knight took him into the north aile, which being entirely roofless, afforded but little security from the storm ; and Bishop Montague remarked, that they were still in the rain. " How can that be," returned Harington, " seeing that we are within the Church?" " True," quoth the Prelate, " but your Church is unroofed, Sir John." " The more is the pity!" rejoined his shrewd companion ; " and the more doth it call for the munificence of your lordship f." Struck with the
* " Nugse Antiquse," vol. ii. p. 142.
t In the Preface to the " Nugse Antiquse," this is somewhat differently stated. On the Bishop remarking, that his situation did not shelter him from the rain, the Knight is made to reply — " Doth it not, my Lord ? Then let me sue your bounty towards covering our poor Church ;
G
42 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
justness of the remark, the Bishop is said to have directed his attention to the fabric from that moment, and under his generous auspices the building was eventually finished.
Whatever degree of credit may be thought due to this traditionary report,
for if it keep not us safe from the waters above, how shall it ever save others from the fire beneath?" Ibid. p. xvii.
The assistance of Mr. Sutton, (the benevolent founder of the present establishment at the Charter House, in London,) towards the completion of the Abbey Church, was strenuously solicited by Sir J. Harington, as will appear by the following passages from different letters to him. In a letter, dated " Greenwich, 13th June, 1608," Sir John says : —
" Onlie my old friend, you may not forgett to be a benefactor to Bath Church in your life- time ; for Alms in one's life is like a light borne before one, whereas Alms after death is like a candle carried behind one. Do somewhat for this Church : you promis't to have seen it ere this. Whensoever you will go to Bathe, my lodgings shall be at your commandmente. The Baths would strengthen your sinews ; the Alms would comfort your soule. The Tower, the Quyre, and two Isles, are already finisht by Mr. Billett, Executor to the worthie Lord Treasurer Burleigh. The Walls are up, ready for covering; the Leade is promised by our bountifull Bishop Dr. Montague; the Timber is promised by the Earl of Shrewsburie, the Earle of Hartford, the Lord Say, Mr. Robert Hopton, and others. There lacks but monie for Workmanship, which if you would give, you should have many good prayers in the Church now in your lifetime, when they may indeed doe you good, and when the time is to ' make friends of the mammon of iniquity, (as Christ bids us,) that we may be received into everlasting tabernacles ;' to which God send us, to whose protection I leave you." Ibid. vol. i. pp. 378, 379.
In another letter, dated Sept. 5th, 1608, he again urges Mr. Sutton to alms-giving; and after stating that he would keep his lodgings, at Bath, whilst there remained any hope of his coming thither, he adds, — " You rich men should open your barnes ; give, lend, distribute to the poore, and lay up threfold in Heaven ; ffayth ys good, hope ys good, but charity ys the cheefer, ' major horum caritas.'" — He next mentions various persons then residing at Bath; and among them, " Saynt Billet, the benefactor of this Church, and founder of the new Hospitall for lame Pilgrims ; and concludes — I can let you have honest roome, and cost mee never a peny." Malcolm's " Londinium Redivivum," vol. i. p. 399.
In a third letter, written on the day of his quitting London, (Dec. 21, 1608,) he once more presses Mr. Sutton to visit Bath, " and when you see the place," he continues, " and fynde (as I wysh) that God geve you helth, then let God work w*. you for the good of the Church and Poore thear, by whose prayr yor. lyfe and helth may bee continewd yet seavn yeer at least, — and so I will end wth. this distich, that my father taught mee above 40 yeer since :
In doing good use no delay,
For tyme ys swift and slydes away."
As Mr. Sutton's name does not appear in the list of benefactors, it is most probable that his increasing infirmities, and many cares respecting his foundation at the Charter House, prevented his purposed visit to Bath : he died on the 12th of December, 1611.
ACCOUNT OF BISHOP MONTAGUE. 43
we have a more certain evidence of Sir John's endeavour to engage the Bishop to complete this edifice, in a brief memorandum under his own hand, namely : — " Havinge longe waitede for our goode Bishope to visite his poore sheepe and rotten folde, I rubbede my braines for suche rustie Latine as might remaine therein, and was bent to meete him at the place of visitation ; and being well encouraged to speak roundelye for his service, to helpe us on in restoringe our Churche to its olde state, or rather to a new state of bewtie ; after all was ended, and his benedictions given, I began with my own " Sis nobiscum, H&mine" and started up in the Church isle with my Poetrye, or rather Historie ; for I sought not to give it the flower, but lookede more for the goode fruit that mighte come of my spare sowinge. Herein I faylede not, and though some mighte thinke me too bolde, it was to make others somewhate bountifull : the Bishope seemed not ill pleasede, and answerede me in suche sorte as made me think verie well of him, and perchance not too ill of myselfe*." The Bishop's reply was — " Cupivi diu, has ruinas, et haec rudera, videre et contemplari ; has vero ruinas et hsec rudera, videre et contemplari, jam dolet : Ingrediar tamen, sed hoc animo, ut nunquam, hoc more, sim reingressurus, prius quam isthasc melius tecta viderof-"
* Vide Warner's " History of Bath," p. 159. Note. The Knight's Poem was first published in 1679, by Guidott, in his Appendix to Dr. Jorden's " Discourse of Natural Baths;" and again, in his " Discourse of Bath," with a translation, but of little merit. The Poem is intituled—" Con- ditioner varies Ecclesia Sancti Petri et Pauli Bathoniensis, d primis Fundamentis jactis, anno 775, ad annum decurrentem 1609, Historico-Poetica E?nyiw(;; deque fcelicissima ejusdem Fcclesiee restaura- tione, Vaticinium."
f Although Sir J. Harington may claim the merit of having called forth the liberality of Bishop Montague, much must be attributed to the natural generosity of disposition which cha- racterised that Prelate; for he not only bestowed a thousand pounds towards the completion of the Abbey Church, but also expended considerable sums in repairing and decorating the episcopal palaces of Wells and Banwell, and the cathedral of Wells. He was descended from the family of the Montagues, or Montacutes, Earls of Salisbury. Being educated at Cambridge, he became Master of Sydney College. He was afterwards made Dean of Worcester, and next promoted to this See, whence, in 1616, he was translated to Winchester : he died in the latter city, about two years afterwards, but was interred at Bath. Bishop Montague is known in the literary world as the translator of the works of James the First into Latin. A copy of this edition, (published in 1616,) splendidly bound in velvet and gold, with the royal arms embossed on the cover, was given to the University of Cambridge by the King himself, and is still preserved in the Public Library. The Bishops of this See, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First, derived vast sums from their lead-mines, near Mendip. Of this abundant crop, Bishop Still is said to have had the harvest ; Bishop Montague, the gleanings ; and Lake, who filled the See after him, the stubble ; " and yet," says Fuller, " considerable was the profit to him and his successors." Vide " Worthies," in Somersetshire. Dyer,
44 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
Bishop Montague commenced the new work by a donation of 1000/., and his generous example occasioned many other persons to subscribe liberally towards the furtherance of the design, so that the fabric of the Church was entirely completed about the period at which this munificent prelate was translated to Winchester; which was on the 4th of October, 1616. His brother, Sir Henry Montague, knt., Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, was at the charge of embellishing the great west doors ; and the Vestry was built by Sir Nicholas Salterns, knt., of London*: the latter building, though attached to the wall of the Abbey Church, is actually in the parish of St. James. The expenses of the paving, glazing, fittings up, &c, were defrayed by different individuals, many of whom had been induced to display their bounty thus by the Rev. John Pelling, rector of Bath ; and the Corpora- tion, from a grateful regard for his services, erected, in the year 1621, a monument to his memory, in the north aile.
It will not be necessary to notice the various minor repairs and altera- tions which have been since made ; but a considerable improvement has been recently effected in the outward appearance of this Church, as well as a per- manent advantage obtained, by the pulling clown of some buildings which had long obstructed the complete view of its architectural features towards the north t; and which had probably been erected against it when a mere shell,
Dyer, in his notices of this prelate, published in his " History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge," 1814, 8vo. vol. i. p. 105; and vol. ii. p. 427; has committed more than one mistake. He calls him Henry Montague, and states that he " was first Bishop of Bath and Wells, then of Winchester, translated at length to Worcester, and lies buried in the cathedral church." — The passages marked in italics are obviously erroneous.
* The names of the principal benefactors, with various minute particulars concerning the progress of the work, will be seen in the Appendix, No. V.
t The adoption of this measure has been occasioned by various circumstances, among which may be included the inquiries and comments of antiquaries and literary men. The exhortations of the Rev. Francis Skurray, in a Sermon preached in the Abbey Church, in 1816, and since published, must also have had some influence on the corporate members.
" I scruple not to call your attention," says Mr. Skurray, " to another local, and what many will deem an unsuitable, subject of consideration, not as to what regards police, but embel- lishment. If the prediction, ' the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain,' (Isaiah xi. 4.) was to be among ' the signs of the times,' in its literal acceptation, where should we find its more complete development than in this elegantly constructed city ?
" But there is one alteration, one improvement still wanting, which, in its connexion with religion, is not unworthy of recommendation from a place that is occupied by the ambassador of God.
" We are at this moment assembled within a Temple whose vaulted roof has for centuries
RECENT IMPROVEMENTS. 45
or ruin, in the possession of Colles, or of Colthurst. Those houses the Corporation of Bath determined, not long since, to remove ; and it is un- derstood that Earl Manvers, the proprietor of some buildings attached to the south wall of the Church, has consented to have those removed also. As the first fruits of this determination of the corporate body, a large house, which stood in the angle formed by the choir of the Church, and the north limb, or transept, was taken down in March 1823; thus opening to the Grove a pleasing view of a part of the fabric which had been long concealed. This has been followed by the removal of two houses which joined the north wall of the Church towards the west end. It might have been expected that more of Oliver King's architectural fancies would have been here brought to light, as the houses covered parts of the building close to the richly adorned west end ; but this has not been the case, the walls being found perfectly plain. The arched, or flying buttresses, in this part of the Church, as conjectured by some persons, have been cut away for the sake of the materials, the upper parts of the masonry being yet visible ; but it is far
reverberated wit'i ' Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.' (Rev. xix. 6.) We are assembled within walls which inclose the ashes of piety and heroism from remote ages of antiquity. But how does it offend the eye of taste when we consider its beautiful exterior screened from public view by crowded and incongruous deformities!
" If it be true, as a certain poet sings, that the mind receives from external circumstances ' a secret, sympathetic aid ;' then a view of this disencumbered Temple, rising from the consecrated ground in finished proportions, would have a beneficial operation on the mind of man. It would arrest the eye of the invalid, as he paused in his passage to yon salubrious springs ; it would soften his heart to devotional sensibility ; it would raise it in secret breathings to the Great Physician of Souls to bless their waters as instruments of his recovery. Nay, an indifferent person could not pass by without sentiments of awe, without a desire of becoming ' wise unto salvation,' (2 Tim. iii. 15,) without an aspiration, an effort to qualify himself, in order to dwell one day in a building of God, ' a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' (2 Cor. v. 1.)
•' But if you deny the doctrine of the association of ideas, and of mental impression through the medium of the senses, then effect the removal of unsightly incumbrances, through a feeling of propriety and decorum. If expense be cheerfully incurred in beautifying places of dissenting worship, ' shall parsimony be suffered to obscure the polished corners of the temple?' (Psalm cxliv. 12.) Shall improvements appear in every street and in every receptacle of fashion, and the house of God be the solitary exception ? Oh ! furnish in these days of lukewarmness a practical illustration to your fellow-citizens, that you love ' the habitation of God's house, and the place where his honour dwelleth.' (Psalm xxvi. 8.) Oh ! disregard not the voice of him who crietfa, ' Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight a highway for our God.' (Isaiah, xl. 3.)" Vide " Sermons," &c, by the Rev. F. Skurray, M.A., p. 186. 1817.
46> BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
more probable that they were never, finished. Considering the lightness of the vaulting of the nave in comparison with that of the choir, we may conclude that the former work did not require the aid of flying buttresses, although the original architect had prepared for their construction, in case a stone vaulting and heavy roof had been adopted. Much credit is due to the present Corporation for the alterations they have made, and are now making, to improve the exterior appearance of this edifice.
The whole of the monastic buildings which were attached to this Church have been destroyed ; but their site is yet pointed out by the Kingston, or Abbey Baths, which derive their waters from the same spring that supplied the Thermce constructed on this very spot by the Romans. For our know- ledge of this circumstance we are indebted to . the discoveries made in the year 1755, when the old Priory, or Abbey-house, was pulled down to make way for new erections. On that occasion, " in digging out the ancient foundation of the priory, about eight feet below the surface of the earth, the workmen found several rough-hewn stone coffins, with the seemingly entire, but mouldering remains of human bodies, of different ages and sexes, and several pieces of coin of successive Saxon kings*;" and, " three or four feet below the burying-place of the Saxons, were discovered some cavities which led to the remains of several very noble Roman baths and suda- tories, constructed on elegant plans, with floors suspended [sustained ?] upon square brick pillars, and surrounded with tubulated bricks f." From the more particular and discriminating account of these Roman remains, given by Dr. Lucas J, and afterwards amplified by Dr. Sutherland ||, who has illustrated his description by a ground-plan, it seems that the baths formed a part of a magnificent building, consisting of a centre and two wings, disposed into numerous apartments, and covering an area of 260 feet from east to west, and 120 feet from north to south. But although it is stated, both by Whitaker § and Warner ^[, that a western wing has been discovered, " exactly tallying" with the eastern one described by the above writers, (and of course establishing the conjectures of Sutherland,) yet it appears that this affirmed exploration of another wing rests on questionable autho-
* " Original Bath Guide," p. 5. t Ibid.
% " Essay on Mineral Waters," p. 3.
11 " Attempts to revive Ancient Medical Doctrines," p. 1.
§ " Anti-Jacobin Review," vol. x. p. 127. 1T " New Guide through Bath," p. 29.
ARMS IN THE MONK'S PARLOUR. 47
rity. Whitaker has strongly argued, that these remains were part of the Prcttorium, or Palatial residence of the Roman Commandant of this city ; and that it afterwards became the palace of the Saxon kings, under whom a portion of the building " had been converted into a chapel and a burying- place."
Collinson says, at the period the Abbey-house was rendered again habi- table, some time after the Dissolution, that parts of it, such as " obso- lete offices and obscure rooms and lofts, " were left in their former state, and never occupied after their desertion by the monks. On " pulling down some of these buildings," he continues, in the beginning of the last century, " one of the apartments, which had been walled up, disclosed a very curious and interesting sight. Round the walls upon pegs were hung, as in a vestry-room — which the place undoubtedly was — the copes, albs, chesibles, and other garments of the religious ; which, on the admission of the air, became so rotten as to crumble into powder. There was also found the handle of a crosier; and on the floor lay two large chests, without any contents, as it was alleged by the workmen ; one of whom, however, grew rich upon the occasion, and retired from business*." He also mentions the following arms, as being in the window of a parlour in the monks' lodgings, viz. : "1. Argent, an Eagle rising, Or: Prior Cantlow. 2. A Chevron between three Eagles displayed, on a Chief a Rose inter two Lozenges, over all a Mitre and Crozier: Prior Birde. 3. Party per Pale, indented, Gules and Or ; a Chevron of the last : Impaling Sable, two Bars Argent, in Chief three Plates : Hungerford ."f
* " History of Somersetshire," vol. i. p. 58.
t It appears from the " Hungerfordiana" of Sir Richard C. Hoare, that after the marriage of Walter de Hungerford with Maud de Heytesbury, the Hungerfords assumed the arms of her family, viz. Per Pale, indented, Gules and Vert; a Chevron Or. There seems, therefore, to be an error in the blazonment of the above arms as given by Collinson. After the marriage of another Walter de Hungerford, in the time of Edward the Third, with Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Adam Fitz-John, of Cherill, in Wiltshire, some of the Hungerfords took the arms of Fitz-John; namely, Sable, two Bars Argent, in Chief three Plates, as described in the text; but many of the family continued to bear those of Heytesbury.
CHAPTER IV.
FEATURES OF THE CITY OF BATH ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH;
WITH REFERENCES TO THE ACCOMPANYING PRINTS.
It is difficult to render descriptive language on Architectural subjects either amusing or interesting. Unaided by engravings, it generally fails to be specific or intelligible ; but when accompanied by correct pictorial delinea- tions, a writer must be dull indeed who fails to make his own opinions intelligible to his reader. On such occasions as the present, description is employed to assist and explain the graphic illustrations ; and, united with them, to elucidate and exemplify the forms, styles, and characteristics of the building. It is well known to the antiquary, that every edifice is composed of walls, timbers, and various architectural members; and it is a curious fact that no two ancient buildings are precisely alike. To define these dissimilarities, and at the same time clearly to portray the aggregate character and individual parts of each, is both the object and end of the artist and author. In the large cathedrals, and in the baronial castles of our ancestors, wherein many styles of architecture have been successively introduced, it requires considerable care and skill to describe and illustrate the whole, and properly discriminate the numerous gradations ; but in respect to Bath Abbey Church there will not be much difficulty : for the varied members of that edifice are not only of comparatively modern date, but their positive forms and details indicate the age when they were respect- ively designed.
The natural character of the country, as well as the peculiar features of the City in which this Church is seated, cannot fail to attract the notice and secure the admiration of every discerning stranger. They also demand the attention of the historian, in consequence of their immediate combination with the appearance of the Abbey Church from different points.
The greater part of Bath is situated in a deep, narrow valley, on the banks of the river Avon, which meanders in a contracted channel, from east to west, through the city. The features of the country are bold, abrupt, and
DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH. 49
highly picturesque. Precipices, steep hills, hanging woods, jutting rocks, narrow, irriguous valleys, wild downs, and fair lawns, constitute the natural scenery; whilst the buildings that have been successively raised to suit the conveniences and fancies of the inhabitants, are almost as diversified as Nature's capricious countenance. With streets ascending steep hills, or placed along the edges of precipices, and others disposed many yards beneath the basements of houses that overhang them ; a Circus, and Crescents with handsome buildings of uniform and enriched architecture, private mansions, elegant shops, detached villas, &c, Bath may be regarded as a City of unique character and of great attractions. Its houses are constructed of fine, smoothed freestone, and most of them are enriched with architectural ornaments. The streets are generally well paved and lighted, and, by the judicious regulations of the Corporation, are mostly kept clean. Fortu- nately here are scarcely any manufactures, and nothing of commerce : the whole trade of the place seems adapted to augment the comforts and the luxuries of life. Fashion has long chosen it as her head-quarters, and both nature and art have contributed to administer to her wants and caprices. In the midst of this famed emporium of gaiety and elegance rises the Abbey Church ; which, though a small building when compared to the Cathe- drals of York, Lincoln, Wells, and others, appears here prominent, bold, and commanding. Its tower, turrets, and clere-story windows, are seen high above the adjoining houses, and they collectively constitute a pro- minent feature in every approach to the city. We find, however, on a closer view, that the Church itself is nearly enveloped with houses, and the greater part of it shut out from inspection. Till within a few years, the whole of the north and south sides were immured by shops and small houses ; its walls were cut into for closets, and its windows obscured by the roofs and chimneys of those buildings. The contiguous ground, being the property of the Corporation, and of private individuals, was let out to the best bidder, and considered as a marketable commodity : the lessee, of course, no farther regarded the sacred walls than as conducive to his own domestic wants and trading advantages, without the least reference either to the beauty of the building or to its character or stability. Various encroachments were in consequence made on the fabric, and many damages sustained ; but since the commencement of the present reign, a new and more enlightened policy has been exercised : the Corporation have thought
H
50 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
it prudent to forego a considerable annual income from those shops, and thereby give up private emolument to public appearance and to the public wish. Some houses, that were attached to the Church, have recently been removed, and the whole are intended to be progressively taken down. The Church will then be a clear, insulated edifice; the Grove and the Abbey Churchyard will be open to, and communicate with each other ; and, whilst the Church will be amply and finely displayed to public scrutiny and admiration, the surrounding houses will increase in pleasantness, respect- ability, and value*. At the early part of the last century the Church was a common thoroughfare, or path of communication between the Grove on the east, and the Churchyard on the west. General Wade, who pos- sessed some property and influence here, was shocked at this unhallowed and disgusting practice, and opened a thoroughfare, since called Wade's Passage, on the north side of the Church.
The general Plan of the Abbey Church, like that of our Cathedrals, is a cross, with an embattled tower rising from the intersection of the nave and transept. It has arisen from this similarity, and from the character of the architecture, combined with the ancient connexion of the Abbey with the See of Bath and Wells, that this Church has been so frequently, though improperly, called a Cathedral. It never, however, had the least title to that denomination ; for, although indebted for its origin . to Bishop King, and for its completion to Bishop Montague, the charge of its erection was altogether independent of the public revenues of the See of Wells ; and even in Bishop King's time — who contributed so largely from his own purse— as well as afterwards, a great portion of the expenditure was derived from the income of the Monks of Bath. Besides, there never was any Cathedral establishment here ; and whatever jurisdiction the bishop possessed over the abbot and convent, that supremacy was entirely abrogated at the period of the Reformation, when the convent itself was dissolved, and the whole of the abbatial estates and possessions became the property of lay proprietors* Still less could it be termed a Cathedral, with any reference to its actual
* Among the laudable and rational improvements of the present age in town architecture, is the formation of squares, wide streets, and spacious openings. The conveniences, and even luxuries of life, are thereby promoted and secured ; and even the landholder is ultimately benefited. Bath has partaken of these reformations in an eminent degree, and its Corporation and Citizens will manifest a profitable and liberal policy to continue the improvements of their city.
DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH BY FULLER, AND OTHERS. 51
state, after it was granted to the Corporation of Bath, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and made Parochial*.
Fuller, whose originality of thought and singular association of ideas still interests through all his quaintness, speaking of the churches of Bath and Wells, introduces his remarks thus : " Twins are said to make but one man, as these two churches constitute one Bishop's See. Yet as a twin oft-times proves as proper a person as those of single births; so these severally equal most, and exceed many, cathedrals in England-]"." Of Bath Church, singly, he observes : " This church is both spacious and specious, the most lightsome as ever I beheld, proceeding from the greatness of the Windows and whiteness of the Glass therein J." Similar praise is bestowed by Chapman; who says — " This Church justly challenging to itself the Pre-eminence for Lightsomeness, Stateliness, and Elegance of Structure, of all the Parochial Churches in the Kingdom ||." It was, unquestionably, the peculiar lightness of the interior that occasioned this fabric to be denominated the Lantern of England ; and not, as Wood has darkly stated, tl from the elegance of the disguised Orders in the building^."
In the ground plan of this Church there is a considerable variation from most of our ancient ecclesiastical structures, the ailes being wide in proportion to the width of the nave, and the transept unusually narrow. In conse- quence of this, the base of the tower forms an oblong square, the dimen- sions of which, from north to south, are upwards of one-fourth more than from east to west. The choir, also, in comparison with the nave, is unusually
* The entire abrogation of every tie between Bath Abbey and the See of Bath and Wells, was made a few years after the Reformation, by an Act of Parliament passed in the 35th year of Henry VIII. After reciting various particulars relating to the former state of the See, &c, by which it appeared that the Chapter of the Bishopric was jointly composed of the Dean and Chapter of Wells and the Prior and Convent of Bath, and that the common Seal of the latter, as well as that of the Dean and Chapter of Wells, was necessary to give validity to every deed granted by the Bishop in respect to the Episcopal estates — it provides that all grants, leases, &c, which had been made under the Seals of the Bishop and the Dean and Chapter of Wells since the Dissolu- tion, should be good and available in law, notwithstanding the doubts which had been enter- tained; and that in future, the Dean and Chapter of Wells should be for ever reported and adjudged to be, " the full, entire, and sole Chapter of the Bishopric of Bath and Wells." Vide Dugdale's " Monasticon," vol. ii. p. 294: edit. 1819.
f " Worthies of England," vol. ii. p. 277. J Ibid. p. 278.
|| " Thermae Redivivae," vide Guidott's " Treatises," p. 415. 1725.
§ " Description of Bath," vol. ii. p. 310.
52 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
long ; and it is remarkable that the choir ailes are carried further eastward than the choir itself. Notwithstanding these deviations from the general arrangement of our conventual and cathedral edifices, its design is evidently contrived with great scientific and geometrical skill ; the walls and supporting piers occupying but a very small part of the entire site, when compared with the extent of the space covered, as will be seen by the following calcula- tions : — The whole building stands on 20,032 square feet, of which the points of support include about 4,500 square feet; consequently, the pro- portion of the latter to the former is 0.224.
The rise of ground has been so considerable round the walls that much of the basement is buried ; from which circumstance, the true proportions of the Church cannot be justly appreciated. The entrance from the west is by a descent of three steps to the pavement ; beneath which, at the depth of about six or seven feet, parts of an older floor, with base mouldings, &c, are discovered. On the outside, the present level of the ground is nearly nine feet above the plinth of the walls.
In the description of this Church given by Wood, he compares its plan and measurements to those of the most ancient structures of the Jews ; and affirms that " the whole edifice is really and truly an Egyptian hall of the Dorick order, sustaining the Corinthian, turned into the figure of a Cross, under Gothick dress. These ideas have been expanded, and a more par- ticular account of the building entered into, in a Manuscript description, of which the following is a copy, but the writer of which has not been traced ; although it is probable that Wood himself was the person — his opinions and measurements, and in some instances his very words, being adopted from the printed statement*.
" The proportions of the Abbey Church of Bath shew very plainly that the founder of it was well acquainted with both the profane and sacred architecture of the ancients. The Church is truly an Egyptian hall, and from the intercolumniation and heights of the pillars, we may conclude it to be of the Doric order, sustaining the Ionic ; but this hall is turned, as an emblem of religion, into the shape of a cross, under a Gothic dress, and bears all the proportion of Noah's Ark, of Solomon's Temple, and of the Tabernacle : for instance, the nave within, being 211 feet long, by 35 feet broad to the centres of the pillars, and the arms of the cross, that extends from north
* Vide " Description of Bath," vol. i'. pp. 309, 310.
DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH. 53
to south, being 120 feet long by 20 feet broad, both form an area of six squares in length, which is the proportion of Noah's Ark. Again : the whole Church, from east to west, is formed upon a triple square nearly, being 225 feet long and about 80 feet broad ; but if we take the foot of the cross, we shall find it to be exactly a triple square, which was the proportion of Solo- mon's Temple. If we take the head of the cross, we shall find it to be formed on an area of two squares and an half, the proportion Moses gave to the Tabernacle ; and the proportion of the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Jewish temple is preserved in each arm of the cross. The standard of the cross is composed of a nave and two isles, the exact form of an Egyptian hall ; the pillars that separate the nave from the isles being 4 feet diameter, and 16 feet asunder, preserve the intercolumniation the Greeks called Areostyle ; and the whole height of the Church being nearly 80 feet, pre- serves the rule the ancients always observed of elevating two orders of equal altitude upon each other. The sides of that part of the Egyptian hall which form the foot of the cross are hexastyle, and the sides of that part which form the head of the cross, tetrastyle. In the Church are fifty-two windows, thus placed : one large one in each centre of the east and west fronts, and one large one in each end of the arms of the cross, on each of which the other windows were disposed in equal numbers ; eight win- dows in two ranges fronting the east, the like number fronting the west ; sixteen windows in two ranges fronting the north, and the like number fronting the south ; so that each end of the Church contains five windows in a row, including that which makes the central aperture, and each side contains nine of the like openings. Seven doors were originally made for entrance into the Church, and if we examine the pillars in the Church, we shall find four great ones supporting the tower, and six smaller ones on each side the Egyptian hall : thus, while the four large pillars pointed out the four great divisions in the year, the twelve smaller ones were emble- matical of the twelve months ; and as the doors shew the days of the week, so the windows mark out the weeks in the year. The centre of the west front, on which is represented the good Bishop's Dream*, is composed of
* " The building of this Church," says Wood, " in the manner we now see it, would cost in these days full 30,000Z., and therefore, how light soever some people may make of dreams, it is nevertheless certain that Saint Peter's Church at Bath has testified, for near 250 years back, and is like to do the same for many centuries to come, that something very material hath come from a dream." " Description of Bath," vol, ii. p. 311.
54 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
a large window between two octagon towers ; under the window is the door, or principal entrance into the Church ; on each side the door is a niche, one holding the figure of St. Peter, the other that of St. Paul : over the door is a niche in which formerly was the figure of our Saviour : near the top of the window, on one of the munions, is the figure of a Dove ; and at the top of the Church, in a grand niche, was a figure, made to represent God the Father : the spandrels, or spaces above the window, are filled up with small figures representing the Cherubim and Seraphim : on the front of each of the octagon towers is the representation of a ladder, with Angels ascend- ing and descending, and at the foot, a Man asleep under an Olive tree ; and on the collateral sides of the towers are niches which hold statues of the Twelve Apostles : the wings of the front are no more than the ends of the isles ; but the whole front, exclusive of the ornaments, which greatly enrich it, is agreeable and pleasing, being formed upon the proportion of an equilateral triangle. Though the west front is so deservedly admired, I cannot help here observing what has generally passed unnoticed ; and that is, the window of the east front, which is about 20 feet wide and 50 feet high, the top of it is not arched, as in other windows, but quite strait, and shews the great skill and knowledge the builders in those days had in mechanics, to what our modern builders can boast of. The head of the cross, with the isles on each side of it, were originally intended to be arched likewise ; but the death of Prince Arthur made the Bishop in such a hurry to compleat the Church, that he only put a timber roof on those parts. The buttresses of the Church are well worth observation ; they consist of a strait line, and the curve of a parabola, both springing from the same base, which is the outward wall of the isles : the curve of the parabola abuts against the springing of the arch of the roof, and thereby prevents the roof from spread- ing ; the strait line, which is the tangent to the parabola, lies against the top of the wall of the Church, which is level with the crown of the arch, and thereby keeps the whole building steady, and the centre of gravity in its proper place — a remarkable instance of the judgment of the builders. This was the state in which the Church was left by Bishop King, and before it was demolished by the King's commissioners."
The principal Architectural Characteristics of the Abbey Church are exhibited by the accompanying Prints. Aided by these, it is hoped that the following description will be fully understood : and it will be unne- cessary to employ the language either of praise or censure, in noticing the
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GROUND PLAN OF THE CHURCH. 55
various divisions of this edifice. On subjects of taste and of scientific art, it is but seldom that the conclusions of a writer have any influence on the judgment of professional and critical readers, who generally decide from their own experience and preconceived opinions.
Plate I. — Ground Plan of the Church. This defines the horizontal form, arrangement, and proportions of the building. By this it will be seen to consist of a nave, d, with two corresponding ailes, e, f ; three entrances at the west end, a, b, c ; four clustered columns on each side of the nave, with large windows, of five lights each, occupying the whole space between the piers in the ailes. A narrow transept, h i, with three windows in the lower part of each, intersects the Church from north to south, and separates the nave from the choir, k. The latter, with two corresponding ailes, l, m, east of the transept, constitute the remainder of the Church. It is shewn that each of these ailes has three windows, corresponding with those of the nave, and that the ailes are divided from the choir by two clustered columns, and three arches on each side. At the east end of the ailes are two doorways, i, j, and two circular staircases, g, h. At f, is a chantry chapel, raised to the memory of Prior Bircle. At m, is a small extraneous building, used as the Vestry, which is situated in the parish of St. James. Adjoining its door, 1, is an old mural tomb to John Bellingham, 1577. Near the west end of the south aile, at a, the window has been closed up, a private house abutting against the wall. At b, c, are staircases, through the western turrets, to the roofs of the ailes and nave. At d, is Bishop Montagues monument ; e, a large monumental sarcophagus to Thomas and Margaret Litchfield, the former of whom was Lutanist to Queen Elizabeth : behind this monument is an old doorway, closed up; k, a large altar-tomb, with canopy, pillars, and statues, commemorative of Lady Waller, wife of Sir William Waller. At p, is an ancient doorway, now closed up, called the Prior's entrance.
It will be seen from the Plan that the groined vaulting of the eastern part of the Church is extremely different from the coved ceiling of the nave ; and that the ornamental tracery of the latter is very plain and inarti- ficial when compared with the elaborate ramifications of the choir and its ailes. There is, as might indeed be expected, when the different periods are considered at which the various parts of the roof were executed, a very considerable diversity in the design and construction of the vaultings. The parts eastward from the transept were, most probably, completed agreeably
56 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
to Bishop King's original plan ; and they are very elegant. In the transept, the groining is more simple, though executed on the same principle of the high-pointed arch. On the contrary, the arch that forms the coved ceiling of the nave is elliptical, and comparatively very flat ; its span being " thirty feet nine inches," and " its rise" only " three feet*." Though less orna- mental, however, than the choir, it is contrived with great ingenuity and skill; and, as stated by Carter, " maybe justly deemed a master-piece of masonry-)"." Its " construction," he remarks, " is most singular : the several mouldings which compose the tracery being the only solid work, while the spaces between them are cut through, but are now slightly filled with lath and plaster]:." Its low arch springs, on each side, from an horizontal string course, or cornice; the ends of the coving abut against the walls of the west front and central tower. In the middle of each compartment, or severy, of this ceiling, within a radiated quatrefoil, is a sculptured shield of arms, including those of the city of Bath and Bishop Montague ; the latter being twice repeated||. The tracery in the ailes of the nave is of a debased and inelegant style.
Browne Willis states that the Bishop and Cardinal, Adrian de Castello, who was translated from Hereford to the See of Bath and Wells in October 1504, " bestowed much money in vaulting the choir of Bath Church, as may be seen by his arms under the Cardinal's Hat, on the roof on each side of the choir §." The Cardinal's arms were Argent, three Bendlets embattled and counter-embattled Gules : as appears from the title-page to his work, " Hadrianus T T S. Chrisogoni S. R. E. Presb. Card. Batonien. De Ser- mone Latino et de Modis Latine Loquendi," &c, published at Basil in 1518. With this agree the Manuscripts of the late Rev. William Cole, who writes thus : " Over ye great west window twice, and on ye roof of ye Church in various places, are these arms, which I observed, being at Bath in April 1746, viz. : Three Bends counter-embattale, and ensigned with a Car- dinals Hat." He then refers them to Adrian, whom he states to have been
* Vide " Some Account of the Abbey Church of Bath," p. 8, published by the Society of Antiquaries. f Ibid. J Ibid.
|| The arms of the City of Bath are Azure, a Saltire Quarterly quartered, Or and Argent: those of Bishop Montague are Quarterly, 1st and 4th, Argent, within a Bordure Sable, three Fusils in Fess, Gules ; Montague : 2d and 3d, Or, an Eagle, displayed Vert, armed Gules ; Monthermer.
§ Vide " Survey of the Cathedrals of York, Durham," &c. vol. i. p. 520. Cardinal Adrian was deprived of all his ecclesiastical dignities in 1518, for conspiring against Pope Leo X.
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GROININGS — WEST FRONT. 57
a "generous contributor to the edification of the Church*;" most probably, on the authority of Willis, as given above ; for it does not appear from any other writer that the Cardinal ever expended any sums on this fabric : on the contrary, he is said to have resided at Rome, and to have farmed out the revenues of his See. His arms, " but without the Hat, are yet visible in the centre division of the vault of the choir;" and also on two shields, " among the angels," in the centre compartment of the west front, " but now so nearly effaced as not to be distinguishable from below without a telescope," surmounted " by a Cardinal's Hatf." These vestiges may intimate that the vaulting of the choir and the western elevation were completed during Adrian's episcopacy. " A considerable portion of the arched ceiling was beautified at the cost of Hugh Bayley, a famous bone- setter, parvis componere magna J."
Plate II. — Details of Groinings, 8$c. from various parts of the Church. — No. 1. Groining at the north-east end of the choir ; — 2. To the choir ailes ; — 3. To the east side of the north transept; — 4. At the north-east angle, below the tower ; — -5. Tracery of the ceiling of the nave ; — 6. Of the nave ailes ; — 7. Groining at the south-west angle of Prior Birde's Chapel; — 8. Shield of Birde's arms, with crosier and tracery behind the same.
Plate III. — The West Front. — The western facades of the Cathedrals, and of many monastic churches, were the most decorated and impressive exterior features of those sacred edifices. Intended and calculated to make powerful impressions on the minds of religious devotees, they were adorned with niches, pinnacles, sculptures, and numerous devices. The western front was the chief entrance : — to this the priests and laity were first introduced before entering the holy building, and here the first effect was produced on the Catholic worshippers. On contemplating these gorgeous pieces of archi- tectural imagery, the credulous and zealous would naturally be led to wonder, to admire, and to adore. The west end of the Church, now under notice, displays a design in which architecture and sculpture are combined,
* Cole's " MS. Collections," in the British Museum, vol. xiii. p. 42. a.
f Vide " Some Account of the Abbey Church," p. 7.
% " Practical Treatise on the Bath Waters," &c. by J. H. Spry, Surgeon, &c. 8vo. 1822. After so many essays and treatises have appeared on the Bath waters, we are surprised to see a new volume on the same subject : but genius and science, as in the present instance, can give interest and point to a " thrice told tale." • • •
I
58 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
and in which Scriptural histories and emblems are employed to excite interest and awaken religious feelings. This facade may be described as consisting of a centre and two wings ; the latter being constituted by the western extremities of the ailes. The sculpture which is spread over this front, has already been mentioned in Sir John Harington's account of the Vision of Bishop King (p. 33); and also in the general description (p. 55): but it is requisite to add a few particulars to complete the elucidation.
The staircase turrets which bound the central part of this front, have square basements, but are carried up octagonally from the height of the cornice of the ailes : they are terminated by two ranges of pannelling, and ' a battlement. Between them is the main entrance, the great west window, and the sculptural representation of the Heavenly Choir, surmounted by an open-work parapet, embattled. The architrave surrounding the entrance consists of numerous mouldings, from which a sub-architrave diverges, and forms a square head over the arch; the spandrels are filled with labels, inclosing wounded hearts, crowns of thorns, pierced feet and hands, &c, emblems of our Saviour's crucifixion : the northern spandrel is delineated in Plate VI. a. The folding-doors constitute a curious example of the decorative carving of James the First's time : the upper part displays an heraldic mantle, surmounted by a knight's helmet and a griffin's head, the crest of the Montagues. On the mantle are two shields of arms ; viz. within a garter the See of Bath and Wells impaling Montague, and Montague only : beneath it is another shield, and on a flowing label round it is inscribed Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum, etc. At the sides of the doorway are canopied niches, containing large statues, now greatly defaced, of St. Peter and St. Paul, the apostolic patrons of this edifice. The inscriptions which were formerly on the pedestals, are nearly obliterated ; but Cole, who visited this Church in the year 1746, has preserved them in his MSS. in the British Museum : —
" Under ye image of St. Peter, with his keys in his hand, on ye north side, is this :
Claviger JEthereus f actus de Simone Petrus.
" Under the other of St. Paul, holding a sword, is this line : Ecce Furor Saulif actus est Conversio Pauli." Beneath the pedestals are the portcullis and the union rose, crowned, the badges of Henry the Seventh. The figure of St. Paul, &c. is shewn in Plate VI. b.
LARGE WINDOW AND WESTERN FRONT. 59
In the centre of an enriched parapet over the great western door, is a small niche, now unoccupied, but presumed to have contained originally a figure of Henry VII., whose arms (crowned) and supporters are sculp- tured at the bottom. Some traces of a defaced inscription are visible on a label to the right and left of this niche.
The large window is finely proportioned ; and although its tracery is not particularly elaborate, it is regarded as curious from a supposed connexion of the design with the idea of the Trinity*. Perpendicularly, it consists of three principal divisions, independently of the tracery within the great arch, on the centre of which are the remains of a sculptured figure of a bird, pro- bably intended to represent the Holy Dove.
The whole of the space between the architrave of this window and the parapet, (which is pedimental and embattled,) is filled with sculpture, in bold relief, representing the Angelic Choir, in attitudes of adoration, glorify- ing the Trinity ; which was typified by a statue of God the Father, seated within a canopied niche in the centre, and most probably sustaining the image of the Saviour, — as delineated in Catholic missals, and still frequently to be seen in ecclesiastical sculptures. The statue remains, but the hands have been broken off, and other parts damaged : the head, which is that of a venerable bearded figure, still exhibits traces of a fine character. The feet rest on a bracket; below which are two shields, charged with the arms of the See, surmounted by a dragon and a greyhound, (the supporters of Henry the Seventh f,) sustaining a rose, crowned. The ascending and descending Angels, which are sculptured on the rounds of the ladders in front of the staircase turrets, are much mutilated ; as are also the figures, apparently of shepherds, standing on the undulating ground which supports the ladders : over the shepherds are inscribed labels, now unintelligible J. The character
* In the account published by the Society of Antiquaries, the window is thus described : - — " The west window is of extreme richness : it consists of two sub-arches, and a large division between them, each sub-arch having three divisions, which are likewise seen in the heads of the sub-arches; the spandrels between the heads and the large division in the centre have each three divisions : the heights, from the bottom of the window to Jbe springing of the arch, have also three divisions : in the heads of the sub-arch are three divisions, and the large division in the centre has also three divisions." — p. 7.
f This monarch was anxious to be regarded as a descendant of Cadwallader, the last king of the Britons, whose ensign was the red dragon. The greyhound was an ancient supporter of the arms of the house of Beaufort, from which Henry traced his maternal descent.
X It was probably on these labels that the words, Be sursum est, mentioned by Sir John Harington, were inscribed.
60 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
and appearance of these sculptures will be seen on referring to Plate VI. c. At the top of each ladder is a defaced demi-figure, that on the northern side probably intended to typify Heaven, and that on the south Hell: at least the latter displays two eyes, with an open mouth and large teeth, resembling some of the representations, in old designs, of the mouth of the infernal regions : see Plate VI. d. On the cants of the turrets, on each side the ladders, are statues of the Twelve Apostles' in three tiers, standing on pedestals, with small arched canopies over them : these figures, though greatly mutilated, have an appearance of good sculpture.
On each buttress, near the extremities of the ailes, is a piece of sculp- ture, (see Plate VI. e,) allusive to the name and vision of Bishop King, viz. the Olive springing through a regal crown, and surmounted by a mitre. Beneath are two mutilated animals : below which is an expanded roll. On this are traces of the text, from the parable of the trees choosing a king, as inserted in page 39.
The doorways to the ailes are in unison with the centre entrance, and the enrichments are similar, though less elaborate. Over each is a low- pointed arched window, divided, horizontally, into four principal lights, by mullions branching into handsome tracery. Both the centre mullions are ornamented by a human figure standing on a pedestal under an enriched canopy, (vide Plate VI. / and g) : that on the northern side is in flowing- drapery, and appears to hold an open deed with seals appendant : that on the south, which was probably meant for a king, seems to be holding a pouch, or money-bag. On each pedestal, is a shield of arms. Above the northern window is the inscription, IBfJllTUS VHSU J and over the other, IBontUS OrOtttSS (an abbreviation for Orationis), in black letter. At the sides are vacant brackets. A cornice, with an embattled and pierced parapet, (both raking pedimentally,) terminate the summit of each aile.
Plate IV. — View from the South-east. — This displays the chief architec- tural features of the southern side of the Church ; particularly the windows of the aile and clerestory — the flying buttresses of the choir — the vestry — the south and east sides of the tower — the lofty and narrow southern transept, and the aile and clerestory of the nave. This view represents the Church as it would be seen, from a certain point, if the houses were removed from the south side of the nave.
Plate V. — East End. — There are several peculiar features in the design of this front, of which the plain horizontal terminations of the ailes, the square forms of the turrets, which exhibit two ranges of pannelling, of the
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J.BB1TTON
DETAILS — VIEWS OF THE NAVE. 61
character of Henry the Seventh's time, and the straight head of the great win- dow, may be pointed out as the most particular. In its general plan, the latter is similar to the great west window, but it consists of an additional tier of lights ; and the jambs are carried up perpendicularly to the highest point of the win- dow ; the spandrels are pierced into circular openings, glazed with stained glass. Similar trefoil-arched heads ornament the buttresses as those at the west end. In the spandrel to the doorway of the north aile is a shield, charged with a fleur-de-lis, and the initials J. F. for Jeffrey Flower, gent. ; at whose cost the new wall here, with the doorway, and the window over it, were built. An inscription on the buttress of the north-east corner, states, that the two buttresses were repaired at the " cost of Francis Allen, sometime clothier of this cittye, 1616."
Plate VI. - — Details from different parts of the Church. — All the parts referred to from a to g have already been described : h is a small orna- mental recess at the end of the south transept, which Carter, in the " Account" published by the Society of Antiquaries, has called an almonry : it is more likely, however, to have been a piscina, as both its situation and form are perfectly suitable for the latter, — should there have been, as there probably was, a chantry here, with the altar, as usual, to the east : in Carter's print the pannels over the recess are omitted. — i and j are parts of Prior Birde's chapel, which will be described under Plates IX. and X. : k is a demi-angel supporting a shield of Edward the Confessor's arms, which is sculptured at the springing of the groining at the east end of the choir, on the north side. There are four similar sculptures on each side of the groining, within the lower pannels.
Plate VII. — Interior of the Nave, looking east, divested of monuments. — This view shews the forms of the main piers and arches, the clerestory windows, the groining, the great arches of the tower, &c, together with the distant parts of the choir. At its eastern extremity, the nave is crossed by a glazed screen and organ gallery.
Plate VIII. — View across the Nave, looking south-west. — In this de- lineation the artist has endeavoured to portray the effect of the descending sun, when its refulgent rays are streaming through the western windows. The forms of the great piers are distinctly shewn : they stand diagonally, (the mouldings of the arches being continued to the bases,) and at the angles, which are canted off, are small three-quarter columns. The arch- way seen in the distance, formed what is still called the Prior's Entrance, but
62 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
it has long been closed up. The very crowded state of the monuments may- be readily comprehended from this view ; the piers and walls of the whole Church bein°- similarly loaded with sepulchral memorials. Under the second arch in the north aile, as represented in the print, but in reality the fourth from the west end, is the monument of Bishop Montague, which is com- posed of an insulated tomb, (on which lies the good prelate's effigy,) sur- rounded with iron railing, and flanked by Corinthian columns, supporting- entablatures, shields of arms, &c, in the costly style of James the First's time. The forms of the tracery in the ailes of the nave are shewn in this engraving.
Plate IX. — Interior Elevations. — A, is the first compartment from the east on the south side of the choir ; including the screen of the chapel of Prior Birde, which is represented as in a perfect state : B, is the south side of the central tower ; and C, is the compartment of the nave at the west end, with a section of the window. The forms of the plinths, sub- plinths, and bases of the columns ; the manner in which the mouldings rise and form the architraves ; the way in which the astragals or bands, (which constitute so many capitals,) are composed by the small horizontal mouldings at the springing of the arches ; the springing of the groins, and the construction of the roof, — are all exhibited in these elevations.
The monumental Chapel of Prior Birde is situated on the south side of the choir near the altar. The greater part of its northern screen has been very reprehensibly destroyed, to make room for " the clumsy, misshapen wooden seat called the Bishop's throne*." The south side consists, longi- tudinally, of two divisions, rising from a basement ornamented with quatre- foils in pannels, and being separated by octangular buttresses; these, in the upright, are divided into four compartments of small pannelled arches, and their capitals unite with the entablature which surrounds the whole. The work above the entablature has been cut away, to make room for a gallery : its fascia is sculptured with running vine-branches, in bold relief. The divisions between the buttresses are composed of two flattened arches, with three mullions and tracery, and having a plinth of several mouldings, and a dado of enriched radiated quatrefoils, in pannels, with an open flower, or rosette, in the centre of each. In the spandrels is a variety of finely wrought foliage, including birds and, apparently, the figure of a Sagittarius ;
* Warner's " History of Bath," p. 250.
birde's chantry. 63
but the sculpture being much obscured, this cannot be determined with certainty. At the north-west angle are two angular niches, one above the other, having duplex canopies crowned with pinnacles. At the exterior angle of the north-west corner, is a double pannel crowned with an ogee arch-moulding, with crockets, from which springs one of the angular groins. Plate VI. j.
A part of the south side of this Chapel is represented in the Title Page, Plate X., in its present state of dilapidation. There were two sub-arches in each division, together with an enriched transom. The small openings in the head of the principal arch are sharply and elegantly pierced. The figure presumed to be a Sagittarius, appears amidst the foliage in the spandrel which fronts the right hand. The spandrels on the north side do not appear to have been completed : that shewn in Plate VI. i, seems to have included the figure of an angel, and a money-bag, with surrounding labels and foliage.
The chantry chapel thus noticed must have been originally a most in- teresting specimen of architectural design. Both externally and internally the whole was adorned with pannelling, roses, niches, pedestals, and varied sculpture. It consisted of a stone screen, filling up the space between two columnar piers on the south side of the choir, and was formerly provided with an altar at the east end, and a piscina. There were probably two doors of entrance ; one from the choir, the other from the south aile. One of them remains, but the other, as well as nearly the whole of the northern screen, is destroyed. The tracery of the roof consists of four compartments of fan-shaped tracery, diverging from the sides, and spreading over the surface ; at the eastern end, over the altar-place, are five pannels, charged with lozenge-shaped tracery : the central pannel is adorned with a shield, bearing the Prior's anns, surmounted by a mitre, as represented in Plate II. No. 8.
The lamentable state to which this interesting and beautiful chantry is reduced, cannot but excite regret, and even some degree of indignation. Besides having one side broken away, the remainder of the pannelling and sculpture is partly filled up, and obscured by repeated coats of whitewash *
* The common and vulgar practice of white-washing and yellow-washing Churches cannot be sufficiently regretted, nor can it be too much reprobated. However cleanly and carefully executed, it becomes offensive to the eye, and incompatible with all the canons of taste; but
64 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
the whole interior is filled with modern pews, and other parts are cut into, and injured by monumental slabs affixed to the surface.
In reviewing the Choir of the Church, we find that modern alterations, and adaptations to accommodate a crowded congregation, have been made, without any regard to harmony of style, to form, or to colour. The whole area is filled with common, irregular pews, and the arches on each side are blocked up by galleries, with boarded backs, glazed doors, &c. At the west end, beneath the lofty arches of the tower, is an organ-gallery; which, with the organ-case, are extremely inappropriate and tasteless. The whole is supported by common pillars, and the ends inserted in the piers of the tower. The altar-piece, or fittings up behind the altar, affect some- thing of architectural character, and were certainly intended to be adorn- ments to the place. A considerable mass of marble, formed into columns, with entablature, pediment, &c, is employed; and doubtless designed to imitate Roman, not ecclesiastical architecture, and therefore has no analogy to the window above, or the arches at the sides. Had the screen of the con- tiguous chapel been taken as a pattern, and imitated in the fitting up of the altar, and for the communion rails, something beautiful and harmonious would have been produced. Attached to the piers, and against the walls at the eastern end of the choir, are various monuments ; and the pavement is almost wholly formed of inscribed slabs.
The epigrammatic distich of the late Dr. Harington cannot fail to be re- membered on viewing the numerous sepulchral memorials in this Church :
" These walls, adorned with monument and bust, Shew how Bath waters serve to lay the dust." —
This remark was not, however, dictated by a reprehensible .levity, but by that playfulness of imagination which marked the character of the amiable
the usual process of smearing coat on coat, and that frequently very thick, destroys all the beauties of sculpture and all the rich varieties of surface. The fascinating effects of light, shadow, and relief, which the skilful architects intended to produce, are thus counteracted; and forms that were originally graceful and beautiful, are rendered flat, stale, and insipid. It is almost as reprehensible as clothing the Venus de Medicis in a loose smock-frock, or the Apollo Belvidere in a coachman's box-coat.
MORTUARY REMARKS. 65
writer. True wit, influenced by benevolent sentiment, consecrates every thing on which it is employed. Serious and even melancholy subjects it renders pleasing, or at least it diverts the mind from an irrational tendency of dwelling on irremediable events. Death is the inevitable termination of all living beings, — it is as natural and certain as for day and night to succeed each other. None but the coward and the conscious sinner should dread to die. " The Soldier," says Trim, " never fears death in battle" — the true Christian and the sound Philosopher disregard him every where. All nature, and all the institutions of man, point to this " moral tale*."
* Fanaticism induces melancholy, misery, worldly abstraction ; but man is not naturally con- stituted for either: — he is endowed with mind, and social adaptations to the world, — to its varieties and to its pleasures. He is one link in the chain of concord ; and, by fulfilling his duty, he promotes all the friendly relations of life. Man may be generally good and happy, and thereby contribute to the happiness of others. It is easier to be virtuous than to be vicious ; and whilst virtue ever wears a cheerful countenance, vice is either haunted by a guilty conscience, or visited by positive or anticipated sorrow. Hervey has written " Meditations among the Tombs," in a tone of solemn and doleful lamentation. Young penned his " Night Thoughts " with more sublime imagery, and a better feeling of philosophy ; but with too lachrymose an eye towards worldly enjoyments. The amiable Addison says — " If I wish to indulge melancholy, or to be made wiser and better than I am, I wander among the tombs of Westminster Abbey." If that place be calculated to produce such effects, the Abbey Church of Bath is equally admonitory; for • it is the mortuary repository of many hundreds of our species. Persons of all countries and climes, — of all professions and ages, — of different sects and conditions, are here entombed in a small space ; and their ashes mingle, perhaps, with the heathenised Romans, Saxons, and Danes. What an awful, and what a grand theme for meditation! It ought to make us wiser and better, by impelling us to correct our follies and subdue our vices. But 1 would recommend a contrary doctrine to that of Addison, by saying, " abstain from" rather than " indulge in melancholy :" for to cherish this morbid feeling must unnerve the frame and disorder the faculties. The Christian church, abounding with numerous monumental records, is calculated to awaken grand, sublime, soothing, and even harmonising reflections. It shews us that, though life is precarious, and death certain, many have attained dignified and happy old age; — have acquired honours, fame, and riches; — have secured the esteem of relations and friends, and thereby deserved the praise of posterity. In such a place, surrounded by such mementos, I could meditate on God and man without one emotion of melancholy, — without one sentiment of misery. The omnipotent and inscrutable laws of Providence would naturally press on the mind : but instead of inducing sorrow and misery, they would carry the thoughts from terrestrial to celestial objects. In contemplating the bust of the poet, the trophy of the hero, the tablet of the musician, and the urn of the philosopher, I could find abundant scope for reflection, and sources of delight ; for they all indicate the extent and energies of the mental character, and point out the elevated rank to which we may attain by the judicious exertion of our faculties, and in perfect accordance with every law which a benignant Deity has enjoined for our conduct in
K
66 . BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
Perhaps there is not a Church in England, not excepting that national mausoleum, Westminster Abbey, so crowded with sepulchral memorials as the sacred edifice now under notice. Besides the floor being nearly paved with inscribed slabs, there are at least 450 tablets, &c, of all descriptions, affixed to the side walls and pillars of the building. Nearly the whole interior sur- face of the walls, floor, and columns, is lined or covered with monuments and tablets, of all sizes, forms, colours, and materials. Brass, copper, stone, slate, marble, and wood, are distributed over the surface, to attract the eye of the visitor. From their number and diversified forms and colours, they may be said to counteract the destined purpose of each, — sympathy and awe. Instead of solemnity and repose, they produce fritter and confusion. The eye cannot rest, nor can the mind be serene, where such distraction and incongruousness prevail. Here is neither order nor symmetry; nor has there been any attempt at systematic arrangement. In excuse it may be said that it would be im- practicable, if not impossible, to remedy such a defect, where the fancies of so many persons are allowed to prevail. The beginning of the evil is not of the present day or present age ; and few have the courage and good taste to commence a reform, where so much is to be undone, as well as done.
this transitory scene of our earthly pilgrimage. — I must, however, check the pen, for my province here is information, not disquisition. The subject must be my apology; but I trust that these reflections will neither be deemed inapposite nor irrelevant.
The King's admonition to Hamlet, in Shakspeare's incomparable drama, is in accordance with these reflections, and with the subject.
; To persevere
In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief: It shews a will most incorrect to Heaven ; A heart unfortified, or mind impatient ; An understanding simple and unschool'd : For what we know must be, and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sense, Why should we, in our peevish opposition, Take it to heart ? Fie ! 'tis a fault to Heaven, A fault against the dead, a fault to nature : To reason most absurd, whose common theme Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried From the first corse 'till he that died to-day, This must be so."
REMARKS ON MONUMENTS. 67
Although these remarks are applied immediately to the Church under notice, they are alike applicable to Westminster Abbey, to St. Paul's Cathe- dral, and to many other ancient and modern fabrics. If " Committees of Taste" be officially or voluntarily organised, they should give proofs of taste in the choice of situations, as well as choice of subjects, for interior monuments. In passing through the metropolitan churches already named, as well as that at Bath, every person of sensibility and real taste must be more offended than delighted. Monstrous masses of marble, with broken- backed horses, rampant and tame lions, figures of Time, Fame, Angels, and Cherubim, are the component parts of most of the great monuments ; whilst weeping Cupids, inverted torches, and urns ad infinitum, are the prevailing characteristics of the smaller tablets. It is high time that this common-place mode of sculpture was abandoned ; and it is equally to be wished that the inappropriate and absurd practice of clothing British generals and statesmen in Roman togas was avoided. One English sculptor at least has manifested a more English feeling and a better taste ; and I have no doubt that his success will lead to reformation.
The custom of interring bodies within churches is much to be deplored. It is not only injurious to the stability of buildings, but is repugnant to all the finer feelings of our nature. Can any thing be more unpleasant than a know- ledge that the whole earth, or ground, beneath the flooring of a church, consists of human remains ? — I must, however, forbear to express my feelings on this subject ; for they would create unhappiness or horror in the minds of those who are unaccustomed to similar contemplations. Whilst we are eager to imitate the follies and fashions of our Parisian neighbours, it would be creditable were we to adopt their practice of having spacious cemeteries on the outside of the city ; and instead of storing up the putrid remains of the dead in edifices where the living congregate, to inter them in more distant places.
CHAPTER V.
AN ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EPITAPHS, WITH EXAMPLES OF VARIOUS CLASSES FROM THE ABBEY CHURCH OF BATH, BY THE LATE REV. J. J. CONYBEARE, A.M.
The custom of perpetuating the memory of the dead by some monument more durable than the fleeting and uncertain breath of tradition, as it appears to be founded in the most natural affections of our species, may every where be traced to the earliest periods of society.
The veneration of the Scythian for the tombs of his ancestors, and the expectation of the Homeric heroes that their sepulchral barrows should remain conspicuous to after-ages, must be " rife in our school-boy memories," while the innumerable monuments of the latter description, scattered over the face of almost every country with which we are acquainted, and forming especially so prominent a feature among the antiquities of our own, bear the strongest testimony to the universality of the sentiments which produced their erec- tion. Before the invention, or at least before the general use of letters, the principal means of insuring the great object of these structures was to be looked for in their extent and solidity.
The art of writing promised at once to reduce the expenditure of time and labour necessary for their formation ; and to confer, even upon the humblest individual, a memorial, more lasting perhaps than could have been expected in ruder ages for the most powerful and illustrious. It is yet remarkable that the earliest use made of written characters in monumental inscriptions, does not appear to have been that which we should conceive to be the most natural aud obvious. Those sepulchral vases which are sup- posed to be of the remotest antiquity, whether Greek or Etruscan, do indeed occasionally present some traces of inscription ; but such inscription is uni- formly, I believe, found to refer rather to the mythological personages repre- sented in the paintings on the exterior, than to those for the reception of whose ashes the vases were destined. A few bassi-relievi, however, of an age, it is conjectured, somewhat earlier than that of Pericles, and which
ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EPITAPHS. 69
appear to have answered the purpose of sepulchral monuments, bear the names of individuals ; and Thucydides (lib. vi.) has preserved four elegiac lines, which were probably inscribed on the tomb of Archidice, the sister of Hippias. The earlier of the Greek epitaphs seem to have been chiefly of this latter description * : and the Romans in this, as in every other department of art and literature, followed their example f. In later ages, indeed, they appear to have adopted more frequently for this purpose that concise and peculiar style of prose which has been denominated by critics the Lapidary style J. After the decline of letters, we meet with but few, if any, examples of the prose epitaph. The Leonine, or rhyming Latin verse, was, during the Middle Ages, the favourite vehicle for the commemoration and praises of the deceased.
The revival of classical learning in Italy, produced, naturally, a recur- rence to classical models ; and the imitation was frequently so close, that inscriptions are not wanting of which it is difficult to pronounce, whether they are the genuine productions of Roman antiquity, or the forgeries of the fifteenth century. In more recent times, a third species of epitaph, unknown, it is apprehended, to the ancients, appears to have had its origin, either in the difficulty of imitating, or the ambition of improving and ornamenting, the terse and simple construction of the Lapidary style. For this, which (as from its copiousness and diffuseness it bears the character of a funeral eulogy or oration) might fairly be termed the Rhetorical epitaph, we are chiefly, I suspect, indebted to the French || ; and like many other inventions of that fanciful people, it long prevailed, both in Latin and in the more modern languages of Europe, to the almost total exclusion of the purer and more graceful models of antiquity. It has, however, in some cases, (especially
* Many will be found in the Anthologia. They have been published separately by Leichius, " Carmina Greecorum Sepulchralia." 4to.
t The epitaphs of Ennius and Nsevius are well known. The " Inscriptionum Rom. Met. Delectus" of the late T. Warton, will furnish examples of the most ancient and beautiful poems of this kind.
t It is needless to adduce examples of this style ; they occur in every page of Gruter's Collection.
|| See the epitaphs of Crequy and of Richelieu, in Popham's " Elogia Sepulchralia.^ In this country, the Rhetorical epitaph, as I have ventured to name it, became very popular after the Restoration, and was in some instances extended to a most fatiguing length. Those of South and Nelson, (vide Popham, Elogia Sepulchralia,) will afford very favourable specimens of that style. That of Mead is equally well written, and has the merit of being considerably shorter.
70 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
within the last half century,) been rendered somewhat less cumbrous, by a nearer approach to those models * ; and, in a few instances, the writers of Latin inscriptions have altogether returned to the imitation of their original masters f. We have now briefly traced the progress and the various forms of the monumental inscription. Which of those in present use is most agree- able to the principles of good taste, and in what manner each may be most successfully treated, are questions of which the limits of a work like the present must necessarily preclude all discussion. On the subject, indeed, of metrical epitaphs, little could be added to the well-known criticisms of Johnson, and to the admirable observations which Warton has prefixed to his Collection of Ancient Roman Inscriptions.
With respect to prose epitaphs, it will perhaps be sufficient to remark, that modern criticism appears justly to have assigned the preference to those which approach most nearly to the simplicity and brevity of a classical model ; and to consider the lighter and more oratorical graces of style as misplaced on a subject beyond all others the most sacred and solemn.
The observations hitherto offered have been confined chiefly to those in- scriptions in which the Latin language has been made the vehicle of post- humous eulogy. For these their authors, whether justly or unjustly, antici- pated (probably as they wished) a permanency that would have been endangered by the adoption of any more modern and variable dialect.
As this practice, however, was necessarily restricted to the commemora- tion of persons of some rank or eminence, and as various reasons concurred to recommend the adoption of a medium more immediately, if not more lastingly, intelligible, we find the walls of our churches occupied, for the greater part, by inscriptions in our native tongue. In the composition of
* The epitaphs of Card. Mazarine, of Johnson on Goldsmith, of Dr. Parr on Johnson himself, and many others of later date, may be referred to this description : the chief characters of which appear to be, a greater attention to conciseness, both of the whole and of the separate clauses, and to purity of Latin style.
t See the epitaphs of Lipsius, of Ann. Caracci, of Craggs, and of Shenstone on Maria. More might be readily added, did we possess any better selection than the scanty and incorrect one by Popham. An epitaph, in the truest taste of antiquity, beautiful from its extreme simplicity, exists in the Cathedral of Christ-Church, Oxford.
Jana
B. Blayney Filia
Eheu ! Unica.
ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EPITAPHS. 71
these, we have had greater difficulties to overcome than in the direct imita- tion *of the ancients. Our language, encumbered as it is with particles, and admitting little or no inversion of sentence, accommodates itself at best but indifferently to the purer and more concise style of Lapidary inscriptions. Hence, perhaps, it has arisen, that the more considerable portion of English prose epitaphs, may be referred rather to that class which has been termed Rhetorical ; and that very few (in comparison with the numbers which crowd the interior and exterior of our various places of worship) have been found to attract the admiration of critical readers.
It is the writer's intention and wish that these, and all the foregoing remarks, should be considered as applicable to the manner only, and not to the matter and spirit of an epitaph. The discussion of these points, while he confesses them to be of much higher importance, he does not feel called to enter upon in a work of this nature. Many epitaphs, doubtless, which contain but little to attract the mere scholar, are calculated to produce the most unexceptionable and edifying impressions on the mind of the Christian ; and in some unhappy instances, the most unquestionable purity and beauty of style have been employed for purposes which piety must disavow, and which none but a mistaken charity could sanction. May it not fairly be added, that he who examines the subject in this more serious point of view, will find much reason to lament that the feelings of Christian humility are not more frequently and strongly recorded, where they might so reasonably be expected, iu the last memorials of human frailty ?
In examining the sacred edifices of a City which has afforded for so many centuries a place of constant and general resort to persons of every rank and description, we might reasonably expect to find the monumental in- scriptions which they contain superior, both in number and interest, to those which would occur, under common circumstances, in any town of equal popu- lation. So far, indeed, as number is concerned, the Abbey Church will by no means disappoint such an anticipation : nearly the whole interior of the nave and principal ailes is covered with these records of mortality ; and we are reminded, at every step, of the common destiny which has equalised the hero, the scholar, and the philosopher, with the more peaceful and unambitious children of commerce and industry who repose by their side.
72 BATH ABBEY CHURCH.
A complete collection of these memorials would far exceed the proposed limits of the present account. A few, therefore, of the more remarkable in each department have been selected, and arranged agreeably to the order sketched out in the foregoing observations.
EPITAPHS IN VERSE.
The earliest specimen of Latin verse which occurs, is to be found in the epitaph of Bartholomew Barnes, who died in the early part of the reign of James I. The lines themselves present nothing very striking, either as to poetry or Latinity.
In obitum Barthoi.om.ei Barnes defuncti, viri verse religionis amantissimi, nuper mer- catoris Londinensis, nuncque coelorum regni civis beati.
Religio, pietas, facundae gratia linguae,
Ingenium, virtus, inviolata fides, Cum gravitate lepos, cum simplicitate venustas,
Larga manus, pectus nobile, firmus amor : Denique quicquid habet natura quod addere possit,
Addere quod possit gratia, quicquid habet. Omnia Barnaum vivum comitata fuerunt,
Omnia mors atrox obruit ista simul. Obruat ista licet tristi mors saeva sepulchro,
Attamen illorum fama superstes erit*.
The classical reader will doubtless receive greater pleasure from the fol- lowing lines, which appear to have proceeded from the pen of the Rev. W. L. Bowles, and commemorate the Rev. J. Honeywood, M.A. : —
Quae vox ex imo pervenit missa sepulchro ? Desine tu conjux, sola relicta, queri.
* Sir John Harington refers to this monument, when speaking of the Abbey Church, in his memoir of Bishop King. (" Nugae Antiquee," vol. ii. p. 143. Park's edition.) He says, " In so much as a wealthy citizen of London hath adventured to set his tomb there, whom I commend more worthily than the senate of Rome did thank Varro at his return from Cannae, qubd de salute reipublicce wore desperdsset ; for it seems this honest citizen did not despaire of the re-edifying this Church, that gave order to be richly entombed therein."
ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EPITAPHS. 73
En ! anima exultans coelo spatiatur et alte
Despicit humanas, libera, lseta, vices. Te solum fido reminiscitur anxia amore,
Et paulum fractas plorat amicitias ; Donee tempus erit quum nubila cuncta recedent,
Nosq ; iterum seterno foedere junget amor.
Would it not improve the beauty of this elegant and affectionate little composition, if something less trite were substituted for the present termina- tion of the seventh line ? And might it not be objected, that the word amicitias is scarcely of sufficient strength to express conjugal attachment ?
Among the Epitaphs in English Verse, the following will afford no unfa-