Shameful discovery of Sodomites and incontinent | to that famous Saint Chad, or Cedda, bishop of friars in Canterbury priory of Benedictines, nine Sodomites; in Battle-abbey, fifteen; and, in many other, like proportion: larger reckoning will not satisfy, if you account their wenches, which, married and single, (for they affected that variety) supplied the wants of their counterfeited solitariness so that hereupon, after an account of DC. convents of monks and friars, with mendicants, in this kingdom, when time endured them, Je laisseray, saith one (c), maintenant au lecteur calculer combien pur le moins devoint estre de fils de putains en Angleterre, je di seulement fils de Moines & de Putaines. These were they who admired all for Hebrew or Greek, which they understood not, and had at least (as many of our now professing formalists) Latin enough to make such a speech as Rablais hath to Gargantua for Paris bells, and call for their Vinum Cos; which, in one of them personated, receive thus from a noble poet (d). Fac extrà: nihil hoc: extrà totum sit oportet, Sobriè, n. juste atque piè potare jubet Lex. Vinum lætificat cor hominis, præcipuè Cos. Gratia sit Domino, Vinum Cos, inquit, habemus. How my reader tastes this, I know not; therefore I willingly quit him; and add only, that William of Malmesbury grossly errs in affirming that this Bangor (e) is turned into a bishopric; but pardon him, for he lived in his cloister, and perhaps was deceived by equivocation of name, there being in Caernarvon a bishopric of the same title to this day, which somebody (ƒ) hath on the other side ill taken for this. Who re-ordained York a bishop's government. For in the British times it had a metropolitic see, (as is noted to the ninth song) and now by Edwine, (converted to christian discipline both through means of his wife Ethelburg, daughter to Ethelbert, king of Kent, and religious persuasion of God's ministers) was restored to the former dignity, and Paulinus, in it, honoured with name of archbishop, being afterwards banished that province, and made bishop of Rochester, which some have ignorantly made him before. Nor those that in the stem of Saxon Crida came. Most of our chronologers begin the Mercian race royal with Penda; but Henry of Huntingdon (not without his proofs and followers) makes Crida (grandfather to Penda) first in that kingdom. Confirm'd in Christ's belief by that most reverend Chad. This Wulpher, son to Penda, restored to his father's kingdom, is reported (g) with his own hands to have slain his two sons, Wulphald and Rufin, for that they privily withdrew themselves (c) H. Stephen en l'Entroduct. au traite de la conformite, &c. 1. chap. 21. Litchfield, for instruction in the christian faith: and all this is supposed to be done where the now Stone in Staffordshire is seated. Hereupon the author relies. But the credit of it is more than suspicious, not only for that in classic authority I find his issue only to be Kenred, and Saint Werburge, (by Ermengild, daughter to Erconbert, of Kent) but withal that he was both christian, and a great benefactor to the church. For it appears by consent of all, that Peada, Weda, or Penda (all these names he had) eldest son of the first Penda, first received in Middle Engle (part of Mercland) the faith, and was baptized by Finnan, bishop of Lindisfarne (h): after whose violent death, in spite of Oswy, king of Northumberland, Immin, Ebba, and Edberth, gentlemen of power in Merclaud, saluted Wulpher, (brother to Peada) king of all that province, who was then, as it seems, (by Florence of Worcester, and Bede's reporting of four bishops in succession preferred by him) of christian name; but howsoever he was at that time, it is certain, that in the second or third year of his reign, he was godfather to king Edilwalch, of Sussex, and bestowed on him as a gift, in token of that spiritual adoption, the isle of Wight, with another territory in West Saxony, and gave also to Saint Cedda (made, by consent of him and king Oswy, bishop of Lindisfarne) fifty hides of land (a hide () a plough land, or a carve, I hold clearly equivalent) towards foundation of a monastery. All this compared, and his life, in our monks, observed, hardly endures his note of persecution; which in respect of his foundership of Peterborough abbey, Robert of Swapham, a monk there, reporting it, or those from whom he had it, might better in silence have buried it, or rather not so ungratefully feigned it. I only find one thing notably ill of him; that he, first of the English kings, by simony made a bishop, which was Wine, of London, as Malmesbury is author. And (through his rule) the church from taxes strongly freed. Ethelbald, king of Mercland, founder of Crowland abbey, in Lincolnshire, a great, martial, and religious prince, in a synod held, (Cuthbert then archbishop of Canterbury) enlarged ecclesiastic liberty in this form: Donationem meam, me vivente concedo, ut omnia monasteria & ecclesiæ regni mei à publicis vectigalibus, operibus, & oneribus absolvantur, nisi instructionibus arcium vel pontium, quæ nunquam ulli possunt relaxari; (h) It is that now called Holy Island, by east the utmost parts of Northumberland, whence the bishopric about Dccccxcv. was translated to Durham. (7) Ita n. apud Matth. Paris, Huntingdon, Th. Walsingham, docemur, licet alii 100. Acris, alii aliter definiunt. Cæterùm quod me maximè movet & absque hæsitatione in hanc sententiam pedibus ire cogit, en tibi ex Dunstani Chartâ (Ann. 963.) quæ Terræ partem concedit septem-Aratrorum, quod Anglicè dicitur septem Hidas. Nec immemorem hic te vellem vocabuli illius apud Jur. Cons. nostros, hide and gaine; quod Arvum resti❤ bile interpretari haùt ignorat Dupendius quispiam. Comprehended in since affirmed, that yet the house was not freed of repairing bridges and causeys. But all lands, as well in hands of clerks as lay, were subjected to particular tenures after the conquest and so these kind of charges and discharges being made rather feodal, (as Bracton (6) calls them) than per I note here to students of antiquity, that, where the printed Ingulph says this was done by Ethelbald in the third year of his reign, they must with correction make it the thirty-third, as is, without scruple, apparent in the date of the synod (p), which was the 745th of our Saviour. The Britons had interr'd their protomartyr's bones. In that universal persecution under Dioclesian and Herculius (9), this isle gave, in Saint Alban, testimony of christian profession; even to his last breath, drawn among tormenting enemies of the cross. His death (being the first martyr, as the i.e. he discharged all monasteries and churches of all kind of taxes, works, and imposts, excepting such as were for building of forts and bridges; being (as it seems the law was then) not releaseable. For, besides the authority of this statute of Ethelbald, it appears frequent in charters of the Saxon times, that, upon endowment and do-sonal, use of them in charters consequently ceased. nations to churches, with largest words of exemp tion, and liberty from all secular charges, the conclusion of the Habendum was (k), exceptis istis tribus, expeditione pontis, arcisve constructione, which, among common notaries or scriveners, was so well known, that they called it by one general name, Trinoda necessitas, as out of Cedwalla's charter to Wilfrid, first bishop of Selsey, of the manor of Pagenham, (now Pagham) in Sussex, I have seen transcribed; whereupon, in a deliberative (concerning papal exactions, and subjection of church-living) held under Henry III. () after examination of ancient kings' indulgence to the clergy, it was found, that, Non adeo libertati dede-author here calls him, that this country had) was runt hujusmodi possessiones, quin tria sibi reservarent semper propter publicam regni utilitatem, videlicet, expeditionem, pontis & arcis reparationes, vel refectiones, ut per ea resisterent hostium incursionibus; although by words of a statute of Ethel. ulph, king of West-Saxons, in the year 855, made by advice both of laity and spirituality, the church was quitted also of those three commonwealth causes of subsidies, but enjoyed it not; for even the canons (m) themselves subject their possessions to these service and duties; and upon interpretation of a charter made by Henry Beauclerc, founder of the priory of saint Oswald, in Yorkshire, containing words of immunity and liberty of tenure, as general and effectual as might be, a great lawyer (n) long at Werlamcester, (i. e. the old Verulam) whereby the abbey of St. Albans was afterward erected (†). (Extirping other styles) and gave it England's name (b). Look back to the last note on the first song. Thus, as you see, hath the Muse compendiously run through the heptarchy, and united it in name and empire under Egbert, king of West-Saxons: after whom, none but his successors had absolute power in their kingdoms, as course of story shows you. Likely enough I imagine, that as yet the expectation of the reader is not satisfied in these seven kingdoms, their beginnings, territory, and first Christianity: therefore as a corollary receive this for the eye's more facile instruction. (0) De Acquir. rer. Dom. 2. cap. 16. §. 3. Perhaps as good authority may be given against some of my proposed chronology, as I can justify myself with. But although so, yet I am therefore freed of errour, because our old monks, exceedingly in this kind corrupted, or deficient, afford nothing able to rectify. I know the EastAngles, by both ancient and later authority, began above one hundred years before; but if with synchronism you examine it, it will be found most absurd. For seeing it is affirmed expressly, that Redwald was slain by Ethelfrid, king of Northumberland, and being plain by Bede (?), (take his (t) Eccles. Hist. 2. cap. 9. ubi legendum sexcentesimo vice rou quingentesimo. story together, and rely not upon syllables and false printed copies) that it must needs be near 600, (for Edwin succeeded Ethelfrid) and that Uffa was some thirty years before: what calculation will cast this into less than 500 years after Christ? Forget not, (if you desire accurate times) my admonition to the IVth song, of the twentytwo years' errour upon the Dionysian account, especially in the beginning of the kingdoms, because they are for the most part reckoned in old monks from the coming of the Saxons. Where you find different names from these, attribute it to misreading of old copies, by such as have published Carpenwald for Eorpenwold, or Earpwald; Penda also perhaps for Wenda, mistaking the Saxon p. for our P. and other such, variably both written and printed. How in time they succussively came under the West-Saxon rule, I must not tell you, unless I should untimely put on the person of an historian. Our common annals manifest it. But know here, that although seven were, yet but five had any long continuance of their supremacies: The Saxons tho in ther power (tho thii were so rive) Seve kingdomes made in Engelonde and suthe (u) but vive, The king of Northomberlond, and of Eastangle also, Of Kent and of Westsex, and of the March therto. as Robert of Glocester, according to truth of story, hath it; for Estsex and Southsex were not long after their beginnings (as it were) annexed to their ruling neighbour princes. erunt. came to his manor of Cotenham, as they used oft times, to read; and thence daily going to Cambridge, Conducto quodam horreo publico suas scientias palàm profitentes, in brevi temporis excursu, grandein discipulorum numerum contraxAnno verò secundo adventus illorum, tantum accrevit discipulorum numerus, tam ex tota patria, quam ex oppido, quòd quælibet domus maxima, horreum, nec ulla ecclesia sufficeret eorum receptaculo: and so goes on with an ensuing frequency of schools. If before this there were an university, I imagine that in it was not profest Aristotle's Ethics, which tell us, mıgì rūs Zivans Qixías: for then would they not have permitted learned readers of the sciences (whom all, that hated not the Muses, could not but love) to be compelled into a barn, instead of schools. Nor is it tolerable in conceit, that for near five hundred years (which incerceded betwixt this and Sigebert) no fitter place of profession should be erected. To this time others have referred the beginning of that famous seminary of good literature and if room be left for me, I offer sub A nation from their first bent naturally to spoil. Indeed so were universally the Germans (out of whom our Saxons) as Tacitus relates to us: Nec arare terram aut exspectare annum tam facile persuaseris, quam vocare hostes & vulnera mereri.scription; but always under reformation of that Pigrum quinimò & iners videtur sudore acquirere quod possis sanguine parare, and more of that nature we read in him. Of famous Cambridge first About the year 630, Sigebert (after death of Eorpwald) returning out of France, whither his father Redwald had banished him, and receiving the East-Angle crown, assisted by Fœlix, a Burgognone, and first bishop of Dunwich, (then called Dunmoc) in Suffolk: desiring to imitate what he had seen observable in France, for the common good, instituit scholam (read it scholas, if you will, as some do; I see no consequence of worth) in qua pueri literis erudirentur, as Bede writeth. Out of these words, thus general, Cambridge being in East-Angle, hath been taken for this school, and the school for the university. I will believe it (insomuch as makes it then an University) not much sooner than that (I know not what) Gurgunsius with Cantaber, some 150 years before Christ, founded it; or, those charters of king Arthur, bulls of pope Honorius and Sergius sent thither; Anaximander or Anaxagoras their studies there, with more such pretended and absurd unlikelihoods; unless every grammar school be an university, as this was, where children were taught by pædagogi & magistri juxta morem Cantuariorum, as Bede hath expressly: which so makes Canterbury an university also. But neither is there any touch in authentic and ancient story, which justifies these schools instituted at Cambridge, but generally somewhere in EastAngle. Reasons of inducement are framed in multitudes on both sides. But, for my own part, I never saw any sufficiently (probable, and therefore most of all rely upon what authorities are afforded. Among them I ever preferred the Appendix to the story of Crowland, supposed done by Peter of Blois, affirming, that under Henry I. (he lived very near the same time: therefore believe him in a matter not subject to causes of historians temporising) Joffred, abbot of Crowland, with one Gilbert, his commoigne, and three other monks, (x) Afterward, most honoured tutoress's pupils, which shall (omitting fabulous trash) judiciously instruct otherwise. But the author here out of Polydore, Leland, and others of later time, relying upon conjecture, hath his warrant of better credit than Cantilup, another relater of that Arcadian original, which some have so violently patronised. Renowned Oxford built t' Apollo's learned brood. So it is affirmed (of that learned king, yet knowing not a letter until he was past twelve) by Polydore, Bale, and others; grounding themselves upon what Alfred's beneficence and most deserving care hath manifested in royal provision for that sacred nurse of learning. But justly it may be doubted, lest they took instauration of what was deficient, for institution: for although you grant that he first founded University College; yet it follows not, but there might be common schools and colleges, as at this day in Leyden, Giesse, and other places of High and Low Germany. If you please, fetch hither that of Greeklade (to the third song) which I will not importune you to believe: but without scruple you cannot but credit that of a monk of St. Dewi's (x), (made grammar and rhetoric reader there by king Alfred) in these words of the year 886: Exorta est pessima ac teterrima Oxoniæ discordia inter Grimboldum, (this was a great and devout scholar, whose aid Alfred used in his disposition of lectures) doctissimosque illos viros secum illuc adduxit, & veteres illos scholasticos quos ibidem invenisset: qui ejus adventu, leges, modos, ac prælegendi formulas ab eodem Grimboldo institutas, omni ex parte amplecti recusabant. And a little after, Quinetiam probabant & ostendebant, idque indubitato veterum annalium testimonio, illius loci ordines ac instituta, à nonnullis piis & eruditis hominibus fuisse sancita, ut à Gilda (Melkino, he was a great mathematician, and as Gildas also lived between 5 and 600) Nennio, (the printed book hath falsely Nemrio) Kentigerno, (he lived about 509) & aliis, qui omnes literis illic consenuerunt, omnia ibidem (x) Asser. Menevens, de gest. Alfred. Exoniensis joined also; by which stood Petroburgensis, which bruised all the credit of the monument, but especially of him that published it. For, who knows not that Peterborough was no bishopric till Henry the Eighth? Nor indeed was Oxford, which might easily be thought much otherwise, by incidence of an ignorant eye on that vainly promising title. I abstain from expatiating in matter of our Muses' seat, so largely, and too largely, treated of by others. dominus, and vicecomes, remained indifferent words for the name of sheriff, as in a charter of king Edred, 950.-Ego Bingulph vicedominus consului. Ego Alfer vicecomes audivi. I fœlici pace & concordia administrantes; and affirmed also, that letters had there been happily profest in very ancient time, with frequency of scholars, until irruptions of (y) pagans (they meant Danes) had brought them to this lately restored deficiency. After this testimony, greater than all exception, what can be more plain than the noble worth and fame of this pillar of the Muses long before king Alfred's? Neither make I any great question, but that, where in an old copy of Gildas's life, (published lately by a And into several shires the kingdom did divide. () Frenchman) it is printed, that he studied at Iren, which clearly he took for a place in this To those shires (f) he constituted justices and land, it should be Ichen, (and I confess, before sheriffs, called generas and phyɲzenefas, the me, one hath well published the conjecture) for office of those two being before confounded in Ryd-Ichin, the Welsh name of that city, ex-vice-domini, i. e. lieutenants; but so, that vicepressing as much as Oxenford. Yet I would not willingly fall into the extremes of making it Memprikes, as some do; that were but vain affectation to dote on my reverend mother. But because in those remote ages, not only univer-find together subscribed. The justices were, as I sities and public schools, (being (a) for a time think, no other than those whom they called prohibited by P. P. Gregory, for fear of breeding Coloon mannum, being the same with Coples, Pelagians and Arians) but divers monasteries and now earls, in whose disposition and government, cloisters were great auditories (b) of learning, as upon delegation from the king, (the title being appears in Theodore and Adrian's professing at officiary, not hereditary, except in some particuCanterbury, Maldulph and Aldelm at Malmes lar shire, as Leicester, &c.) the county was; with bury, (this Aidelm first taught the English to the bishop of the diocese: the earl sat (g) in the write (c) Latin prose and verse) Alcuin at York, Synezemode twice every year, where charge Bede at Jarrow, and such other more, I guess was given touching Loder phder gepeoruld that hence came much obscurity to their name, ɲihde (4): but by the Conqueror (), this medomitted or suppressed by envious monks of those dling of the bishop in tournes was prohibited. times, then, whose traditions descending through The sheriff had then his monthly court also, as many hands of their like, we have no credible the now county court instituted by the Saxon authorities. But which soever of these two sisters Edward I. as that other of the tourn by king have prerogative of primogeniture, (a matter too Edgar. The sheriff is now immediate officer to much controverted betwixt them) none can give the king's court, but it seems that then the earl them less attribute, than to be two radiant eyes (having always the third part of the shire's profixed in this island, as the beauteous face of the fits, both before and since the Normans) had Earth's body. To what others have by industri-charge upon him. For this division of counties: ous search communicated, I add concerning Ox- how many he made, I know not, but Malmesford, out of an ancient (7) MS. (but since the bury, under Ethelred, affirms, there were thirtyClementines) what I there read: Apud montem two, (Robert of Glocester thirty-five) about which Pessulanum, Parisios, Oxoniam, Colonias, Bo-time Winchelcomb was one (k), but then joined loniam, generalia studia ordinamus. Ad quæ to Glocestershire; those thirty-two were (1) Prior provincialis quilibet possit mittere duos fratres, qui habeant studentium libertatem; and also adinonish the reader of an imposture thrust into the world this last autumn mart in a provincial catalogue of bishoprics by a profest anti-Bedford, Buckingham Huntingdon, Northampton, quary and popish canon of Antwerp (e), telling us, that the MS. copy of it, found in St. Victor's library at Paris, was written 500 years since, and in the number of Canterbury province, it hath Oxford; which being written Oxoniensis, I imagined might have been mistaken for Exoniensis, (as Exonia for Oxonia sometimes) until I saw (y) About Alfred's time, before his instauration, a grammarian was not found in his kingdom to teach him. Florent. Wigorn. p. 309. (*) Joan à Bosco. Paris. in Biblioth. Floriacens. vit. Gild. cap. 6. (a) Bri. Tuin. Apolog. Ox. 2. §. 84. (b) Leland ad Cyg. Cant. is Grantâ. (c) Camd. in Wiltoniâ. (d) Constitutiones Fratrum, cap. de Studiis, & Magist. Student (e) Aubert Miræus in Notit. Episcopat. edit. Parisiis, 1610. Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hantshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devonshire; these nine governed by the West Saxon law. Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Hertford, Cambridge, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, York; these fifteen by the Danish law. Oxford, Warwick, Gloucester, Hereford, Shropshire, Stafford, Cheshire, Worcester; these eight by the Mercian law. Here was none of Cornwal, Cumberland, (styled also Carlisleshire) Northumberland, Lancaster, Westmoreland, (which was since titled Applebyshire) Durham, Monmouth, nor Rutland, which at this day make our number (besides the twelve (ƒ) Histor. Crowlandensis. (g) Edgar leg. Human. cap. 5. Edw. cap. 11. Canut. cap. 17. (h)" God's right and the world's...” (1) Rot. Chart. 2. Rich. 2. pro Lecan. & capit. Lincoln. transcripsimus in Jano Anglorum 1. 2. §. 14. & videas apud Fox. hist. eccles. 4. (4) Codex Wigorn. ap. Caid. in Dobunis. (Polychronicon, lib. 1. cap. de provinciis. |