root _sæte_, _set_, or _seta_, enters into several names of places in
England, some of which are county towns, as Dorset, Somerset;
Old Norse _setr_, a seat. The Norwegian _seter_ is a pasture or
mountain-side--Burnhope Seat, Dora’s Seat, and Raven’s Seat. One was the
settlement of a person named Raven, or Rafn; the other that of Dora, or
Dore. In 1614 we find Dorry Sette. Bishop’s Seat was the place where the
lords of the Bishopric settled when hunting in Weardale Forest. Another
name is Laverock Seat, evidently Leofric’s Seat, modernized into
Lark-seat.
_Head_, Anglo-Saxon _head_, _heafod_, a head. In a district full of
undulating lands and small valleys there are several places deriving
their names from being the top or head, or finished part of something,
as Lanehead, Wearhead, Dalehead, Sidehead, Nag’s Head, Lamb’s Head, and
others.
_Rig_, _rigg_, Anglo-Saxon _rig_, _hrycg_, and various other forms;
Danish _ryg_; Icelandic _hriggr_, a ridge, a back. Stangend Rigg is
2,075 feet above sea-level.
_Plain_ and _pike_ are sufficiently expressive--the one a broad stretch
of land, and the other a peak or pointed eminence. Five Pikes are near
Paw Law Pike, a south-eastern boundary point on the hills. Ireshope
Plains is a euphonious name; and Bewdley Plain, Sedling Plain, Outberry
Plain, may be mentioned in the list.
_Moor_, _fell_, _common_, are well-known terms. Anglo-Saxon _mor_ is
waste-land, a moor, a heath; Danish _mor_ is a moor, or morass; we have
Killhope, Burnhope, and Wellhope Moors. _Fell_ is Old Norse. All the
Weardale moorlands are called fells. Chapel Fell is 2,294 feet above
sea-level; A _common_ is a tract of unenclosed pasture or outside land
on which the tenantry of the inlands have a common right, or right of
common for their sheep.
_Bank_, _band_, _brae_, and _brow_, are common in place-names, as Brook
Bank, Owsen Bands, Whitfield Brow, etc. _Batts_, low, flat ground near
water; Anglo-Saxon _bæth_, a bath, land subject to be soaked with water.
_Berry_, as Knoutberry Hill, Bleaberry, and Snodberry, are from the
Anglo-Saxon _beorg_, _beorh_, a hill. _Cut_, _cove_, as Cove’s Houses;
_crooks_, as Milncrook, Seggecrok, Crawcrook, are found. Also _end_, as
Hill End; and _edge_, as White Edge, Band Edge. _Flat_, _green_, and
_ground_, are also found in several place-names, as Barnflat, Willow
Green, and Trodden Ground. In the Boldon Buke we have Pelhou, Quesshow,
and Dunhow, from _haw_, Anglo-Saxon _hæge_, a hedge.
_Haugh_ is a common name in Northumberland for low-lying grounds close
to rivers. It is frequently met with on the Tyne, but it is not so
common on the Wear. Worsaae returns _haugh_ in no other county than
Northumberland, to which he ascribes ten, the _haugh_, or _how_, being
given as the Scandinavian _haugh_, a hill; but the _haugh_ of the
Borderland is low-lying and sheltered meadow-land close to the winding
rivers. In 1380, at Stanhope, there was a Castle Hogh, known as the
Castle Haugh until within fifty years ago. There is a _haugh_ at Softly,
and a _haughing-gate_ at Eastgate. There are various _haughs_ in and
about Blanchland, and it might appear that Weardale, where it is very
rare, formed the southern boundary. But there are, however, three
_haughs_ in the West Riding.
_Hooks_, _height_, _hole_, and _howl_. We have Fairy Holes--caves in the
limestone--Foxholes, Brockholes, and Catholes, as names of places; Hole
House, Clay Holes, and many others. Cuthbert Heights is from St.
Cuthbert. _Knot_, _loc_, _lake_, _land_, as the Knotts, the Locks,
Cocklake, and the Lands. _Mea_, Welsh _maes_, Erse _magh_--a plan--is
very common in the Durham dales. In Teesdale there is Flushy Mea, Sow
Mea; and, in Weardale, Broad Mea, Mea Sike, Pitty Mea, Rimea, and
others. _Mound_, moss, _nook_, _rake_, _pit_, and _pot_, occur in many
names.
_Side_, a Saxon word, Icelandic _sida_, the edge, a hillside, enters
into a number of names of places, as Fell Side, Kirk Side, with
_siders_, as Cuthbert Siders; and also _sedeing_, a sideling or sloping.
_Slack_, _spot_, _wick_, _wham_, _clints_, _crag_, _carr_, _scar_, are
amongst other words forming place-names.
Habitations and enclosures have their special names.
When the Angles and Saxons arrived in our island they planted
settlements in fertile districts. By the margins of some meandering
river, which had already been named by the earlier Celtic race, the
Saxon families located themselves and established homes, many of which
are now large towns. The forest growth was cleared, and, with that love
of home characteristic of the Saxons, a portion of the cleared land was
enclosed, guarded, or protected, with the _tines_ of forest growth--the
tines or twigs of the wood; hence _tun_ occurs in 137 Anglo-Saxon names
of places in the 1,200 taken from Kemble’s Charters. This termination
became to mean, not the tines or twigs alone, nor yet the hedges of
which they were made, but the whole enclosure or estate was the _tun_ or
_ton_ of some person; or the _ton_ otherwise distinguished, as Stockton,
the stockaded town; Middleton, the middle town; Willington, the town of
the family of Willing--sons of Will. Other terminations indicate Saxon
homes, as _ham_, _worth_, _stoke_, _stow_, _fold_, _bury_. In the Boldon
Buke we find the Danish _toft_; and the universal description of small
holdings in Hatfield’s Survey is a _toft_ and a _croft_. We also find in
primitive days the villagers holding _dales_ of land--land divided into
long, narrow strips or divisions, each villager knowing his own strip.
When Weardale was more under cultivation, it was customary for the
inhabitants to _take in_ land from the moors; hence we find the
place-name _intake_, locally _intak_. And at a later period still, when
Acts of Parliament dealt with the division of moorlands, we got the name
_allotment_, abbreviated to _lotment_ and _lot_--the allotted land.
_Acre_ is mentioned, as in Farnacres, in the Boldon Buke; and in later
surveys are Longacre and Etheredacres. _Barn_, _berry_, _beeld_, _byre_,
and _by_, _bower_, _cave_, _castle_, _chesters_, _close_, _croft_,
_dale_, and _darg_--as six darg, from Anglo-Saxon _dæg-weorc_, day’s
work. _Fold_, _farm_, _faw_, _frith_, _gate_, _garth_, _hot_, _ing_,
_ham_, _kirk_, _lodge_, _park_, _meadow_, _pry_, _shield_, _stead_,
_ton_, and _wall_, are common in the dales of the county of Durham.
Amongst the names referring to buildings we have _cross_, as Killhope
Cross and Edmundbyres Cross. Stone crosses to guide the wayfarer were
once erected at these places. _Brig_ is from bridge, whether built of
stone or wood. _Currock_, a pile of stones erected on the moors or fells
as a landmark. _Peth_ and _lonnon_ and _way_ are also common names. And
all these have their adjectival component, as Lodge Field, Leases Park,
Mill Houses, Pry Hill, Old Faw, Shield Ash, Watch Currock, etc.
DURHAM CATHEDRAL
BY THE REV. WILLIAM GREENWELL, M.A., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A.
In the year 875 the great Scandinavian invasions were assuming large
proportions, and among other parts of England where the Danes landed and
harried the country was the coast of Northumbria. The monks fled from
Lindisfarne, which had been selected by Aidan principally because of its
resemblance to Iona. There was probably another reason for the choice:
its neighbourhood to the stronghold of Bamborough, the seat of the
Northumbrian Kings. Lindisfarne is very near to it, and naturally would
be under the protection of the King who lived there.
Bamborough, however, proved no protection against the Danes, who came
oversea, and, landing on the coast, overran not only a great part of the
North of England, but also a considerable portion of the South of
Scotland. The monks, fearing lest they should be deprived of St.
Cuthbert’s body and their other treasures, and of their lives as well,
fled from Lindisfarne, carrying with them the body of the saint. Many
churches dedicated to St. Cuthbert in these parts probably mark the
spots where the monks in their journeying rested for a while.
After wandering from 875 to 883, having remained for a short time at
Crayke, they settled at Chester-le-Street, which was given to them by
Guthred, a Danish King then reigning in Northumbria, and who had become
a Christian.
There the body rested, and from it the Bernician See was ruled until the
removal of Bishop Aldhun and the congregation of St. Cuthbert (after a
short sojourn at Ripon) to Durham in 995. The difficulties of an
adequate defence probably proved to the monks that Chester-le-Street was
not a suitable place for their protection. The superior position of
Durham was no doubt the reason why it was selected for the site of the
see. This, then, was the commencement of the church and city of Durham.
In 999 Bishop Aldhun, having commenced it three years before, completed
the building of a stone church, to which the body of St. Cuthbert was
transferred from a wooden building (_æcclesiola_, Symeon calls it),
where it had been at first placed. Of that church no part remains
visible to the eye, though there are no doubt thousands of the stones
belonging to it enclosed within the walls of the present church.
The first building remained until after the Norman Conquest, a great
change having taken place in the meantime. The monks who, with the
Bishop, had originally constituted the congregation of St. Cuthbert, had
fallen from the rule which was first observed. There was in those days a
great tendency among the regular clergy in the Saxon Church to
degenerate into a kind of secular clergy. Symeon says those at Durham
were neither monks nor regular canons. At Durham, as at Hexham, some
members of the congregation were married and had families, and there was
springing up at Durham possibly, as there certainly was at Hexham, an
hereditary system, son succeeding father; and had the system gone on,
there would have arisen a sacerdotal caste, with all the evils attending
such a body. The Norman Conquest happily did away with that, as it did
with other abuses. It is probable that some remains connected with these
married members of the congregation were discovered in 1874, when the
foundations of the east end of the old chapter-house, which was so
ruthlessly destroyed in 1796, were laid bare. The graves of Bishops
Ranulph Flambard, Galfrid Rufus, and William de St. Barbara were met
with, each covered with a slab bearing his name--probably not quite
contemporary--and in them were found three episcopal rings of gold, set
with sapphires, and in the grave of Flambard, the head, made of iron,
plated with silver, and the iron ferrule of a pastoral staff, all of
which are now preserved in the cathedral library. Below the level of the
Bishops’ graves there were found a considerable number of skeletons of
men, women, and children, with one of which was deposited the iron head
of a spear, having the socket plated with gold. There can be little
doubt that these bodies belonged to the married portion of the
congregation and their families, who occupied the monastery at Durham
from the time of Aldhun to their being dispossessed by Bishop William of
St. Carileph.
Allusion has already been made to the congregation of St. Cuthbert, but
of that body some further account must be given. The religious
community, the congregation of St. Cuthbert, which ultimately settled at
Durham, included the Bishop and the monks. The two formed one body,
whose interests were identical, and whose property was in common; and
the Bishop lived among the monks, over whom he ruled within the
community as he ruled over the diocese without, having no estates or
means of subsistence separate from the congregation of which he formed a
part. This unity between the Bishop and the monks was very similar to
that which prevailed amongst the early religious communities in Ireland
and Scotland. The system went on at Durham until the establishment of
the Benedictine Order there by Bishop William of St. Carileph, shortly
after the Norman Conquest. He was the second Bishop appointed by William
I., Walcher, the first Norman Bishop, having been killed, after a short
reign, by his own people at Gateshead, during a rebellion caused by the
oppression of his officials. William of St. Carileph, Abbot of St.
Vincent, became Bishop in 1081. Originally a secular priest, he
afterwards became a monk in the monastery of St. Calais, and such an
establishment as that he found at Durham must have been most distasteful
to him. A Benedictine monk himself, he naturally preferred being
surrounded by religious of his own Order, and not by those of whose
system he disapproved. In the time of Bishop Walcher the ancient
monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth were to a great extent, though
probably not altogether, deserted, and had been so since they were laid
waste by the Danes. When Bishop William determined upon establishing
Benedictine monks at Durham, he found these two monasteries already
existing at Jarrow and Wearmouth. Thinking there were not sufficient
provision for the maintenance of more than one monastery, he transferred
the monks from Jarrow and Wearmouth to Durham in 1083, and founded a
Benedictine house there. He became a party to the rebellion against
William Rufus in 1088, and was driven an exile for three years into
Normandy. It may well be that during his sojourn there he conceived the
design of replacing the old church by a new and more magnificent one.
Normandy at that time was full of large and noble churches, many lately
erected, and we can readily understand how the thought may have passed
across the mind of Carileph that, if he ever returned to Durham, he
would raise there a more glorious building, and one better adapted to
the wants of the new community than the church he had left behind him.
At all events, on his return, he determined to build a new church, and
may we not suppose that gratitude was among the motives which induced
him to do this? In the meanwhile, during the time of his exile, as we
learn from Symeon, the monks had built the refectory as, says he, it now
stands. Symeon was living in the early part of the twelfth century; he
therefore speaks with authority. The crypt under the refectory, which
still exists, cannot be later than Symeon’s time, and must therefore be
part of the refectory built during Carileph’s exile (1088-1091), and is
therefore in either case one of the earliest buildings at Durham in
connection with the monastery.
[Illustration:
_W LEIGHTON
1909_
THE CRYPT, DURHAM CATHEDRAL.]
This very ancient structure lies on the south side of the cloister, and
to the west of a contemporary passage leading from it into the great
enclosure of the monastery, now called the college. The passage itself
has an arcade of low blind arches on either side, and openings, possibly
coeval with it, lead into the crypt under the refectory at one side,
and into a smaller one on the other. The refectory crypt is low, being
only seven and a half feet high, and commences at the east end with a
division, which has a plain, barrel-shaped vault. From this an arched
opening leads into the main area of the crypt. It is divided into three
aisles by two rows of short, massive square pillars, four in each row,
making five bays in the length. The pillars support a plain groined
vault without ribs or transverse arches. This space is again succeeded
towards the west by three divisions, the westernmost one being not so
long as the others, all the three having, like the first and easternmost
one, plain barrel vaults. Up to this point the whole crypt is of the
same early date, but beyond, to the west of what appears to be an
original wall, are some other structures, the cellar and pantry, of
later times. The older crypt has been lighted on the south side by at
least seven, or possibly more, small windows, all round-headed except
one, which is circular.
To the east of the passage there is, as has already been stated, a
smaller crypt, which in general corresponds with the architectural
character of that under the refectory. It is now beneath the
entrance-hall of the deanery, once part of the Prior’s hall, and has
apparently been curtailed of some of its original length.
Symeon, a monk of Durham, already mentioned, lived when a great part of
the work at the church was going on, and therefore his testimony is very
important. He wrote a history of the church of Durham, and his history
was continued after him by an anonymous writer. We next have a further
continuation by Geoffrey de Coldingham, Robert de Graystanes, and
William de Chambre, together with a number of indulgences from various
Bishops, given towards obtaining means for making additions to and
alterations in the building, and a few, but late, fabric rolls. Besides
these there is a most important document, "A Description or Brief
Declaration of all the Ancient Monuments, Rites, and Customs belonging
or being within the Monastical Church of Durham before the Suppression,"
apparently written towards the end of the sixteenth century by someone
who had been an inmate of the monastery. These form the series of
historical evidences which now exist with regard to the dates of the
various parts of the church.
In 1093, on August 11, the foundation-stones of the new church were
laid, the foundations themselves having been dug on the preceding July
29. Aldhun’s church, as Symeon tells us, had been previously destroyed.
There were then present Bishop William of St. Carileph; Turgot, Prior of
the monastery, afterwards Bishop at St. Andrews; and, as other writers
say, Malcolm, King of Scotland. The continuator of Symeon says that, on
the accession of Flambard, he found the church finished as far as the
nave. This statement does not, of course, imply that the whole of this
was the work of Carileph, for the monks after his death had carried on
the building of the church; but it appears on the whole probable that,
with the exception of the west side of the transepts and the vaulting of
the choir, all the church up to the point mentioned had been built
before the death of Carileph.
It may be well to give here a general description of the Norman work,
taking the nave first, as being the most important feature in the whole
great scheme. The nave consists of three double compartments, a single
bay westward of these, and the western bay flanked by the towers. The
principal piers consist of triple shafts, placed on each face of a
central mass, square in plan; the shafts rest on massive bases of
cruciform plan, having a flat projecting band about the middle and a
narrow plinth at the bottom. A similar band and plinth are carried
beneath the wall-arcades of the nave and transepts and entirely round
the church on the outside. In the choir, however, except on the piers of
the tower arch, the bases are without a band, but have a plinth of
greater height, the responds on the aisle walls being similar. The
triple shafts next the nave or choir rise almost to the top of the
triforium, and support the great transverse arches of the vault. The
shafts next the aisles receive the diagonal and transverse ribs of the
aisle vault, and the shafts on the two remaining faces receive the
arches of the great arcade. The intermediate piers, in the centre of
each double compartment, are circular in plan, and stand on square
bases. The western pair of piers, at the corners of the towers, are
clustered like the other main piers, but have two additional shafts
(like the crossing piers), but these shafts on the side next the nave
receive the diagonal ribs of the vault, whereas the additional shafts on
the crossing piers support the outer order of the tower arches.
The triforium is of eight bays, having a containing arch with two
sub-arches, the tympanum being solid. The clerestory has in each of its
eight bays a lofty and wide arch with a smaller and lower one on each
side, the central arch having a window fronting it. It has a wall
passage which connects it with the clerestories on the west side of the
transepts. The inner arcade in the eastern bays appears to be an
insertion, possibly made when the vault was put on the nave. The idea of
vaulting the nave was apparently abandoned, when the triforium stage was
reached, and it is probable that the arrangement of the nave clerestory
was at first not unlike that of the south transept. The resumption of
the vaulting idea thus necessitated an alteration in the design of the
clerestory.
The nave is covered a double quadripartite vault over each double
compartment, without transverse ribs over the minor piers. The great
transverse arches, which spring from the major piers, are pointed. The
diagonal ribs, which rise from corbels inserted in the spandrils of the
triforium arches, are semicircular. They are all decorated with zigzag.
The choir consists of two double compartments, and in its plan as a
whole agrees with that of the nave. There are, however, some differences
in the details. The piers of the great arcades, although similar in
motive to those of the nave, are much longer from east to west, and are,
in fact, more like sections of wall than piers. The clerestory is quite
unlike that of the nave, having a plain round-headed arch in each bay,
with a corresponding window, and is destitute of a wall passage. The
triforiums on both sides of the choir and on the east side of the
transepts are all very similar. They are lighted by windows, consisting
of two small round-headed openings, about twenty inches apart, under a
containing arch. The buttressing arches, which are opposite the piers,
are semicircular in form, and are contemporaneous with the arcades. Each
transept has two double bays, with an aisle on the east side. The vault
on the north transept has one transverse arch, which is semicircular,
the double bay to the north having a single quadripartite vault with
segmental diagonal ribs. All the ribs are moulded with a roll between
two hollows. The south transept has a similarly formed vault, but the
ribs are enriched with zigzag. The triforium and other upper parts of
the church are reached by staircases contained in two square internal
projections which are in the north-west and south-west angles of the
transept. The end walls of the transepts were probably lighted by three
tiers of windows; the lowest--which still remains--though blocked up, in
the south transept, is a single round-headed window. It is difficult to
say what was the arrangement above, but probably there were three
windows on the triforium level and one on that of the clerestory.
Passages crossed the ends at these levels, but none now remain in their
original state.
The vaults of the aisles of the choir, transepts, and nave, are
quadripartite and are the same throughout, except that the diagonal ribs
of the nave aisles beyond the two eastern bays have zigzag upon them.