dedicated to St. Mary. There were also dining-rooms and porches and
sleeping apartments, in connection with the last of which there was an
oratory dedicated to St. Lawrence. Where these other buildings lay is
uncertain. Tradition says that they were to the west of the present
church. St. Mary’s Church was probably very much in this direction. In
the fourteenth century "the old kirk" was used as a granary.
The house at Monkwearmouth grew and prospered, a home of arts and
science and religion. There Bede began to acquire his wonderful
knowledge, and John the Chanter founded his great school of music. Seven
years after its foundation (A.D. 681) expansion became a necessity, and
a new grant of land was obtained, this time at Jarrow, on the south bank
of the Tyne. Seventeen persons, clerical and lay, were sent thither,
their leader being Ceolfrid, to whose care Bede, already for two years
an inmate of the older monastery, was committed. Soon after this event
Biscop departed on his last visit to Rome, leaving his stalwart kinsman
Eosterwini to rule at Monkwearmouth. He was absent for more than three
years, an eventful time, during which both houses suffered grievously
from a visitation of the plague. Eosterwini was its most notable victim,
whilst at Jarrow nearly the whole convent was stricken down. At that
place, as an anonymous writer informs us, only Ceolfrid and one boy,
obviously Bede, were left to chant the daily services. The above facts
will explain the delay in the consecration of the great church at
Jarrow, which, according to a contemporary inscription still preserved,
was not dedicated till the fourth year of Ceolfrid’s presidency.
Of this church only some stones now remain. A smaller church had,
however, been first built and consecrated, and it is this which forms
the chancel of Jarrow Church to-day. Its dimensions do not suggest any
special meaning. Twenty-eight feet to the west of it, and lying
precisely in the same right line, stood at one time a fabric precisely
similar to that of St. Peter’s, Monkwearmouth, the same, apparently, in
length and breadth and height, and lighted by windows of the same type
and in the same position. Annexed to it on the north and south were a
number of apartments, undoubtedly to be identified with the _porches_ in
Bede’s account of Monkwearmouth, chambers opening by round-headed arches
into the church itself. The arches on the north side, and vestiges of
three rooms on the south, remained as late as the year 1769. Probably
one such porch as this stood at the eastern end of the building; this we
know was the case at Monkwearmouth. These apartments, walled off as they
were from each other, would be used for prayer and study, and sometimes
as places of sepulture. They were probably constructed in imitation of
the chambers round Solomon’s temple.
This, then, appears to have been the church which it took so long to
complete, and in this building was set up the dedication stone above
mentioned. It was erected and consecrated under the auspices of King
Aldfrid (brother and successor to Ecgfrid), and the Abbot Ceolfrid.
Biscop himself was still abroad, but soon afterwards returned to
England, bringing with him many books and pictures, one series of which,
depicting the events of our Lord’s life, was ranged as a crown round the
Church of St. Mary in the greater monastery; another, representing the
Gospel story by type and antitype, adorned the monastery and Church of
St. Paul. Biscop’s last homecoming had its sorrows. He found Eosterwini
dead, and his successor Sigfrid slowly dying of consumption. Then there
came to himself a stroke of paralysis. Very touching is the story told
us of the last days of the two Abbots. The greater man feels the greater
anxiety. His much-prized library is not to be dispersed, but before all
things the unity of the double foundation is to be maintained. Before
his end comes he appoints Ceolfrid to govern the united monastery of St.
Peter and St. Paul.
The narrative continues till the year 716, when the aged Ceolfrid
resigned his charge, and departed to die, as he hoped, at Rome. But this
was not to be. His last moments were spent at Langres, near Lyons. But
one great work of Northumbrian art passed on by other hands to
Italy--the splendid manuscript of the Vulgate, now known as the Codex
Amiantinus, and preserved in the Medicean Library at Florence.
Bede himself lived on in his old home till the year 735. The story of
his end is too well known to need repetition here. Before his death
Northumbria had fallen from its former glory. A period of darkness
supervenes, broken here and there by the lurid light of Danish
invasions. Yet the churches of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow lasted on,
sacked, it might be, burned and desolated, but still saved from total
destruction.
The period of depression that followed the golden days of the twin
monasteries has left us but scanty memorials of their history. We begin
to hear of times of insecurity, of attacks made upon the eastern coast
of England by Danish pirates. The situations of the two churches would,
under these circumstances, be distinctly against them. Jarrow is to this
day conspicuous; it is probably less well known that Monkwearmouth
Church stood for centuries upon the top of a hill. This is shown quite
clearly in the engraving of the year 1785. The sea rovers would take
their own survey of the coast and its harbours, and would make for any
place that offered promise of pillage. There is much good and rich land
between the Wear and the Tyne, and the monks of early days were
assiduous cultivators. The country of Wilfrid and Biscop and Bede was no
uncivilized or neglected part of the world. To a pagan race there would
be no impediment in the form of religious scruples. The wealth of the
Church would but invite the spoilers to their prey.
And so the Danes came first to Northern England, to begin with, somewhat
tentatively, in the year 793, harrying the island of Lindisfarne,
plundering its monastery, and burning the church. The next year their
ships put into the Tyne. On the hill overlooking the slake, just where
that river receives its tributary the Don, stood the monastery of
Jarrow, Egfrid’s Port lying immediately below it. Here they landed, and
took such booty as they found. But the people of the neighbourhood
rallied, and drove back the invaders to their ships. Few of them made
good their escape, for the wind was against them. The storm came up into
the river, and the fugitives were driven to the shore, where they and
their chieftain, Ragner Lodbrog, met with the vengeance they deserved.
It is quite clear that the lesson thus given was not forgotten. We hear
no more of Danish invasions for well on to sixty years. When they
recommenced, they were directed elsewhere. In the year 851 the Danes
landed in Sheppey, and this time they came to stay. The chroniclers have
much to say about _the Army_; but it was not till the year 875 that it
marched into Northern England, and then probably not much beyond York;
it moved south two years later. But meanwhile there had no doubt been
many a raid upon the settlements on the coast. The year 866 was marked
by one of the most serious of these. At that date Hingvar and Hubba
burned the church of Monkwearmouth. The traces of this conflagration are
still distinctly perceptible. Again in the year 875 the fleet of Halfdan
was in the Tyne. Contemporaneously with this event took place the flight
from Lindisfarne, and the commencement of the journeyings of the body of
St. Cuthbert.
How the Danish power was driven back by Alfred, how his wise policy
reclaimed the half of his kingdom, is a well-known part of our national
history. The final triumph was not so much one of war as of peace. The
wisdom of a very great King effected much; the growing strength of
recovering Christianity did the rest. Never did any ruler so effectually
combine the forces of secular and spiritual power, or hold them more
truly in balance and co-operation. The invaders became settlers, and
have left this part of their history in the names of their new homes.
This is especially true of Lincolnshire; then, hardly less decidedly, of
York. But north of the Tees the English population simply retained lands
which they had never ceased to occupy. Danish place-names in the county
of Durham are few and far between.
[Illustration: ORNAMENTAL STONEWORK, MONKWEARMOUTH CHURCH.]
This is so much evidence--and it is worth something--in favour of the
supposition that the sister churches of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow were
not left to permanent ruin. The population of the neighbourhood was, and
remained, English, and would no doubt be warmly attached to the ancient
sanctuaries. Their hearts and minds would be as faithful to the sacred
memories of the past as were those of the wanderers who guarded the body
of St. Cuthbert. That there was no revolution in the history of this
particular district may be presumed from the silence which veils this
part of the story of their two great churches. The theory here advocated
appears to be further confirmed by the one incident recorded at this
period in connection with the church of Jarrow.
The old faith in the potency of the relics of the saints remained
unshaken through all periods of sunshine or of gloom. Respect for the
past and for the good clings to the devoted Churchman of every age; it
may sometimes even be strong enough to overpower his moral principle. It
was so undoubtedly in the case of Ælfred, a monk of Durham in the early
part of the eleventh century. This man conceived himself to be divinely
commissioned to visit the sites of ancient monasteries and to gather
together the remains of departed martyrs and confessors. He was very
successful in his quest. Hexham and Melrose were laid under
contribution, and Jarrow was not likely to be forgotten. To it he paid
an annual visit on the anniversary of the death of Bede. At least once
he prolonged his stay for several days, fasting and praying in the
church. Then one morning he departed at a very early hour, and he
returned no more. What he had done may be inferred from the assurance
with which he stated in after-years that the remains of Bede were
resting in the grave of St. Cuthbert. From what we know of the man and
of the age there seems little room for dispute about the matter: it
appears, moreover, to have been corroborated at a later date by visual
evidence.
The story is of interest to us mainly as bearing witness to the fact
that in the year 1022 the church of Jarrow remained a popular centre of
worship. In the case of Monkwearmouth history and legend alike fail us;
we must judge for ourselves. The tower of the church was evidently built
at two distinct periods. The porch and the parvise over it appear to
belong to the age of the founder. They also show traces of the fires of
the Danes. This is not the case with the superstructure. Incontestably
of Saxon work, it belongs to the same period which saw the erection of
at least four church towers in the valley of the Tyne. As it exhibits no
traces of the burning of the year 866, its date and theirs must be
looked for somewhere in the next two centuries. The reign of the
Northumbrian Guthred (A.D. 884-894) has been ascertained to be a period
when relations between Church and State were more than ordinarily
friendly. At this time the tower of Monkwearmouth Church may well have
been completed. It can hardly have been built at a much later date, for
there is other and different work in the
[Illustration: JARROW CHURCH.]
same church which appears to belong to the age before the Conquest. The
modern arch between nave and chancel rises on its south side from an
ancient substructure, of which one feature is the cushion moulding at
its base. There is something here begun by Anglo-Saxon masons, but
carried out apparently by Norman builders. It was possibly a work of the
reign of Edward the Confessor, and apparently implies some
contemporaneous reconstruction of the early porch or chancel.
Subject, then, to the chances of time and of warfare, the churches of
Monkwearmouth and Jarrow still carried on their existence. The latter
was certainly in use at the date of the Conquest. This was a period of
trouble and disaster. Oswulf, the Earl of Northumberland, is displaced,
and soon after murders his successor. Gospatric next buys the earldom,
and forthwith rebels. The Conqueror marches northward in person, and
appoints Robert Cummin to the vacant office. He, too, is assassinated in
the city of Durham. This event is followed by the King’s return, and the
wholesale devastation of the lands north of York. Ethelwin the Bishop,
accompanied by his canons, flees northward with the body of St.
Cuthbert. They rest for a night in the church at Jarrow. Their pursuers
follow on their track and set the building on fire. Northumbria is
devastated by Norman and Scottish enemies at once; and for nine years
the land lies waste. During this period we may well believe that both
our churches stood unroofed and desolate; their walls, on the other
hand, certainly resisted the flames, and were preserved to be ere long
the home of a new band of settlers.
* * * * *
The Norman Conquest brought in its train a very distinct revival of
monasticism. This was part of the general movement in favour of order
and authority which then prevailed. It came, no doubt, originally from
Rome. It was, in fact, the characteristic of Rome from very early days.
It made itself felt in the eleventh century by the growth of the
military spirit, and later on by the gradual development of law. It
affected more immediately the religious side of national life. Clerical
celibacy began to be enforced, and the foundation of monasteries was
encouraged. The foreigners took the lead in this matter, amongst them
Walcher of Lorraine, Bishop of Durham. Hearing of a small party of
missionary monks who had just arrived at Monkchester (now Newcastle), he
made haste to invite them to settle in his own territory at Jarrow. We
are told that he gave them the churches there (the plural number is
significant). They were soon joined by others who had followed them from
the South--the men of the North stood aloof; they had at this time good
reason to be suspicious of Southern visitors. The numbers of the monks
grew, and their patron enlarged their estate to meet their increased
needs. Besides a large property in land on both sides of the Tyne, they
received a grant of the church of Monkwearmouth. Briers and trees were
standing within its walls; much the same thing was probably true of
Jarrow. But they set to work with energy to repair and to acquire and to
establish.
What they did at Monkwearmouth we are not able to say. Probably they
extended the eastern porch into the form of a chancel. Two centuries
later that chancel attained its present peculiar form--long and
narrow--as became the custom in this part of England; it is also
decidedly lofty, being apparently intended thus to correspond with the
ancient nave. Undoubtedly respect was from the first shown to those who
designed the original church. The same right sentiment may be observed
much more evidently in the case of Jarrow, with which as their first and
more important possession Bishop Walcher’s monks proceeded to deal at
once.
We have mentioned above the existence of two churches at Jarrow, and
have observed that there exists written corroboration of this. The
smaller church which stood to the east is the chancel of the present
building. Twenty-eight feet to the west of it was the termination of
the nave or main block of the western church, built precisely on the
quite mathematical lines of the elder fabric at Monkwearmouth. We may
presume of this building what we know to have been the case at St.
Peter’s, that there was a porch behind the altar, a building, that is to
say, with three walls and one open side. Such a building still exists in
the chancel of the Saxon church at Escomb, near Bishop Auckland.
Assuming that the porch at Jarrow was like that at Escomb, square, and
of proportionately larger dimensions, there would be a space of some
thirteen feet intervening between it and the eastern church. It was here
that the Norman builders would be disposed to erect their tower, and
here the tower was accordingly built, not foursquare after the Norman
model, but in an oblong form. The site occupies a rectangle of thirteen
by twenty-one feet. The lower stages of this structure are essentially
massive and very distinctly Norman in character. The highest storey, on
the other hand, less well executed as some think, has its own
ornateness; it was probably erected in the succeeding generation. If so,
we understand the better the set-back of its northern and southern
sides; the architect employed had, no doubt, his own opinion to the
effect that the tower ought to have been square.
[Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH SNAKES, MONKWEARMOUTH CHURCH.]
The principle adopted by Bishop Walcher’s monks appears to have been
that of reverent adaptation to immediate needs. They wished to repair
and to add, but not to destroy. Had their stay at their new home been
prolonged, the case would in time have been altered. Large medieval
buildings would have taken the place of the more primitive original
structures. But their sojourn at Jarrow lasted for only eight years. In
the year 1083 Bishop William of St. Carileph transferred them to his
cathedral. The extruded canons were placed at Auckland and Darlington,
and the Evesham Benedictines occupied the mother-church of the diocese.
It was all done in haste. It was repented of, no doubt, at leisure. In
the enthusiasm of the moment Bishop William founded the one and only
abbey in the Bishopric of Durham. His successors, we may well believe,
deplored what was politically and ecclesiastically a great mistake. But
what was done could not be undone by anything less than a revolution.
The Abbey of Durham grew and was strong. The magnificence of its
buildings tells of the wealth of the builders. The Durham Household Book
speaks of the stir and pomp and cheerfulness of its daily life.
Meanwhile, the two more ancient sanctuaries were reduced to the
insignificant condition of Cells. They were left with their old estates,
each under the rule of a master, appointed or removed by the Prior of
Durham at his will. Each master had one monk with him for company,
sometimes two, and very rarely three. The masters appear to have taken
but little interest in the spiritual affairs of their churches. The
naves of these buildings were considered the property of the
parishioners, who executed repairs at their own cost; an ill-paid
stipendiary, called the chaplain or parish priest, discharged all
parochial duties. The church of Jarrow had its chapels at Wallsend, at
Shields, and at Westoe. The first named of these was left very much to
itself; the very altar-fees of the other chapels, as well as those of
the churches, were the perquisite of the master, while the services of
the chaplain were remunerated at very much the same rate as those of the
monastery barber.
The result as regards the fabrics was much what might have been
expected. The nave at Monkwearmouth was left to itself; that at Jarrow
was at some time extended so as to include the ground occupied by its
eastern porch. The other porches or chapels that once flanked this
building may have served for a while as parts of the parish church; then
they fell one after another by a lingering process of decay. On the
other hand, Monkwearmouth Church was in course of time enlarged; a north
aisle was added in the thirteenth century; its very pleasing doorway has
been fortunately preserved. About the same time two rather large windows
were set to lighten the east end of the nave of Jarrow.
The case was different with the conventual part of the two churches. At
Monkwearmouth, as we have seen, the choir was made long and lofty. Two
Decorated windows were placed on its southern side; a third, similar to
the others, stood in the north wall, all traces of which seem to have
been destroyed in quite recent times. The date of these windows is fixed
by an entry in the account rolls under the year 1347. A little later an
east window of five lights was erected; it has been reproduced from its
fragments, and is not without merit. The design at Monkwearmouth is,
however, far better than the workmanship.
In the case of Jarrow it was not necessary to find a new chancel; the
old eastern church was quite sufficiently roomy. What was required was
light, and this was provided first by a north-east window and an east
window, each of three lights, and afterwards by two additional windows
of three lights, one on each side of the western end of the chancel. The
latest of these was inserted in the year 1350.
The two houses conducted their financial affairs in an easy way. They
wanted enough to live upon, but had no further ambitions. They did not
develop their estates, and were careless as to their fisheries. Jarrow
was the richer house, but Monkwearmouth was reckoned the healthier;
thither came the monks of Durham to enjoy the bracing air. Once, at any
rate, Jarrow had to contribute to their maintenance. The usual donations
were made--subscriptions to subsidies and to the needs of scholars at
Oxford. A singular entry is often repeated in the rolls--the cost of
wine for the parishioners’ Communion.
* * * * *
Such was the uneventful life of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth till the
revolution of 1536, which brought an end to the existence of the smaller
monasteries. These two were valued at £38 14s. 4d. and £26 9s. 9d.
respectively.
The property of both the cells passed thenceforth into lay hands, and
the churches became poorer still. To Jarrow was preserved the meagre
endowment of ten marks; to Monkwearmouth two marks less. The former
church had, moreover, Easter offerings and a small parsonage. The
incumbents of both had, of course, an uncertain income from fees. No
attempt to mend matters was made till the commencement of the nineteenth
century.
Before that period had arrived the neglected churches had at last fallen
quite into decay. The parishioners had had to do something; what they
did was to destroy the nave of Jarrow, and the southern (or Saxon) wall
of Monkwearmouth. These demolitions took place in 1782 and 1806
respectively. The result of the alterations and rebuildings no doubt
commended itself to those then concerned with such matters. We find a
picture of the new Monkwearmouth Church accompanied with a note of much
satisfaction in a contemporary number of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_.
Restorations followed in 1861 and 1873, but they could not give back the
past. What was spared has been treated with reverence. The west front of
Monkwearmouth still remains. The church, now apparently sunk into a
hollow, is surrounded by poor and crowded tenements, built upon ballast
brought from the Thames. The medieval chancel is there, its restored
windows now filled with Kempe’s beautiful glass. The music of its
services is worthy of the church of John the Chanter. Only we regret the
loss of the Saxon Church as it once stood upon its hill overlooking
river and sea. Jarrow has been more fortunate; it still crowns the hill
above its wide slake--a landmark well known to all those who use the
waterways of the Tyne. It, too, has its points of interest, its Saxon
chancel and its Norman tower. Much, of course, is missing in both
places. But there is still more than enough to attract and to fascinate
the mind of the Englishman and the Christian, who looks back to the
glories of that good old time that gave to Northumbria and to the world
the life of the one man that was Venerable--the learning and the labours
of Bede.
THE PARISH CHURCHES OF DURHAM
BY WILFRID LEIGHTON