be a constantly recurring ingredient of this controversy, that the
place of the synods must have been within the kingdom of Mercia, it
seems a little oblique of the mark aimed at. They were royal councils,
and these must be expected to have followed the presence of the king
and his court, as was the case in much later times than those now
under consideration. Most of the remaining records of these synods
at Cloveshoe, and of the other national ones during the same period,
show the king to have presided; and it is true that it is the Mercian
King, who is so found, during both of the long reigns of Æthelbald and
Offa; and throughout the time of the domination of the Mercians in
Kent. The policy of the Mercian aggressors, during their long continued
contention for empire, to grasp the great estuaries of the island, has
already been referred to, and a glance at sheets I. and VI. of the
Ordinance survey will show how desirable was this Chersonesus for the
head quarters of a power, which made a chief point of the possession
of the Thames, and its only less valuable and smaller sister, the
Medway. The opposite coast of the East Saxons had already, for several
reigns, been subjected to Mercia. A.D. 704, Suebræd, the regulus of
the East Saxons, could not grant lands at Twickenham, then in Essex,
but “in prouincia quæ nuncupatur middelseaxan,” to Waldhere, Bishop
of London, except “cum licentia Æthelredi regis” of Mercia.[62] Kent,
less fortunate, was still contended for by both Wessex and Mercia, as
well as by Sussex, and by all three it was successively ravaged; and it
even looks as if the three contending invaders maintained, as clients,
rival pretenders, as kings of the parts of Kent at the time under their
power. The division of Kent into Lathes may be a so-to-speak fossil,
or rather an archaic autograph upon the surface of the county, of this
state of it. It is, however, certain that Mercia ultimately made good a
permanent domination of Kent; and the kings of Kent acknowledged that
supremacy in their government, by merely counter-subscribing the acts
of the kings of Mercia.[63]
The mass of chalk, of which the body of the Hoo consists, is said to
pass under the Thames; and a small continuation of it reappears on
the Essex side, directly opposite Cliffe and Higham and Chalk, at East
Tilbury; and having continued four miles westward, behind the marsh
marked by Tilbury Fort, dies out at Purfleet.[64] It forms an elevated
promontory at East Tilbury, penetrating the levels on that side to the
river. The present chief traject of the river is about three miles
westward, from Gravesend to the fort: but the chalk promontory is the
terminus of an ancient straight chain of roads, which, although in
some places interrupted by later breaks and divergencies, indicates a
traffic of ages, from this terminus on the river, in a north-western
direction, striking the Iknield Street at Brentwood, and apparently
afterwards still continuing the same line: probably to Watling Street;
any rate to the heart of the Mercian dominions: say, to Hertford, if
you like.
There are various other substantial evidences of great ancient
intercourse of Essex with the Hoo of Kent, by a trajectus at this
place, between East Tilbury and Higham; and Higham is only five miles
from Rochester bridge, by which the Watling Street entered that city.
Morant says, of the manor of Southall in East Tilbury, “This estate
goes now to the repair of Rochester bridge: when and by whom given
we do not find.”[65] He also mentions the “famous Higham Causeway”
in connection with Tilbury.[66] Until the reign of Stephen, the
church at Higham had belonged to the Abbot and Convents of St. John,
Colchester.[67] The importance of this Essex traject to the kingdoms
north of the Thames, when the domination of Mercia in Essex and Kent
was beginning, may be inferred from the fact that one of the two
colleges, or capitular churches, founded by Cedda, A.D. 653, in Essex,
was at Tilbury.[68] There is a place called Chadwell by West Tilbury.
Some years later, A.D. 676, when Æthelred of Mercia first devastated
Kent, it is evident that he used this passage; for the destruction
of Rochester, five miles south of Higham and Cliffe, is the only
one of his exploits, on that expedition, specified by name.[69] So
late as A.D. 1203, Giraldus Cambrensis passed from Kent to Essex by
Tilbury. These incidents, connecting Tilbury and Higham, may qualify
the surprise that has hitherto troubled church historians at finding
that “Clofeshoch,” at so early a date as A.D. 673, was appointed, at
“Herutford,” as the place for future councils, even if Herutford had
been Hertford, as some say.
The conclusion that the line of approach, and of the first invasion of
Kent by the Mercians, was by a passage from the Essex coast to Higham
or Cliffe; and that the peninsula of Hoo, adjoining Rochester, had then
and long after been the basis of their domination of that kingdom;
had been already formed, from what has been already said. And it was
at this point, that it was thought worth while to see what the chief
county historians say about the two termini of the trajectus.
This is Hasted’s statement:--
“_Plautius_, the _Roman_ General under the _Emperor
Claudius_, in the year of Christ, 43, is said to have passed
the river _Thames_ from _Essex_ into _Kent_, near the mouth
of it, with his army, in pursuit of the flying _Britons_ who
being acquainted with the firm and fordable places of it passed
it easily. (Dion. Cass., lib. lx.) The place of this passage
is, by many, supposed to have been from _East Tilbury_, in
_Essex_, across the river to _Higham_. (By Dr. Thorpe, Dr.
Plott, and others.) Between these places there was a _ferry_ on
the river for many ages after, the usual method of intercourse
between the two counties of Kent and Essex for all these parts,
and it continued so till the dissolution of the abbey here;
before which time Higham was likewise the place for shipping
and unshipping corn and goods in great quantities from this
part of the country, to and from _London_ and elsewhere. The
probability of this having been a frequented ford or passage
in the time of the _Romans_, is strengthened by the visible
remains of a raised causeway or road, near 30 feet wide,
leading from the _Thames_ side through the marshes by _Higham
southward_ to this _Ridgway_ above mentioned, and thence across
the _London_ highroad on _Gads-hill_ to _Shorne-ridgway_, about
half-a-mile beyond which adjoins the _Roman Watling-street_
road near the entrance into _Cobham-park_. In the pleas of the
crown in the 21st year of K. Edward I., the _Prioress_ of the
nunnery of _Higham_ was found liable to maintain a bridge and
causeway that led from _Higham_ down to the river _Thames_, in
order to give the better and easier passage to such as would
ferry from thence into Essex.”[70]
It may be added that the Hoo peninsula has other marks of having been,
at much earlier times, a district of great transit. There is, perhaps,
no other part of England, of so small an extent, which has so many and
clustered examples of “Street” in names of secluded spots--including
the almost ubiquitous “Silver Street”[71]--quite disengaged from those
that follow the line itself of Watling-street. Yet Mr. Johnson of
Cranbrook goes on to say, “As Cliffe in Hoo was never a place of note
itself, so it lies, and ever did lie, out of the road to any place of
note.” It is believed that he has greatly under-rated the substantial
results of such a dynastic change as we are now considering; followed,
for a thousand years, by its sequential changes on the material surface
of the earth.
At all events, this was, evidently, the earliest line of approach, by
which Mercia, with its contingents, the other Anglian nations and the
East Saxons, whom it had either subdued or otherwise allied, invaded
Kent; and this continued to be its chief or only access for some years.
A single glance, at the geography of the Hoo, will show the value of
such an advanced peninsula, as the basis of such an incursion upon the
centre of Kent; and as the stronghold from which the subjection of that
kingdom could be maintained. We have other means of knowing that it was
probably, at least, thirty years before a second or optional approach
was secured by way of the east of Kent. This second access must have
been a much coveted one, and when it came into hand must have been of
great value; particularly in regard to the occasional, or at least
frequent, royal residence already established at the Hoo. The Watling
Street, the greatest and most frequented of all the highways then
existing, led from the very heart of Mercia, in a direct line through
Middlesex, to the very isthmus of the peninsula itself. Although Kent
had been already invaded, A.D. 676, yet so late as A.D. 695,[72] London
remained subject to Essex; but, as we have already seen, only nine
years afterwards Twickenham, in the province called “Middelseaxan,” had
become subject to Mercia.
Some of our most learned historians describe the “Middle Saxons” as
a very small people, forming a part of the East Saxons; but they are
obliged to confess that they find very little to say about them. It is
believed that there never was a separate people called Middle Saxons.
They have been created out of a snatched analogy, of the mere name
“Middlesex,” with “Essex,” “Sussex,” and “Wessex.” There can be little
doubt that Middlesex represents the original civitas, or territory, of
the local government, of its urbs or burgh of London, the capital of
the kingdom of Essex. Like other great commercial seaports or staples,
this already great mart had maintained much of the condition of a
free city; and, in passing, along with its territory from Essex to
the ascendant power of Mercia, it may not have been by conquest, but
by a voluntary exercise of that instinct, to unite in the fortunes of
an advancing supremacy, which is often associated with, and perhaps
closely allied to, commercial habits. At all events, it is at this time
that the name, Middlesex, first comes to light;[73] and it is believed
that instead of being, like the names of the Saxon nations, formed by
the addition of an adjective; the “middle” of this newer name is a
preposition, and that it means, that Anglian acquisition which had now
thrust itself _between_ the East Saxons and the South and West Saxons.
The Anglo-Saxon Dictionaries produce an example, from one of the
glossaries of Ælfric, of “Middel-gesculdru” = the space _between_ the
shoulders.
But although, in the existing records of the series of Councils and
Synods that were held during the ascendancy of Mercia, and often
presided over by the Mercian kings in person, the name of Cloveshoe
is frequent, as the place of convention; other places, as “Cealchythe”
and “Acle,” are also frequent and continuous. And the names of the
councillors, who sign the acts as witnesses, have a certain current
identity, with only such changes as may be expected by lapse of time,
rather than of change of the region where the assemblies had been
convened. After the king, usually follows the Archbishop of Canterbury;
then the Bishop of Lichfield, followed by the other Mercian Bishops;
and then of the other subject kingdoms.
These two places, Cealchythe and Acle, have been as great puzzles to
enquirers as Clovesho itself; and they also have been placed in very
distant regions; the sounds of their names being apparently thought
to be the only consideration. Cealchythe was thought by Archbishop
Parker to be in Northumbria; but Alford said Chelsea; Spelman that
it was within the kingdom of Mercia.[74] Gibson suggests Culcheth
in Lancashire, as although in Northumbria, not far from Mercia.
Miss Gurney also says “Perhaps Kilcheth on the southern border of
Lancashire.” Dr. W. Thomas gives it to Henley-on-Thames, partly because
he considered it “near” Cloveshoe; Wilkins nor Kemble make any venture;
others, adopted by Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs, and, as far as the name
alone would have settled it, with a very great deal of apparent reason,
would have placed it at Chelsea. The ancient forms of the name of
Chelsea, of which examples are by no means scarce, seem all directly
to lead up to an identity with that of the councils. One of these, of
the baptism, A.D. 1448, of John, son of Richard, Duke of York, recorded
in Will. Wyrcester’s Anecdota, is, for example, at “Chelchiethe.” But
the name of the council seems to resolve itself into “Chalk-hythe,” and
there is no chalk at Chelsea. But even this has been got over by taking
the first portion of “Chelsey” for “chesil” or gravel; and this favours
the ancient forms of Chelsea = Chelchythe, rather more than it does the
variations in the name of the council; which on the whole lean towards
“chalk” or “Chalkhythe.” Dr. Ingram[75] adopts “Challock, or Chalk, in
Kent;” and Mr. Thorpe repeats that suggestion, with the addition of a
“?”
As to this “Chalk,” it is also in the district of the Hoo, and is the
adjoining parish westward of Higham; on the same chalk ridge, whereon
both Higham and Cliff-at-Hoo are situated. The village is two miles
west of Higham church, and all three are practically the same place,
within a space of four miles; of which the ancient trajectus above
mentioned is at the centre. The face of the cliff, upon which Cliffe
stands, is still quarried for chalk, which is shipped in a small creek
that runs up to the cliff. It will at once come to mind, how constantly
such wharfs are called “hythe,” throughout the navigable portion of
the Thames; and how frequently that word forms a part of the names of
them. That river has, indeed, almost--not quite--a monopoly of this
name-form. But the Ordnance Surveyors[76] show an eastward detachment
of Chalk parish, within half a mile of Higham church, and close to that
point of the shore which would have been the hythe of the traject.
There can be little doubt that this detachment is a survival of the
“Chalkhythe” at which some of the councils were dated, whilst others
were at Cliffe-at-Hoo adjoining. An endorsed confirmation,[77] under
Coenulf, has the formula, “in synodali conciliabulo _juxta_ locum qui
dicitur caelichyth.”
* * * * *
Another frequent name, of the place of convention of some of this
series of councils during Mercian ascendancy, is “Acle” or “Acleah,”
which has been as great a puzzle as the others. This name may be
expected to appear in any such modern forms as Oakley, Okeley, Ockley,
or Ackley, which are very numerous in nearly every part of England;
indeed, wherever the oak has grown: and rather a free use of this wide
choice has been made in the attempts to find the place of the councils
so dated. The most accepted one seems to be Ockley, south of Dorking,
near the confines of Surrey and Sussex; apparently attracted by a
battle with the Danes there, A.D. 851. But this happened in later and
Wessexian times. Lambarde (about A.D. 1577) thought it likely to be
somewhere in the Deanery of Ackley, in Leicestershire: Spelman, in the
Bishopric of Durham. Dr. Ingram says, “Oakley in Surrey.” Professor
Stubbs says of one act of Offa so dated that it “is unquestionably
Ockley in Surrey,” and affords “a strong presumption that the other
councils of the southern province said to be at Acleah, were held at
the same place,” apparently because the charter before him is a grant
to Chertsey. But the substance of these royal grants does not show the
place where they were executed. They are the Acts of the Supreme Court
of Appeal. Ingram and Thorpe give Ockley, Surrey. Miss Gurney, “Acley,
Durham?” Kemble, “Oakley or Ackley, Kent, or Ockley, Surrey,” Sir T. D.
Hardy says “in Dunelmia;” no doubt adopting Spelman’s judgment.
Turning again to the Ordnance Survey,[78] at one mile-and-a-half from
the church at Cliff-at-Hoo, and rather nearer to it than Higham church
itself, will be seen a building marked “Oakly;” or, in the six-inch
scale, two: Oakley and Little Oakley. Reverting to Hasted’s account of
the parish of Higham,[79] we also find that it contained two manors,
Great and Little Okeley; and he quotes the Book of Knight’s Fees,
K. John, where it is written, “Acle.”[80] Oakley lies in the direct
way from the ancient traject to Rochester bridge, and has been held
liable to repair the fourth pier of it. In Domesday it appears as
“Arclei.” But the existence of this very place can be realised at a
date eight years earlier than the first recorded Synod at Aclea. Mr.
Kemble has printed[81] a grant of Offa, dated A.D. 774, to Jaenberht
the Archbishop, of a piece of land in a place called “Hehham,” now
Higham; of which one portion is conterminous with Acleag--“per confinia
acleage”,--another part touches “ad colling”--now Cooling with its
Castle,--afterwards bounded by “mersctun,” since Merston, and other
lands “Sc̄i andree,” _i.e._ of Rochester Cathedral. This piece of land,
although granted by Offa to the Archbishop of Canterbury, is not only
situated within the diocese of Rochester, but is immediately surrounded
by the demesnes of Rochester Church. From a realization of the above
three land-marks of the charter, it is certain that, although Cliffe is
not named, the site of the church and town of Cliffe itself, as well as
Higham, is included within the land-marks of the grant; and that the
granted manor is identical with those parishes, as they have afterwards
become. Cooling adjoins the granted land to the east; Acleag, now
Oakley, to the south; Merston, is described by Hasted as a forgotten
parish, and no longer appears even in his own map of the Hundred,
but he identifies the ruined church among the buildings of “Green
Farm,” close to Gads-hill. From this he represents it to have reached
the Shorne Marshes; that is to the Thames shore; forming, therefore,
the western boundary of Cliffe and Higham, and including the already
mentioned detachment of Chalk parish, and having Acleag named as one of
its boundaries.[82]
In this charter of Offa, we see one of the examples of those first
separations of land, which afterwards became what we call a parish.
What we now call a parish, is not an invention or institution by
Archbishop Honorius, or Archbishop Theodore, nor of any individual
genius; any more than shires and hundreds were invented by King Alfred.
Our parishes are the natural and exigent result of the variety of
causes that have planted churches; to the use of which, and to the
privileges of the cures vested in them, neighbours have acquired
customary or other rights. Territorial parishes are definitions and
ratifications of these emergent rights, that pre-existed, as other
political results do pre-exist, such confirmations of them. Their
multiplication may have been promoted, more or less, by different men
in different ages, including our own age. We shall presently see,
that it is most likely that Offa founded the church at Cliffe; and
this charter no doubt fixes the date of it. Higham must have been
separated from it, into another parish, at a later time. The Archbishop
of Canterbury continued to be the owner of Cliffe until K. Henry
VIII.; and the rectory is still in the gift of the Archbishop, and
exempt from Rochester which encompasses it. As Johnson of Cranbrook
himself admits, “It is indeed a parish most singularly exempt; for the
incumbent is the Archbishop’s immediate surrogate.”
* * * * *
But there is a much later Mercian council, which deserves to be
noticed; not for its intrinsic importance, but on account of the
place from which it is dated.[83] It is a sale of two bits of land at
Canterbury to the Archbishop, A.D. 823, by Ceoluulf, “rex merciorum
seu etiam cantwariorum.” The price seems to have been, a pot of gold
and silver money, by estimation five pounds and-a-half (or ? four
and-a-half); more portable and convenient to Ceoluulf under Beornuulf’s
usurpation of Mercia. This was just when Mercia was waning, and Wessex
ascendant. The date is “in uillo regali, qui dicitur werburging wic.”
It will be remembered what was the business that first called us to the
Kentish Hoo: the finding one of our St. Werburgh dedications there.
That this Werburghwick was in the Hoo, will become more likely by
comparison with another charter.[84] This is, a grant of a privilege
to the Bishop of Rochester, by Æthelbald, A.D. 734, which has an
endorsed confirmation, by Beorhtuulf “regi merciorū in uico regali
uuerbergeuuic,” which endorsement must have been added about A.D. 844.
Turn also to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 851 or 853, where it is
said that the Heathen men having held their winter in Thanet; in the
same year came 350 ships into Thames mouth, and broke Canterbury, and
London, and made this same Beorhtuulf King of the Mercians fly with his
army, and went south over Thames into Surrey.[85] It is thought more
likely that he was at his villa regalis, in the Hoo, than at Tamworth;
where however he sometimes is also found.
The truth seems to be, that, when Mercia relapsed into a mere province
or Ealdormanship, it still retained its hold in Kent as an appanage.
Thus we have seen Ceoluulf at our Werburghwick in the Hoo, A.D. 823;
and Beorhtwulf in the same place, A.D. 844, and again, apparently
disturbed by the Danes, A.D. 853. In the paper, before referred to,
Mr. Rashleigh has given an analytical table of a hoard of about 550
Anglo-Saxon Coins found at or near Gravesend in 1838, which must have
been buried so late as A.D. 874-5. Of these 429 are of Burgred king
of Mercia A.D. 852-874, and one of Ceoluulf (II.) of Mercia, A.D.
874. Probably the boundary of the latest holding of Mercians in Kent,
answers to that of the diocese of Rochester, as it came down to the
middle of the present century; somewhat abnormally consisting of only
a part of a county. Dioceses were originally identical with civil
provinces; and have been dormantly conservative of their boundaries,
during those very times when political revolutions have been most
active upon those of civil states.
* * * * *
It thus appears, that the three most frequent of the names, from which
the series of Mercian synods are dated, can be accounted for as of
places practically in the same locality; and that, the one to which
tradition, before it had been tampered with by philological evolution,
had already directly pointed; and on a piece of land, exceptionally
given to Canterbury, encompassed by the lands of Rochester, for
a purpose of which the circumstances here adduced are the only
explanation and index. It is not inferred that all three names indicate
the same building: probably not; for, in a later synod, “ad Clobeham,”
(A.D. 825)[86] a judgment “prius at Cælchythe” is referred to. But so
might, up to our time, a judgment at Westminster, or at Guildhall, be
quoted in the Chancellor’s Court at Lincoln’s Inn; but all three would
be at London.
* * * * *
Although the synods of the series are most frequently dated from
Cloveshoe, Chalkhythe, and Acleah, other places have one or two each.
There is “Berhford,” A.D. 685, usually placed at Burford, Oxon., for
no other reason than the sound of the name, connected with the old
prejudice for that neighbourhood as central for Mercia. “Baccanceld,”
A.D. 798, was certainly in Kent, since there was also a council of
the still self-acting king of Kent held there, A.D. 694. Another
name “Bregentforda,” very doubtfully, upon no better ground, placed
at Brentford. All these deserve to be closely re-considered; and if
possible supported by some reason, added to these guesses from the
merest outside likeness in the names.