bridge estate were provided the funds needed to build the present
structure, without recourse to the ratepayer. These endowments are
of ancient standing, and in an extension of this system of voluntary
endowment followed by our ancestors may yet be found the way to relieve
the ratepayer of the ever-increasing burden of local taxation.
Half a century ago there were in the county but two bridges across
the Trent--at Nottingham and Newark. Now we have in addition those at
Wilford and Gunthorpe, besides the two railway bridges at Nottingham.
As against this must be set the recent discontinuance of the
ancient ferry which from Roman times or even earlier had existed at
Littleborough.
This sketch of the history and character of a great city is imperfect,
as such attempts must be when limited to the space of a few pages.
Perhaps it will suffice to show that Nottingham is no mean city, but
one of which the inhabitants are rightly proud. Those who have settled
there by choice, and those who are natives of the town, alike pride
themselves upon it with good reason.
SOUTHWELL
BY W. E. HODGSON,
_Priest-Vicar of Wells Cathedral, and late Assistant-Curate of
Southwell Minster_
Hidden in a hollow amidst the undulating downs which skirt the vale of
Trent, Southwell has escaped the notice which it deserves from both
the antiquary and the historian. Its annals are not wildly exciting,
for the streets of the little township have not often resounded to
the clash of arms, nor its halls been the scene of statesmen’s high
debate; but its history is really interesting to the serious student,
for in some ways it is unique. And above all, the lover of our
church architecture finds in the stones of the Minster a majesty of
conception, mixed with an extreme delicacy of detail, which it is not
easy to excel.
The best way to approach Southwell is to travel by the road from
Nottingham which passes through Thurgarton, the low road the natives
call it, for when the pilgrim has breasted Brackenhurst Hill, he is
greeted by a truly artistic view: the sight of Southwell Minster
nestling in the valley below, framed in a plentiful surrounding of
trees, and banked with a pleasing profusion of red-tiled roofs. It is
the south side of the church which is thus seen, and the picture of the
cathedral standing in the midst of green fields, once the Archbishop
of York’s park, seems the very ideal of peace and tranquillity. It is
indeed a true epitome of the whole story of the church and town.
The history of Southwell is known to reach back to the year 956, but
like many other places whose origins are uncertain, that history has
been extended still further back into the past, till it rests on the
very weakest of foundations. The mistake arose partly, no doubt, from
a desire to attach to the church the well-known name of some pioneer
of Christianity in this land, and partly from the mistaken identity of
the locality of Tiovulfingacester, the place near which, so Bede tells
us, Paulinus baptized large numbers of converts in the Trent. Camden,
who is followed by all the local historians, describes Paulinus as the
founder of the first church at Southwell, but there is no real evidence
to support this assertion, and we must be content to admit that the
origin of the place is unknown. The locality, however, was inhabited
during the Roman occupation of Britain, for undoubted Roman remains
have been discovered. A piece of pavement can be seen beneath some old
wooden stalls in the south limb of the transept of the Minster, and
when some digging was in progress a few years ago in the garden of the
Residence House, to the east of the Minster, the remains of a Roman
wall were discovered. These remains were photographed before they were
covered up again, and it is quite possible in the summer to trace the
course of the masonry beneath the lawn by the lighter shade of green
which it causes the grass above it to assume. Experts, to whom the
fragments of pottery and other things which have been dug up in the
garden have been shown, are convinced of their genuineness. Whether
the Roman occupation took the form of a villa or an encampment we
cannot tell; but the sheltered hollow in which Southwell lies is one
that would have taken the fancy of some magnate seeking a site for his
country house, for it would have been easily accessible from the Trent,
and was also within a few miles of the Fosse way. But this is all
conjecture, and though at any time the spade may reveal direct evidence
of earlier history, yet at present we can only start with certainty at
the year 956 A.D.
There is no direct evidence to show in what diocese Southwell lay
before 956, for it is uncertain whether that part of Nottinghamshire
belonged to Lindsey or Mercia. If the boundary lay to the west
of Southwell, then it was in Lindsey and in the diocese of
Sidnaceaster,[52] and the province of York, but if to the east, it
was in Mercia, and so in the diocese of Lichfield and the province
of Canterbury. Nottingham itself was in Mercia,[53] but Newark seems
always to have belonged to the Archbishops of York, and so was
probably in Lindsey.[54] There is ample evidence to suppose that the
boundary lay between Southwell and Newark, a supposition to which the
connection of the former with St. Eadburg lends weight. This connection
of St. Eadburg is unfortunately not at all clear. In a tractate on
the burial-places of English saints, which was apparently a kind of
pilgrims’ guide to famous shrines (the oldest extant copy is assigned
to the year 1015), there is the following entry: “There resteth St.
Eadburg in the Minster near the water which is called Trent.” St.
Eadburg, abbess of the monastery of Repton, died at the beginning of
the eighth century; she was a lady of Mercian royal descent, and the
friend of St. Guthlac, the founder of Croyland, to whom on one occasion
she sent a coffin and a winding-sheet, with a request that he should
use them when the proper time arrived. These strange gifts St. Guthlac
is said to have ordered to be used after his death.[55]
St. Eadburg of Repton is generally considered to be the saint of that
name whose shrine was mentioned in the pilgrims’ guide as being at
Southwell. But why was she buried at Southwell? It has been conjectured
that she founded a monastery there; but there is no evidence of this,
and as far as we have any certain knowledge there does not seem to have
ever been a time when any regular Order was established at Southwell.
Tradition also is silent on the point. Before 956 Southwell was
probably a royal estate, and perhaps one of the least disturbed parts
of Mercia. Besides, in those days, the peregrinations of the bones of
saints were not infrequent, and St. Eadburg’s must have been moved to
Southwell some time after her death, as it appears that St. Eadburg’s
body lay at the Monastery of Limming or Lyminge in Kent for over 150
years. For there are references to her in two charters in Birch’s
_Cartularium Saxonicum_.
(1) A grant of land in Canterbury, A.D. 804, by Coenulph, King
of the Mercians, and Cuthred, King of the Cantuarii, to Selethryth,
Abbess of the Convent at Limming, “ubi pausat corpus beatæ Eadburgæ.”
(B.C.S. 317, Cod. Dip. 188.)
(2) A grant by Athelstan to the church of St. Mary, Lyminge, of land at
Vlaham or Elham in Kent, A.D. 964. In this charter Lyminge is
described as the place “ubi sepulta est sancta Eadburga.” (B.C.S. 1126.)
If these charters are genuine, an interesting question is raised.
What was the connection of St. Eadburg with Lyminge, and why was her
body moved, so long after her death, to Southwell? A possible answer
to the second question is that her bones were moved to Southwell by
order of King Edgar, to enhance by their presence, the gift of land at
Southwell, which King Eadwig had made to Oskytel of York in 956.[56]
If this was so, the body was probably moved to Southwell very shortly
after 964. This grant of land by King Eadwig to Archbishop Oskytel of
York, in 956, is the first real fact in the history of Southwell. The
genuineness of the charter which embodies this gift has been called
in question, but the balance of evidence seems distinctly in favour of
its authenticity. The extent of the lands granted to the archbishop, as
far as can be made out from the charter,[57] corresponds roughly to the
territory now belonging to the two parishes of Southwell, St. Mary and
Holy Trinity.[58]
It is not meant to infer that there was no church at Southwell before
956, but that up till then it had most probably been one of the
numerous minsters or parochial churches distributed over the county.
Some people still think, because the church at Southwell is called “the
Minster,” that it was once served by monks. Such was not the case, and
it is a noticeable fact that the churches to which this name has clung
were none of them monastic--York, Lincoln, Beverley, and Southwell. The
word “Monasterium,” the Bishop of Bristol[59] says, “is used in the
Middle Ages for a parish church in the country. ‘Minster’ has always
been a special Yorkshire word, York Minster, Beverley Minster.”
An interesting fact about this grant of land by Eadwig to Oskytel
is that it seems to be the first recorded instance of a grant of
private jurisdiction, the archbishop being given sac and soc over his
new estate. Oskytel did not, in all probability, leave the church
purely parochial, but established a college of Secular Canons there,
whose duty it was to serve the Minster, and also to look after the
neighbouring churches. If he founded the college he would also most
likely rebuild and enlarge the church to make it more worthy of its
higher position. Though at this period the history of Southwell seems
to consist only of probabilities, yet we do know for certain that
by the Norman Conquest there was a College of Canons there who were
prebendaries, for Domesday Book, in speaking of the lands which the
archbishop possessed at Southwell, describes two bovates as being “in a
prebend.” This is very interesting, for very few, if any, other canons
held their land as prebendaries before the Conquest, those of the great
church at York not reaching that status till the episcopate of Thomas
of Bayeux[60] (1070–1100). Also Archbishop Ealdred (1060–1070) is
recorded as having bought land to “found prebends” at Southwell.
This College of Secular Canons had a remarkable career. At the time
of the Conquest they were seven in number, and by the end of the
thirteenth century they had grown to sixteen, at which number they
remained until the dissolution of the Chapter seventy years ago. The
history of this college may not be exciting, but its career is most
interesting, for it lasted from before the eleventh century until the
year 1840. No other ecclesiastical corporation in the country had such
a long existence, surviving the storms of the Reformation to be swept
away by the almost fanatical wave of reform which raged over England
during the second quarter of the nineteenth century.
But we must return to earlier days. Even after the first real fact of
956 the history of Southwell remains very incomplete, nothing but a
few scraps of information rewarding the most diligent search, and the
reader must bear in mind that the meagre scraps that are to be picked
up are almost entirely ecclesiastical, for the history of Southwell
consists simply of the history of the Chapter and their church.
Ælfric Puttoc, Archbishop of York (1023–1050), is said, like many of
his successors, to have lived at Southwell, and to have died there. He
was a very worldly-minded prelate and bears a bad reputation, though
he is said to have been a great benefactor to Southwell; which is
quite likely as he particularly favoured the great secular churches of
his diocese, and among other things organised the College of Canons
at Beverley. He was, however, a magnificent patron of the abbey of
Peterborough where he was buried. His successor Kinsi (1050–1060),
gave some large bells to Southwell, and Ealdred, who succeeded him,
bought lands to found prebends there, and also built, both at Southwell
and York, a refectory.[61] Ealdred was fated to be the last Saxon
archbishop, and he seems to link the Saxon and Norman races together
by the fact that he crowned both Harold and William the Conqueror. We
know of little intercourse between Thomas of Bayeux, the first Norman
Archbishop of York, and Southwell, but his successor Gerard, a man of
great learning, and one who played a curious part in the political
and ecclesiastical life of William II.’s reign, is supposed to have
rebuilt the palace. He is a man who has not had justice done him in
contemporary history. He held very advanced views on Church matters,
and was in great disfavour because his studies were far too secular for
those days, being devoted to mathematics and astronomy. His zeal for
these subjects only drew down on him the suspicion of dabbling in magic
and evil practices, and he was verily believed to have sold himself to
the devil for the sake of forbidden knowledge.[62] Gerard spent much
time at Southwell, where he died, and the story of his death is worth
recording. On May 21, 1108, the archbishop had been dining and went for
a walk in the garden “near the dormitory.” Lying down to rest on a bank
with his head on a cushion he not unnaturally fell asleep, but it was,
in the words of the chronicler,[63] “a fatal sleep,” for he never woke
again. His end was regarded as most shocking, not so much for the way
of his death, but because underneath the cushion on which his head had
rested was found a book by Julius Firmicus, a writer on mathematics
and astrology. His last moments had thus been given to the study of
the black arts, and his sudden end was regarded as the righteous
judgment of Heaven for indulging in such a sin. His body was carried
from Southwell to York by an “unfrequented road,” and on its arrival
was not met, as was usual, by the citizens and clergy of the cathedral,
but by noisy boys who irreverently pelted the bier with stones. He was
buried outside the cathedral without any funeral rites, and it was left
to his successor to transfer his body from this unhallowed grave to a
more fitting resting-place within the Minster church. Perhaps it was
not only his secular studies and untimely end that caused the canons of
York to treat his body with such disrespect, for it is probable that
they bore him no good will because he had zealously tried to reform
their morals and discipline, which were very lax. Another reason why
Gerard’s body was treated with such indignity, and which made his
contemporaries feel so sure that his life beyond the grave would be
anything but happy, was the fact that he had died without making a
will, and so had made no bequests to the Church or to the poor which
might have atoned for his evil life.
Gerard was succeeded by another Thomas, nephew to Thomas of Bayeux, who
had been made by his uncle the first Provost of the College of Canons
at Beverley. He is of no importance in history except for the not very
noble part he played in the long dispute between the sees of Canterbury
and York concerning the right of allegiance which the former demanded
from the latter. But for our purpose Thomas of Beverley is famous, “for
he may be regarded as the builder of the present nave of Southwell
Minster.”[64] Though Thomas, who died in 1114, would not have seen his
church rise much above the ground, yet to him is due the initiation of
the scheme which other men carried through, the result of which we of
these latter days still wonder at and enjoy. Forty years at least would
such a church take in building, and it was probably not half completed
when the troubles of Stephen’s reign began. A chance entry in the
continuation by John of Hexham of the _Historia Regum_ of Symeon
of Durham helps us to suggest a date by which the church was almost
if not quite finished. Under the year 1143 is the following remark:
“William Painel, commander of the troops in Nottingham, moved a band
of soldiers to Southwell, wishing to break down the wall by which the
precincts (_consepta_) of the church of St. Mary were protected,
in order to pillage. A number of the inhabitants who had gathered in
the neighbourhood of the place manfully defended it.” This entry is
interesting, for it not only tells us that even the peace of Southwell
was disturbed by the upheavals of the Civil War, and that the common
people were zealous to defend their church, but it also gives us reason
to believe that the church itself was probably finished by then, for
it is not likely that time would be spent in building a wall capable
of being defended round the precincts until the church inside was
completed, for it was not till the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
that the corporate bodies which controlled our greater churches looked
to their own homes first and largely left the houses of God, which were
under their charge, to look after themselves.
We may also note an incident recorded in the continuation of the
Chronicle of Florence of Worcester (_sub anno_ 1137), for it
is interesting as being a case of the miraculous. “At Southwell, an
archiepiscopal town, while a grave was being prepared for interment,
the relics of some saints and a glass vessel containing some very
clear water, supported on uprights, which apparently protected it from
being broken, were found; this being given to the sick and taken by
them, they were restored to health.” Perhaps these were the relics of
St. Eadburg which, after the Conquest, may have been removed from the
church and buried in an unknown grave, for the Normans did all they
could, for political reasons, to discourage the veneration of the Saxon
saints.
But to return to Thomas of Beverley and the Minster he set a-building.
We can imagine, then, that the first part to be constructed was the
choir and the lower stages of the central tower, and as much of the
nave and transepts as would be required to give abutment to the tower
arches;[65] and experts tell us that the western part of the nave is
distinctly later in character. Mr. J. Bilson attributes the aisle
vaults of the nave to _c._ 1130, and also gives as his opinion
that the Norman choir of the Minster did not have a square east end,
but that what has been taken for traces of such an end probably
indicate a broad sleeper wall across the chord of the apse, as at
St. Mary’s, York, and Selby Abbey.[66] Of this church the nave and
transepts remain to-day as a fitting memorial to Thomas of Beverley.
The choir of the Norman church which was pulled down to make room for
the present one consisted probably only of three bays, and would, in
fact, form but the presbytery and sanctuary of the church, the ritual
choir being extended westwards as far as the first or second bay of
the nave. Our authority for saying that Thomas of Beverley was the
archbishop who started building the Norman Minster depends on a letter
which is preserved in the _Liber Albus_ of Southwell--the oldest
manuscript book preserved in the library. The commencement of the
compilation of the White Book dates from about the beginning of the
fourteenth century, but it contains copies of documents dating back as
far as the beginning of the twelfth century. The White Book consists
of Papal Bulls, Royal and Episcopal Letters, and charters and other
documents connected with the privileges and property of the collegiate
church. The letter in question runs, when translated into English,
thus: “Thomas, by the grace of God (Archbishop of York) to all his
parishioners of Nottinghamshire, greeting in the blessing of God. We
pray you, as most beloved sons, that for the forgiveness of your sins
you will help, by the blessing of your alms towards the building of
the church of St. Mary of Southwell. And whosoever, even in the least
degree, shall give the smallest assistance shall be to the end of
time a participator in all the prayers and benefactions that shall be
done in that and all our other churches. And this ye ought to do more
willingly that we release you from the need of visiting each year the
church of York, as all our other parishioners do, but instead (you
shall visit) the church of Southwell, and there have the same pardon
that ye have at York.”
It will be noticed that the letter does not say which Thomas is
the author, but all the evidence we can gather, and the style of
the Minster itself, make it certain that it was Thomas of Beverley
(1108–1114). This letter also tells us of something else that Thomas
did for Southwell. He made that church a pro-cathedral for the county
of Nottingham by allowing the parishes to send their representatives
there instead of to York Minster, on the annual pilgrimage to fetch
the chrism required by each parish for the year, and also to pay at
the same time their accustomed dues. The chrism, which as a rule was
consecrated by the bishop in his cathedral on Easter Eve, was used
in baptism, confirmation, and extreme unction. It was consecrated at
York, and a portion sufficient for the parishes of Nottinghamshire was
sent to Southwell, and distributed on the morrow of Whitsunday to the
representatives of the parishes who had journeyed there. Thus it was
called the Whitsuntide procession. To be the goal of the Whitsuntide
procession was a great privilege, for it brought honour and profit
to the church and town. This custom continued down till the time of
Archbishop Drummond, towards the close of the eighteenth century,
by whose mere fiat it was abolished, though, of course, through the
changes in the value of money the dues then paid were of no material
advantage. The chrism, needless to say, had not been distributed
subsequent to the Reformation. The church of York had at one time
tried to take the Pentecostal offerings away from Southwell, and a
warm dispute ensued, which was only terminated by Pope Innocent III.
This Whitsuntide procession, which was started by Thomas of Beverley
to encourage the county of Nottingham to help in building the church,
became the great event of the year in the little country town. Shilton,
in his _History of Southwell_ (published in 1818), quoting from
an older book, tells us that the Mayor and Corporation of Nottingham,
with the Justices of the Peace, till quite recent times kept up the
custom of riding to Southwell on Whit Monday, all decked in their
best clothes, and bringing with them their “Pentecostals” or “Whitsun
farthings.” Apparently the Mayor was allowed a certain discretion,
and sometimes did not come “because of the foulness of the way or
destemperance of the weder.” The money used to be paid in the north
porch of the Minster, and even after the procession was given up for a
long time the Chapter clerk attended for form’s sake in the porch on
Monday in Whit Week, although the money was collected by the apparitor
at the Chapter’s visitation in the county. The payment of this money
long before it was given up had become a mere form, so trifling were
the amounts--Nottingham itself only paying 13s. 4d. and Southwell
5s.--yet at one time this must have meant a large sum of money and
have been a great help towards the upkeep of the fabric of the church.
Southwell was very gay on Whit Monday with the representatives of two
hundred and five odd parishes riding into the little town. Whit Week
was long regarded as Southwell Feast week, when merry village sports
and other pastimes made a welcome break in the peaceful progress of the
year. The greatest attractions were the donkey and pony races from
Burgage Green to the top of Hockerton Hill and back. Nothing is left
of all these enjoyments now, and the whole feast has degenerated into
Southwell Races, which are held at Rolleston.