which until the present century were so intimately associated with a
landed estate that they passed with the estate as an almost necessary
proof that possession had been conveyed, had in the lapse of ages
grown in many instances to an aggregate of documents whose bulk was
prodigious and its mere stowage embarrassing. Where the capital
mansion of an extensive property was proportionate to the acreage it
was easy to set apart one room as a muniment-room, in which thousands
of charters, court rolls, bailiffs’ accounts, and other records were
deposited and sometimes arranged with great care and precision;
but where a great estate was broken up, or there was no longer any
important residence upon it, the evidences often found their way
into very strange depositories. The family solicitor had to find a
home for them, and to do so was often extremely inconvenient; or the
capital mansion became a farm-house, and the evidences were packed
in boxes and sent up to the garrets under the roof, in some cases
were bundled into the hayloft. By the legislation which simplified
the conveyance of land and rendered it no longer necessary to go back
to the beginning of time in order to prove a title, the ancient
“evidences” became at once valueless for all practical purposes. They
became not only useless but odious lumber, and a process of quietly
getting rid of them set in and has been steadily carried on to the
present moment. The rolls of manor courts and courts leet, which give
an insight into the daily life of our forefathers, and which may still
be met with in large numbers, dating back to the days of Henry the
Third, were destroyed by tens of thousands. Documents which could
have thrown light upon some of the most interesting problems which
are now being worked at by the profoundest jurists and the most acute
students of constitutional history have perished in unknown multitudes.
Others which contained invaluable illustrations of local customs--of
tyrannous overstraining of feudal authority on the one hand or of
crafty evasions of feudal services on the other, of the rapacity of
lords and stewards of manors here and of successful appropriations of
strips of land or rights of commonage or pasture there--vanished from
the face of the earth, none would tell how. The extent to which this
destruction of ancient muniments has been carried on cannot yet be even
approximately estimated. Nevertheless much remains. The interest which
such writers as Mr. Seebohm, Mr. Maitland, Mr. Thorold Rogers, and
others have aroused in the many important inquiries which they have
severally pursued is increasing day by day, and there can be no doubt
that a desire to become better acquainted with the contents of those
documents which still survive and may still be rescued and preserved is
spreading rapidly and widely. But “where are they to be kept when we
have got them?” is the question that presses. It is more than can be
expected of the civic authorities that they should charge the rates of
the town with providing house room for collections of MSS. which are
but remotely concerned with the history of the boroughs themselves.
The local museums as a rule are overcrowded and can barely keep their
heads above water. The boxes and bundles of rolls and parchments in the
lawyers’ offices are provokingly in the way; the country houses are
changing hands week by week, and Philistines prefer dressing-rooms to
muniment rooms. Will no one suggest a way out of our difficulties?
* * * * *
I have passed very lightly over the condition of affairs at Westminster
Abbey and St. Paul’s, and that for more reasons than one, the chief
reason, but by no means the only one, being that I know nothing about
the Abbey muniments or of those of the bishopric of London, and
nobody seems able to tell me anything. I have not even alluded to the
archdeaconries of the diocese of London.
Those lofty souls whose habit it is to dogmatize most airily when they
declaim most ignorantly, are never more jocose than when they take a
turn at the archdeacons and their visitations. Well, it is very funny
to think of there being any grotesque survivals of such an institution
as an archdeacon’s court still existing among us. What a droll prelate
Bishop Remigius must have been that he actually divided his overgrown
and unwieldy diocese of Lincoln into seven archdeaconries about twelve
years after the Conquest! How very odd that the successors of those
seven functionaries have been going on merrily archdeaconizing down
to the present day! How did they amuse themselves all this long time?
How did they keep up their little game? “Exercising archidiaconal
functions, of course.” And of course we are expected to receive that
novel explanation with shouts of laughter. Well, but wouldn’t you
like to know how they really _did_ employ themselves? Suppose you
were by chance to hear that the action of the archdeacons’ courts had
_something_ to do with the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers and many
hundreds of their friends to New England, say, in the seventeenth
century; something perhaps to do with the death of Arch-bishop Laud
and the twenty years’ imprisonment of Bishop Wren. Wouldn’t you like
to know something about it all? What have become of the records of the
archdeaconries? I know where a few of them are: but where the great
mass of them are to be found I know not, and it would take a great deal
of trouble to discover. Those that I know of are in closets in lawyers’
offices. A blessing on those lawyers, say I, for they have at any rate
preserved some fragments of ancient evidences which but for them would
have gone to make _glue_ long ago. But if you want to find out what the
ecclesiastical discipline exercised by the archdeacons upon gentle and
simple in the old days was like, you will have to fish up the records
of the archdeacons’ courts out of their hiding-places, and you will
find them to contain some very, very funny items of information, almost
as droll as the buffoonery of those lofty souls.
If we are ever to arrive at clearer and truer views of the history
of the slow growth of certain moral, religious, and even political
convictions among the great body of the people--by the help of, or in
despite of, the inquisitorial, coercive, and repressive machinery of
the local ecclesiastical courts, which for centuries were exercising
a real and terrible power within a ride of every man’s door through
the length and breadth of the land--we certainly must not neglect
that large body of evidence which is to be found in the records of
the archdeacons’ courts. But it is obvious that such records must be
unified, must be made accessible to students, which means, in other
words, that they must be collected into diocesan or provincial archives.
So with the parochial registers, churchwardens’ books, the wills and
other MSS. which are more or less concerned with the private and
family life of our ancestors. We have a right to know what our fathers
thought and believed, and how they got to break away from this or that
superstition, arrived at this or that new truth, were delivered from
this or that thraldom, rebelled against this or that wrong, suffered
for their errors as if they were crimes, learnt to reverence even
doubt when it dawned upon them that doubters could be earnest, noble,
and loving, learnt to see that Christian charity could be tolerant
even of mistakes; how their horizon widened as their vision became
stronger; how as knowledge grew from more to more the old bonds and
shackles that cramped the spirit of man became more and more strained
even to bursting; how the old fetters bit into the flesh of some, the
old chains wore out the hearts and brains of others; how they spoke
to their children in their last hours; what messages they sent to
friends and kindred when the end was drawing very near; what their
hope and trust was as they _looked beyond_ the veil. Yes, we have a
right to know these things if they are to be known. You may sneer at
the follies of pedigree hunters if you will, and deride the harmless
madness of genealogists; but I do not envy the man who would not give
two straws to find out whether his grandfather’s grandfather was a hero
or a blackleg, whether he lived the life of a successful pickpocket, or
died the death of a martyr for his honest convictions. And if any one
is so little acquainted with the curiosities of parish registers, or
the contents of parish chests, or the strange secrets often revealed
or alluded to in the wills of provincial probate courts, as to suppose
that these “rags of time” are wholly wanting in any elements of pathos
and romance, he certainly has a great deal to learn, and he knows very
little indeed about the contents of documents which he so tranquilly
assumes to be “barren all.”
From what has been said thus far I hope it will be clear that I am as
little inclined to advocate the removal of the municipal records from
their proper homes, the muniment rooms of the provincial boroughs,
as I am to propose that the archives of London should be transferred
from the Guildhall to any other repository. What is wanted is not
centralization but classification. Already it has been found advisable
to remove the natural history collections from the British Museum and
to find a home for them in Kensington. The time may come, and may
not be far distant, when a further step will have to be taken in the
direction of relieving the congested storehouses at Bloomsbury of some
other assemblage of precious objects. In London we find ourselves
more and more driven to specialize our collections, if only to save
ourselves from bewilderment.
But as to any great collections of historical documents, except only
that at the Record Office, they do not exist; they have still to
be made. Meanwhile one large class of records--the ecclesiastical,
parochial, and testamentary records--may be said to be in great danger
of gradually but certainly perishing, partly from mere disuse, partly
from the want of any adequate provision for their safe keeping, partly
from the actual uncertainty that attaches to their ownership. One and
all they are national records, the preservation of which ought to be
assured to the nation by very different precautions from any which now
are provided. Whom do the parish registers belong to? What guarantee
have we that X or Y or Z may not sell “his” registers to the highest
bidder? In point of fact, parish registers have been bought and sold
again and again. Who are the owners of such a splendid collection of
historic MSS. as is to be found in the archives of St. Lawrence’s
Church, Reading? What is to prevent the churchwardens from selling them
to a “collector” and appropriating the proceeds towards the expense of
a new organ? Where are the records of Barchester now that the Venerable
Archdeacon Grantley has ceased to edify us with his eloquent charges?
In how many instances is there to be found anything remotely resembling
a catalogue of such archidiaconal records? How many living men have
ever consulted such as there are or would know where to look for them?
Let me not be misunderstood. I have received so much kindness,
hospitality, and cordial assistance at the hands of so many who have
laid open their muniments to my inspection, I have found and made among
these gentlemen such warm friends that I can only think of them and
speak of them with gratitude and esteem. But who knows better than
the most learned and most entirely loyal among the custodians of our
ecclesiastical and parochial muniments that the state of things as they
are is not the state of things that ought to be?
And yet there can surely be no insuperable difficulty in grouping
together our ecclesiastical, testamentary, and parochial muniments,
forming them into one homogeneous collection, and bringing them
together into a single provincial record office, taking the
geographical limits of the diocese as the area within which the several
aggregates of ancient documents shall be deposited.
Few men can pay a visit to any of our cathedrals, especially those
within whose precincts there are still to be found any considerable
remains of the old conventual buildings, without being struck by what
seems to be the _waste of room_ in the church itself and its outlying
dependencies. Not to speak of the side chapels, which some would have
a sentimental objection to utilizing--though I know instances where
they are mere store places for workmen’s tools and lumber--consider the
immense areas at our disposal in many a transept, triforium, or chapter
house. Consider how comparatively small a chamber suffices, for the
most part, to contain all the existing records of a cathedral chapter
or of the bishop of a see. Consider how all the parochial registers
even of a large diocese from 1538 to 1800 could easily stand upon a
dozen shelves of ten feet long, and all the wills of two or three
counties from the earliest times to the beginning of this century could
be accommodated without difficulty in many a drawing-room. Consider
all these things and more that I forbear from dwelling on, and it will
be abundantly clear that the difficulty of providing accommodation for
one group of historic MSS. at any rate will be found insignificant
if we set ourselves seriously to deal with it. Within the precincts
of our cathedrals there is ample space and verge enough for any such
requirements as this group of records may be supposed to make upon us.
But assuming that such an assemblage, such a grouping, of historic
MSS. were determined on, and that the housing of it were found to be
easy and practicable, would it not be necessary that a duly qualified
custodian should be appointed to take the oversight of the collection
and to act as the provincial or diocesan keeper of the records? Of
course it would; and this is exactly what is very urgently needed.
I am told that a letter from Mr. Charles Mason, which appeared in
_The Times_ not so very long ago, and which gave an account of his
experience in trying to institute a search among the diocesan records
of Llandaff, “produced quite a sensation in some quarters.” I think
it must be among those who have had very little experience indeed of
similar adventures. The truth is that it is the exception rather than
the rule to find among the present responsible keepers of parochial
testamentary or episcopal records a gentleman who even professes to be
able to decipher the more ancient and precious MSS. which he has under
his charge. The registrar of a diocese, of an archdeaconry, or of a
prerogative court, the parson of a parish, or the churchwarden, each
and all have something else to do than spend the precious hours upon
poring over their muniments.
Such men as Dr. Bensley of Norwich are few and far between. Gentlemen
whose duties involve many hours a day of arduous and exhausting labour
can only devote their leisure moments to research, and when they
do so they are in danger of getting something less than thanks as
their reward. The chivalrous and splendid enthusiasm of the late Mr.
Wickenden at Lincoln, of Dr. Sheppard at Canterbury, of Canon Raine at
York, has laid us under profound obligation, but in each and all of
these instances the labour of long years has been a labour of love, and
the very permission to engage and continue in it has been conceded as
a privilege conferred upon the toiler. Or again, when the fascination
which “musty parchments” exercise over some minds has irresistibly
impelled such generous students as Archdeacon Chapman of Ely, the
late Canon Swainson of Chichester, or Mr. Symonds of Norwich, to make
sacrifices of time and money in the preservation or deciphering or
calendaring the precious documents to which their position as members
of the chapter gave them free access, they have found some portion of
their recompense in the wonder and astonishment of the Philistines that
any human being could undertake and carry on so much _without being
paid for it_.
A registrar is a functionary whose duty it is to keep a register of
what _is_ going on from day to day. I suspect it is very seldom part of
his duty to find out what people were doing or recording long before
he was born. At any rate it is no part of his duty to find that out
for you, or to teach you where and how to look for what you want to
discover. So with the parson of a parish. For the most part he is
possessed by a conviction that if he loses his registers something
dreadful will happen to him; and accordingly when he goes away for a
holiday he leaves his cook in charge, with a solemn warning that she
is to let no one see “the books” except in her presence and under her
eye; and a very awful eye it sometimes is. But who of us has not been
kindly and frankly told by a genial brother that if we want such or
such an entry copied we must come and copy it ourselves, for that our
good-natured correspondent cannot make out the old writing?
As to the churchwardens, assuming that they are to be looked upon as
responsible for the custody of the parochial evidences, to talk of
them as keepers of ancient MSS. is a little too ridiculous. It is true
that there are in my vestry two dilapidated parish chests, which once
presumably were full of wills and deeds and conveyances and evidences,
which if they were now forthcoming, might considerably disturb the
equanimity of some personages here and there; but those old chests are
used as coal-bins now, and have been so used from times to which the
memory of man doth not extend. I could tell some odd stories of my
experience as a dryasdust in days when I employed my leisure hours in
peeping into the dens and caves of the earth.
Assuredly if we resolve upon collecting together any group of historic
MSS. and making them available for students engaged in original
research, it will be necessary to put them under the custody of a
trained _archiviste_, as the French call such a functionary, and give
him a recognized position as provincial keeper of the records. Such an
official, with one or two subordinates under him, should be required to
give their time exclusively to the work marked out for them. Let that
work be organized in the same way and on the same lines as those laid
down in the great London _tabularium_. Let there be the same system
adopted of arranging, indexing, and calendaring. Let there be issued
periodically reports addressed to the central authorities, let the
archives be open to students and inquirers without fee or any payment.
If any one wishes to have a document transcribed or a search made
which, if he knew how to set about it, he might carry on himself, let
him pay for his “office copy” or his search at a reasonable charge. As
for the details of such an arrangement let them settle themselves, as
they surely will; in the meantime let us trust to the golden principle
“Solvitur ambulando.”
Can it be doubted that into such provincial depositories there would
flow, in the natural course of things, a stream of contributions from
the possessors of documents illustrative of county and provincial
history, for which their owners have no room in their houses, which
they know not how to make use of and are half inclined to burn? Nay,
it will probably come to pass that collections of great historic
importance will be committed for safe custody to such provincial
archives on the understanding that they shall in due time be examined,
arranged, and reported on, and thus the work now carried on by the
Historic Manuscripts Commission will be continued in a much more
exhaustive way than is now attempted by the Commissioners, who
necessarily spend much of their time and much of the public money in
itinerating, and whose work can only be by-work and subordinated to
their daily duties and the regular business of their lives. I have
known two instances of cartloads of MSS. of great antiquity, and
comprehending almost certainly large numbers of charters, letters,
rolls, and the like of estimable value and interest, deliberately
destroyed, and in one of these instances destroyed with some difficulty
and at some expense, only because they were “in the way.” What I know,
others doubtless may find parallels for. Would such a catastrophe have
happened if there had been any recognized depository for records of
this kind, which, by the very fact of their being guarded with care and
intelligence and treated with respect, men had learnt to look upon as
having an intrinsic value?
* * * * *
It will be noticed that in the foregoing pages I have said very little
about any objections that may be urged or difficulties that may be
suggested in carrying out a measure of this character. No! I must leave
that delightful duty to others. I offer a suggestion. The draughting
of a _scheme_ must come by-and-by. As to difficulties, sentimental,
professional, or financial, we are sure to hear of them. Was there
ever a proposal for any sort of reform that had not to run the gauntlet
of those clamorous people who love nothing better, and are good for
nothing better, than bawling out, “There’s a lion in the way!”? There
is no need to suggest difficulties to these people; to do so would
be only to intrude into their domain. But this I am more and more
convinced of, namely, that there are no difficulties in carrying out
such a suggestion as is here brought forward which will not disappear
if they are faced with a desire to overcome them, and I am even more
convinced that a feeling is growing up in our midst against allowing
the present condition of affairs to continue. It is quite sufficiently
scandalous that we have submitted to it so long.
VI.
_SNOWED UP IN ARCADY._
No truer saying was ever uttered than that “one half the world does not
know how the other half lives.” And yet I am continually contradicted
by wiseacres of the streets and squares when I meekly but firmly
maintain that it is actually possible to live a happy, intelligent,
useful, and _progressive_ life in an out-of-the-way country
parish--“far from the madding crowd”--and literally (as I happen to
know at this moment) three miles from a lemon. “Don’t tell me!” says
one of my agnostic friends who knows everything, as agnostics always
do, and who is absolutely certain, as agnostics always are, that they
know all about _you_--“don’t tell me! You may make the best of it as
you do, and you put a good face upon it, which I dare say is all right;
but to try and make me believe you _like_ being buried alive is more
than you can do. Stuff, man! You might as well try and persuade me you
like being snowed up!”
Now it so happened that, a few days after my bouncing and aggressive
friend had delivered himself of this delicate little protest against
any and every assertion I might venture to make in the conversation
which had arisen between us, I was awaked at the usual hour of 7 a.m.
by Jemima knocking at the door; and when Mr. Bob had growled his usual
growl, and I had declared myself to be awake in a surly monosyllable,
Jemima cried aloud, saying, “It’s awful snow, sir--drifts emendjous!”
I drew the curtains open, pulled up the blinds, and lo! there was
snow indeed. Not on the trees--that was well, at any rate--but all
the air was full of snow. Not coming down from the clouds, but
driving across the fields in billows of white dust--piling itself
up against every obstacle--pollard, stump or gatepost, hedgerow, or
wall, or farmstead--rolling, eddying, scudding along before the cruel
north-easter, that was lashing the earth with his freezing scourge of
bitterness. At about the distance of a pistol-shot from my window the
high road runs straight as a ruler between low banks and thin hedges,
and we can see it for half a mile or so till some rising ground blocks
the view. This morning _there was no road_!--only a long broad stripe
of snow that seemed a trifle higher than the ploughed lands that lay
to the northward, and which were almost swept bare by the gale. To the
southward there were huge drifts packed up against every little copse
or plantation, and far as the eye could see not a human creature or
sheep or head of cattle to lessen the impression of utter desolation.
By the time we got down to breakfast the wind had lulled, and fresh
snow was falling. That was, at any rate, an improvement upon the
accursed north-easter. But it was plain that there were to be no
_ante-jentacular_ or _post-prandial peregrinations_, as Jeremy Bentham
used to phrase it, for us this day. “My dear,” I said, “I’m afraid
we are really snowed up!” Now, what do you suppose was the reply I
received from her Royal Highness the Lady Shepherd? Neither more nor
less than this--“What a jolly day we will have! We needn’t go out, need
we?”
Nathan, the wise youth--agnostic, as he calls himself, which is only
Greek for _ignoramus_--would have sneered at the Lady Shepherd’s
chuckle, and she--she would have chuckled at his sneer. But as he was
not there we only laughed, and somewhat gleefully set ourselves to map
out the next fifteen hours with plans of operation that would have
required at least fifty hours to execute.
“The only thing that can be said for your pitiful life,” said Nathan
to us once, “is that you have no interruptions. But there is not much
in that, where there’s nothing to interrupt.” Nathan, the wise youth,
is a type of his class. He’s so delicate in his little _innuendos_,
so sympathetically candid, so tender to “the things you call your
feelings, you know.” Do these people always wear hob-nailed boots,
prepared at any moment for a wrestling match, where kicking is part of
the game? “No interruptions!” Oh, Lady Shepherd, think of that! “No
interruptions!”
You observe that our day begins at eight. When we came first to Arcady
we said we would breakfast at half-past eight. We tried the plan for a
month. It was a dead failure. Jemima never kept true to the minutes. We
found ourselves slipping into nine o’clock; that meant ruin. It must
either be eight o’clock, or the financial bottom of the establishment
would inevitably drop out. So eight o’clock it is and shall be.
At eight o’clock, accordingly, on this particular morning we went down
as usual to the library--and, I am bound to say, we were just a little
depressed, because we had made up our minds that no postman in England
could bring us our bag this morning. To our immense surprise and joy,
there were the letters and papers lying on the table as if it were
Midsummer Day. The man had left the road, tramped along the fields
which the howling wind had made passable. There were nine letters. When
I see what these country postmen go through, the pluck and endurance
they exhibit, the downright suffering (_i.e._, it would be to you and
me) which they take all as a part of the day’s work, and how they go
on at it, and retire at last, after years of stubborn jog-trotting,
to enjoy a pension of ten shillings a week and the repose of acute
rheumatism consequent upon sudden cessation from physical exertion, I
find myself frequently exclaiming with the poet,--
πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κ’ οὐδὲν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.