EXETER
The river Exe--Roman roads--The Saxons in Devon and
Exeter--Saxon and British Exeter--The Battle of
Gavulford--S. Boniface at Exeter--His persecution of Celtic
missionaries--S. Sidwell--Bishop's seat transferred to
Exeter--S. Olave's Church--The Cathedral--Its merits and
demerits--Ottery S. Mary--Excursions from Exeter--Fingle
Bridge--Fulford--Ecclesiological excursions.
Exeter, the Isca Dumnoniorum of the Romans, was the Celtic Caer
Wisc; that is to say, the caer or fortress on the Usk. The
river-name has become Exe; it derives from the Celtic word which
signifies water, and which we have in whiskey and Usquebaugh, _i.e._
fire-water.
The same word has become also Ock. Thus the Ockment River at
Okehampton, a few miles down, becomes the Exe, at Exbourne; and a
tributary of the Exe is the Oke, that flows into it near Bampton.
There have been but few Roman remains found in Exeter, and it
can never have been an important settlement. Several Roman roads
converge on it and radiate from it.
The great Fosseway, that ran from Lincoln through Leicester,
reached it. It struck from Honiton, by Rockbeare and Clyst Honiton,
and shows its antiquity by being the bounds of Broadclyst
and Rockbeare, Sowton and Pinhoe parishes. It entered Exeter by
Heavitree. Another Roman road from Lyme Regis enters Exeter by
Wonford, where it joins the Fosseway. This road also proclaims
its high antiquity by being a parish boundary. From Exeter an
ancient road ran direct for Launceston: it is called in places the
Old Street. It branched at Okehampton, and a road ran thence to
Stratton, in Cornwall.
[Illustration: HIGH STREET, EXETER]
The Fosseway continued to Moreton Hampstead, and crossed Dartmoor,
where it has served as the equator of that desolate region; all
above it is esteemed the northern half, all below the southern half
of Dartmoor. Further it has not been traced.
Another road, the Ridgeway, ran from Exeter to Totnes, and thence
has been followed to Plympton Castle.
Whether these roads proceeded far in Cornwall cannot now be
determined.
That these ways were possibly pre-Roman, but improved by the
conquerors of the world, is probable. Hard by the roadside at
Okehampton, in 1898, was found a hoard of the smallest Roman coins,
all of the reign of Constantine the Great. It had probably formed
the store of a beggar who "sat by the wayside begging." He hid it
under a rock, and probably died without having removed it. About 200
coins were found, all dating from between A.D. 320 and 330.
The Saxons must have crept in without violent invasion, across
the Axe, rather than through the gaps in the Black Down and
Exmoor--for to the north, as already said, the vast morasses
were a hindrance--and have established themselves without violent
opposition by the riversides. Their manner of life was unlike that
of the Britons. The latter clung to the open highlands, their
_Gwents_ as they called them, clear of trees, breezy downs; whereas
the Saxons, accustomed to forests, made their stockades in the flat
_hams_ and _ings_ by the rivers, in _worths_ and on _hangers_.
Very probably the Dumnonii suffered their intrusion with reluctance,
but they did not venture on forcible resistance, lest they should
bring down on themselves the vengeance of Wessex.
When, however, the Saxons had established themselves in sufficient
numbers, they had their headquarters in Exeter; but there they did
not amalgamate with the natives. The Saxon town was quite apart
from that occupied by the Britons, or West Welsh, as they called
our Dumnonians. That part of Exeter which contains dedications to
Celtic saints was the British town, as was also Heavitree,[8] with
its daughter churches of S. Sidwell and S. David; but the Saxons
occupied where now stands the Cathedral; and each settlement was
governed by its own laws. It was not till 823 that Egbert, by a
decisive battle at Gavulford (_Gafl_ a holdfast, and _ffordd_
a road), established Saxon supremacy. He apparently drove the
Devonshire Celts back along the Old Street, or Roman road, past
Okehampton, till they made a stand at Coombow (_Cwm-bod_ = the
habitation in a combe). There the hills close in on the road on both
sides, and the way branched to Lydford. Commanding both roads is
Galford Down; there the Britons threw up formidable entrenchments,
or, what is more probable, occupied an earlier camp that remains
intact to the present day. Here they made a desperate stand, and
were defeated; after which the king, Egbert, cast up a _burgh_
beyond the old _dun_, which gives its second name to the place,
Burleigh, or Burgh-legh. The last relics of the independence of the
Dumnonian kingdom disappeared after Athelstan's visit in 926 and
928. A relic of this visit may be seen in Rougemont Castle, Exeter,
where the Anglo-Saxon work--notably some herring-bone masonry, and
windows rudely fashioned without arches--remains.
[8] Names of places, as Heavitree, Langtree, Plymtree, take the
"tree" from the Welsh "tref," a farm or habitation. Heavitree is
Tre-hafod, the summer farm.
A Saxon school had been established in Exeter before A.D. 700, to
which S. Boniface, or Wynfrith as he was then called, had been sent.
He was a native of Crediton, then a Saxon stockaded settlement, and
over the palisades, as a boy, he had looked with scorn and hatred
at the native Britons occupying the country. When he was in Exeter
he, in like manner, regarded the native Christians with loathing as
heretics, because they did not observe Easter on the same day as
himself, and perhaps with accentuated hate, because he knew that
they had possessed Christian teachers and Christian privileges three
centuries before his own people had received the Gospel. Perhaps
also his German mind was offended at the freshness, vivacity, and
maybe as well the fickleness of purpose of the native Celt. This
early acquired aversion lasted through life, and when he went into
Germany and settled at Mainz, to posture as an apostle, he was
vexed to discover that Celtic missionaries had preceded him and had
worked successfully among his Teutonic forefathers in their old
homes. Thenceforth he attacked, insulted, and denounced them with
implacable animosity, and did his utmost to upset their missions and
supplannt them with his own. Virgilius, an Irishman, with a fellow
Paddy, Sidonius, was at Salzburg, and Virgilius was bishop there.
Boniface beat about for an excuse to get rid of them both. He found
that the bishop, having discovered that one of his priests had been
accustomed to baptise using a bad Latin formula, had acknowledged
this man's baptisms as valid, for the will was present: the fault
was due to ignorance of the Latin tongue. Boniface, hearing of this,
laid hold of it with enthusiasm, and denounced Virgilius at Rome.
Pope Boniface, however, took the side of the Irishman against his
over-zealous henchman.
Mortified at this rebuff, Boniface lay in wait to find another
excuse for ruining Virgilius. He ascertained presently that the
Irishman taught that the earth was round, and that there was an
antipodes to those living in Germany. Now the Irish schools were
the most learned in Europe, and Irish saints had sailed far into
the west over the Atlantic: they had formed their own opinions
concerning the shape of the world. Boniface wrote to the Pope to
denounce the doctrine of Virgilius as "perverse and unjust, uttered
against God and his own soul."
This doctrine Pope Zacharias hastened to condemn as heretical.[9]
Virgilius had to go to Rome to justify his opinion before ignorant
Latin ecclesiastics--with what results we do not know.
[9] In my _Lives of the Saints_, written in 1874, I accepted M.
Barthélemy's view, that Virgilius held that there were underground
folk, gnomes; but I do not hold this now, knowing more than I then
did of the learning of the great Irish scholars, and of the voyages
made by the Irish. The earliest gloss on the _Senchus Mor_ says,
"God formed the firmament around the earth; and the earth, in the
form of a perfectly round ball, was fixed in the midst of the
firmament."--I. p. 27.
Athelstan came to Exeter in 926, and drove out the British
inhabitants. He built towers and repaired the old Roman walls; he
it was who founded the monastery of SS. Mary and Peter, afterwards
to become the Cathedral; and, we are told, he gave to it relics of
S. Sidwell. This was a local saint, of whom very little is known,
save that she was the sister of Paul, who became abbot and bishop
of Léon, in Brittany. She had two sisters, Wulvella and Jutwara,
called also Jutwell and Eadware. Though the names seem Saxon, they
are corruptions of Celtic originals. Wulvella became an abbess at
Gulval, near Penzance, where she entertained her brother as he was
on his way to Armorica. Sidwell is supposed to have been a martyr,
possibly to Saxon brutality, but this is very uncertain, as her
story has not been preserved. She has as her symbols a scythe and
a well--"canting" symbols framed from her name. Her brother Paul
founded a church that still retains his name, in the British portion
of Exeter.
The bishop's seat had been at Crediton: the Saxon bishops did not
like it. There were no walls there, and the Danes made piratical
excursions. So Bishop Leofric induced Edward the Confessor to move
the seat to Exeter, and this was done by Edward in person, in 1050.
In Fore Street is an odd misshapen little church, S. Olave's. This
was endowed by Gytha, sister of Sweyn, the Danish king, and wife
of Earl Godwin. She was the mother of Harold. She is said to have
endowed it (1053) that prayer might be offered for the soul of her
husband, and in honour of Olaf, King of Norway, who had fallen in
battle in 1030. As S. Olaf fought against the Danes, and it was
through the machinations of Canute that he came to his end, it
is hard to see how a Danish lady should have felt any enthusiasm
about Olaf, who was regarded as a saint and martyr by the national
Norwegian party, which was bitterly opposed to the Danish. I suspect
that the church already existed, and was dedicated to S. Gwynllyw
of Gwent, who at Newport was also converted into Olave, by the
English-speaking colonists. Both Gwynllyw and Olaf were kings, and
it is noticeable that S. Olave's Church is in the British portion of
Exeter. When William the Conqueror arrived before the city, Gytha,
who was within the walls, escaped and took refuge in Flanders.
William gave the church, with her endowments, to Battle Abbey. But
I am not writing a history of Exeter. For those who desire to learn
its story in full, I must refer them to the work of Mr. Freeman.
The Cathedral is disappointing, and that because it is built, not of
the warm, red sandstone that abounds in the neighbourhood, and is
very good building material, but of Beer stone, which is cold and
grey. It has another defect: it is too low; but this was determined
by the towers. When it was resolved to rebuild the Cathedral, it was
decided to preserve the Norman towers, employing them as transepts.
This settled the business. The church could not be made lofty; and
on entering the western doors the visitor is at once disappointed.
He feels a lack of breathing-space; the vaulting depresses him.
The architectural details are not to be surpassed, but the whole
effect is marred by the one mistake made at the outstart. One cannot
wish that the towers had been removed, but one does regret that
they were allowed to determine the height of nave and choir. The
choir was begun by Bishop Quivil, in 1284, when also the great and
incomparably beautiful windows were inserted in the towers. The nave
was finished by Bishop Grandisson, in 1369, the year of his death.
Grandisson was a friend of the detestable John XXII., one of the
Avignon Popes; and John appointed his intimate to Exeter in total
disregard to the rights of the chapter to elect. He was consecrated
at Avignon. Hitherto almost all the bishops had been local men.
Grandisson was a man very Romanly inclined, and appointed to a see
that was redolent with Celtic reminiscences. He did not relish
these. Whenever he had the chance of rededicating a church he
endeavoured to substitute a patron from the Roman calendar in place
of the British founder. He drew up a Legendarium, a book of Lessons
on Saints' Feasts to be used in the Cathedral Church, and ignored
nearly every saint whose name was not approved by admission into the
Latin martyrology.
"The Church of Exeter is a remarkable case of one general
design being carried out through more than a hundred years.
It was fixed once for all what the new Saint Peter's should
be like, and it grew up after one general pattern, but with a
certain advance in detail as the work went westward. Bishop
Grandison, when the church was about half built, said that when
it was finished it would surpass in beauty all churches of its
own kind in England and France. Whatever he meant by '_genus
suum_,' the prediction was safely risked. As far as outline
and general effect goes, the Church of Exeter forms a class by
itself."--FREEMAN.
A more remarkable church than the Cathedral of Exeter is that of
Ottery S. Mary, also built by Grandisson. It is, of course, not by
any means so large. It gave, perhaps, the original type to Exeter,
for there also the towers have been employed as transepts, and was
begun in the Early English style. But there a stateliness and an
originality of effect are reached that Exeter cannot approach.
There the side aisles have but lancet windows, and a flood of light
pours down through the very original clerestory lights. There is
no east window. What the general effect must have been before the
levels were wantonly altered at the "restoration" one can now hardly
surmise. But the church, in spite of this and some odiously vulgar
woodwork, is one of the most striking in England, and perhaps the
boldest in originality of conception.
The Guildhall, in High Street, is a good example of Elizabethan
architecture, in bad stone.
A beautiful excursion may be made from Exeter to Fingle Bridge,[10]
on the Teign, where the river winds between the hills densely
wooded with coppice, that close in on each other like the fangs of
a rat-trap. With this may be combined Shilstone cromlech, the sole
perfect specimen of the kind remaining in the county, and once but a
single member in a series of very remarkable monuments.
[10] _Ffin_--limit, _gal_--the level land, _i.e._ in comparison with
the Dartmoor highlands.
The Teign is frowned down on by several strongly fortified camps.
Fingle should be seen when the hills are clothed in flowering
heather, as though raspberry cream had been spilt over them. White
heather may be picked there.
Fulford House is a quadrangle in a sad state of dilapidation;
originally of Tudor architecture, but disfigured by bad alterations
in the Prince Regent's days, when cockney Gothic was in vogue. In
the house is a bad portrait of the "Royal Martyr," presented by
Charles II., and one of "Red Ruin," a spendthrift Fulford. In the
hall is some superb carved panelling, early Tudor.
Exeter may be made a centre for ecclesiological excursions of no
ordinary interest. Dunchideock Church has a well-restored screen;
but by far the richest carved oak rood-screen in the county is
that of Kenton, where also the pulpit is of incomparable beauty.
The carver employed thereon was a man of no common talent, and the
work is one of brilliant execution. There is much difference in
the carving in the county--some is common, mechanical; that in the
Kenton screen and pulpit is of the very finest quality.
In the little church of S. Mary Steps, in Exeter, may be seen
a portion of the screen removed from S. Mary Major when that
monstrosity was erected. At Plymtree the screen bears on it
contemporary portraits of Prince Arthur (son of Henry VII.) and
Cardinal Morton. That of Bradninch has on it paintings of the
Sibyls, the Doctors of the Church, and the Legend of S. Francis.
Pinhoe was the scene of a great battle with the Danes in 1001. They
had come up the Exe, and burned Pinhoe, Broadclyst, and some of
the neighbouring villages. Levies in Devon and Somerset met them,
but were defeated with great slaughter. The church contains a fine
coloured screen with the vaulting-ribs and gallery. The alms-box is
curious: it represents a serving-man supporting himself with a stick
in one hand, the other extended soliciting alms.
East Budleigh should be visited for its fine bench-ends, some very
curious; one represents a cook roasting a goose; another a ship in
full sail. Their date is 1534. There is a screen, but not of first
quality.
Littleham, near Exmouth, has a good screen. Screens are the features
of Devonshire churches: a church was built to contain one. Without
it the proportions are faulty.
Books on Exeter:--
FREEMAN (E. A.), _Historic Towns: Exeter_. 1895.
NORTHY (T. J.), _Popular History of Exeter_. 1886.
JENKINS (A.), _History of Exeter_. 1841.