ANTIQUITIES OF DONCASTER. THE DEÆ MATRES. SAXON FONT. THE CASTLE. THE
HELL CROSS.
_Vieux monuments,—
Las, peu à peu cendre vous devenez,
Fable du peuple et publiques rapines!
Et bien qu'au Temps pour un temps facent guerre
Les bastimens, si est ce que le Temps
Oeuvres et noms finablement atterre._
JOACHIM DU BELLAY.
The oldest monument in Doncaster is a Roman altar, which was
discovered in the year 1781, in digging a cellar six feet deep, in St.
Sepulchre's gate. An antiquary of Ferrybridge congratulated the
corporation “on the great honor resulting therefrom.”
Was it a great honour to Doncaster,—meaning by Doncaster, its Mayor,
its Aldermen, its capital burgesses, and its whole people,—was it, I
say, an honour, a great honour to it, and these, and each and all of
these, that this altar should have been discovered? Did the
corporation consider it to be so? Ought it to be so considered? Did
they feel that pleasurable though feverish excitement at the discovery
which is felt by the fortunate man at the moment when his deserts have
obtained their honorable meed? Richard Staveley was Mayor that year:
Was it an honour to him and his mayoralty as it was to King Ferdinand
of Spain that when he was King, Christopher Columbus discovered the
New World,—or to Queen Elizabeth, that Shakespeare flourished under
her reign? Was he famous for it, as old Mr. Bramton Gurdon of
Assington in Suffolk, was famous, about the year 1627, for having
three sons parliament men? If he was thus famous, did he “blush to
find it fame,” or smile that it should be accounted so? What is fame?
what is honour? But I say no more. “He that hath knowledge spareth his
words; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of
understanding.”
It is a votive altar, dedicated to the _Deæ Matres_, with this
inscription:
MATRIBUS
M. NAN-
TONIUS.
ORBIOTAL.
VOTUM. SOLVIT. LUBENS. MERITO.
and it is curious because it is only the third altar dedicated to
those Goddesses which has yet been found: the other two were also
found in the North of England, one at Binchester near Durham, the
other at Ribchester in Lancashire.
Next in antiquity to this Roman altar, is a Saxon font in the church;
its date which is now obliterated, is said to have been A. D. 1061.
Not a wreck remains of any thing that existed in Doncaster between the
time when Orbiotal erected his altar to the local Goddesses, and when
the baptismal font was made: nor the name of a single individual; nor
memorial, nor tradition of a single event.
There was a castle there, the dykes of which might partly be seen in
Leland's time, and the foundation of part of the walls,—nothing more,
so long even then had it been demolished. In the area where it stood
the church was built, and Leland thought that great part of the ruins
of one building were used for the foundations of the other, and for
filling up its walls. It is not known at what time the church was
founded. There was formerly a stone built into its east end, with the
date of A. D. 1071; but this may more probably have been originally
placed in the castle than the church. Different parts of the building
are of different ages, and the beautiful tower is supposed to be of
Henry the third's age.
The Hall Cross, as it is now called, bore this inscription;
ICEST : EST : LACRUICE : OTE : D : TILLI : A : KI :
ALME : DEU : EN : FACE : MERCI : AM :
There can be little doubt that this Otto de Tilli is the same person
whose name appears as a witness to several grants about the middle of
the twelfth century, and who was Seneschal to the Earl of
Conisborough. It stood uninjured till the Great Rebellion, when the
Earl of Manchester's army, on their way from the South to the siege of
York in the year 1644, chose to do the Lord service by defacing it.
“And the said Earl of Manchester's men, endeavouring to pull the whole
shank down, got a smith's forge-hammer and broke off the four corner
crosses; and then fastened ropes to the middle cross which was
stronger and higher, thinking by that to pull the whole shank down.
But a stone breaking off, and falling upon one of the men's legs,
which was nearest it, and breaking his leg, they troubled themselves
no more about it.” This account with a drawing of the cross in its
former state was in Fairfax's collection of antiquities, and came
afterwards into Thoresby's possession. The Antiquarian Society
published an engraving of it by that excellent and upright artist
Vertue, of whom it is recorded that he never would engrave a
fictitious portrait. The pillar was composed of five columns, a large
one in the middle, and four smaller ones around it, answering pretty
nearly to the cardinal points: each column was surmounted by a cross,
that in the middle being the highest and proportionally large. There
were numeral figures on the south face, near the top, which seem to
have been intended for a dial; the circumference of the pillar was
eleven feet seven, the height eighteen feet.
William Paterson, in the year of his mayoralty 1678, “beautified it
with four dials, ball and fane:” in 1792, when Henry Heaton was Mayor,
it was taken down, because of its decayed state, and a new one of the
same form was erected by the road side, a furlong to the south of its
former site, on Hop-cross hill. This was better than destroying the
cross; and as either renovation or demolition had become necessary,
the Corporation are to be commended for what they did. But it is no
longer the same cross, nor on the same site which had once been
consecrated, and where many a passing prayer had been breathed in
simplicity and sincerity of heart.
What signifies the change? Both place and monument had long been
desecrated. As little religious feeling was excited by it as would
have been by the altar to the _Deæ Matres_ if it had stood there. And
of the hundreds of travellers who daily pass it in, or outside of
stage coaches, in their own carriages, on horseback, or on foot; and
of the thousands who flock thither during the races; and of the
inhabitants of Doncaster itself, not a single soul cares whether it be
the original cross or not, nor where it was originally erected, nor
when, nor wherefore, nor by whom!
“I wish I did not!” said Dr. Dove, when some one advanced this
consideration with the intent of reconciling him to the change. “I am
an old man,” said he, “and in age we dislike all change as naturally,
and therefore no doubt, as fitly as in youth we desire it. The
youthful generation in their ardour for improvement and their love of
novelty, strive to demolish what ought religiously to be preserved;
the elders in their caution and their fear endeavour to uphold what
has become useless, and even injurious. Thus in the order of
Providence we have both the necessary impulse and the needful check.
“But I miss the old cross from its old place. More than fifty years
had I known it there; and if fifty years acquaintance did not give us
some regard even for stocks and stones, we must be stocks and stones
ourselves.”