of the education given in the school. The oldest statutes of the
post-Reformation epoch are lost; they were based, as we learn from the
accounts, on those drawn up by Dean Colet for his school, once attached
to St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 1592, however, a new set was drawn up for
the School of Sherborne by its visitor, Richard Fletcher, Bishop of
Bristol, who, as Dean of Peterborough some years before, had imposed on
him the terrible task of attending Queen Mary Stuart on the scaffold.
Great stress is laid in these statutes on the “abolishing of the Pope
of Rome and all fforrein powers superiorities and authorities.” From
time to time after this new statutes were made to suit the changing
educational and political views. The statutes all still exist, except
those made in 1650 by the Puritans; of these all trace is lost, except
the bill for engrossing them, which amounted to 25s. Statutes were
drawn up in 1662 by Gilbert Ironside, Bishop of Bristol, which the
Governors were unwilling to accept, because by these statutes the
headmaster was protected from arbitrary interference on the part of the
Governors. It was not till 1679 that Bishop William Gulston succeeded
in making them accept a new body of statutes, which contain almost all
that Gilbert Ironside proposed, together with some additional matter.
In Bishop Ironside’s draft and Bishop Gulston’s statutes, it is laid
down that it is never lawful “for subjects to take up armes ag^{t}
theire Soveraigne upon any pretence w^{t}soever.” The language used in
and out of school in all official matters was Latin, and no scholar was
to go about the town alone, but with “a companion one of the Schollars
that may be a witness of his conversation and behaviour under penalty
of correction.” The system of monitorial rule has always been in
vogue in the school; in 1592 these rulers are called _Impositores_—a
somewhat awkward term one must admit; in 1662 and 1679 they are called
_Prepositores_; nowadays they are called _Prefects_. In 1679 they were
four in number: “One for discipline in the Schoole, to see all the
Schollars demeane themselves regularly there, the Second for manners
both in the Schoole and abroad any where, the Third for the Churche and
Fields, the Fourth to be _Ostiarius_, to sitt by the doore, to give
answere to strangers and to keepe the rest from running out.”
When the assizes were held at Sherborne, the judge sat in what is now
the schoolhouse dining-hall—it was then the big schoolroom; and just
before the assizes took place, we get from time to time an entry of the
following kind in the school accounts: “for washinge of ye King, 6d.”
The King referred to is the statue of Edward VI., which still adorns
the room; it is of painted Purbeck marble, and is the work of a certain
Godfrey Arnold; it cost £9 5s. 4d., and was set up in 1614.
The two royal coats of arms, which may still be seen on the south wall
of the old house of the headmaster, and over the south door of the
schoolhouse dining-hall, were taken down by order of a Commonwealth
official in 1650; but they were carefully preserved, and were restored
to their old positions at the Restoration. That on the old house dates
from 1560; that on the dining-hall from 1607. They used to be bright
with tinctures and metals, but since 1670 they have been “only washed
over with oil or some sad colour, without any more adorning.” The
chronogram on the dining-hall is unique, for it can be made to give two
different dates, according to the ways in which the significant letters
are taken. Mr. Hilton, our chief authority on chronograms, knows of
no other which gives two dates in this fashion. The first date which
our chronogram gives is 1550, the date of the granting of the charter;
the second date which it gives is 1670, that of the rebuilding of the
dining-hall.
Among other school buildings of ancient date we must not omit the
library, partly of the thirteenth century, but certainly restored in
the fifteenth; and the school chapel, with its undercroft of the
twelfth century, and its upper story of the fifteenth. The undercroft
is a very precious relic of the past, but the school chapel, which was
once the Abbot’s Hall, has undergone changes and additions; it still
keeps its fine fifteenth century timber roof. The library, on the other
hand, has gone through little change. It was the Guest House of the
Monastery, and has kept its timber roof of the fifteenth century. It
is curious that the windows on the east side of the room are not quite
opposite those on the west side, nor is the divergence uniform; the
large window in the south end of the room is not in the middle of the
wall, but rather towards the west side.
The modern buildings of the school harmonize well with the older work,
for they are all built of the same lovely stone, and the style in which
they are built, though it is in no sense an imitation of this older
work, is yet in harmony with and worthy of it. One of these buildings
deserves more than passing notice, viz., the new big schoolroom,
completed in 1879. The whole group of buildings, with its surroundings,
classrooms, museum, laboratory, drawing school, music house, Morris
tube range, bath and fives courts, deserves more attention than it
usually gets from visitors to Sherborne. These sojourners often forget
that the north side of the exterior of the church is likely to be as
interesting as the south side; if once they take the trouble to get to
this north side, they will be surprised to find how much fine work,
ancient and modern, is to be seen there.
Sherborne Old Castle is situated on an elevated piece of ground to the
east of the town; this ground is about 300 yards long by 150 yards
broad; the surface has been made level, and an oval area, 150 yards
long by 105 yards broad, has been traced out, and its edges scarped
to a steep slope, with a ditch about 45 feet deep. The material taken
away in forming this scarp and ditch has been thrown outward, so that
the counter scarp is formed of a mound more or less artificial. It was
within this area, above described, that our Pageant of 1905 was given.
The remains of the Castle are as follows: parts of the curtain wall,
with the gatehouse, the keep, the chapel and hall, along with other
parts of the domestic buildings—all ruinous. The builder of this
castle was Bishop Roger; and William of Malmesbury, who knew it well,
has described the masonry in glowing terms. All that remains is of
this Norman period, though it was somewhat restored and altered
in the fifteenth century. The keep belongs to the class of square
keeps. To judge from two windows of the chapel which still remain
in a fragmentary condition, that building must have been of a very
ornate character. The barrel vaulting of the basement of the keep is
worth study, and a Norman pillar, still standing and supporting a
quadripartite vault, is well known to students of architecture. There
is also a Norman chimney with three flues in the gatehouse.
The ruinous condition of the Castle is not so much due to time as to
gunpowder, for in 1645, after the Castle was taken by Fairfax, it was
blown up by order of the Long Parliament, so as to be no longer tenable
as a fortress. After this, while the troops of the Parliament occupied
Sherborne, their barracks were the school, and their “Court of Guard”
the schoolhouse dining-hall.
This is not the place to deal with the vicissitudes in the tenure of
Sherborne Castle—how the Bishops of Sherborne lost and regained it.
It finally passed from Bishop Henry Cotton into the hands of Queen
Elizabeth in 1599. Sir Walter Ralegh had, however, been tenant of it
since 1592, and when Queen Elizabeth got the fee-simple of it, she
gave it to Ralegh. Ralegh, however, did not care to live in it; other
magnates in this part of the world were building fine modern houses,
and he followed their example. Thus arose the modern Castle, known in
former days as Sherborne Lodge, on the other side of the lake, the
central and loftier part of which is due to Ralegh. There is no trace
of any evidence that Sherborne Castle was ever besieged before the
great Civil War. It was used at times in the Middle Ages as a prison;
for example, in King John’s reign. King John himself stayed here in
1207 and in 1216.
After some tragic vicissitudes the Sherborne estate came to the Digbys
in 1617, and since this date, with the exception of the troublous
period of the great Civil War, it has remained with them.
Sherborne Castle was twice besieged during the Civil War, first
in 1642, and again in 1645. The first siege was uneventful and
unimportant. In 1644 Charles I. had been here after his successful
campaign in the West; Prince Rupert, too, had come, and there had
been great doings with reviews of men in Sherborne Park, after which
followed the second battle of Newbury and the self-denying ordinance
and the creation of the New Model. The second siege, that of 1645, was
more important; not only was Fairfax drawn hither by it, but Cromwell,
too, came as general of cavalry. Though the Parliamentary troops
destroyed much of the old castle that we should like to see standing
now, we must, on the whole, acquit them of having done any great injury
to the buildings of the church or school.
In 1688, King William III.—then Prince of Orange—on his advance from
Exeter to London, stayed in the modern castle here; his proclamation to
the English people is said to have been printed in the drawing-room at
a printing-press set up on the great hearth-stone, which was cracked by
it.
Let us now turn to the last of our four ancient institutions, viz., the
Almshouse. This institution is certainly older than the year 1437, in
which year, by a license from King Henry VI. to Robert Nevile, Bishop
of Sarum, to Humfrey Stafford, Kt., Margaret Goghe, John Fauntleroy,
and John Baret, it was refounded in honour of St. John the Baptist and
St. John the Evangelist. It is actually older than this, because some
accounts of the charity exist for a few years prior to this date. Some
day, no doubt, the history of the institution will be more fully worked
out than it is at present. Plenty of material exists in its account
rolls which could hardly fail to throw light on old Sherborne life.
According to the deed of foundation, there were, we are told, to be
twenty brethren, called the Masters of SS. Johns’ House—they are now
called master and brethren—together with a perpetual priest to pray
for the good estate and the souls of the founders and inmates. The
house was to contain twelve poor men and four poor women, who were
to be governed by one of themselves, called the Prior, of their own
election, and a woman of domestic ability was to buy their food and
dress it, wash their clothes and make their beds, who should be called
the Housewife of SS. Johns’ House. The older part of the building was
finished in 1448, and here still stand, not much altered from what
they were then, the chapel, ante-chapel, and dining-hall, with a long
dormitory over the dining-hall; this dormitory used to open into the
chapel, so that the sick and infirm might hear the service, and, so far
as they could, join in it. The chapel contains an interesting triptych
of the fifteenth century by a Flemish artist, name unknown. One cannot
imagine a more desirable haven of rest than this for those who are
fortunate enough to become its inmates.
Enough has now been told to show that among old English towns Sherborne
holds a peculiarly interesting place. It still keeps much of its
old-world look and ancient dignity, and its inhabitants, many of whom
bear the names of the old stock who were living here in in the time
of Henry VI., are a kindly race, among whom it is a pleasure and a
privilege to live.
MILTON ABBEY
BY THE REV. HERBERT PENTIN, M.A.
The county of Dorset is one of the few counties in England that contain
three great minsters in good repair and in parochial use—Sherborne,
Wimborne, and Milton. And each of these minsters is of Saxon and
Royal foundation. King Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great,
founded the Monastery and Collegiate Church of Milton for Secular
Canons, in or about the year 938. In the year 964 King Edgar and
Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury converted the monastery into an abbey,
with forty Benedictine monks, and chose a very able man, Cynewearde
(or Kynewardus), as the first Abbot. This Cynewearde, a few years
afterwards, to the loss of Milton, was made Bishop of Wells.
The original minster built by Athelstan was a noble stone building of
its time, and was very rich in shrines and relics. The King gave a
piece of our Saviour’s Cross, a great cross of gold and silver with
precious stones, and many bones of the saints, which were placed in
five gilt shrines. The bones of his mother were also brought to the
church (for burial). We also know that the Saxon Minster was restored
and enlarged, if not rebuilt, in Norman times. It has been reasonably
conjectured that the size of the Norman Abbey was that of the choir
and presbytery of the present church. Some large fragments of Norman
masonry have been dug up,[23] which show that the Norman Abbey was a
building of some considerable architectural pretensions; and encased
in the south wall of the present choir and presbytery are the remains
of two enriched Norman arches which escaped destruction in the fire of
1309. In that year the church was struck by lightning, and was almost
entirely burnt to the ground. Thirteen years later, however, under
Abbot Walter Archer, the present Abbey Church was commenced on the same
site, but on a much larger and grander scale; and building operations
went on, from time to time, until within a short period before the
Dissolution in 1539.
[Illustration: MILTON ABBEY.]
[Illustration: KING ATHELSTAN.
Founder of Milton Abbey.
(_From a Painting in the Church._)]
[Illustration: “ATHELSTAN’S MOTHER.”
Buried in Milton Abbey.
(_From a Painting in the Church._)]
The following styles of architecture are represented in the main
portions of the church, built of stone from Ham Hill and Tisbury:—First
Decorated, the choir and presbytery of seven bays, with aisles; Second
Decorated, the south transept; Third Decorated, the two western piers
of the “crossing”; Perpendicular, the north transept and central tower.
The Perpendicular work was undertaken by the penultimate Abbot, William
de Middleton, assisted by Bishop Thomas Langton, of Salisbury and of
Winchester, the Abbey of Cerne, and the families of Bingham, Coker,
Latimer, Morton, and others.
At the Dissolution, the Abbey estates were granted by Henry VIII. to
Sir John Tregonwell, who had helped to procure the King’s divorce from
Catharine of Aragon; but the whole of the Abbey Church was preserved
for the parishioners, with the exception of the Ladye Chapel, which
was pulled down, although some of its vaulting shafts can still be
seen outside the east end of the church. The last of the Abbots (John
Bradley, B.D.), after leaving Milton in Tregonwell’s hands, was
consecrated Suffragan Bishop of St. Asaph, with the title of Bishop
of Shaftesbury,[24] and the Abbey Church of Milton then passed under
the sole spiritual control of Richard Hall, Vicar of Milton, and his
successors.
[Illustration: MILTON ABBEY: INTERIOR.]
Unfortunately, the Abbey underwent a “restoration” in 1789, when the
church was despoiled of many of its fittings; and chantry chapels
and other valuable objects of interest went down under the hand of
the “restorer.” But Sir Gilbert Scott, in 1865, restored the church
at the expense of the late Baron Hambro, and left the Abbey in
its present beautiful condition, and, as far as was possible, in its
original state.
[Illustration: THE TABERNACLE.]
The view of the church at the beginning of this chapter will save the
necessity of a description of its exterior. But the interior contains
many things which demand notice.
And first of all must be mentioned the “ornament,” which many
antiquaries consider to be a Tabernacle for reserving the Eucharist.
This very beautiful and richly carved “Sacrament-house” dates from the
fifteenth century, and is made of oak in the form of a spire composed
of four storeys, the lowest containing the opening through which the
reserved elements may have been passed. It is not in its original
position, but is now fastened to the west wall of the south transept
beneath the triforium.
The great altar-screen is a very lofty, beautiful, and peculiarly rich
construction, even though the two long rows of ornamental niches now
lack the statues of the saints that once stood in them—saints with
“very bluff countenances, painted in very bright colours and heavily
gilded.” On its lower portion there is a Latin inscription, which bids
prayers for the souls of William Middleton, Abbot of Milton, and Thomas
Wilken, Vicar of the parish, who worthily decorated (“_honorifice
depinxerunt_”) the screen in 1492. The three stone sedilia in the
sanctuary are fine specimens. The bosses throughout the church are of
very rich design.
The Abbey also contains two fifteenth century oil paintings of a
crude description, one of which represents Athelstan, the founder,
giving to the first head of the monastery a model of the minster
(with three spires)[25] over which he was to preside. The other
painting is supposed to represent Athelstan’s mother—Egwynna, “_femina
illustris_.”[26]
The tombs of the abbots within the Abbey are most interesting. In
front of the altar steps there is a Purbeck marble grave-slab of the
fourteenth century, which was once inlaid with the brass figure of an
abbot clad in _pontificalia_, with a marginal Latin inscription in
Lombardic capitals:
ABBA : VALTERE : TE : FATA : CITO : RAPVERE : TE : RADINGA : DEDIT :
SED : MORS : MALE : NOS : TVA : LEDIT.
This is the slab of an Abbot of Milton whose Christian name was Walter,
and who was formerly a monk of Reading, probably Walter de Sydelinge,
who died in 1315. In the north transept there is a thirteenth century
grave-slab of another abbot. This slab is also of Purbeck marble, but
the upper portion is broken off. The remaining portion shows part of
an incised figure of an abbot, with pastoral staff, chasuble, stole,
maniple, alb, and an imperfect marginal inscription in Norman French:
VVS ⁝ KI ⁝ PAR ⁝ I ⁝ CI ⁝ PASSET ⁝ PVR ⁝ LEALME ⁝ PRIE...
...RCI ⁝ LISET ⁝ LE ⁝ PARDVN ⁝ I ⁝ CI[27]
There are other large marble grave-slabs, without inscriptions, in the
church, which are supposed to cover abbots, monks, and benefactors.
On some there are the matrices of missing brasses. One, in front of
the altar steps, shows the outline of a civilian in a plain gown, and
his wife wearing a “butterfly” head-dress, with their five sons and
four daughters, _circa_ 1490. In St. John the Baptist’s Chapel, at the
east end of the north aisle of the church, there is a small fifteenth
century brass to John Artur, one of the monks of the Abbey, with a
Latin inscription, which bids God have mercy on his soul. In the same
chapel, a very fine coloured armorial brass over Sir John Tregonwell’s
altar-tomb contains the latest tabard example on a brass in England
(1565).[28]
But to mention all the ancient or modern memorials (some of wondrous
beauty, such as those of Lord and Lady Milton, and Baron Hambro) would
take far too much space. A marble tablet in the vestry informs the
reader that John Tregonwell, Esquire, who died in the year 1680, “by
his last will and testament gave all the bookes within this vestry to
the use of this Abby Church for ever, as a thankfuld acknowledgement of
God’s wonderfull mercy in his preservation when he fell from the top
of this Church.” This incident happened when he was a child; he was
absolutely uninjured, his stiff skirts having acted as a parachute.[29]
The chained library of sixty-six leather-bound volumes comprises the
works of the Latin and Greek Fathers and other early Christian writers,
and some standard theological works of the seventeenth century. The
books have been kept at the vicarage for many years.
[Illustration: ABBOT MIDDLETON’S REBUS.]
The abbey now contains very little painted glass.[30] There is a
large “Jesse window” by the elder Pugin in the south transept, and
some coloured coats of arms and devices of kings, nobles, and abbots
in some of the other windows. The dwarfed east window contains the
only pre-Reformation glass in the church.[31] The Abbatial Arms are
emblazoned in several parts of the building. They consist of three
baskets of bread, each containing three loaves. On one of the walls in
the south aisle, near the vestry, there is the carved coloured rebus of
Abbot William de Middleton, with the date 1514 in Arabic numerals—the
4 being represented by half an eight. It comprises the letter W with a
pastoral staff, and a windmill on a large cask—in other words, a mill
and a tun (Mil-ton). The old miserere seats still remain in the choir,
but the carving thereon is not very elaborate, and many of them have
been renewed. The inscriptions on the Communion plate (which consists
of two large silver barrel-shaped flagons, a bell-shaped chalice, and
a large and a small paten) tell us that “John Chappell, Sitteson and
Stationer of London, 1637,” and “Mary Savage, 1658,” and “Maddam Jane
Tregonwell, widdow, 1675,” gave these to “Milton Abby.”
There are several other interesting things in the church, albeit not
ancient—_e.g._, the rood-loft, the font, and the pulpit.
The rood-loft, although not entirely ancient, is composed of ancient
materials. When the party-walls of St. John the Baptist’s Chapel,
the chantry of Abbot William de Middleton, and other side-chapels,
were destroyed or mutilated at the “restoration” in 1789, some of the
materials were used to reconstruct the rood-loft. The eastern cornice,
for instance, is probably a portion of Abbot Middleton’s chantry, and
bears thirteen coats of arms, including those of the Abbeys of Milton,
Sherborne, and Abbotsbury, and the families of Chidiock, Latimer, Lucy,
Stafford of Hooke, Thomas of Woodstock, and others.
The font of the Abbey, in the south transept, is modern, but of unusual
design. It is composed of two beautiful life-sized white marble female
figures, representing Faith and Victory, with a baptismal shell at
their feet.
Near the font is an oak case containing a fourteenth century coffin
chalice and paten, and fragments of a wooden pastoral staff and
sandals, discovered during the restoration of the church in 1865.[32]
The pulpit is also modern, of carved oak; but it is interesting,
because it contains statues of all the patron saints connected with the
Abbey and the parish, and of these there are no fewer than six, viz.:
St. Sampson of Dol, St. Branwalader,[33] St. Mary the Blessed Virgin,
St. Michael the warrior-archangel, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St.
James the Great.
St. Catherine of Alexandria is the patron-saint of “King Athelstan’s
Chapel,” which stands in the woods at the top of the hill to the east
of the Abbey. And this little church has also had a history well worth
the telling. When Athelstan was fighting for his throne he had to pass
through the county of Dorset, and he encamped on Milton Hill, and threw
up an earthwork, or made use of one already existing there, the remains
of which can still be seen beyond the east end of the chapel. During
the night he believed that some supernatural revelation was made to
him, assuring him that he would conquer his many enemies and become
King of all England. He pushed on, and at Brunanburh, “Christ helping
him, he had the victory, and there slew five kings and seven earls”
(_Saxon Chronicle_). The song commemorating this important and decisive
victory is given in the _Old English Chronicle_; and the first stanza
of Professor Freeman’s version and that of Lord Tennyson reads thus:
Now Æthelstan King,
Of Earls the Lord,
In warriors the ring giver
And his brother eke,
Eadmund Ætheling,
Eld-long glory
Won in the fight
With the swords’ edge
By Brunanburh,
The boardwall they clave,
And hewed the war-linden,
With hammer’s leavings
Offspring of Eadward.
_Freeman._
Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet bestower and
Baron of Barons,
He, with his brother
Edmund Atheling
Gaining a life-long
Glory in battle,
Slew with the sword-edge
There by Brunanburh,
Brake the shield-wall,
Hew’d the linderwood,
Hack’d the battle-shield,
Sons of Edward, with hammer’d brands.
_Tennyson._
[Illustration: ST. CATHERINE’S CHAPEL.]
Athelstan, being a thoroughly religious man, as well as a great
warrior, expressed his thankfulness to God in the way usual in
those times. He founded the monastery at Milton, and erected the
_ecclesiola_, afterwards dedicated to St. Catherine, within the
entrenchment where he received the remarkable revelation. Chapels on
the top of hills were often dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria,
on account of the legend which tells that St. Catherine’s body was
buried by angels on Mount Sinai. Other instances, in many places,
of this dedication with its connection still remain—in Dorset, for
example, at Abbotsbury and Holworth. The little church at Milton did
its work in Saxon times, and then underwent a considerable restoration
in Norman days. It also underwent a lesser restoration in the early
part of the sixteenth century. As it stands at present, it consists
of a nave and chancel. The main walls, which are very thick, and the
door arches are Norman. On the west jamb of the south door there is
a curious and rare inscription in Lombardic capitals relating to an
indulgence:
INDVLGENCIA ⁝ H’ ⁝ SC̄I ⁝ LOCI ⁝ C ⁝ E ⁝ X ⁝ DIES ⁝[34]