Literature.

Colonist, Issue 3, 30 October 1857, Page 4

Literature.

GOD RIG, THITTIEIIMIT; AND THE ABBEY OF FINCHALE. It was towards the close- of the eighth century that the Danes first commenced the invasion- of our shores, and spoiled our Saxon ancestors. . The Holy Isle of Lin- : disfame, on the coast of Northumberland, was then the seat of an episcopal see; and Eardulph and "his ecclesiastics fled before the invaders, bearing with them the body of St. Cuthbert, the greatest treasure of their church. Scott has written in his Marmion —- How, when the rude Dane burn'd their pile, The monks fled forth from Holy Isle ; O'er northern mountain, marsh, ami moor, From sea to sea, from shore to shore, Seven years St. Cuthbert's corpse they bore. At Chester-le-street, a Roman station, they found rest; and having erected a cathedral there, the country from the Wear to the Tyne was added to what was called the patrimony of St. Cuthbert. Chester had remained upwards of a century the seat of a bishopric, and the tenth century was approaching its termination, when the ecclesiastics were again driven to flight by the Northmen. They wandered to and fro for several years, until choice was made of Durham as their future abiding place—<i choice which later times have invested with legend and superstition, but which was doubtless dictated by com-mon-sense considerations of beauty, fertility, and security; for our pious forefathers were not unskilled in the art of < making the best of both worlds.' The locality was well-known to the Saxon Church. Councils had been held at Wincanhale (apparently Finchale), about the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century; and Durham possesses all those natural attractions which determined the sites of so many religious houses in the middle ages. After the Norman Conquest, one Godric, a merchant mariner, born of East Anglian parents, being moved, as the chroniclers relate, by St. Cuthbert in a vision, came to Finchale, and established himself as a hermit about a mile nearer to Durham than the ruins of the priory. He had previously resided for a while—possibly in pupilage— with a venerable hermit at Wolsingham, then overrun with wolves, but now so fair and beautiful a Goshen that its hermitage (the rectory), recently vacated by the Rev. Blackett Ord, has been an object of desire in the breasts of more than one modern Godric. There were wolves at Finchale, too, and they resisted the invasion of their ancient dominion by the bold stranger; but the sign of the Cross, which has subdued so many wolfish natures, is said to have overawed the howling aborigines of the secluded hamlet selected by the hermit for his abode. Grass-grown foundations were the memorials of one King Fine's palace, or, more probably, of the early monastery of Wiiir canhale. . There was ' good sport,' in those days, round Finchale—(pronounced Finkle l3y the polite, and Fink-a-ley by the peasantry). Here was the hunting-ground of Bishop Flambard, the favorite of that "William Rufus who went a-hunting once too often; and they who followed the chase in those good times would now scorn the fox-hunts of our more degenerate day. Not only were there wolves at Finchale, but also snakes; and these our Godric tamed—by the magic, probably, of kindness—for it is said of him that he was kind to the lower animals. To human society he was averse. Offers of food from neigh' bours he rejected. He grew his own fare, and seems to have-been an early vegetarian; but, for some time prior to his death, his diet was milk—at which time (and for eight years) he was bedridden. Godric was his own doctor, and we are not without some glimpses of his medical treatment. Attacked by a violent cutaneous disease,' he enjoined one of his servants to powder him all over with salt; and in consequence (or in spite) of the application, he got well. He was also addicted to hydropathy—steeping himself, in all weathers, in * Godric's Hole,' and then, while still naked, trying the irritant system, by rolling himself among nettles and briers ! Anticipating the 'clairvoyance' of our own times, he visited distant countries in the spirit; and he also knew distant events. Moreover, he was a 'medium.' There lived near him a sister—(he had also a brother at Durham): —and when, in the odour of sanctity, she died, he saw her soul carried up to bliss, and she sang him a song proclaiming that the Saviour and St. Mary sustained her in her flight. Another time, the Virgin Mary and St. Mary Magdalene appeared to him in his cell, and taught him a song, the words and music of which are preserved:— Seinta Marie, Virglne Moder Jesus Cristes Nazarene. On-fo schild, help thin Godric, On-fang, bring, hegliche with the in Godes rich. There is here an apparent play on the name of the saint, which signifies ' Good (or God's) kingdom." The various communications with the unseen world (says Mr. Stevenson), with which Godric was from time to time favoured, necessarily, from their very nature, rest upon his own unsupported statements, Thus he relates to Reginald (his Boswell) his interview with the blessed Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene ; his interview with St. John the Baptist; the vision of the boy who issued from the crucifix; how he saw souls ascending into heaven; his contest with the devil, and the vision which he had of our Blessed Lord. During the whole period of Reginald's intercourse with Godric, which appears to have been of the most familiar and intimate character, and of no brief duration, nothing occurred to shake his belief in the veracity, or, indeed, in the general credibility of his informant's statements. How far they arc-in themselves worthy of credit, or how far we at present might be content to accept them, is a distinct question, and one which does not fall within our province, nor the drift of the present inquiry, to discuss ; but. it is worthy of notice that Reginald has no misgivings as to the truth of the incidents which he has undertaken to narrate, nor does he seem to anticipate any difficulty on this head as likely to occur in the minds of others. In his latter clays, when his fame was world-wide, Godric was greatly visited by strangers, who gained admission to his presence by means of a wooden cross, dispensed by the prior of Durham, whose subject he was.

Servants were now assigned to him, who recehedhis company, and introduced them to the saint. He renounced the use of his tongue, conversing with those about him, and with his guests, by means of signs. Like all idle people, the saint was troubled with the devil. The fiend once tempted him with the tale of a hoard of gold. To work he went, with pick and spade, salving his conscience with vows of good purposes to be accomplished by his wealth. He dug down and down with the determination of a Nelson digger; when suddenly he came upon a nest of dwarfish imps, biack and ugly, who screamed with derisive laughter, and pelted him with fireballs ! Conscious of his sin, Godric threw down his tools and decamped. On another occasion, his tomentor came in the form of a tall, dark, hairy man, more immensely bearded than any modern Weardale wight.. The stranger stared at him, and accused him of idleness. Godric, whose conscience had told him the same thing before, was offended, and challenged i the stranger to show him the better way. The challenge was accepted. The visitor grasped the spade, and Godric retired to his meditations. When, after the lapse of an hour, the saint returned, he found eight days' work done, and the stalwart « navvy' unwearied, and free from perspiration. 'There!' said he, with a scornful taunt; ' that's the way to work!' Godric now suspected with whom he was confronted, and demanded to know who and what he was. ' A man, like thyself,' was the reply. 'If so,' said the saint,' ' tell me if you believe in the Father, and the" Son, and the Holy Ghost, and join me in adoring the Mother of our Lord.' The hirsute scoffer curtly told him to mind his own business, his belief being no concern of his ; when Godric, suddenly placing a holy book against the lips of the mysterious stranger, told him to kiss it if he believed in God. The spell vanquished the fiend, who fled with a mocking laugh; and the hermit, ■ pouring holy water on the ground which the devil had dug, allowed it to lie in fallow for seven long years to come. Godric had even worse intruders than the fiend: —he was visited by Scots— followers of King David. When they demanded his treasures, he held up his crucifix, which had less power over these ' half-naked' pagans than the wolves. They beat him, and polluted his church—the latter being, according to the old chroniclers, a common practice with the Scotch. Not one of the impious marauders reached Newcastle in safety from Godric's cell. One was • drowned in the Wear—another fell into a lacus bitmnenalis (a coal pit ?) — all perished. It was, as we have stated, about a mile above the present ruins that Godric first established himself about the year 1110, on a plot of ground confirmed to him by Bishop Flambard. Like some new comer tq a town, who takes lodgings for a while, that he may look leisurely about him for a house, the hermit did not regard himself as a fixture on his original site, but explored the banks of the river, and finally made judicious choice of a peninsula lower down. His primitive place of abode is still known as Godric Grath; and remains of old walls clothed with ivy, and lines of masonry covered with earth and turf, mark the spot —with a smooth green sward, attesting ancient care and cultivation. The little plot, about a quarter of an acre, is of triangular shape, with the river on one side, a brook on another, and a ditch on the third. Godrio, early after his removal, built a chapel, which he dedicated to £pt. John the Baptist; and Avhen this hacUbeen done, Biishop Flambard granted the reversion of the hermitage, its fishery, and its possessions, to the Prior and Convent of Durham, on condition that some brother of their order should occupy the cell on the hermit's death. Sixty long years did Godric expend, if chronicles be true, on the banks of the Wear; so protracted was his span, that he wore out three iron shirts before he died; and after his translation, which occurred about 1170, Bishop Pudsey, founder of the hospital for lepers, at Sherburn, confirmed to the monks .of Durham the gift of his predecessor, and conferred on Reginald and Henry* the Durham monks in possession, and their successors, the tract of land contiguous to the hermitage, which now chiefly constitutes the Finchale farm. There was at this time a. small church or oratory at Finchale, with a salmon fishery, a place of residence sufficient for two monks and their attendants, nearty the whole of the present Finchale farm, three acres of land at Bradley, and two bovates at Sadberge. Henry Pudsey, son of the BishojD, baffled by the Durham monies in an attempt to i found an Augustine monastery on the j Browney, transferred its endowment to ; Finchale, reserving to himself the s right of appointing the prior, and bestowed the office on Thomas, the sacrist of Durham; but he afterwards conceded the patronage to the prior and convent of Durham. The monks of Finchale, made wealthy by the munificence of Pudsey and other benefactors, (their possessions lying in three counties—Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire), resolved in 1241 to rebuild (or rather supersede) their church, the work of Godric; and 'tis thought that in 1242 they 'laid their foundation-stone,' and commenced active operations. By indulgences and other means the work went on from year to year, the monastic masons being busy in 1266 with the chapel of St. Godric in the south transept, and animating the pious to aid them in constructing the window which was "to light it from the east. Then, as now, the priests were called upon ijby their superiors to move their flocks to liberality. The Archdeacon of Durham commanded the clergy to admonish and persuade the people, on three separate Sundays, to contribute of their substance towards the erection of the abbey of Finchale; and as a motive, the venerable

dignitary laid stress on the indulgences and other advantages. The monks were successful in their project. The stately edifice was reared, the only trace of the previous structure remaining being the Norman tomb of Godric, ' their patron saint. The central tower, surmounted by a low and heavy spire (still standing in 1655), is by some supposed to have been an insertion of the Decorated period. At the Dissolution, the church consisted of simply the "chancel, the nave, and the transept. The monks had long before re-, moved the aisles and other adjuncts, converting the southern aisle into an alley of their own cloister. Hardly a hundred years had elapsed from the completion of the building, before it was, for some reason or other, dismembered and botched. How it was curtailed and patched may still partially be seen, although a few broken walls alone remain of the once-proud priory —a grey ruin, lending picturesque and moral effect to a sylvan scene. Library and chapter house, butthery hatch, refectory, dormitory, prior's hall and apartments, are all gone, and the orchard is a wilderness. What is now a farm-house was probably the granary of the monks; and of the watermill near it, on the margin of the Wear, but a few courses of masonry may now be traced. ' The ruins of Finchale abbey (says Surtees) stand in deep retirement, three miles from Durham, on the southern—(if we take the stream as running east and west, it is on the northern) —brink of the Wear, where the river sweeps over a rocky channel round a level plot almost covered with the buildings. The woods of Cocken cover the wild opposite bank.' ''It has been appropriately described (adds Mr. Sidney Gibson) as one of those truly monastic situations where the world seems shut out by walls of beauty and peace —a spot which holiness seems to have marked out for its own from the creation. The ruins are situated on the river's smooth green bank, which slopes gradually to the waters, in a romantic and sequestered dell. Unpeopled and deserted for three centuries. Time has spread over the chief portion of these grey walls" a mantle of venerable and luxuriant ivy, whose roots entwine about the foundations, and whose branches have penetrated the interstices of the masonry, rearing their perennial foliage where all beside is crumbling to ruin.' The charters, inventories, account rolls, indulgences, &c, survive the priory; and, witli few excepti&is, the documents so preserved are in the treasury of the Dean and Chapter of Durham—probably removed thither on the dissolution of the cell. By permission, they have been printed among the publications of the Surtees Society, in a volume edited by the Rev. James Raine, the capitular librarian, and freely used in the preparation of our paper. The monks of Finchale were monks of Durham, and were perpetually migrating from the mother-church to one or other.of her cells and back again, or from, cell to cell, at the pleasure of the prior of Durham. The name of every one of them, from the commencement of the fifteenth century (when there were eight) to the Dissolution, is known. Midway in the fourteenth century, they came under rebuke for keeping a pack of hounds; and a century later, they were guilty of the effeminac3 T of substituting linen shirts for the linsey-woolsey of their order—a sad lapse from, the iron body-garment of Godric ; for the brethren had come to prefer an ironed to an iron shirt. One naughty monk, travelling home from Lytham in Lancashire, was not allowed to shake hands on the way with his brethren at Durham. Prior Uthred, elected in 1367, was so eminent a man in his day as to be employed by Edward 111. in a foreign embassy; and it is. on record that he brought a skilful foreigner to Finchale, and employed him in transcribing Jerome's Eusebius and Bede's Ecclesiastical History—the same pen being subsequently employed at Durham on works which are still extant in the chapter-library. The first prior of Finchale was elected in 1196—the last about 1530. The final prior, William Bennett, afterwards a prebendary of Durham, being discharged from his vow of celibacy, availed himself of his privilege to marry, as appears from, a rhyme which survives him :— The prior oi'Finkela lnth got a fair wife, And every monk will have- one. Two priors of Finchale rose to the Episcopal throne, of Durham, and one became Bishop of Carisle. The Church was (as it j still is) a field in which men of low degree might win their way to eminence; but, as" we learn from the case of John Oil, of Brancepeth, elected prior of Finchale in 1450, servile birth was a bar to office. Oil was alleged to be of servile origin; but it was proved in his favor that his father was born free, and had a silver knife ! Oil was certainly ' born with a silver spoon in his mouth;' for he was successively prior of Coldingham and Finchale. The foundations of the church of Finchale were laid in mortification and penance, arid passed, through the more enlightened sway of the learned Uthred, to purple and fine linen. It does not -appear that the hermit gave the world ' a fair day's work for a fair day's wage,' or rendered any substantial service to his fellow-men. The first Henry was on the throne of England when the Norfolk mariner cast anchor at Finchale; and if, in the reign of the last Henry, the dwellers within the walls piously reared by Henry Pudsey (whose remains are said to repose at Finchale), had degenerated into hermit-idlers, the fall of their house is not to be regretted. Mr. Sidney Gibson, in his excellent monograph, speaks of the ' virtuous life' of the 'holy hermit,' ' one of the brightest lights of the monastic fraternity' of Durham; but we can find few traces in the chronices of his long career, which exhibit the graces of practical Christianity. We have nowhere seen the age of the saint at his departure given.- But he is

said to have been sixteen yesxs a mariner after he came to man's estate, which brings him up to 38. On his retirement from the sea he made a pilgrimage to St. Andrew's; visited Rome, Jerusalem, ■ and various shrines; made a second pilgrimage to Jerusalem, this time accompanied by his mother,, iEdwenna; resided for' a short [ time, on his return, at Carisle, and learned the Psalter; lived two years in the woodsarid 21 months in thehermitage of Wolsingham; went a third time to Jerusalem; came back to England, and passed two years in a hermitage at Eskdaleside, near Whitby; took up his abode at Durham; and finally pitched his tent at Finchale.— Three visits to Jerusalem when steamboats and railroads were not, and some dozen or more devoted to the cloister, the coll, and the woods, must have carried a man of 36 far on to threescore and ten; and yet he is said to have lived sixty years at Finchale. He must therefore have reached a good old age. We have no sympathy with sweeping; denunciations of monasticism and the monks; but neither can we admire men of the school of Simon Stylites, whose lives, as it seems to us, are founded upon anything but a Christian model. We have only to add to our hasty compilation the fact that when Henry the Eighth, that rough doctor of the English Church, dissolved the priory, its possessions were transferred to the Dean arid Chapter of Durham. ~