The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 2 (of 3) / or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

by William Hone

September 22.

St. Maurice.

This saint, to whom and his companions a festival is celebrated by the Romish church on this day, received a similar honour in England. They are said to have been officers in the Theban legion, which refused to sacrifice to the gods on their march into Gaul, and were, therefore, ordered to be decimated by Maximian. Every tenth man was accordingly put to death, and on their continued resistance, a second decimation ordered, and Maurice and his companions encouraged them, and the whole legion consisting of six thousand six hundred men, well armed, being no way intimidated to idolatry by cruelty, were slaughtered by the rest of the army, and relics of their bodies were gathered and preserved, and worked miracles.[348]

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Battle of Threekingham.

For the Every-Day Book.

The village of Threekingham, in the county of Lincoln, was known by the name of Laundon, previous to this day, A. D. 870, when a battle was fought between the English and Danes, of which Ingulphus, a monk of Crowland abbey, has left the following account.

The Danes entered England in the year 879, and wintered at York; and in the year 880 proceeded to the parts of Lindsey, in Lincolnshire, where they commenced their destructive depredations by laying waste the abbey of Bardney. In the month of September in the latter year, earl Algar, with two of his seneschals, (Wibert, owner of Wiberton, and Leofric, owner of Leverton,) attended by the men of Holland (Lincolnshire), Toly, a monk (formerly a soldier), with two hundred men belonging to Crowland abbey, and three hundred from Deeping, Langtoft, and Boston, Morcar, lord of Bourn, with his powerful family, and Osgot, sheriff of Lincolnshire, with the forces of the county, being five hundred more, mustered in Kesteven, on the day of St. Maurice, and fought with the Danes, over whom they obtained considerable advantage, killing three of their kings and many of their private soldiers, and pursued the rest to their very camp, until night obliged them to separate. In the same night several princes and earls of the Danes, with their followers, who had been out in search of plunder, came to the assistance of their countrymen; by the report of which many of the English were so dismayed that they took to flight. Those, however, who had resolution to face the enemy in the morning, went to prayers, and were marshalled for battle. Among the latter was Toly with his five hundred men in the right wing, with Morcar and his followers to support them; and Osgot the sheriff, with his five hundred men, and with the stout knight, Harding de Riehall, and the men of Stamford. The Danes, after having buried the three kings whom they had lost the day before, at a place there called Laundon, but since, from that circumstance, called Three-king-ham, marched out into the field. The battle began, and the English, though much inferior in numbers, kept their ground the greater part of the day with steadiness and resolution, until the Danes feigning a flight, were rashly pursued without attention to order. The Danes then took advantage of the confusion of the English, returned to the charge, and made their opponents pay dearly for their temerity; in fine, the Danes were completely victorious. In this battle, earl Algar, the monk Toly, and many other valiant men, were slain on the part of the English; after which the Danes proceeded to the destruction of the abbeys of Crowland, Thorney, Ramsey and Hamstede (Peterborough) and many other places in the neighbourhood.—Thus far is from Ingulphus the monk.

A fair, said to have arisen from the above circumstance, is annually held at Three-king-ham, on a remarkable piece of ground, called Stow Green Hill, reported to be the spot whereon the battle was principally contested, and Domesday-book in some degree corroborates the statement; for in the Conqueror’s time, A. D. 1080, when that survey was taken, we find that there was then a fair held here, which yielded forty shillings, accounted for to Gilbert de Gand, lord of Foldingham. This fair, however, is not held now in the month of September, but commences on the 15th of June, and continues till the fourth of July, and was very probably changed in the fifty-second year of the reign of king Henry III., who according to Tanner’s “Notitia Monastica,” granted a charter for a fair at this place to the monastery of Sempringham.

Sleafordensis.

September 8, 1826.

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