CHAPTER VII DORCHESTER ABBEY
The Abbey of Dorchester stood on the banks of the river Tame, a small stream arising near the town of the same name, and watering the finest pasture land of the county of Oxfordshire, until, half a mile below the Abbey, it falls into the Isis, which thence, strictly speaking, becomes the Thames (Tamesis).
This little town of Dorchester is not unknown to fame; it was first a British town, then a Roman city. Destroyed by the Saxons, it rose from its ashes to become the Cathedral city of the West Saxons, and the scene of the baptism of Cynegils, son of Ceol, by the hands of St. Birinus. The see was transferred to Winchester, but afterwards it became the seat of the great Mercian bishopric, and as its jurisdiction had once reached the Channel, so now it extended to the Humber and the Wash.
Cruelly destroyed by the Danes, it never regained its importance, and on account of its impoverished state,[9] the see was again removed by Remigius, the first Norman Bishop, to Lincoln, in the year 1092. But although the ancient city was thus deserted, the Bishop strove to make it some amends. He took care that an abbey should be created at Dorchester, lest the place should be ruined, or sunk in oblivion; and some say the Abbey was built with the stones which came from the Bishop's palace, the site of which is still marked by a farm called "Bishop's Court."
But the earlier buildings must have been of small extent, for at the time of our story, Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, was busy with a more magnificent structure, and he had already removed into the buildings, as yet but incomplete, a brotherhood of Black Canons, or Augustinians, under the rule of Abbot Alured.
The great church which had been the cathedral—the mother church of the diocese—had been partially rebuilt in the Norman style,[10] and around stood the buildings of the Abbey, west and north of the church.
In the scriptorium, overlooking the Tame, sat Abbot Alured. The Chapter Mass, which followed Terce (9 A.M.), had been said, and he was busy with the librarian, arranging his books. Of middle stature, with dark features, he wore an air of asceticism, tempered by an almost feminine suavity, and his voice was soft and winning.
He was the son of a Norman knight by an English wife, who had brought the aforesaid warrior an ample dowry in lands, for thus did the policy of the Conqueror attempt the reconciliation of conflicting interests and the amalgamation of the rival races of conquerors and conquered. For a long time the pair were childless, until the mother—like Hannah, whose story she had heard in church—vowed, if God would grant her a child, to dedicate it to God. Alured was born, and her husband, himself weary of perpetual fighting and turmoil, allowed her to fulfil her vow. The boy was educated at Battle Abbey, and taught monastic discipline; sent thence to Bec, which the fame of Lanfranc and Anselm—both successively translated to Canterbury—had made the most renowned school of theology in Northern Europe. There he received the tonsure, and passed through the usual grades, until, attracting the attention of Bishop Alexander, during a visit of that prelate to Bec, he was selected to be the new Abbot of Dorchester.