[17] Archdeacon Prescott informs me that in an early deed in the MS. Register of Lanercost Priory there is mention made of a capella de virgis, a chapel of wattle-work, at Treverman (Triermain). Divine Service was celebrated there by consent of Egelwin, the last Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Durham.
[18] Some writers, not aware of the extent to which wattle-work can be used and has been used, have said that virgea must in this connection mean “made of boards,” not of wattle. There seems to be no sufficient reason for putting this interpretation upon a well-known word. And even if it had that meaning, we should find in the recently revealed British marsh-fortress an equally good illustration of their skill in working boards. The principal causeway is faced with oak boards on its two vertical sides. These are kept in their place by carefully squared oak posts, driven deep into the ground below, so that their tops are level with the surface of the causeway. The tops of the posts are morticed, and a bar of oak, across the causeway, is let into the tops of the two posts opposite to one another, and is fastened there with oak pegs. Thus the boards which face the vertical sides of the causeway are clamped tight in their places. The work is done throughout with extreme neatness of fit and finish.
[19] Juvenal, Satires, xii. 46; Martial, Epigrams, xiv. 99.
[20] Ep. xi. 53.
[21] Wars of the Jews, vi. 6.
[22] Annals, xiv. 32, 33.
[23] That is, in December 1893, in the war with the Matabele.
[24] It is added that in the eventual revenge of the Romans, some eighty thousand of the Britons were killed. These numbers seem at first sight very large, too large to be historical. But we may bear in mind that Caesar a hundred years before had noted with surprise the populousness of Britain—hominum infinita multitudo, countless swarms of men.
[25] See p. 117. As I have found myself obliged by historical considerations to abandon the interesting old tradition of King Lucius, I may as well give in a note some details of the story which have special interest for us in London. It may be mentioned as a preliminary, that Gildas (about a. d. 560) makes no reference to the story. Bede, who usually follows Gildas, gets his information about Lucius from the Roman Chronicle, as enlarged in the time of Prosper. But he gives two different dates, in one place (i. 4) a. d. 156, which is inconsistent with the names of the reigning emperors as given by him, and in another place (the summary at the end of book v) after a. d. 167. The earliest British testimony to the story is that of Nennius, in the ninth century. He tells us that Lucius was called Lleur maur, the great light, because of this event.
The fully developed story is quoted by Dugdale (History of St. Paul’s, p. 2) from a MS. in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s before the fire of 1666, as follows:—‘In the year 185 Pope Eleutherius sent hither into Britain, at the instance of King Lucius, two eminent doctors, Faganus and Damianus, to the end that they might instruct him and his subjects in the principles of Christian religion, and consecrate such churches as had been dedicated to divers false gods, unto the honour of the true God: whereupon these holy men consecrated three metropolitical sees in the three chief cities of the island, unto which they subjected divers bishopricks: the first at London, whereunto all England, from the banks of Humber southwards, and Severn eastward, belonged: the second, York, which contained all beyond Humber northwards, together with Scotland: the third, Caerleon (upon Uske) whereunto all westward of Severn, with Wales totally, were subject. All which continued so till Augustine (who was sent by Pope Gregory) in the year 604 after the birth of our Saviour, having translated the primacy to Canterbury, constituted Mellitus the first bishop of London.’