The antiquities of Bridgnorth

by George Bellett

This was a House of Franciscan or Grey Friars,[32] an order that was founded by Francis of Assisi, early in the thirteenth century, and introduced into this country in the reign of Henry III. About the middle of that reign, a branch of this fraternity settled in Bridgnorth, and fixed their residence by the Severn side, on a site now occupied by Messrs. Southwell’s Carpet Manufactory. There they built both a Friary and a Church. The great Hall, or Refectory, which belonged to this establishment is still standing, and its oak-pannelled ceiling and stone fire-place have not yielded to the wear of time, but, after the lapse of six hundred years, are still in good preservation. Some years ago, a few skeletons were dug up near this spot, and very lately several others have been found; the place where they lay marking out, no doubt, the situation of the Cemetery, which belonged to the Church of the Friars.

There is a record of a curious trial at Shrewsbury Assizes, bearing date 1272, which brings the Friars of Bridgnorth under notice. They were charged with having enclosed the King’s highway on the bank of the Severn, thereby damaging the King’s revenue. It was stated on this trial, that “they take stones and rubbish from the bank of the Severn, and throw them into the river, whereby they have realised to themselves a piece of ground, one hundred and fifty feet long, and fifty feet wide, and this they have enclosed. By which process the bank causes the water to pound upon the King’s Mills, the damage whereunto is five merks per annum, and this was done sixteen years back.” I must leave it to engineers to determine, whether or not there is any trace of this artificial bank still remaining, and whether it is owing to the construction of it, that the Eastern side of the river, near Bridgnorth, is now so much more easily flooded than the Western: if so the inhabitants of the Low Town owe a grudge to the Grey Friars of the thirteenth century.

But some of the brethren of this community were, I doubt not, often employed in much more important work than in banking up the Severn, and gaining ground by encroaching on its channel. By the ancient seal of their foundation, an engraving of which is given on the following page, it may be seen that they were “prædicatores”—preachers. It was a dark age in which they discharged this office, and some blessed truths, which hold a prominent place in the system of the Gospel of Christ, were unknown to them, or known very indistinctly. Nevertheless, many a hooded Friar, in those days of darkness, did the best he could, with the little light he had, to enlighten the ignorant around him; and He who does “not despise the day of small things,” would not suffer his labour to be altogether in vain.

The Monks and Friars of former times have so bad a name among Protestants, (and indeed there is too much reason for it) that it may seem strange that I should express a hope, that the establishment of this Friary of Franciscans in Bridgnorth, should have answered any good purpose; yet I venture to do so. No doubt such establishments became in later years exceedingly corrupt—almost as corrupt as those who profited by their dissolution wished to make out. Often they harboured evils within them of an enormous magnitude. Nevertheless, they at times numbered among their members some most earnest and devoted servants of our Lord, who, in the retirement of their closets, meditated devoutly on His Word, and went forth from thence with a burning zeal to preach it to others. In expressing an opinion, that piety of the highest order might be found among the inhabitants of a cloister, however corrupt the system may have been with which they were outwardly connected, I am glad to be able to fortify myself by so great an authority, and so unsuspected a witness, as Archbishop Leighton. His biographer states, that although he was no friend to monastic seclusion, and regarded the greater number of the regular Clergy of the Roman Catholic Church as “ignavi fures,” yet at the same time “he recognized among them a few specimens of extraordinary growth in religion; and thought he had discovered in the piety of some conventual recluses a peculiar and celestial flavour, which could hardly be met with elsewhere. Of their sublime devotion he often spake with an admiration approaching to rapture.”[33] On such a topic I cannot refrain from quoting also the following striking passage from Dr. Maitland, whose acute and learned researches into the state of religion in the middle ages, entitle his opinion to the greatest weight. “I feel no doubt, that, in the darkest age, there were many true and accepted worshippers of God. Not formed into churches, and eminently bearing their testimony in corporate capacities as churches, against the See of Rome (for then I think we should have heard more about them); but as the sheep of Christ, dispersed abroad in the midst of this naughty world—known, perhaps, by this or that name of reproach—or, perhaps, the obscure and unknown, whose names were never written anywhere but in Heaven. I doubt not that there were such, living a life of faith and prayer and communion with God; overlooked in the bustle of cities, and the solitude of cottages, and even shut up in what some modern systems require us to consider as the strongholds of Antichrist—the cell and the cloister. I will not shrink from avowing my belief, that many a tonsured head now rests in Abraham’s bosom; and that many a frail body, bowed down with voluntary humility, and wasted with unprofitable will-worship—clothed in rags, and girt with a bell-rope—was a temple of the Holy Ghost; and that one day—a day when the follies of system, and the sins of party, and man’s judgment of his fellows, will have come to an end—these, her unknown children, will be revealed to the astonishment of a church, accustomed to look back with a mixture of pride and shame to the days of her barrenness. She may ask, ‘Who hath brought up these? Behold I was left alone; these, where have they been?’—but she will have learned to know the seal of the living God, she will embrace them as her sons, and will find better matter of discourse, than their superstition and her illumination. In the mean time, however, they are hidden—perhaps more completely hidden than they need be, if due pains were taken to look after them, and gather what might be known.”[34]

We have happily an instance, to which, without going out of our way, we can refer, in proof that the spirit of sincere and devoted piety may be found in a monk or friar of ancient days. It is that of a Shropshire monk of the twelfth century—Ordericus, the original historian of our county, to whose records we are indebted for some of the facts connected with the early history of Bridgnorth, related in the foregoing pages. In the close of his history he subjoins an account of himself, which breathes throughout a deep-seated humility, and ardent gratitude, which it would be well indeed if we, with our clearer views and larger knowledge, could catch the spirit of. The whole of it is well worthy a perusal, but I can only find room for the concluding passage.

“Thus, thus, O Lord God, Thou who didst fashion me, and didst breathe into my nostrils the breath of life, hast Thou, through these various gradations, imparted to me Thy gifts, and formed my years to Thy service. In all the places to which Thou hast led me, Thou hast caused me to be beloved, by Thy bounty, not by my own deserving. For all Thy benefits, O merciful Father, I thank Thee. I laud and bless Thee: for my numberless offences, with tears I implore Thy mercy. For the praise of Thy unwearied goodness look upon Thy creature, and blot out all my sins. Grant me the will to persist in Thy service, and strength to withstand the attacks of Satan, till I attain, by Thy grace, the inheritance of everlasting life. And what I have prayed for myself, I pray, O God, for my friends, and well-wishers. The same also I pray for all the faithful: and forasmuch as the efficacy of our own merits cannot suffice to obtain those eternal gifts, after which the desires of the perfect aspire,—

“O Lord God, Almighty Father, Creator and Ruler of the Angels, Thou true hope, and eternal blessedness of the righteous, may the glorious intercession of the Holy Virgin and Mother Mary, and all Saints, aid us in Thy sight, with the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, Redeemer of all men, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end.”[35]

The concluding passage of this prayer is slightly tinged with that superstition, which afterwards appeared in a still more objectionable form, and now so deeply stains the worship of the Church of Rome with the foul blot of idolatry; but with Ordericus the evil was but superficial, and though it does sully the beauty of his devotion, yet it is not deep enough to hide its intrinsic piety. His godly sincerity is still conspicuous, notwithstanding the error with which it was connected; for, as Milner well observes in his Church History, a measure of superstition is compatible with real godliness. We may hope that there were men of like spirit with Ordericus in the ancient Friary of Bridgnorth, and if so, Christ was not without a witness here, even in the darkness of the middle ages; and His holy name, though pronounced by faltering lips, and a stammering tongue, would bring salvation; and His truth, though taught obscurely and defectively, would be sufficient to guide the feet of wandering sinners into the way of peace, and to conduct the weary and heavy laden to their rest.