Here again we have a case of Jewish trickery:—Ursell, son of Pulcella, owes 5 marks because he did not give up to Ysaac his debt, and Matathias the Jew owes half a mark because he has confessed what he previously denied.—3 Ric. I., Linc.
In the time of Richard I. anti-semitic feeling ran high. In a Roll, 3 Ric. I., Chent (Kent), we find:—The town of Ospringe owes 20 marks because it did not make a hue and cry for a slain Jew. In another, 4 Ric. I., we find:—Richard Malebysse renders count for 20 marks, for having his land again, which had been seized in the hand of the king on account of the slaughter of Jews at York. William de Percy, Knight, Roger de Ripun, and Alan Malekuke owe 5 marks for the same. In Lincoln, however, it has been generally supposed that the Jews escaped violent treatment, but in a Roll, 3 Ric. I., Linc., there is a list of 80 names of men of the city fined, as “amerciament for assault on the Jews.”
There are several more mentions of transactions of Lincoln Jews, but these will suffice.—“Archæol. Review,” Vol. ii., No. vi., pp. 398–410.
There were at one time 52 churches in Lincoln besides the Cathedral; now they number 15. There were also in the city 14 monasteries. Honorius, the fifth Archbishop of Canterbury,
was consecrated by Paulinus in Lincoln, in 627.
Services in some of the churches have been held somewhat irregularly even in this cathedral city, for in answer to queries from the Bishop in 1743, it was found that in St. Bennet’s there was divine service once a month, and twice on the greater festivals. St. Mark’s had services on the three greater festivals, and four times a year besides. St. Martin’s had services four or five times a year, St. Mary le Wigford once every Sunday. An epitaph in the churchyard of the last-named church, on an old tombstone, a specimen of Lindocolline wit, runs as follows:—
Here lies one—believe it, if you can—
Who, though an attorney, was an honest man. [125]
We have only to add that when Remigius of Fecamp, the first Norman Bishop, presided over the See of Lincoln, his diocese was far the largest in England, extending from the Humber to the Thames, and embracing no less than eight counties. It was reduced to something like its present dimensions on the appointment of Bishop Kaye in 1827; except that, since then, a portion has been taken off and included in the new Diocese of Southwell. Truly our bishops were princes in those olden times.
Yet, interesting as Lincoln is, to the archæologist one thing is lacking, viz., a fitting museum, wherein to bring together, tabulate, and conserve the many precious relics of the past, which are now scattered about in private hands, and liable to all sorts of accidents. When we visit such collections as those in the museums at Newcastle or Nottingham—even the limited and crowded, but very interesting, one at Peterborough, and, above all the very fine collection (especially of Roman antiquities) at York—we are tempted to exclaim, with a sigh of regret, “O! si sic omnes!” At Lincoln, colossal fortunes have been, made in the old “staple city,” now vastly grown, and growing, in its trade; will not some one, or more, of her wealthy sons come forward, and build, and endow, a museum worthy of the place, and while there are yet so many priceless treasures available to enrich it? The Corporation, indeed, have, in the year of grace 1904, commenced at last a movement toward establishing a county museum, but no site is yet secured for it. A few objects, chiefly of Natural History, are already placed for safety in the Castle, till better accommodation can be provided.
We now return to some remains, possessing considerable antiquarian interest, in our neighbourhood, within easy reach for the visitor to Woodhall Spa, and belonging to a period later than that of the Briton, or Roman, or even the Saxon and the Dane; when, as the poet says:—