EAST END OF CROWLAND ABBEY.
In the earlier days of Christianity the solitudes in this Fenland had peculiar attractions for the hermits who fled from the world to embrace an ascetic life. Thus the islands each gradually got its hermit, and the great monasteries grew up by degrees, starting usually in the cell of some recluse. Guthlac, who lived in the seventh century, was of the royal House of Mercia, and voluntarily exiled himself in the Fens. This region was then, according to popular belief, the haunt of myriads of evil spirits, who delighted in attacking the hermits. They assaulted Guthlac in hosts, disturbed him by strange noises, once carried him far away to the icy regions of the North, and not seldom took the form of crows, the easier to torment him; but his steady prayers and penance ultimately put them to flight, and the existence of his cell became known to the world. Ethelbald fled to Guthlac for refuge, and the hermit predicted he would become king, which in time came to pass. Guthlac died at Crowland, and the grateful king built a stone church there. The buildings increased, their great treasure being of course the tomb of the hermit, which became a source of many miracles. The Northmen in the ninth century plundered and destroyed Crowland, but it was restored, and in Edward the Confessor's time was one of the five religious houses ruled by the powerful abbot of Peterborough. It became the shrine of Waltheof, the Earl of Northampton beheaded for opposing William the Conqueror, and Crowland was thus made a stronghold of English feeling against the Normans, like the other monasteries of the Fens. Its fame declined somewhat after the Conquest, though its hospitality was fully maintained. It had little subsequent history. The abbey was garrisoned by the Royalists, and captured by Cromwell in 1643, after which it fell into ruin. Such has been the fate of almost all the religious houses in the Fens, the merits of which the people in the olden time judged according to a local rhyme which yet survives:
"Ramsay, the bounteous of gold and of fee;
Crowland, as courteous as courteous may be;
Spalding the rich, and Peterborough the proud;
Sawtrey, by the way, that poor abbaye,
Gave more alms in one day than all they."
NORWICH.
Proceeding eastward out of the Fenland and among the hills of Norfolk, the little river Wensum is found to have cut a broad, deep, and trench-like valley into the chalk and gravel plateau. Upon the elevated bank of the river is the irregularly picturesque town of Norwich, with the castle keep rising above the undulating mass of buildings, and the cathedral and its noble spire overtopping the lower portion of the city on the right hand. Norwich is an ancient town, but very little is known with certainty about it anterior to the Danish invasions. We are told that its original location was at the more southerly castle of Caister, whence the inhabitants migrated to the present site, for—
"Caister was a city when Norwich was none,
And Norwich was built of Caister stone."
Canute held possession of Norwich and had a castle there, but the present castle seems to date from the Norman Conquest, when it was granted to Ralph de Quader, who turned traitor to the king, causing Norfolk to be besieged, captured, and greatly injured. Then the castle was granted to Roger Bigod. The town grew, and became especially prosperous from the settlement there of numerous Flemish weavers in the fourteenth century and of Walloons in Elizabeth's reign. It managed to keep pretty well out of the Civil Wars, but a local historian says, "The inhabitants have been saved from stagnation by the exceeding bitterness with which all party and local political questions are discussed and contested, and by the hearty way in which all classes throw themselves into all really patriotic movements, when their party feeling occasionally sleeps for a month or two." Norwich is pre-eminently a town of churches, into the construction of which flint enters largely, it being dressed with great skill into small roughened cubical blocks.
The great attraction of Norwich is the cathedral, which stands upon a low peninsula enclosed by a semicircular sweep of the river, much of the ground in this region having been originally a swamp. The cathedral is generally approached from its western side, where there is an open space in front of the Close called Tombland, upon which two gates open from it. These are St. Ethelbert's and the Erpingham gate. The latter, opposite the western front of the cathedral, is named for its builder, "old Sir Thomas Erpingham," whose "good white head," Shakespeare tells us, was to be seen on the field of Agincourt. The cathedral is a Norman structure, cruciform in plan, with an exceptionally long nave, an apsidal choir, and attached chapels. The earliest parts of it were begun in 1096, and when partially completed five years afterwards it was handed over to the care of the Benedictine monks. Thirty years later the nave was added, but the cathedral was not completed until about 1150. Twice it was seriously injured by fire, and it was not thoroughly restored for a century, when in 1278 it was again consecrated with great pomp, in the presence of Edward I. and his court, on Advent Sunday. The spire, which is one of its most conspicuous features, was added by Bishop Percy in the fourteenth century, though, having been seriously injured by lightning, it had to be replaced afterwards. At the same time the building was greatly altered, its roofs raised and vaulted, and repairs went on until 1536. Yet, with all the changes that were made in this famous cathedral, no other in England has managed to preserve its original plan so nearly undisturbed.