Memorials of old Durham

by Unknown

The house at Monkwearmouth grew and prospered, a home of arts and science and religion. There Bede began to acquire his wonderful knowledge, and John the Chanter founded his great school of music. Seven years after its foundation (A.D. 681) expansion became a necessity, and a new grant of land was obtained, this time at Jarrow, on the south bank of the Tyne. Seventeen persons, clerical and lay, were sent thither, their leader being Ceolfrid, to whose care Bede, already for two years an inmate of the older monastery, was committed. Soon after this event Biscop departed on his last visit to Rome, leaving his stalwart kinsman Eosterwini to rule at Monkwearmouth. He was absent for more than three years, an eventful time, during which both houses suffered grievously from a visitation of the plague. Eosterwini was its most notable victim, whilst at Jarrow nearly the whole convent was stricken down. At that place, as an anonymous writer informs us, only Ceolfrid and one boy, obviously Bede, were left to chant the daily services. The above facts will explain the delay in the consecration of the great church at Jarrow, which, according to a contemporary inscription still preserved, was not dedicated till the fourth year of Ceolfrid’s presidency.

Of this church only some stones now remain. A smaller church had, however, been first built and consecrated, and it is this which forms the chancel of Jarrow Church to-day. Its dimensions do not suggest any special meaning. Twenty-eight feet to the west of it, and lying precisely in the same right line, stood at one time a fabric precisely similar to that of St. Peter’s, Monkwearmouth, the same, apparently, in length and breadth and height, and lighted by windows of the same type and in the same position. Annexed to it on the north and south were a number of apartments, undoubtedly to be identified with the porches in Bede’s account of Monkwearmouth, chambers opening by round-headed arches into the church itself. The arches on the north side, and vestiges of three rooms on the south, remained as late as the year 1769. Probably one such porch as this stood at the eastern end of the building; this we know was the case at Monkwearmouth. These apartments, walled off as they were from each other, would be used for prayer and study, and sometimes as places of sepulture. They were probably constructed in imitation of the chambers round Solomon’s temple.

This, then, appears to have been the church which it took so long to complete, and in this building was set up the dedication stone above mentioned. It was erected and consecrated under the auspices of King Aldfrid (brother and successor to Ecgfrid), and the Abbot Ceolfrid. Biscop himself was still abroad, but soon afterwards returned to England, bringing with him many books and pictures, one series of which, depicting the events of our Lord’s life, was ranged as a crown round the Church of St. Mary in the greater monastery; another, representing the Gospel story by type and antitype, adorned the monastery and Church of St. Paul. Biscop’s last homecoming had its sorrows. He found Eosterwini dead, and his successor Sigfrid slowly dying of consumption. Then there came to himself a stroke of paralysis. Very touching is the story told us of the last days of the two Abbots. The greater man feels the greater anxiety. His much-prized library is not to be dispersed, but before all things the unity of the double foundation is to be maintained. Before his end comes he appoints Ceolfrid to govern the united monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The narrative continues till the year 716, when the aged Ceolfrid resigned his charge, and departed to die, as he hoped, at Rome. But this was not to be. His last moments were spent at Langres, near Lyons. But one great work of Northumbrian art passed on by other hands to Italy—the splendid manuscript of the Vulgate, now known as the Codex Amiantinus, and preserved in the Medicean Library at Florence.

Bede himself lived on in his old home till the year 735. The story of his end is too well known to need repetition here. Before his death Northumbria had fallen from its former glory. A period of darkness supervenes, broken here and there by the lurid light of Danish invasions. Yet the churches of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow lasted on, sacked, it might be, burned and desolated, but still saved from total destruction.

The period of depression that followed the golden days of the twin monasteries has left us but scanty memorials of their history. We begin to hear of times of insecurity, of attacks made upon the eastern coast of England by Danish pirates. The situations of the two churches would, under these circumstances, be distinctly against them. Jarrow is to this day conspicuous; it is probably less well known that Monkwearmouth Church stood for centuries upon the top of a hill. This is shown quite clearly in the engraving of the year 1785. The sea rovers would take their own survey of the coast and its harbours, and would make for any place that offered promise of pillage. There is much good and rich land between the Wear and the Tyne, and the monks of early days were assiduous cultivators. The country of Wilfrid and Biscop and Bede was no uncivilized or neglected part of the world. To a pagan race there would be no impediment in the form of religious scruples. The wealth of the Church would but invite the spoilers to their prey.

And so the Danes came first to Northern England, to begin with, somewhat tentatively, in the year 793, harrying the island of Lindisfarne, plundering its monastery, and burning the church. The next year their ships put into the Tyne. On the hill overlooking the slake, just where that river receives its tributary the Don, stood the monastery of Jarrow, Egfrid’s Port lying immediately below it. Here they landed, and took such booty as they found. But the people of the neighbourhood rallied, and drove back the invaders to their ships. Few of them made good their escape, for the wind was against them. The storm came up into the river, and the fugitives were driven to the shore, where they and their chieftain, Ragner Lodbrog, met with the vengeance they deserved.

It is quite clear that the lesson thus given was not forgotten. We hear no more of Danish invasions for well on to sixty years. When they recommenced, they were directed elsewhere. In the year 851 the Danes landed in Sheppey, and this time they came to stay. The chroniclers have much to say about the Army; but it was not till the year 875 that it marched into Northern England, and then probably not much beyond York; it moved south two years later. But meanwhile there had no doubt been many a raid upon the settlements on the coast. The year 866 was marked by one of the most serious of these. At that date Hingvar and Hubba burned the church of Monkwearmouth. The traces of this conflagration are still distinctly perceptible. Again in the year 875 the fleet of Halfdan was in the Tyne. Contemporaneously with this event took place the flight from Lindisfarne, and the commencement of the journeyings of the body of St. Cuthbert.

How the Danish power was driven back by Alfred, how his wise policy reclaimed the half of his kingdom, is a well-known part of our national history. The final triumph was not so much one of war as of peace. The wisdom of a very great King effected much; the growing strength of recovering Christianity did the rest. Never did any ruler so effectually combine the forces of secular and spiritual power, or hold them more truly in balance and co-operation. The invaders became settlers, and have left this part of their history in the names of their new homes. This is especially true of Lincolnshire; then, hardly less decidedly, of York. But north of the Tees the English population simply retained lands which they had never ceased to occupy. Danish place-names in the county of Durham are few and far between.