Memorials of old Durham

by Unknown

A bird’s-eye view of the city of Durham even at the present day is surprisingly beautiful. In the Middle Ages it would have served as a model for one of those fascinating little Jerusalems or Bethlehems, walled, towered, and pinnacled, which the old Italian masters loved to perch on the craggy hills in the background of some sacred picture. The river sweeps round three sides of the crag, which is crowned by the cathedral and the castle, and the narrow neck of land on the fourth side was defended by a moat. The Prior’s borough of Elvet and the merchants’ quarter of Framwellgate lay on the opposite bank of the river, and were connected with the citadel itself by their bridges.

The monastic chroniclers of the see were chiefly interested in the doings of the Bishop in his castle and the Prior in his cathedral, and the occasional interventions of the Lord King in the quarrels of these august persons; they tell comparatively little of the life and affairs of the burgesses themselves, the descendants of the men from between Coquet and Tees, who obeyed the summons of Earl Ucthred in 995, and hastened to Durham to raise a shrine worthy of St. Cuthbert, who cleared the thick forest on the crag of Durham, divided the land by lot, and became the Haliwerfolc, the people of the Saint. Twice during the eleventh century they were besieged by the Scots, and each time the enemy was routed. The heads of the slaughtered Scots were exposed in the market-place, where the great fair of Durham was held on September 4, the Feast of the Translation of St. Cuthbert. There was also a fair on the saint’s other festival, March 20; but the September fair was the more important. The laws of the special peace of St. Cuthbert, which was proclaimed by the thanes and drengs before the fair opened, were written in an ancient Gospel-Book, and a copy of them is still preserved.

In the winter of 1068-69 Robert Cumin, the newly created Norman Earl of Northumberland, advanced to Durham with his troops, but as the Normans lay there they were surprised by a sudden rising of the whole population, and slain almost to a man. A year later news came that William himself was approaching Durham to avenge the death of Cumin, whereupon Bishop Egelwin and the priests took the sacred body of St. Cuthbert and such of the treasures of the church as they could carry and fled to Lindisfarne, followed by the people of the city, who dared not remain without the sacred relic. The whole multitude took refuge on the island while William devastated Durham and Northumberland. At length peace was made, and St. Cuthbert and his followers returned to the desolate city. In 1072 William visited Durham, and installed the foreigner, Bishop Walcher, in the see. About this time also the first Norman castle was built in the city to keep the people in check; but when Bishop Walcher ventured out of his stronghold in 1080 he was murdered. Again William ravaged Durham, and the see was filled by Bishop William de St. Carileph, who began to build the present cathedral, and who founded the Benedictine monastery connected with it. To the new monastery he gave forty merchants’ houses in Elvet, which formed the nucleus of the Prior’s borough of Elvet. The troubles of Durham recommenced in 1140, when, the see being vacant, Durham Castle was seized by William Cumin, a nominee of King David of Scotland, who hoped through Cumin to annex the Bishopric. In the course of the struggle between the usurper and the new Bishop, William de St. Barbara, the greater part of the city of Durham was reduced to ashes. There were four years of desperate warfare before Bishop William entered his cathedral town, and at last received the submission of Cumin. Even then there could be no true peace while England was torn with civil war, and it was not until after the death of Bishop William that a brighter day dawned with the election of Bishop Hugh Pudsey. Bishop Hugh rebuilt the ruined city, restored the fortifications, and added to the cathedral. He granted the burgesses a charter, by which the customs of Newcastle-on-Tyne were confirmed to them, besides freedom from merchet, heriot, and toll. The city of Durham stands first in Bishop Pudsey’s great survey of the Bishopric (Boldon Book, compiled in 1183), when the city was at farm for 60 marks. Records which relate to the actual life of the citizens do not begin until the fourteenth century. The earliest are various charters of murage, dated 1345, 1377, 1385, which authorized the citizens to levy certain tolls, and to devote the proceeds to the repair of the walls and streets. The city was governed

Bishop Pudsey’s Charter.

by a bailiff, appointed by the Bishop, in the same way as Darlington. It is not until the fifteenth century that gilds are heard of in Durham. In 1436 Bishop Langley granted a licence to several of the principal inhabitants to form the religious gild of Corpus Christi in the Church of St. Nicholas, in the market-place. This gild was closely connected with the craft gilds of the town, which must have been in existence at the beginning of the century. The first records of the gilds occur in 1447, when the Shoemakers (Cordwainers) and the Fullers each gave recognizances to the Bishop that they would forfeit 20s. to him and 20s. to the light of Corpus Christi if any member took a Scot as an apprentice. The ordinances of the Weavers were enrolled and confirmed by the Bishop in 1450, and in them reference is made to the play which was to be played when they went in procession on Corpus Christi Day. The gilds were not merely a picturesque feature of town life, they had also a powerful influence on the development of the city. The corporation granted by Bishop Pilkington’s charter of 1565—the first charter of incorporation which the city obtained—was probably modelled on the governing body of the Corpus Christi Gild. The governing charter of the city until 1770 was granted by Bishop Toby Matthew in 1602, and by this charter the Common Council of the town was to consist of twenty-four persons, two being chosen from each of the twelve principal companies by the mayor and aldermen. When the city of Durham obtained Parliamentary representation in 1678, the franchise of the borough could only be obtained by membership in one of the companies, and the procedure of admission was therefore carefully regulated by the mayor and corporation. But in 1761 Durham experienced two elections within a few months of each other, and the political excitement completely demoralized the city. All restraints were thrown to the winds, and numbers of new freemen were admitted in a most irregular manner. The reaction of this exciting time on municipal affairs was such that, in 1770, more than half the number of the twelve aldermen had resigned or been removed, and it was therefore impossible to elect a mayor under the charter of 1603, which consequently lapsed. The various feuds having been cooled by an interval of ten years, Bishop Egerton granted a new charter in 1780, with provisions closely resembling those of the old one, and under this charter Durham was governed until it was included in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.

The North Road, on leaving Durham, follows the course of one of the Roman roads which passed through the county. It leads northward over Framwellgate Moor, and six miles from Durham passes through Chester-le-Street, which lies on the banks of the Cone Burn. As the name indicates, a Roman camp was situated here, and numerous Roman remains have been found. The monks who had fled from Lindisfarne in 876 with the body of St. Cuthbert settled at Chester-le-Street after seven years’ wandering, when peace had been confirmed by the agreement between Alfred and Guthred the Dane. It was the principal city of the see until 995, when Bishop Aldhune fled once more before the renewed invasions of the Danes. In Chester-le-Street the old custom is still kept up of playing a football-match, in which the whole village takes part, on Shrove Tuesday.

The borough of Gateshead lies on the Tyne, eight miles north of Chester-le-Street. The south end of Tyne Bridge was the site of a Roman camp, and afterwards, in the seventh century, of a Saxon monastery, which was destroyed by the Danes. A little church which stood there in 1080 was the scene of the murder of Bishop Walcher, who was killed by the infuriated populace while he was trying to pacify a feud between his Norman followers and the Saxon nobles. The church was set on fire, and the Bishop was killed as he rushed from the burning building. The traces of early Norman work in the present building show that it must have soon been rebuilt. The new church is first mentioned in 1256, when a prisoner who had escaped from the castle of Newcastle took refuge in Gateshead Church. Gateshead’s only charter was granted by Bishop Hugh Pudsey at some time between 1154 and 1183, and confirmed by his successor, Bishop Philip of Poitou. The little borough lay on the outskirts of the Bishop’s forest of Gateshead, and the charter freed the burgesses to some extent from the tyranny of that very great man, the Bishop’s Head Forester. In its form of government the borough was similar to Darlington. Gateshead has always been one of the principal commercial centres of the county, and, though there are no signs of craft gilds there, trade companies second in importance only to those of Durham existed from the reign of Elizabeth till the end of the eighteenth century. The prosperity of Gateshead very early excited the alarm of Newcastle, and the history of the town is studded with the attempts of its jealous neighbour to suppress its trade. In the fourteenth century the efforts of the Newcastle Corporation were directed against the fisheries and staithes on the south bank of the Tyne, which were frequently destroyed by "the malice of the men of Newcastle." In 1553 the two towns were united, but the Act was repealed by Queen Mary, who came to the throne in the same year. It was proposed to renew the union in 1568, but the anxious petitions of Gateshead, and the opposition of several influential persons in the Palatinate, frustrated the scheme. There are, however, several cases in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the interference of Newcastle with the trade of Gateshead. These troubles were the price that Gateshead had to pay for its advantageous position by the side of the greater town. Gateshead was given one representative in the House of Commons by the Reform Act of 1832, and was incorporated by its inclusion in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.

The boundary of Durham is now the south bank of the Tyne, but formerly the Bishop’s jurisdiction extended over one-third of the river, and was marked by a blue stone on Tyne Bridge. The old bridge, which stood where the Swing Bridge is now, was built in 1248 to replace the Roman bridge, Pons Ælii, which dated from circa 119. In 1389 the burgesses of Newcastle carried off the Blue Stone, seized the whole of the bridge, and built a tower on the south end, which they held against the Bishop. It was not until 1415 that Bishop Langley at length obtained judgment against the Corporation of Newcastle, and took possession of the tower with all his chivalry. The tower stood until the great flood of 1771, when part of the bridge was swept away. After this catastrophe the whole was rebuilt, the new bridge being completed in 1781. The High-Level Bridge was built in 1849, and the present Swing Bridge replaced the old stone one in 1876. Meanwhile, the conservation of the River Tyne had been placed in the hands of commissioners, and the jurisdiction of the Bishop over the river came to an end.