CHERTSEY, a market town in the Chertsey parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 22 m. W.S.W. from London by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 12,762. It is pleasantly situated on the right bank of the Thames, which is crossed by a bridge of seven arches, built of Purbeck stone in 1785. The parish church, rebuilt in 1808, contains a tablet to Charles James Fox, who resided at St Anne’s Hill in the vicinity, and another to Lawrence Tomson, a translator of the New Testament in the 17th century. Hardly any remains are left of a great Benedictine abbey, whose buildings at one time included an area of 4 acres. They fell into almost complete decay in the 17th century, and a “fair house” was erected out of the ruins by Sir Nicholas Carew of Beddington. The ground-plan can be traced; the fish-ponds are complete; and carved stones, coffins and encaustic tiles of a peculiar manufacture are frequently exhumed. Among the abbots the most famous was John de Rutherwyk, who was appointed in 1307, and continued, till his death in 1346, to carry on a great system of alteration and extension, which almost made the abbey a new building. The house in which the poet Cowley spent the last years of his life remains, and the chamber in which he died is preserved unaltered. The town is the centre of a large residential district. Its principal trade is in produce for the London markets.
The first religious settlement in Surrey, a Benedictine abbey, was founded in 666 at Chertsey (Cerotesei, Certesey), the manor of which belonged to the abbot until 1539, since when it has been a possession of the crown. In the reign of Edward the Confessor Chertsey was a large village and was made the head of Godley hundred. The increase of copyhold under Abbot John de Rutherwyk led to discontent, the tenants in 1381 rising and burning the rolls. Chertsey owed its importance primarily to the abbey, but partly to its geographical position. Ferries over the Redewynd were subjects of royal grant in 1340 and 1399; the abbot built a new bridge over the Bourne in 1333, and wholly maintained the bridge over the Thames when it replaced the 14th century ferry. In 1410 the king gave permission to build a bridge over the Redewynd. As the centre of an agricultural district the markets of Chertsey were important and are still held. Three days’ fairs were granted to the abbots in 1129 for the feast of St Peter ad Vincula by Henry III. for Holy Rood day; in 1282 for Ascension day; and a market on Mondays was obtained in 1282. In 1590 there were many poor, for whose relief Elizabeth gave a fair for a day in Lent and a market on Thursdays. These fairs still survive.
See Lucy Wheeler, Chertsey Abbey (London, 1905); Victoria County History, Surrey.
CHERUBIM, the Hebrew plural of “cherub” (kěrūb), imaginary winged animal figures of a sacred character, referred to in the description of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings vi. 23-35, vii. 29, viii. 6, 7), and also in that of the ark of the tabernacle (Ex. xxv. 18-22, xxvi. 1, 31, xxxvii. 7-9). The cherub-images, where such occur, represent to the imagination the supernatural bearers of Yahweh’s throne or chariot, or the guardians of His abode; the cherub-carvings at least symbolize His presence, and communicate some degree of His sanctity. In Gen. iii. 24 the cherubim are the guards of Paradise; Ezek. xxviii. 14, 16 cannot be mentioned here, the text being corrupt. We also find (1 Sam. iv. 4; 2 Sam. vi. 2) as a divine title “that sitteth upon the cherubim”; here it is doubted whether the cherubim are the material ones in the temple, or those which faith assumes and the artist tries to represent—the supernatural steeds upon which Yahweh issues forth to interfere in human affairs. In a poetic theophany (Ps. xviii. 10) we find “upon a cherub” parallel to “upon the wings of the wind” (cp. Isa. xix. 1; Ps. civ. 3). One naturally infers from this that the “cherub” was sometimes viewed as a bird. For the clouds, mythologically, are birds. “The Algonkins say that birds always make the winds, that they create the waterspouts, and that the clouds are the spreading and agitation of their wings.” “The Sioux say that the thunder is the sound of the cloud-bird flapping his wings.” If so, Ps. xviii. 10 is a solitary trace of the archaic view of the cherub. The bird, however, was probably a mythic, extra-natural bird. At any rate the cherub was suggested by and represents the storm-cloud, just as the sword in Gen. iii. 24 corresponds to the lightning. In Ezek. i. the four visionary creatures are expressly connected with a storm-wind, and a bright cloud (ver. 4). Elsewhere (xli. 18) the cherub has two faces (a man’s and a bird’s), but in i. 10 and x. 14 each cherub has four faces, a view tastefully simplified in the Johannine Apocalypse (Rev. iv. 7).
It is best, however, to separate Ezekiel from other writers, since he belongs to what may be called a great mythological revival. Probably his cherubim are a modification of older ones, which may well have been of a more sober type. His own accounts, as we have seen, vary. Probably the cherub has passed through several phases. There was a mythic bird-cherub, and then perhaps a winged animal-form, analogous to the winged figures of bulls and lions with human faces which guarded Babylonian and Assyrian temples and palaces. Another analogy is furnished by the winged genii represented as fertilizing the sacred tree—the date-palm (Tylor); here the body is human, though the face is sometimes that of an eagle. It is perhaps even more noteworthy that figures thought to be cherubs have been found at Zenjirli, within the ancient North Syrian kingdom of Ya’di (see Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients, pp. 350 f.); we may combine this with the fact that one of the great gods of this kingdom was called Rakab’el or Rekūb’el (also perhaps Rakab or Rekūb). A Sabaean (S. Arabian) name Karab’el also exists. The kerubim might perhaps be symbolic representatives of the god Rakab’el or Rek#363;b’el, probably equivalent to Hadad, whose sacred animal was the bull. That the figures symbolic of Rakab or Hadad were compounded or amalgamated by the Israelites with those symbolic of Nergal (the lion-god) and Ninib (the eagle-god), is not surprising.
See further “Cherubim,” in Ency. Bib. and Hast. D.B.; Cheyne, Genesis; Tylor, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xii. 383 ff.; Zimmern, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, pp. 529 f., 631 f.; Dibelius, Die Lade Jahves (1906), pp. 72-86.
(T. K. C.)