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Frame Ms. in the LIBRARY OF TRINITY HALL. CAMBRIDGE, fl. XXVIII. §. See below p 207)

MONASTERII S. AUGUSTINI CANTUARIENSIS,

BY

THOMAS OF ELMHAM,

FORMERLY MONK AND TREASURER OF THAT FOUNDATION.

EDITED

BY

UNIVERSITY
LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR

CHARLES HARDWICK, M.A.,

FELLOW OF ST. CATHARINE'S HALL, AND CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF HER MAJESTY'S
TREASURY, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, AND ROBERTS.

1858.

942 6789 no. 8

106008

INTRODUCTION.

man mis

in Kent,

WHEN St. Augustine and his fellow-missionaries passed Arrival along the vale of the Stour to Canterbury, in the of the Rospring of 597, the rude descendants of the Jutic sionaries pirates, who had settled in the lathes of Kent, evinced no disposition to abandon the old mythology of Northern Europe. It is true that Christianity had ceased to be arrayed against them as the creed of enemies, whom they had fought and subjugated, tortured and destroyed, The foreign worship was now celebrated under the auspices of Queen Bertha in Canterbury itself; and thus, apart from any influences which might have been exerted by the Celtic slaves, or by occasional tidings of the Irish missionaries, who were active on the northern coasts of Britain, the public mind was being silently prepared for a solemnity which claims to be regarded as the starting point in the great march of English civilisation,-the baptism of King Æthelbert at Canterbury, on Whit-Sunday, A.D. 597.

abbey.

And as Canterbury became the earliest seat of Vast imAnglo-Saxon Christianity, the primitive centre both of portance of St. Augusintellectual and religious illumination for the southern tine's shires of England was the abbey of St. Augustine, whose muniments are brought to light in the following pages. Planted in the suburbs of that city, and incorporating with itself a heathen fane, which, on conversion to Christian uses, was dedicated in honour

Its proper title.

Choice of

of the Roman boy Pancratius, the new convent waxed in fame, in beauty, in resources, till at length the Canterbury pilgrim, who stopped to gaze at Fyndon's gateway, might have easily mistaken the vast pile of buildings for some royal or imperial residence. It had a frontage of two hundred and fifty feet; it was endowed with eleven thousand six hundred and eighty acres of land.1

The proper name of this foundation was the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul; but when the old monastic church was consecrated by Laurentius, in 613, the remains of St. Augustine were transported thither, and his name occasionally substituted for those of the two great Apostles. As late, however, as 1325, when the high altar of the new church was dedicated afresh, St. Peter and St. Paul are still enumerated at the head of a list of saints who were supposed to exercise especial patronage within the sacred enclosure.

The main object both of Æthelbert and Augustine the locality, was to found, in the new monastery, an appropriate

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burial-place not only for themselves, but their successors in all future ages; and the site was chosen at some distance from the town of Canterbury, partly, as of late suggested, in compliance with the practice of an age in which the public cemeteries were always so situated, and partly, as the present Author seems to think, in fancied imitation of our Lord Himself, who "suffered without the gate."

1 See Mr. Dunkin's "Report of the Proceedings of the British Archæological Association" (1844), p. 139.

2 Tit. I. § 9.

Mr. Stanley's "Memorials of Canterbury,” p. 24. Gervaise in his "Actus Pontif. Cantuar.," col. 1641. ("Scriptores X."), had observed al

ready, in connexion with this point : "Dicebant enim Romani primi in | Angliam missi civitatem non esse mortuorum, sed vivorum.” Cf. below, p. 115. We find from the same writer (ibid.), that all persons, high and ow, monks and townsmen, were alike interred "in atrio ecclesiæ apostolorum Petri et Pauli.”

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