ante, ipse de quo loquimur episcopus a domino Papâ et a curiâ Romanâ impetravit, quatinus exinde Bathonienses' dicerentur. Amplius cum silentio reticeri non est conveniens, quod idem piæ memoriæ præsul, de quo hic agitur, Robertus, a glorioso Rege Stephano impetravit, dari canonicis Wellensis ecclesiæ in præbendas canonicorum, ecclesias de Norcuri et de Pedertonâ, quarum donatio ad regiam pertinebat majestatem. Unde Rex ipse cartam suam adjecit cum cartâ præclaræ memoriæ Teobaldi Cantuariensis episcopi et Romanæ sedis tunc legati, eandem confirmantis donationem. Amplius restat vero quoddam memoriale dignâ dignum memoriâ, quod nec expedit omitti, set potius est necesse scripto committi. Enimvero cum dominus prætaxatus, terras ecclesiæ, sicut annotatum est injustè destructas, et ecclesiæ collatas, xx. fere annos vel ultra, justè et quietè tenuisset, et deinceps glorioso rege Stephano decedente, rex præpotens Henricus secundus regni gubernacula suscepisset, nepotes præcentoris Reynaldi, terras prætaxatas repetentes, litem et causam in ecclesiam et episcopum et ipsum præcentorem virum fidelem et justum, moventes, eos ad capitulum in curiam laycam, coram judicibus, contra canones,

from the Pope and the court of Rome, that they should thenceforward be called 'Bathonienses.' (42) Furthermore, it is not proper that we should pass over in silence that the said prelate, of pious memory, of whom we are speaking, namely Robert, prevailed with the glorious King Stephen to give the canons of the Church of Wells, as prebends of the canons, the churches of North Curri and Petherton, (43) the presentation to them then pertaining to the kingly dignity. Whereupon the King himself joined his charter to that of Theobald Bishop of Canterbury, of renowned memory, then the legate of the Roman see, confirming the same donation. Something more remains worthy of being preserved in memory, which ought not to be omitted, but which it is rather especially expedient to commit to writing; namely, that when the Bishop had held justly and quietly for about twenty years those lands of the church, of which we have before spoken as having been unjustly torn away from the church, and then the glorious King Stephen being dead, and the powerful King Henry the Second having taken the reins of empire, the nephews of the precentor Reginald, seeking to get again the aforesaid lands, instituted a suit against the church, the bishop, and even against the precentor himself, a man faithful and just; and brought them ad capitulum in a lay court, before judges, contrary to the canons. But when the Church

traxerunt. Sed cum ecclesia diutinè vexata, et bonæ memoriæ Ivo tunc decanus et capitulum, nepotibus præcentoris in eos insurgentibus, diutius affligentibus, tandem, auctore Deo, misericordia Dei, de quâ plena est terra, ex improviso desolatis misit solatium. Nam Deo inspirante et Reginaldo interloquente, inclinata sunt corda nepotum ejus ad pacem reformandam inter eos et ecclesiam. Et acceptis ab ecclesiâ septuaginta marcis argenti, abjurarunt terras beati Andreæ pridie idus Marcii, vj. milites et duo juvenes strenui et magnanimes militum fratres, apud Bathoniam in thalamo pontificis, coram clarissimæ memoriæ duobus episcopis, Roberto domino Bathon' et Rogero domino Wygorn'; præsentibus et videntibus Ricardo tunc decano Welliæ, archidiacono Thomâ, et Roberto Bathon', Godefrido Wygorn', astante turbâ multâ tam cleri quam populi. Persolvit etiam ecclesia pecuniam militibus prænominatam, per manum Ricardi tunc decani et aliorum canonicorum; unde in posterum memoriam factum est cirographum inter ecclesiam et eos. In cujus cirographi utrâque parte, dependent sigilla episcoporum qui interfuerunt, et sigillum Well' ecclesiæ, et militum Pagani de Penebrige, et Rogeri Wyteng.

had been a long time disturbed, as also Ivo the dean, of worthy memory, and the chapter, the nephews of the precentor thus rising up against them, and for a long time harassing them, at length God interfering, his mercy, of which the whole earth is full, sent on a sudden comfort to the desolate : for, by the divine suggestion and the interposition of Reginald, the hearts of his nephews were inclined to peace between them and the Church, and accepting from the Church seventy marks of silver, they abjured all right to the lands of the blessed Andrew on the day before the ides of March, being six knights, and two brave and high-minded youths, brothers of the knights. This they did at Bath, in the lodgings of the Bishop, before two bishops of renowned memory, namely, Robert bishop of Bath, and Roger bishop of Worcester; these being present also, and witnessing the act, Richard then dean of Wells, Thomas the archdeacon, Robert of Bath, and Godfrey of Worcester, a great number of the inferior clergy and of the people being also present (44) The Church paid the aforesaid sum to the knights by the hand of Richard, then the dean, and of the other canons: whereupon a chirograph was made between the Church and them for perpetual memory. To both parts of which chirograph hang the seals of the bishops who were present and the seal of the church of Wells, and of the knights Payne de Penebrige and

28

HISTORIOLA EPISCOPATUS SOMERSETENSIS.

Cujus cirographi unam partem ecclesia reconditam habet in scriniis, reliquam milites. Dominus quoque A. Papa III. compositionem inter ecclesiam et ipsos factam confirmavit. Sedit autem in episcopatu Robertus dulcis memoriæ xxix. annos et menses quatuor, et obdormivit in Domino 11. kalendas Septembris, et sepultus est in ecclesiâ beati Petri ante gradus magni altaris.

Cessavit autem ex tunc episcopatus et vacavit viij. annis et viij. mensibus et xv. diebus usque dum eligeretur REGINALDUS qui electus est in Junio, et sequenti anno proximo consecratus est in Junio in Mauritaniâ.

Roger Wyteng; of which chirograph the Church has one part laid up in its repositories, and the knights have the other. Also Pope Alexander the Third confirmed the composition made between the Church and them. Robert, of fragrant memory, sat in the episcopal seat twenty-nine years and four months, and then slept in the Lord on the second of the calends of September. He was buried in the church of the blessed Peter, before the steps of the great altar.

From that time there was no Bishop for the space of eight years eight months and fifteen days, until REGINALD was elected, which election took place in the month of June, and in the June of the year next following he was consecrated in Moriana. (45)

NOTES.

(1.) The floating traditions of a province which abounds, perhaps more than any other part of England, with traditions respecting events in the early history of the English Church. The writer alludes to what he is going to relate concerning Congresbury, where the tradition is not borne out by any kind of written evidence within at least four centuries of the time of the supposed flourishing estate of that place, nor by any apparent probabilities. He must allude also to the story he is about to tell of the discovery of Ina, a herdsman's son, near Somerton. But of all the Somersetshire traditions those of Glastonbury are the most magnificent: nor are they without some support from the written and authentic memorials of the earlier ages of the Christian Church.

1

(2.) That there was in the country of the West Saxons a Bishop, 'plebis Dei inspector,' named Daniel, or 'venerandus Antistes,' as he is called in the body of the instrument, is one of the statements in the Great Charter of King Ina to the church of Glaston, and he is there shown to be contemporary with Ina, Ethelburga, and Beorthwald the Bishop of Canterbury. That a Bishop had his seat at Wells is also, if not asserted, plainly implied in this instrument: "hoc etiam provideat idem Episcopus, ut singulis annis cum clericis suis qui Fontanetum sunt, ipsam matrem suam, Glastoniensem videlicet Ecclesiam, feriâ secundâ post Ascensionem Domini, cum leteniâ recognoscat." The date of this Privilegium is A. D. 725; but strong suspicions are entertained by many of its genuineness. It seems however that we should have something more decisive than the presumptions of Stillingfleet or Collier, before we entirely give up the authenticity of an instrument which was we know deemed genuine in the reign of King Henry the Second, and which it cannot be denied has many marks of genuineness. Few would wish to check the spirit of close investigation into the authority of what are propounded as antient diplomas: but there is a pride of scepticism as well as a too easy readiness of assent, and we ought not to suffer ourselves to be deprived without sufficient reason of any evidence of the ancient glories,

whether political or religious, of the land to which we belong. It ought also to be kept in view by the too critical scholar, that minute circumstances, which were proofs of genuineness for some ages, may become lost to us as proofs by the obscurity which, after a long lapse of ages, may be thrown over the evident facts or remains to which those circumstances had relation. However, I cannot enter into any full examination of this charter, and content myself with referring to the observations of Hearne, and to what is found in the Glaston historians. More may be expected from Mr. Kemble, in his collection of Saxon charters soon to be published. On the place in which the episcopal seat was situated, in which Daniel is represented to have sat, and a series of Bishops before him whose very names are forgotten, I have a few remarks to make. It is generally supposed that the Daniel contemporary with Ina is the Bishop of that name who stands the sixth in Godwin's series of the Bishops of Winchester: but the Somerset tradition, we see, places him at Congresbury as the general superintendent of the churches of Somerset, and represents him as having transferred the seat from Congresbury to the more convenient and more desirable position of Wells, where, in his time, in Ina's charter, we find a Bishop. Few things can be more improbable than that Congresbury can have been the seat of the general superintendence of the Somersetshire church. There are no antient roads pointing towards it. Its position in the marshes is favourable to another ecclesiastic tradition respecting it, that a Christian hermit, who came from the East, took up his abode there, like St. Guthlac in the marshes of Lincolnshire, but not at all to its having been an episcopal seat. Indeed the whole matter, depending as it does solely on tradition, is perhaps scarcely worth the pains which are being bestowed upon it; but supposing that there is any reason to believe that before the time of Ina there was a series of Bishops in Somerset, which, believing in the eminently high antiquity of Glaston, I would by no means doubt, I should place their seat, not at Congresbury, but at a place the name of which bears a near resemblance to Congresbury, that is Kingsbury, a place near to Ilchester, the Roman Ischalis, and not far from the line of the great road which ran from Cirencester through Bath and Wells to Ilchester. The name, Kingsbury, denotes a royal residence, corresponding as it does to Coningsborough, and other places about which there can be no doubt that they were in some way connected with early kingships: and where was the seat of royal authority, there seem to have been the early seats of episcopal authority also, as at Canterbury, York, London, Winchester, Dorchester. Kingsbury was a very early