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people, that spirit found nothing to impede its free course during the first years of the French Revolution. The traveller may now look in vain for the Chapel of the Sangreal at Bruges, for the Cathedral Church of St. Lambert at Liege, and for those religious houses in the Low Countries, whose names occur so frequently in the history of the middle ages. The monasteries which formerly adorned the banks of the Rhine, now, with the unsightliness of violent, recent, and naked ruins, deform the scene which they once embellished. Sculptured fragments from demolished churches and convents are in many places to be seen by the wayside; in others, elaborate tombstones have been laid down as pavement in the streets, or converted into tables in public pleasuregardens! If Mabillon and his followers had delayed their searches half a century, the invaluable records which they collected would have perished with the buildings wherein they were preserved. It is now too late to wish that artists as well as antiquaries had been employed in those most useful missions; and that edifices of such importance in the history of civilization and of the general church, had been preserved in such delineations as those which are now lying before us of the English cathedrals.

In a survey of our cathedrals the arrangement must needs be arbitrary, for there would be as little advantage in chronological as in alphabetical order. It was, therefore, reason enough for beginning with Salisbury that Mr. Britton was a Wiltshire man. The history of any one will show how many interesting and important circumstances have occurred in relation with these venerable structures, and as Salisbury comes first in this beautiful series, we will take Salisbury for our example.

As in the first ages of Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons, the limits of a parish were those of the estate in which the church was founded and endowed, so the dioceses were of the same extent as the respective kingdoms of the Heptarchy and in the frequent changes to which those petty and turbulent states were liable, the title and privileges of royalty seem to have been assumed by any chieftain who had a cathedral in his dominions. Winchester was the original see among the West Saxons: this was divided and subdivided, and Wiltshire is believed to have been included in the diocese of Sherbourne for some two centuries, when, in pursuance of Alfred's intentions for restoring order in ecclesiastical affairs, a synod was held under Edward the Elder; and the two bishoprics of Dorchester (in Oxfordshire) and Sherbourne were divided into five. One of these was for Wiltshire: the seat of the bishop was unsettled, and is said to have been alternately at Wilton, Sunning, and Ramsbury, near Marlborough. The savage Odo, who bears so conspicuous a part in the

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tragedy of Edwy and Elgiva, held the see while it was in this state, before he was promoted to Canterbury. Herman de Lotharingia would have removed the episcopal seat from Wilton to Malmsbury. Edward the Confessor consented to this, which indeed appears to have been a fitting measure; the monks of Malmsbury, however, were not disposed to be under any episcopal governance. Earl Godwin, for weighty reasons it may be suspected, exerted his all-commanding influence in their behalf, and Herman retired in disgust to St. Bertin's monastery at St. Omers, which was during many ages the general asylum for all disgraced or turbulent English prelates. Here, whether from pious or politic motives, he took the habit himself, and being thus connected with the powerful body against which he had found how difficult it was to contend, he returned to England, and was instrumental in two great changes; one was the union of his diocese with that of Sherbourne, the other was the removal of the combined sees to Sarum.

This was done in pursuance of a canon made with Lanfranc's authority in the ninth year of the Conqueror's reign. And at Sarum, Herman began a cathedral, which was completed by his successor Osmond, for the salvation of the souls of King William and his queen Matilda; of his son William, king of the English, and also (he says in the charter) for the salvation of his own soul.' Osmond, who was Count of Seez in Normandy, had accompanied William the Conqueror in his invasion, and partaking largely of the spoils of England, had been made Earl of Dorset, and held the high office of chancellor. Normandy, also, it is said, was at one time chiefly governed by his authority and advice. Romish writers represent him as flying naked out of Egypt, carrying with him nothing of its desires or spirit into the sanctuary, choosing to become poor in the house of the Lord; and as being forced from his beloved obscurity and solitude to take the bishopric of Sarum. Naked, however, he had not retired, for he retained his ample possessions; and it is probable that his being appointed to the see was in accordance with his own wishes and intentions, that he might be in a situation to dispose of them with the best effect according to his heart's desire, and exercise his talents with the advantage of authority in the church as he had heretofore employed them in the service of the state. He completed the church which his predecessor had begun, and endowed the see with those ample estates which had fallen to his share in the conquest. He collected thither men of learning from all parts, and retained as well as invited them by his liberality. He formed a library, such as libraries then were, and enriched it literally with the works of his own hands, transcribing books for it, and binding them himself.

And

And he compiled that ritual so well known in English Church history as the Use of Sarum.

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St. Osmond (for he was canonized in the fifteenth century) had a most unsaintly successor in Roger, who obtained Henry Beauclerc's favour by the rapidity with which he got through a mass; that prince saying no man could be so fit a chaplain for soldiers as one who performed his work with such dispatch. It appears from Villanueva's Memoirs that this accomplishment has lost none of its value in later times; that in Spain, immediately before its revolution, a mass of twenty minutes was thought intolerable, even by persons who had the reputation of respecting the ceremonies of their church: there were some who got through the service in twelve minutes, others in nine; and two priests who, aspiring to greater perfection, hurried it over, the one in seven minutes, the other in five, were proceeded against for irreverence. Roger was more prudent: chance had thrown this opportunity of recommending himself in his way, Henry, serving under his brother William, happening to enter his church near Caen, as it lay on his road. And when the royal youth, says William of Newbury, said follow me,' he adhered as closely to him as Peter did to his heavenly Lord uttering a similar command; for Peter leaving his vessel followed the King of Kings; he leaving his church followed the prince, and being appointed chaplain to him and his troops, became a blind leader of the blind.' The old historian might have added that many men who have attained high stations by better deserts have not employed their wealth and power so well; for this prelate, though literally of the church militant, was a magnificent person; and among other works of the same kind rebuilt the church at Sarum, which had been injured by storms and fire, and beautified it so greatly, that it yielded to none in England at that time. His fortunes are as illustrative of his age, and as tragic, as Wolsey's. Having served Henry ably and faithfully, bringing into order the affairs of his household, when prince, and of his treasury when king, and possessing the full favour and entire confidence of that monarch, who seldom misbestowed either, he sided with the usurper Stephen, in violation of his duty and of his oath; became one of the castle-builders of that turbulent and miserable reign, and received the righteous reward of unprincipled ambition. Stephen seems to have dealt with him as Turkish governors with the Jews when they let the sponge fill before they squeeze. By God's birth,' the usurper said more than once to his companions, I would give him half England if he asked for it: till the time be ripe, he shall tire of asking before I tire of giving.' When the time was ripe, he took advantage of an accidental quarrel between the bishop's retainers and those of

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the Earl of Britany concerning quarters, to seize Roger and his nephew the Bishop of Lincoln, and the chancellor, who, though called his nephew, is significantly said to have been something more. The castles which he had built at Malmsbury and Sherbourne, and that which he had strengthened at Sarum, were surrendered to the king; but that which he had erected at Devizes was defended by another member of the episcopal family, his nephew the Bishop of Ely. There are two statements concerning the means by which he was reduced to give it up; one is, that Roger voluntarily declared he would take no food till the castle was surrendered to the king, thinking that, for natural compassion and gratitude, the prelate would overcome his own haughty spirit, and make the sacrifice which was required. But this, though upon the highest contemporary authority, is less consistent with the circumstances and character of all parties, and therefore less probable than the statement that Stephen ordered Roger and the Bishop of Lincoln to be kept without food till the castle should be given up, and moreover threatened to hang the chancellor. The Bishop of Ely must have very well known that his uncle would not, like a Bramin, commit suicide in this manner, and in that knowledge he might safely have held out. But if the threat were from the king, Stephen, though less cruel than many of his contemporaries, was yet a man to keep his word in such a case; and, therefore, after they had been three days in this fearful fast, he surrendered to save their lives. Roger, however, was broken hearted, and when, in the course of a few months, he died, his fate was ascribed not to the inveterate ague from which, in Malmsbury's words, he escaped by the kindness of death, but to grief and indignation for the injuries he had received. This remarkable man had then cause to wish that he had performed the service deliberately and devoutly when Prince Henry entered his church, and that he had employed his life in laying up treasures for himself, not upon earth, but in heaven, where thieves do not break through and steal. The plate and money which had been saved from the king's rapacity, he had hoped to convert to his own use in the other world, by obtaining credit for its amount in due form, according to the Romish belief, upon the celestial treasury: and having devoted it to the completion of his church at Sarum, he placed it upon the altar, in the hope that Stephen might be restrained by fear of sacrilege from laying hands on it. But of this also he was plundered, and his last earthly affliction was to see himself disappointed in this last hope of salvation. To me,' says William of Malmsbury, it appears that God exhibited him to the rich as an example of the instability of fortune, in order that men should not trust in uncertain riches. Was there any thing adjacent

VOL. XXXIV. NO. LXVIII.

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adjacent to his possessions which he desired? he would obtain it either by treaty or purchase; and if that failed, by force. He erected splendid mansions on all his estates with unrivalled magnificence, in merely maintaining which his successors will toil in vain. His cathedral he dignified to the utmost with matchless adornments, and buildings in which no expense was spared. It was wonderful to behold in this man what abundant authority attended, and flowed, as it were, to his hand. He was sensible of his power, and somewhat more harshly than beseemed such a character, abused the favour of heaven. But,' says the contemporary historian, the height of his calamity, even I cannot help commiserating; that, wretched as he appeared to many, there were very few who pitied him, so much envy and hatred had his excessive power drawn on him, and undeservedly too, from some of the very persons whom he had advanced to honour.'

Such prelates as this Bishop of Sarum must not be condemned too severely; at least, while their ambition is rightly imputed to them as a sin for its inconsistency with the spirit and duties of their profession, it should be remembered how beneficially their profession modified the worldly passion. We compare them, for condemnation, with what, as Christian ministers, they ought to have been; but in extenuation they should also be compared with the temporal barons of their age. If Roger had been fortunate enough to have had a biographer such as Wolsey found in his faithful Cavendish, unquestionably it would then have appeared that there was much to admire in a man who, in the best regulated of the Norman reigns, held the highest judicial office in this kingdom, brought the treasury into order after Rufus's prodigal and reckless government, and was entrusted with full power by a most able and discerning king during his own frequent and long absences in Normandy. He resembled Wolsey not less in his love of letters than in his unrivalled magnificence; for it is expressly stated that when his two nephews were raised to the sees of Lincoln and Ely, it was because they were men of noted learning and industry by virtue of the education which he had given them.

Roger left the church which he was rebuilding incomplete; and in that state it probably remained under the two succeeding bishops, the first of whom was embroiled in the disputes between Becket and the king, taking the constitutional part against that high-minded and unforgiving primate; and the second went with Coeur-de-Lion to the Holy Land, there, like that good Christian the Bishop D. Hieronymo, that perfect one with the shaven crown,' to smite the Saracens, for the love of charity, with both hands. Under Herbert Poore, the third in succession, pauper in name, but rich in possessions, it was determined to remove the cathedral.

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