Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

for so long, I imagine, the monastery of Iltutus lasted : but the school limped along for many ages afterwards, still decaying more and more, till it lost what of its income remained, in the time of Henry VIII.; for it does not appear that the school that was in his time put down at Lantwit, was any other than the worn out and spoiled school of Iltutus: Sic transit gloria mundi."

It appears that deadly feuds at times crept in among the students and religious men at Laniltut; and we find once upon such an occasion the interference of Dubricius was required:-Vir beatæ memoriæ Dubricius visitavit locum Sti. Ilduti tempore quadragesimali ut quæ emendanda erant corrigeret (not conigeret) et servanda consolidet (corruptly written consolidant), ibidem enim conversabantur multi sanctissimi viri, quodam livore decepti, inter quos frater Samson morabatur, filius Amoni.

The above interesting extracts afford some curious information relative to the ancient British seminary, which was as celebrated in the South, as the college of Iona afterwards became in the North, under Columba and his successors; and from whence so many places were supplied with preachers and pastors.

A curious incident happened lately at Lantwit: some alteration and repairs being requisite in the Town Hall, the bell was taken down; when, upon inspection, it was found to be the famous bell of St. Iltutus, so much revered during the reign of superstition, and supposed to be lost. The characters on this bell are something similar to the letters of Samson's monument; but if the inscription SANCTE ILTUTE, ORA PRO NOBIS be so ancient, as we may infer from the character; praying to departed saints prevailed among our ancestors at an earlier period than we would be willing to admit.

V.

THE CORNISH CATHEDRAL.

As, according to the Triads, king Arthur had three courts, or chief residences, so we are told that the three metropolitan bishops had their sees, the one at Caerleon, as the primate of Wales; the second in Cornwall; and the third at Glasgow. Mr. Whitaker has taken great pains to prove that the cathedral of Cornwall was dedicated to ST. GERMAN, or HARMON, and that the see never was at Bodmin, but at the place still called by the name of ST. GERMAN. But it is rather singular, that the name of the bishop of Cornwall, in Arthur's time, was Bedwini, while David was primate of Wales, and Kentigern of the Strath Clyde Britons. There appears to be some affinity between the name of Bedwini and the name of the Cornish town, which was anciently called Bodmini, and St. Padroc, or St. Pedroc de Bodwini. May not Bodmin, or Bodwin, have taken its name from Bedwini, who, perhaps, was no other than Pedroc under another name; or, are we to suppose, that the name of the prelate mentioned in the Triads, gave rise to the mistake of the ancient episcopate having its seat at Bodmin? The coincidence of names in the present instance is striking: but I shall not undertake to solve the present difficulty; and only observe thus much, that there may, in ancient times, have been a considerable degree of rivalship between the priories of Bodmin and St. German's; and the sacredness of St. German's name at length gave that church the pre-eminence. Some of the ancient abbots and priors had every honour that could attach to the episcopal character, enjoying the same pre-eminence among the monastic clergy, that

3

the prelates had among the secular clergy. The abbot of St. Iltutus, in Glamorgan, was of as great dignity and importance as the bishop of Landaff, his neighbour ; the abbot of Glastonbury was of as high dignity as his proper diocesan, the bishop of Wells. Bodmin might have been, in very ancient times, the rival of St. German's; and it is not a matter of wonder that some antiquaries should be led to the conclusion that the old Cornish episcopate was seated at Bodmin.

We find this ancient prelate, Bedwini, referred to as the author of some wise and pious maxims, in verse: one of these occurs among some pieces of the sixth century:

A glyweisti a gant Bedwini
Oedd Escaub donyauc diffri
Racreithia dy eir kyn noi dodi.

Hast thou heard the verse of Bedwini,

Who was a gifted and a grave prelate?

"Weigh well thy words before they are uttered."

VI.

WHITHERN.

WHITHERN, more anciently called LEUCOPHIBIA, was the capital of the tribe of the Novantes, who either were first converted to Christianity by Nynian, or restored from their relapse into Paganism. This country, between the two walls, being greatly harassed by the incursion of the Picts, Nynian, as I am disposed to conjecture, was carried away captive by that people, and during his captivity preached the gospel to them.

As to the name of Candida Casa, or Whithern, and Bede's affirmation, that it arose from "Nynian's construction of the church with stone, in a mode unusual among the Britons," there needs some elucidation. This is explained by William of Malmesbury, to signify that the church was built of polished stone; and, therefore, said to be something unusual among the Britons of Galloway. This does not satisfy Mr. Whitaker, although he might recollect that in the decline of the Roman power, and especially in that part of the island, there were few stone buildings erected by the natives. But, as what our antiquary states is ingenious, I lay it before the reader :-" Major, the Scottish historian, varies equally from Malmesbury as from Bede, but comes much nearer to a rational account of the name, by building Nynian's church of stones, unusual to the Britons, be'cause white. But the fact is, that the stones of the cathedral, in the ruins of it, in the church erected at a small distance from it, and in the houses of the town. constructed much out of the palace and the priory, the latter yet remaining in part, but the latter so torn up from the very foundations as to have corn growing upon

66

the site, appear to be principally of the sort called the common whin, and occasionally of the free, the free partly white, but partly red, the whin being neither white nor made white by polishing, and both supposed, at Whithern, to have been brought from the adjoining region of Cumberland. So egregiously does every hypothesis fail us in accounting for the name." What, then, is the solution of the difficulty? Why, Mr. Whitaker found it to be a customary thing among the people of Galloway, to rough cast their houses; that is, to mix up coarse sand with lime, and dash it upon the walls. This is commonly done in Cornwall, and in the south of Wales; where it is, indeed, usual with some of the inhabitants to whitewash the whole exterior of their houses and out-buildings, both roof and walls: but this practice he supposes to have been novel in the days of Nynian, and which he further assumes the good man to have seen first in Rome, while he studied there; and who, introducing it at Leucophibia, by applying the new mode to his own house, and then to the church, the practice being afterwards generally adopted, gave the name of Ad Candidam Casam, or Whithern, to the town.

The cathedral continued to the days of Bede, when the country became subject to the Saxons. The Saxon chronicle mentions the church and the mynster of Nynian; and the same edifice seems to have continued to the days of William of Malmesbury. This bishopric was eclipsed for a while by Kentigern's see at Glasgow ; but in the Saxon times the prelate of Candida Casa was primate of that province: it afterwards declined, but Fordun speaks of it in 1235. Major, in the sixteenth century, says, that the place and body of the saint had for ages been in the possession of the Scots. But at the time of the Reformation, Leland speaks of it " as a handsome church, built of squared stones, and taking the

« ForrigeFortsett »