Canon of the order of St. Augustine, to which Walter de Hemingford belonged. In the above woodcut, which is copied from DUGDALE'S Monasticon, the canon is erroneously represented without a beard. They were not all alike in dress," says ARCHDEACON CHURTON, in his useful work on the Early English Church, "but were commonly called black canons; wearing a long black cassock with a white rochet over it, and over all a black cloak or hood. The monks always shaved their chins; but the canons wore their beards, and caps or bonnets on their heads instead of cowls." "In every great abbey there was a large room, called the scriptory, or writing room; where several writers were employed in copying books for the use of the library, or to supply religious persons who sought some portion of Scripture or a devotional treatise. They also frequently copied some parts of the writings of the fathers, or the Latin classics, and made histories and chronicles."-ARCHDEACON CHURTON'S Early English Church. Though it is madness to attempt to turn society backwards, and to seek to revive the for-ever-defunct medieval ages, yet we must at once acknowledge that monasteries were well adapted for the turbulent times in which they originated 1 and flourished, and were absolutely necessary to the cause of progress. For-albeit Superstition shared the sacred edifices with Religion-yet Literature, Science, and Art, could then find no other nooks in which to nestle. Whilst some monks were mere mumblers of masses, and miracle-mongers with the dead bones and cast-off raiment of saints, others-as the wise old Franciscan, Roger Bacon*-were so far in advance of their age as to draw down upon themselves the persecution of their peers, on suspicion of their having dealings with the Devil,as though the Prince of Darkness was the source of all mental light, and knowledge was the forbidden fruit, to taste whereof were temporal and spiritual death! But for the scribes in the monasteries, who-according to the light that was in themrecorded passing events, what a void must there have been, for many ages, in the chronicles of every country! Princes being principally unprincipled oppressors, and nobles being little better than brigand chiefs, who considered war and fieldsports alone worthy of their study, and prided themselves on not being able to read, Learning took up her abode in the monasteries, and our only historians were of necessity monks and ecclesiastics. One of these old English Chroniclers, in the fourteenth century, was Walter de Hemingford, or Hemmingford, (sometimes called Hemingburgh,) a canon of the Austin Priory at Gisbro,' who flourished in the reign of Edward III. His History commences with the Norman Conquest, in 1066, and concludes in 1308, when Edward II. had just come to the throne. Walter de Hemingford died at Gisbro', in 1347,-when Walter of Thorpe (Nunthorpe ?) was prior of the monastery; Walter de Weston was archdeacon of Cleveland; William de la Zouch, (who had just defeated the Scots at Neville's Cross,) was archbishop of York; Thomas Hatfield, (who had succeeded the literary Richard de Bury only two years before) was bishop of Durham; and Edward III. (then conquering Calais after the battle of Cressy) was king of England: when John Gower, the poet next noticed, was some twenty-seven years of age, and his friend and brother bard, Geoffrey Chaucer, was a young man of nineteen. The Chronicle of WALTER De Hemingford was written in Latin; and a manuscript copy of it is preserved in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh. It has been twice * Born at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in 1214. published; first, by Gale, in 1687; and again, by Hearne, in 1731; but both editions, I am informed, need carefully collating. The following translations of two passages of great local interest were supplied to me, some years ago, by the late JOHN WALKER ORD, whom I had particularly requested to enquire after this Chronicle, which he did through his friend. and former tutor, the talented Dr. Knox. HEMINGFORD thus chronicles the DEATH AND BURIAL OF ROBERT DE BRUS, THE COMPETITOR. "A.D. 1294. In the same year died Robert de Bruys, at Lochmaben, in his own territory of Annandale. Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve of Good Friday; who disputed with John de Baliol, before the king of England, about the succession to the kingdom of Scotland. And, as he had ordered when alive, he was buried in the priory of Gysburn [Gisbro'], with great honour, beside his own father, on the second Sunday after Easter, the sixteenth day of April. In his lifetime he was glorious; he was graceful, rich, and bountiful; and abounded in all things, in life and at death." Side of the Tomb of Robert De Brus, the Competitor for the Crown of Scotland, formerly in Gisbro' Priory, and now in the Porch of Gisbro' Church. THE BURNING OF GISBRO' PRIORY. "In the year of our Lord one thousand two hundred and eighty-nine, on the sixteenth of May, and on the first day of rogation week, a devouring flame consumed our church of Gysburn [Gisbro'], with many theological books, and nine very costly chalices, as well as vestments and sumptuous images. And because past events are serviceable as a guide in future inquiries, I have thought it desirable, in the present little treatise, to give an account of the catastrophe, that accidents of a similar nature may be avoided through this calamity allotted to us. On the day above mentioned, which was very destructive to us, a vile plumber, with his two workmen, burnt our church whilst soldering up two holes in the old lead with fresh pewter. For some days he had already, with a wicked disposition, commenced, and placed his iron crucibles, along with charcoal and fire, on rubbish, or steps of a great height, upon dry wood, with some turf, and other combustibles. About noon, (in the cross, in the body of the church, where he remained at his work till after mass) he descended before the procession of the convent, thinking that the fire had been put out by his workman. They, however, came down quickly after him, without having completely extinguished the fire; and the fire among the charcoal revived, and partly from the heat of the iron, and partly from the sparks of the charcoal, the fire spread itself to the wood and other combustibles beneath. After the fire was thus commenced, the lead melted, and the joists upon the beams ignited; and then the fire increased prodigiously, and consumed every thing. In compensation for such a loss and excessive destruction, we who fled from the fire did not gain even according to the old proverb, 'I got what I could.' From this let our successors in future learn to be more cautious in providing for their safety from our negligence." From the above it appears that Walter de Hemingford was a canon of Gisbro' when the Priory was burnt in 1289,which event happened nineteen years before the termination of his Chronicle, and fifty-eight years before the date given as that of his death. According to these accounts, our Cleveland chronicler must have lived to a good old age. I hope some one competent for the task will undertake to favour us with a careful and complete translation of the Gisbro' Chronicle; so that we may be enabled fully to estimate the merits of our first Cleveland historian, though the grave has been closed over his ashes five hundred and seventeen years, and the once-extensive and magnificent priory of Gisbro' has, for three centuries and a quarter, been ruinous and desolate,-not through the carelessness of a "vile plumber, with his two workmen,' but caused solely by the unholy rapacity of a lewd and murderous monarch, and other " caterpillars of the commonwealth," who had no sympathy with the glorious efforts of our Protestant forefathers in restoring Christianity to its pristine purity, but were solely actuated by the greed of gain, and now have their reward! "Proudly, ye ancient abbeys, did ye stand Among our fields and groves; and still we see Is past; and Rievaulx never more will be A gem; and Furness groans beside the sea; JOHN WALKER ORD. E |