Cissa and Companions

ON SS. CISSA AND COMPANIONS: CISSA, EGBERT, AND TATWIN, ANCHORITES IN CROWLAND, AND TANCRED, TORTHRED, TOVA, HUNA, AND HEREFURTH, HERMITS VENERATED AT THORNEY IN ENGLAND,

PROBABLY ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY.

HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.

Cissa, anchorite, in Crowland. (S.)

Egbert, anchorite, in Crowland. (S.)

Tatwin, anchorite, in Crowland. (S.)

Tancred, hermit, venerated at Thorney in England. (S.)

Torthred, hermit, venerated at Thorney in England. (S.)

Tova, hermit, venerated at Thorney in England. (S.)

Huna, hermit, venerated at Thorney in England. (S.)

Herefurth, hermit, venerated at Thorney in England. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

§ I. Remembrance of SS. Cissa, Egbert and Tatwin in the sacred calendars. Their way of life in the hermitage of Crowland with St. Guthlac.

We were in some doubt whether we should speak of SS. Cissa, Egbert and Tatwin among the Passed-Over. What has become known to us of them is read almost entirely in the Life of St. Guthlac, The feast day of St. Cissa and his companions anchorite in Crowland, printed at the 11th day of April, and in the Commentary on St. Bertellinus, a hermit in the same place, published in our Acts at the 9th day of September. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical cult most certainly accorded to them in former times persuades us that a separate place should be granted to those saints, as does the fear lest their memory wholly perish and be perpetually exiled from the histories of the saints. To those three saints we have joined in the Commentary SS. Tancred, Torthred, Tova, Huna and Herefurth, both because they were venerated in the church of Thorney, as St. Cissa was at one time, and also because there will be no more convenient occasion for us to speak of them; since their birthday is unknown. For, since very few English calendars of the saints survive, namely the vernacular Martyrology called the London one of Syon [Martiloge in englysshe after the use of the chyrche of Salisbury an as it is redde in Syon, with addicyons.] , the Altemps Usuardine codex, edited by Sollier, and some calendars set before missal books, gathered by Nicolas H. Nicolas, Chronology of history, p. 104 f. and by Lingard Ibid., p. 97. , it came about that, when in the seventeenth century the English Catholics began to gather the names and deeds of the native saints, they did not know on what day very many, especially the less celebrated or those proper to monasteries or individual churches, were formerly venerated. And this was the fortune of our saints. The day now assigned as sacred to SS. Cissa, Egbert and Tatwin was not established from the authority of the ancients, but according to the judgment of the more recent.

[2] is indicated in recent martyrologies. The first, then, to inscribe the name at the 31st day of October in the sacred calendars before the others was Hugues Ménard, handing down this in the Benedictine Martyrology: In the island of Crowland, in England, the deposition of St. Cissa, hermit, disciple of St. Guthlac Martyr. Sanct. Ord. S. Bened., p. 94; cf. p. 727 f., Paris 1629. . A somewhat broader elogium at the same day Bucelin inserted in the Benedictine Menology P. 748. , taken namely from Ingulph's History of Crowland, or rather from Ménard, who had adduced that passage. From here the memory of St. Cissa passed into Heredia's Spanish Lives of the Benedictine saints Vidas de santos de la sagr. Rel. de S. Bened., vol. IV, p. 170. , into Cherl's German Benedictine Martyrology Martyr. Bened., p. 494. ; yet it was omitted in the Benedictine Calendar of Donauwörth and in Lechner's Benedictine Martyrology; perhaps because he was a hermit rather than a Benedictine cenobite. The English hagiographers, such as Griffith, who by another name is called Alford Annales Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, vol. III, at the end, Index of saints, under Cissa. , and Challoner, omit his birthday, as being unknown in England. The same lot in the sacred calendars befell St. Tatwin as St. Cissa. On the 3rd day of July Ménard commemorates him in these words: In the cenoby of Crowland, in England, of St. Tatwin, hermit Martyr. S. Bened., p. 57. ; which things in book II of the Observations he explains from the aforesaid History of Ingulph Ibid., p. 618. . The Benedictine writers reviewed above followed him as is their custom. Of the same saint at the 3rd day of July, among the Passed-Over, our predecessors spoke Act. SS., vol. I July, p. 630. , doubting whether he had ever been publicly venerated; but, as will soon be made plain, no otherwise than St. Cissa he was numbered among the saints from those ancient times. Ménard passed over St. Egbert, who for that reason was omitted by the other Benedictine hagiographers. But most certainly he shared the honors of SS. Cissa and Tatwin, as Challoner indicates at the 11th day of April, who calls him a presbyter Memorial of ancient british piety, p. 64. .

[3] Their Life was not written. In the same church with those saints St. Bertellinus or Beccelinus was formerly interred Cf. Acta SS., vol. III Sept., p. 449 ff. , their fellow and likewise a disciple of St. Guthlac. Since his Acts were committed to writing in England, (whence in the fifteenth century they came to the canons of Rouge-Cloître in Brabant, who changed the style somewhat, as they were accustomed,) no reason appears at first sight why a Life of the companions should not also have been written. But the conjecture seems to be rejected, not only because no such work has anywhere become known, but especially, as will be shown below, because it is established that a Life of St. Cissa was not read by the monks of Thorney, although they were his chief venerators. The chief deeds of those saints, then, we must needs take from the Acts of St. Guthlac, and the fortunes of the relics from the History of Crowland; which history is now suspect to many authors, and is held to be fabulous, or certainly interpolated [Stevenson, The church Historians of England, vol. II, part II, p. XVIII. Cf. Hickes, cited in the Monasticon Anglicanum novum, vol. II, p. 90, note. H. T. Riley, in Thomas Duffus Hardy, Descript. catal. of materials relating to the hist. of Great Britain, vol. II, p. 58 f.] . But that part in which our saints are treated is supported by several other old monuments; indeed the whole book is rather ancient, and even in those places which are less approved, it does not seem to contain anything but early traditions, drawn from other sources.

[4] In Crowland, The whole region in which those holy men either lived or were honored abounded in sacred houses. Hear Henry of Huntingdon, who flourished in those parts in the twelfth century, saying [Hist. Anglorum, book V, p. 165, preface, p. X ff., edited by Th. Arnold, London 1879.] : That fen is very broad and fair to see, watered by many flowing rivers, painted with many lakes great and small, flowering also with many woods and islands: within it are the church of Ely, the abbey of Ramsey, the abbey of Chatteris, the abbey of Thorney, the abbey of Crowland. And beside it are the abbey of Peterborough, the abbey of Spalding, the church of St. Ives on the river Ouse at Huntingdon, the church of St. Giles on the river Granta at Cambridge, the church of the Holy Trinity at Thetford. This fen, long since changed into fields Old England, vol. I, p. 319. , extends through the counties of Cambridge on the south, and Lincoln toward the north. In this latter part lay Crowland, whose name Orderic Vitalis In Migne, Patr. lat., vol. CLXXXVIII, Hist. eccles., part I, book IV, col. 363. and others [Fuller, in Skinner, Etymologicon linguæ anglicanæ, Etymologicon onomasticon, under Crowland.] judge to be derived from cruda for muddy and landia land; others [Cf. Skinner, ibid. Bailey, Universal etymological english dictionary, under Crowland.] however, perhaps better, think it was taken from the multitude of crows (crow). I would not wish to describe this seat more fully, since most English geographers have illustrated it, and since it has been ennobled more by the name of St. Guthlac than by that of SS. Cissa and his companions. To it, then, to lead the eremitic life, came St. Guthlac, formerly indeed a leader of wicked soldiers, but afterward for two years taught the monastic laws, psalmody and other institutions of that kind in the monastery of Repton.

[5] under the guidance of St. Guthlac, Felix, a contemporary writer, relates the beginnings of St. Guthlac and his disciples in Crowland in these words Acta SS., vol. II April, p. 41. : So when the aforesaid man of blessed memory Guthlac had learned of the uncultivated places of that most vast waste (which the author had just described), aided by heavenly helps, he went on by the straightest path of the trail. It happened then, when he was inquiring from the inhabitants nearest to it about their experience of that solitude, and they were telling him of very many wild tracts of the spacious waste, that behold, a certain one of those standing by there, Tatwin by name, asserted that he knew a certain island in the hidden parts of the more remote waste, which many who tried to inhabit it had given up *, on account of the unknown monsters of the waste and terrors of diverse shapes. Hearing this, Guthlac, the man of blessed remembrance, earnestly begged that that place be shown to him by the teller. And he, obeying the commands of the man of God, seizing a little fishing skiff, through trackless haunts, between the margins of the foul fen, with Christ as his fellow-traveler, came to the aforesaid island which in the language of the English is called Cruland; which before, on account of the solitude of the more remote waste, remained uncultivated and unknown… So remaining there for some days, and considering with diligent investigation all the things of that place, he began to prepare to go to the conversation of his fellows (of Repton), whom the charity of an outstanding brotherhood joined to him in the bosom of the Catholic congregation: for he had before dismissed them unsaluted. He arranged to commend himself to them again by greeting them in turn. Meanwhile the light of tomorrow had moved off its rising for ailing mortals, when he, going out from there, began to return. So after the intervening circuit of three thirty-day periods, having commended his fellows with fraternal salutations, to the aforesaid place, as to the dwelling of a paternal inheritance, with two boys accompanying him, he went back whence he had come. Then, having completed the journey, on the ninth day before the kalends of September, on which the solemnity of St. Bartholomew is accustomed to be celebrated, in whose help he had by divine Providence begun all the undertakings of inhabiting the waste, he came to Cruland. St. Guthlac was then twenty-six years old: and since he died on the 14th day of April of the year 714, after he had lived fifteen years in the solitude of Crowland, it follows that those things took place in the year 699.

[6] with SS. Bettelinus, Egbert and Tatwin, As he was a pattern of all virtues, it came about that some disciples attached themselves to him in the solitude: among whom the just-praised St. Tatwin. Of the four chief among them Ingulph wrote this in the history of Crowland Ibid., p. 50 f. : Also in the same island in those times there were some leading the eremitic life, who, clinging to the man of God in holy familiarity as long as he lived, as the sick to the physician, drew frequent health of soul from his instruction and example. Of these one was newly converted to the Catholic faith, noble in birth, formerly very powerful in worldly affairs, Cissa by name, who, leaving all things, followed his Lord Christ. Another was Bettelinus, the most familiar servant of the aforesaid father. The third was Egbert, privy to his secrets above the others. The fourth was Tatwin, formerly his guide and boatman to the same island. The first of them to attach himself to St. Guthlac was St. Beccelinus, or Bertellinus or Bettelinus, who, if the Life

writer is to be credited Acta SS., vol. III Sept., p. 450. , was one of the boys who accompanied the holy master to the hermitage of Crowland. St. Cissa, however, who above was named in the first place, was probably last in time. He, called Cissa in the History of Crowland, in the Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis and in the documents alleged in the Monasticon Anglicanum, is named Cissan in the copies of Henskens Act. SS., vol. II Apr., p. 41. and of Mabillon Ann. Ord. S. Bened., vol. II, p. 40. of the Life of St. Guthlac. But this is not a true diversity of forms, since Felix, the author of the Life, writes Cissan only in the oblique cases: which is the weak manner of declining masculine nouns of the Anglo-Saxon language Rask, Angelsaksisk Sproglaere, part II., p. 23, Stockholm 1817. . There is added that in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the son of Ælla, who is read to have landed in Britain in the year 477, is called in the nominative case Cissa In Petrie, Monumenta hist. Britann., p. 710 f. .

[7] St. Cissa lived a sufficiently long space, When St. Guthlac had already spent some years in the hermitage, St. Cissa was still a pagan, as we understand from the biographer of St. Guthlac. Having narrated how Egburga, daughter of Aldwulf, king of the East Angles, and abbess, had sent to St. Guthlac a leaden sarcophagus and a linen cloth wrapped in it, in which she asked that the man of God be enfolded after his death, he goes on: She added also that he (the one who was sent) should inquire of him who should be the heir of that place after his death. He, having gratefully received the faithful gift (sarcophagus and shroud) of the holy virgin, to what was asked is reported to have answered that the heir of that place was among a pagan people, and had not yet come to the laver of baptism: but he said that he soon would. That he said this by the spirit of foresight, the outcome of the future event proved. For that Cissa, who now in our times possesses the seat of the man of God Guthlac, after some years, as he himself is accustomed to narrate, received the laver of baptism in Britain Acta SS., vol. II April, p. 47. .

[8] the familiar of his master and his successor. Yet those years do not seem to have been many, since, as we have pointed out, St. Guthlac lived only fifteen years in Crowland, and St. Cissa was his disciple and fellow for a sufficiently long space. For, as Felix indicates in more than one place in the Life of St. Guthlac, he learned many things of this holy man from Cissa: For, he says in the Prologue to King Æthelbald, I have not presumed to write anything of so great a man without the most certain inquiry into the deeds, nor at length to give to anyone what I have written, to be copied out, without the most exact safeguard of undoubted witnesses. Rather, inquiring most diligently, however much I have written, I have searched out from a certain most reverend abbot Wilfrid, and from a presbyter of pure conscience, as I judge, Cissa, or also from others who, having lived for a longer time with the man of God, knew his life in part. Therefore however much I touch with my pen of the orthonomy of his life, reckon that you have heard the least of great things, a few of very many Ibid., p. 38. . And below: So, to begin to write of the solitary life of St. Guthlac, as I have proposed, as I have heard from his frequenters Wilfrid and Cissa, in the same order in which I learned them, I shall take care to narrate the same things Ibid., p. 41. . From these words and those adduced above we gather that St. Cissa was baptized in Britain, that is, in Wales or in another western part of England occupied by the Britons; then, having set out toward the east, he gave himself over to the discipline of St. Guthlac; and, after he had lived with him for some time, was substituted in the place of his dead master. And he was a presbyter like Guthlac himself Ibid., p. 47. .

[9] St. Egbert is a very great friend of St. Guthlac. Of St. Egbert we know almost nothing else than what is said in the History of Crowland: Privy to his (his master's) secrets above the others Ibid., p. 50. . To the same pertain also certain passages of the Life of St. Guthlac; namely when he, having answered St. Bertellinus, who was asking what conversations he had had for so many years morning and evening with an unknown man, that an angel was accustomed to open divine matters to him, added this: O son, keep these my words, and tell them to no one else, except (my sister) Pega or Egbert the anchorite, if ever it should befall you to come to speak with him, who alone will know that these things were so Ibid., p. 48. . St. Guthlac was buried in the linen cloth which the abbess Egburga, as we saw above, had destined for him; but a year after, when on the anniversary day St. Pega had ordered the tomb to be opened, she wrapped the consecrated body … in a shroud, which Egbert the anchorite, while he was alive, had sent for this office Ibid., p. 49. .

[10] They lived as anchorites, even after the monastery was founded. Egbert, then, Cissa and others strove to imitate the discipline and manners of their holy master. Which discipline indeed was most severe, so much so that at one time it came under suspicion and seemed to need examining Ibid., p. 46, no. 32. . St. Guthlac used no woolen, no linen clothing, but skins; outside the sacrifice of the Mass he did not drink wine; in food and in all furnishing there was the same austerity Ibid., p. 41. . The disciples were their own masters after the death of their master, until Æthelbald, having obtained the kingdom of the Mercians according to the prophecy of St. Guthlac, founded and endowed the monastery of Crowland, and, if we hearken to Ingulph Ibid., p. 50. , summoned from the cenoby of Evesham Kenulf, to preside over the new institutions. Nevertheless SS. Cissa, Egbert, Tatwin and Bertellinus, in individual cottages, not far from the oratory of the holy father Guthlac, with the leave of the above-mentioned abbot Kenulf, had separate dwellings until the end of life Ibid., p. 51. . To what year this end is to be referred, I indeed have not ascertained. But certainly, so far as appears from the Acts of St. Guthlac, the holy hermits were still living at the time when Felix wrote the Life, between about the years 720 and 750 [Cf. ibid., p. 38. Th. Duffus Hardy, Descript. catal. of materials rel. to Great Britain, vol. I, part I. p. 407.] ; and if anyone should judge that they survived until about the middle of the eighth century, he will not be able to stray far from the truth, nor would we ourselves wish to depart from his opinion.

* amiserant in edit.

§ II. The sepulchers of the saints plundered by the Danes. Translation of the bodies to the abbey of Thorney. The relics of St. Tancred and others gathered by St. Æthelwold. Present-day traces of the cult.

After the church in which they had been buried was laid waste by the Danes, They were buried in the abbey of Crowland, around the mausoleum of St. Guthlac furnished by his sister St. Pega; indeed, the bodies were raised from the earth (which is a notable indication of public and ecclesiastical cult), and placed in high marble tombs: where they lay at rest until the year 871. For then the Danish pirates, advancing as far as Crowland, laid waste the monasteries, slaughtered many monks and overturned all things. The body of St. Guthlac had opportunely been carried into the neighboring forest, but the fortune of his disciples was worse. Hear the historian of Crowland: The Danes broke with knives and mattocks all the sarcophagi of the saints who were resting in high marble tombs around the tomb of the holy Father Guthlac at his right and left, namely at the right the tomb of St. Cissa, priest and anchorite, and the tomb of St. Bettelinus, man of God, and formerly minister of St. Guthlac; also the tomb of St. Tatwin, formerly the guide to Crowland and boatman of St. Guthlac… But when they did not find the hoped-for treasures, exceedingly indignant, all the bodies of the saints, wretchedly piled in one heap, they set fire to and most calamitously burned, on the third day of their coming, with the church and all the buildings of the monastery, namely on the 7th before the kalends of September Acta SS., vol. II April, p. 53. .

[12] their memory did not perish; Yet their memory did not wholly perish at Crowland after the Danish disaster and the overthrow of the buildings. It is handed down that the name of St. Tatwin was given to one of the bells which, when the abbot Turketul and his successor from the year 975 to 984, Egelric the elder, restored the church and monastery of Crowland, were placed upon the buildings. Egelric had made, as Ingulph says [Ingulph, in Savile, p. 889. Cf. Browne Willis, A view of the mitred abbeys, in John Leland's Collectan. de rebus Britannicis, vol. VI, p. 171 ff., edited by Th. Hearne, London 1774.] or he to whom his name is attributed, two great bells, which he named Bartholomew and Bettelinus, and two middle ones, which he called Turketul and Tatwin, and two lesser ones which he called Pega and Bega. Where all the names are of saints, except that doubt can be cast about Turketul [Cf. Mabillon, Acta SS. Ordinis S. Benedict., sæc. V, p. 502 ff. Acta SS., vol. III July, p. 177.] .

[13] indeed the relics of St. Cissa and of other saints However much the Danes may have laid waste the church, yet the relics of St. Cissa seem to have been preserved. For what we have just read, that all the bodies of the saints, wretchedly piled in one heap, were most calamitously burned, this can quite probably be understood so that we may think that the sacred remains did not altogether perish, but rather were left under the charred beams; from where afterward the body of St. Cissa may have been drawn, or, under this name, also the bones of other saints. Whatever the case, that these relics rested in the neighboring abbey of Thorney we have learned from an ancient monument, namely from an Anglo-Saxon manuscript codex thus entitled: Here begins the narrative of the saints who rest in England; which must have been written before the end of the eleventh century, since in the same place the monastery of Gloucester, built in the year 1058, is called new. This catalogue, rendered in English, Challoner inserted in his British martyrology A memorial of ancient british piety, p. 185. . With this moreover other certain testimonies agree Leland, Collectanea de rebus Britann., vol. VI, p. 221. , which Browne Willis followed in composing the history of the monastery of Thorney. We turn aside, then, to the monastery of Thorney, which lay in the southern tract of the fen mentioned above, in the county of Cambridge, and which was greatly praised for the abundance of its sacred relics. And in very truth in Challoner's codex there are said to rest there St. Botulf, and St. Atulf, and St. Huna, and St. Tancred, and St. Torthred, and St. Herefoerth, and St. Cissa, and St.

Benedict (Biscop), and St. Toua A memorial of ancient brit. piety, p. 187. . It is good to speak of these a little more broadly, both to confirm the credit of that Anglo-Saxon codex, and to illustrate, so far as the matter permits, some saints of whom there is nowhere any record in our Acts. From this also it will be understood in what way the remains of St. Cissa were translated to Thorney, and beside what holy bodies they lay.

[14] to the abbey of Thorney, William of Malmesbury, following out the beginnings of that abbey Gesta pontif. Anglorum, book IV, p. 327 f., edited by Hamilton, London 1870. , narrates that St. Athelwold or Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester from the year 963 to 984, when already from the beginning of his episcopate he was meditating to practice the eremitic life there, prepared all things for constructing a new monastery. The bodies of the saints, so the historian goes on, who had once dwelt in that waste, and also of others throughout England, he brought in such number, that almost all the corners of the church are full * (he means the church begun to be built in the year 1085 by abbot Gunter Monast. Anglic., vol. II, p. 593 f. in the place of an older church, constructed in the tenth century). Whose names I willingly shrink from writing, because they screech something barbarous; not that I either discredit or deny those saints; for of what authority am I, that I should call into dispute what holy antiquity has consecrated? But because, as I said, their appellations sound uncouth and smell rough, merely to foolish men, of whom our age produces many, I do not wish to expose the saints to mockery; especially since not even the inhabitants read their Lives; and it seems frivolous, if you should proclaim the merits of those of whom you find no miracles. Saving therefore all reverence, and keeping the peace, I would dare to publish only Benedict, who was the nourisher and abbot of Bede.

[15] by the labor of St. Æthelwold and the permission of King Edgar, are translated; The barbarous names of the saints who had once led the anchoretic life there King Edgar did not keep silent in the diploma by which, in the year 973, he confirmed the foundation of the monastery made the year before by St. Æthelwold; where, some laws of the new monastery being declared, he goes on thus Kemble, Codex diplomat. ævi Saxonici, vol. III, p. 99 f. : In the said place itself, most fitted for the anchoretic life, two prelates, brothers of eminent sanctity, namely Tancred and Torthred, obtaining the blessedness of the heavenly life, the one by martyrdom, the other by the glory of confession, passed with the glorious palm of an outstanding triumph to Christ. And Tona, their sister, not only joined by the bond of carnal kinship, but also bound by the bar of charity in the imitation of virtues, leading the anchoretic life in the innermost part of this island, most becomingly completing the contest of a holy way of life, and leaving the putrid death of this frailty, a member exulting went on to the head, which is Christ the Redeemer of the human race, who, with the co-eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, crowns soldiers of both sexes, blessing them with the glory of infinite exultation. These things from the edition of John Kemble, where Tona is clearly read, not Toua: likewise both editions of the Monasticon Anglicanum have Tona: which we note for this reason, that Challoner found Toua in the Anglo-Saxon manuscript codex. Leland read the name written in the same way in the Thorney codices Leland, Collectanea de rebus Britann., vol. I, p. 28. : There was there also, says this author, the noble virgin Toua, in the same place own sister of the brothers Thancredus and Tortredus, adding, at the time when he was composing his work, that there existed in the wood not far from the monastery a beautiful oratory or chapel called Thoueham, the name being derived from St. Thoua. Yet the same author elsewhere seems to accept both manners of writing, namely Tona and Toua Ibid., vol. VI, p. 221. .

[16] likewise the bodies of SS. Tancred, Torthred, There, then, all led the anchoretic life. Such, namely, was that monastery from its beginning, that among its inhabitants there were hermits. For Seaxwulf, as is read in the Book of Peterborough, (about the year 662) had built a monastery with eremitic cells In Camden, Britannia, Cambridge-shire, p. 231, Amsterdam 1648. . Which institution persisted there still in the year 871, at the time when the Danes laid waste those parts. That Tancred and his brother Torthred were bishops Leland asserted; but (unless I am mistaken) on a very slender argument, namely that in the cited Charter of Edgar they are called prelates, brothers of eminent sanctity. Their memory is celebrated at the 18th day of September by Challoner A memorial of british piety, p. 132. , who calls them the first inhabitants of that solitude. On the other hand it seemed to Alford Annales Eccles. Anglic., at the year 870, no. 18, vol. III, p. 114. that St. Tancred suffered martyrdom in the disaster of the Danes, about the year 870. There was then as prior, as the Ingulphian History testifies Savile, Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, p. 867. , Toret, and as subprior Tisa, both most holy and devout anchorites. But that not all the inhabitants of the cenoby were always worthy of this praise King Edgar indicates in the said diploma: For this place of so great and so secluded quiet and loveliness, sins having first deserved it, laid waste by the pagans, and long afterward wretchedly possessed by seculars, had existed without the service of God and the way of life of spiritual men Kemble, Codex diplomaticus, vol. III, p. 100. .

[17] of Botulf and other saints. To the same abbey of Thorney from the monastery of Ikanhoe, near Boston (Botolph's town), in the county of Lincoln, St. Botulf, abbot of Ikanhoe, and together with him several other saints [Orderic Vitalis, Hist. eccl., part III, book XI, edited by Le Prevost, vol. IV, p. 280.] were carried. The historians who record the translation of their bodies signify also the coming of others, and therefore they seem to deserve careful review. In the first place is Orderic Vitalis, who before the middle of the twelfth century stayed in these parts Cf. Acta SS., vol. III June, p. 398 ff. ; then John Brompton, abbot of Jervaulx, who flourished about the middle of the fifteenth century and to whom is attributed a Chronicle, composed by his own or another's labor, from the coming of St. Augustine to the death of King Richard I, out of many ancient monuments. To these is added John Capgrave, a writer of the same age, who appended to the Life of SS. Botulf and Atulf the translation of their bodies. Now Orderic hands down this: That one (namely the monastery of Thorney) the venerable Adelwold, prelate of Winchester, built in the time of King Edeldred, and thither he translated the body of St. Botulf, abbot of Ikanhoe, with many other pledges of the saints (about the year 973), a whole century after the Danish disaster, in which the blessed king of the East Angles Edmund fell a martyr in the confession of Christ [Orderic Vitalis, Hist. eccl., part III, book XI, edited by Le Prevost, vol. IV, p. 280 ff.] .

[18] These relics, drawn in the tenth century from ruined churches, Whence and how St. Æthelwold obtained those sacred pledges is explained by John Brompton [Historiæ Anglicanæ scriptores decem, edited by Roger Twysden, col. 868, London 1652.] : In that time also, he says, that is between the years 959 and 975, the venerable man Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, constructor of monasteries, obtained from King Edgar that the bodies of the saints which were lying in neglect in destroyed places might be permitted him to translate to those monasteries which he had constructed; among which he had the body of B. Botulf … translated from the monastery of Ikanhoe …. With the king's permission, then, in those destroyed places, such as were the churches of St. Peter of Wearmouth in the county of Durham and of St. Bartholomew in Crowland, St. Æthelwold sought the sacred pledges, not sparing, as it seems, expense. For William of Malmesbury, treating of the remains of St. Benedict Biscop, which were resting at Wearmouth, says: His body Gesta pontificum Anglorum, book IV, p. 329, edited by Hamilton. , bought at a great price, Adelwold brought to Thorney, and brought in a light-flowing radiance for the more obscure saints. It is probable that the relics of St. Cissa were brought from the abbey of Crowland to Thorney in no other way. But from where St. Æthelwold translated the bodies of St. Huna and St. Herefoerth or Herefurth, which, as we have already seen, were also kept at Thorney, is betrayed by no indication. Of the other saints who were once venerated there Cf. above, no 13. , namely Botulf, Adulf and Benedict Biscop Acta SS., vol. III June, p. 398 ff.; vol. I Jan., p. 743 ff. , there has been discussion before in the Acta Sanctorum.

[19] are kept until the sixteenth century. Traces of the cult survive. The bones of all these were held in special honor at Thorney until the period of King Henry VIII. Then, the relics that had once been rescued from the fury of the pagan pirates most wretchedly perished; nor was there any sparing of the tombs of several magnates, who had wished to be buried near the sepulchers of the saints. Only a part of the church exists, changed into a parish church Browne Willis, in Leland's Collectan. de rebus Britann., vol. VI, p. 222. . Nevertheless, although for more than three centuries war has been declared on the memory of the old patrons, there still remains, as it seems, a trace of the former cult; which not religion, but rather the study of the architectural art will have preserved. For on the western front of the church, as it still was in the year 1819 and is expressed in drawing in the new Monasticon Anglicanum Monasticum Anglicanum, vol. II, p. 592. , above the window and between two towers there appear nine statues, which Richard Gough asserts to be of Saints In Camden, Britannia, vol. II, p. 141. . That by these images are presented the nine saints who were once buried there, there is no reason for us to deny or to call in doubt.

* sunt in edit.