Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe - Sabine Baring-Gould (books to read to improve english TXT) 📗

occurring in the midst of a soft and beautiful region of pastoral luxuriance, is very striking. A curious series of chambers, communicating with each other, has been at some distant period beyond tradition excavated in that portion of the rock which is most naked and precipitous; and from this circumstance the site has been designated Anchor Church, signifying the residence of a hermit. At a distance it bears a very close resemblance to a Gothic ruin; the rude openings formed to admit light into the several cells, and the ruggedly fashioned doorway aiding, at first sight, the appearance of an artificial pile of grey antiquity. The rock is found principally to consist of rough grit-stone, and of a congeries of sand and pebbles. The Trent, which now flows at a short distance, formerly ran close under the rock, as is indicated by a dead pool of water situate near its foot, and communicating with the channel of the river.

"A tall flight of steep steps rudely fashioned of large unshapen blocks of stone, conducted to the entrance of the hermitage, and the dim light within its hoary, moss-grown, sloping walls is admitted through irregularly formed apertures, pierced through the dense body of the rock, and command magnificent views of the subjacent scenery." [Footnote: Bigsby (R.), "Historical and Topographical Description of Repton in the County of Derby," Lond. 1854.]

In the month of August 1742, when occasion arose for setting a post in a "Mercat House" at Royston in Hertfordshire in order to place a bench on it for the convenience of the market women, the men in digging struck through the eye or central hole of a millstone, laid underground, and on raising this found that it occupied the crown of a cave sixteen feet deep, as appeared by letting down a plumb line. There was a descent into it of about two feet wide, with holes cut in the chalk at equal distances, and succeeding each other like the steps of a ladder. It was accurately circular. They let a boy down, and from his report of its passing into another cavity, a slender man with a lighted candle descended, and he confirmed the report, and added that the second cave was filled with loose earth, which, however, did not quite touch the wall, which he could see to right and left.

The people now conceived the notion that a great treasure was concealed here, and some workmen were employed to enlarge the passage of descent. Then with buckets and a well-kerb, they set to work to clear it, and drew up the earth and rubbish that filled the cave. When they came to the floor of the descending passage they ran a long spit downwards and found that the earth was still loose. The vast concourse of people now became troublesome, and the workmen were obliged to postpone further operations till night.

After much time and labour had been expended, the cave was cleared, but no really scientific examination of it was made till 1852, when Mr. Beldam drew up a report concerning it, which he presented to the Royal Society of Antiquaries. The cave is bell-shaped, and from the floor to the top of the dome measures 25-1/2 feet. The bottom is not quite circular, but nearly so, and in diameter is from 17 feet to 17 feet 6 inches. A broad step surrounds it, 8 inches wide and 3 feet from the floor. About 8 feet above the floor a cornice runs round the walls cut in a reticulated or diamond pattern two feet wide. Almost all the space between the step and this cornice is occupied with sculpture, crucifixes, saints, martyrs, and subjects not easy to explain. Vestiges of red, blue, and yellow are visible in various places, and the relief of the figures has been assisted by a dark pigment. In various parts of the cave, above and below the cornice, are deep cavities or recesses of various forms and sizes, some of them oblong, and others oven-shaped, of much the same character as those found in the French caves. High up are two dates cut in the chalk, in Arabic numerals, that have been erroneously read 1347 and "Martin 1350 February 18," but these should be respectively 1547 and 1550, as Arabic numerals were not in use in England in the fourteenth century, and the name of Martin and the February are distinctly sixteenth century in character. The figure carving was not done by the same hand throughout.

Apparently the cave was originally a shaft for burial or for rubbish, and a hole in the side and floor that Dr. Stukeley took for a grave was nothing but a continuation downwards of the ancient shaft, as is proved by what has been found in it. But in mediaeval times the puticolus was enlarged and converted into a hermitage, and a hermit is known to have occupied it till the eve of the Reformation, for in the Churchwarden's book of the parish of Bassingborne, under the date 1506, is the entry, _"Gyft of 20d. recd, off a Hermytt depting at Roiston in ys pysh"_ It is true that this entry does not absolutely fix the residence of the hermit at the cave, but it is hardly probable that there were two hermitages in so small a town.

The cave was probably filled in with earth in 1547 and 1550, when the inscribed dates were affixed. After which its existence was forgotten, and the Mercat House was erected over it before 1610. The carvings have been supposed to belong to the period of Henry II. and Richard Coeur-de- Lion, but it is not possible to put them earlier than the beginning of the sixteenth century, at all events such as represent the Crucifixion. It is possible, however, that some of the kingly or knightly figures may be somewhat earlier.

Stukeley was quite convinced that the Royston cave was the oratory of the Lady Rohesia, daughter of Aubrey de Vere, who succeeded his father in 1088, but there exists no evidence that she ever lived at Royston. The place takes its name from Rohesia, daughter of Eudo Dapifer.

In 1537, says Froude, while the harbours, piers, and fortresses were rising in Dover, "an ancient hermit tottered night after night from his cell to a chapel on the cliff, and the tapers on the altars before which he knelt in his lonely orisons made a familiar beacon far over the rolling waters. The men of the rising world cared little for the sentiment of the past. The anchorite was told sternly by the workmen that his light was a signal to the King's enemies" (a Spanish invasion from Flanders was expected), "and must burn no more; and when it was next seen, three of them waylaid the old man on his way home, threw him down, and beat him cruelly." [Footnote: "History of England," vol. iii. p. 256.]

The following notice appeared in the _Daily Express_ of 9th June 1910. "A subterranean chamber with a spiral staircase at one end and a Gothic roof has been discovered at Greenhithe. It is believed to have been a hermit's cell."

The hermit left a pleasant memory behind him when he disappeared from England, perhaps just in time before complete degeneration set in as in France and Germany, Italy and Spain. Shakespeare, whenever he introduces him, does so in a kindly spirit, and represents him as a consoler of the afflicted and a refuge to the troubled spirit. By Spenser also he is treated with affection.

"Towards night they came unto a plaine
By which a little hermitage there lay,
Far from all neighbourhood, the which annoy it may.

And nigh thereto a little chappel stoode,
Which being all with ivy overspred
Deckt all the roofe, and, shadowing the roode,
Seem'd like a grove faire braunched over hed:
Therein the hermit, which his life here led
In streight observance of religious vow,
Was wont his hours and holy things to bed;
And therein he likewise was praying now,
Whenas these knights arrived, they wist not where nor how."

I do not recall any harsh words spoken of the departed hermit. After the Reformation it was felt that a factor in life was gone that could be ill spared.

In these days when we live in a hurricane of new ideas, in the stress of business, we cannot understand the attractiveness of the peace of a cell away from the swirl of the storm, or the value of the hermits as guides of life. When the hermit was swept away, into his place as counsellor of the troubled stepped the witch, and to her those had recourse who had previously sought the eremite. The influence of the witch was always for evil, that of the hermit was usually good. The troubled soul desires a confidant and an adviser. The parish priest is not always spiritually minded, and is not always disinterested. What is hid from the wise and prudent is revealed to babes, and for the guidance of distracted consciences, the healing of wounded spirits, the words of the childlike hermit were a boon. However, he is gone past recall, and into his room have stepped the lawyer who demands six-and- eightpence for a word of advice, and the doctor whose charges are proportionate to the rental of our houses.


CHAPTER IX


ROCK MONASTERIES

The early Syrian and Egyptian hermits would have become a sect of manichaean heretics but for the popularity of the profession and the Arian persecution. In quitting the world they cut themselves off from the churches. They no more took part in its assemblies, participated in the sacraments, nor observed the sacred seasons. Paul, the first hermit, deserted the society of men when aged fifteen, and lived till the age of a hundred and ten in solitude without ever having partaken of the Bread of Life. S. Mary of Egypt spent forty-seven years in the Wilderness, stark naked, covered with hair like a wild beast, and only received the Viaticum when dying, by the chance of a priest passing that way. A fifteenth century statue of her, nearly life-size, is in the National Museum at Munich, removed from the Cathedral of Augsburg as indelicate. S. Antony spent twenty years in a sort of cistern, and only twice a year received loaves, let down from above through the roof. Certainly all that time he was voluntarily excommunicate. If S. Hilarius ever made sacramental communion we are not told, but we do know that he was for ever hiding himself from where were his fellow- men, in wilds and oases, and where there were no Christian churches.

In the desert, times and seasons slipped away, and became confounded, so that by the first hermits neither Easter nor the Lord's Day were observed. In the Gospel, the works of mercy, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and prisoners, are appointed as the means of deserving a reward in heaven, but the anchorites neglected every one, cut themselves adrift from the chance of performing them, and sought to merit heaven in their own way. Christ declared, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you," but they wilfully lived apart from the sacramental life as surely as any modern Quaker.

But when crowds of refugees from the duties and pleasures of life sought the desert, they ceased to be solitaries, and organisation on a monarchical system under an abbot became necessary; and when