Castle mill. Above the mill rises the great tower ; that tower saw the
results of the Norman Conquest, and indeed may itself be said to be
one of them. But the mound alone of all that remains has looked
down upon the Danish Conquest and all its attendant humiliations
and horrors, which have been described in this and the preceding
chapter.

* The best \-ie\v of the Castle mound is obtained by mounting a few steps leading
from Buhvarks-Lane on to the piece of high ground in front of Elm Cottages, at
the back of the new High School for boys in George Street, and looking over the
site of Jews' Mount (i.e. Mont de jicis). The view over the Castle mound is
undisturbed and, as few houses are visible, one is able somewhat to conjure up the
scene as it really presented itself in the days to which these historical notes refer.



CHAPTER IX.

Oxford during the Fifty Years before the

Norman Conquest.

The destruction which had been wrought by the burning and plunder-
ing of the Danes in 1009 must have left Oxford in a very desolate
state, and the constant drain of money and men during the costly but
futile attempts to repel the Danes, must have left little opportunity for
the town to retrieve the losses it had sustained. Although Cnut was
a foreign king, it was agreed by the Gemot held here in 1018 that the
English laws should be obeyed; and we may therefore presume
that with peace there was some chance of prosperity returning to the
town, and this view is borne out by an incidental reference to Oxford
relating to this time. It is not found in the Chronicle, or, indeed, in
any of the chroniclers, but amongst the charters of the great abbey in
the neighbouring town of Abingdon, and in connection with a little
village in Berkshire, about four miles north of Wantage, and ten miles
south-west of Oxford, now known as Lyford, but in the charters and
in the Domesday Survey spelt Linford. The date of the charter is
1034, and it runs as follows : —

* . . . . Wherefore I Cnut, by God's free mercy and especial
goodness King of all Albion, have granted for ever the small plot of
ground which is called by the inhabitants of these parts Linford,
that is to say sufRcient quantity for two tenants, and a certain
minster {monaster lolum) dedicated in honour of Saint Martin, Bishop,
together with its adjacent messuage [praediolo) ^ in the city which is
called by the celebrated name of Oxford, to our Lord Jesus Christ
and to his ever- virgin Mother Mary, for the use of the monks in
Abingdon ..,.'-'

* The exact force of the words monastcriolum and praediolum cannot perhaps
be determined definitely. They are probably translations of the words used in the
Saxon charters. The former means quite as frequently a church as a monastery ;
the praediolum was probably equivalent to the glebe land attached, or, in a town,
certain messuages, the rental of which would help to sustain a priest.

^ Abingdon Abbey Chronicle, Rolls Series, London, 1858, vol. i. p. 4.^9. It
should perhaps be added that Mr. Stevenson, the editor, who has had great



J



OXFORD BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 165

The boundaries of the land at Lyford are then given, and at the end
is added, in one of the two manuscripts of the Chronicle, and in the
language of the time, the following : —

' This land-plot bequeathed Ethelwine unto Abbendune and the
hagae at Oxnaford, in which he himself " onsaet " [i.e. dwelt], before
many witnesses ^'
The witnesses included Cnut, Elgyfu {pracdicii Regis conlaterana)
.^thelnoth, Archbishop of the church of Canterbury, JElfric, Arch-
bishop of the city of York, six other bishops, whose names are
given, four abbots, two priests, two ealdormen (that is, Godwine and
Leofric), fifteen thanes, and one praefectus (i. e. reeve)^

Later on in the same chronicle there is still a further reference to
the gift of S. Martin's Church.

' And when Abbot Athelwin, a man very vigorous in the conduct of
secular as well as ecclesiastical matters, came to the end of his days,
Siward, a monk from the Abbey of Glastonbury, succeeded him. It
was due to the kindness which King Cnut knew rightly to prevail
with him that the said King gave out of charity the Church of
S. Martin in Oxford, together with a messuage {praediolum) ^.'
Although the grant is of a certain 'minster' of S. Martin, and there-
fore, taken literally, might be said to imply that there was a church
already in existence, still practically there is no reason to doubt that
this charter of King Cnut represents, with the transference of the
land to Abingdon Abbey, the foundation of the church.

As already pointed out*, the grant of a site for a church in the centre
of the town points very strongly to there being no parish church here
before, and therefore it is a distinct step in advance : as other churches
were built and parishes came to be established, they were distributed
round the central parish which formed the nucleus, so to speak, of
the whole.

But with prosperity to the town generally it seems strange that we
hear no more of S. Frideswide's. The three hydes round Oxford,
and the two hydes at Cutslow, and the hyde at Whithull, with the ten
hydes at Winchendon in Buckinghamshire, seemingly constituted all
their possessions from Ethelred's time (1004) onwards, as is shown by

experience, pronounces it in his opinion ' a genuine document.' Vol. ii. p. 523. It
is printed in the Codex Diplomatictis, No. 746, vol. iv. p. 38. Appendix A, § 60.

* Abingdon Abbey Chronicle, Rolls Series, vol. i. p. 440. In the other MS. the
same passage is given in Latin.

- The charter is not dated. The signatures seem to give the date as 1032-1034,
though the identification of all the bishops is not certain.
Abingdon Abbey Chronicle, Rolls Series, vol. i. p. 443.

* See ante, p. 1 2 1 .



1 66 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.

the survey of 1087^. The monastery seems from some cause or
another not to have displayed any energy whatever. To have allowed
a neighbouring monastery some six miles off, and in another county,
to build and hold a church (and this is what the charter practically
amounts to) in the very centre of the town, and within two hundred
and fifty yards of their very gates, betokens either great apathy, or
else they were in so poor a condition that they could not build any
churches themselves, or in such poor estimation that they excited no
generosity on the part of their friends. Although in the reign of King
Henry I. they seem to have made up for lost time, there does not
appear, so far as can be gathered by the Domesday Survey, that they
had now, nor for the next fifty years, any church in Oxford whatever
served from their monastery, except the single church within their own
precincts. Were it not for the absence of such errors as usually dis-
figure forged charters, and the corroboration in Domesday, there
would be reason on account of such absolute silence to suspect
Ethelred's charter to be a fabrication of the twelfth century ^.

And here perhaps a word should be said respecting a somewhat
unsatisfactory paragraph, which in the Cartulary follows on after the
charter relating to Ethelred's restoration of S. Frideswide's in 1004 ;
and, as will be observed, it professes to relate to events which happened
after that date ^ It runs as follows : —

' Now the aforesaid King Ethelred increased the said church as he
had before promised as [is read] in the chronicles. .

' And afterwards before God subjected England to the people of
Normandy, this church with its possessions was given by a certain king
to a certain abbot of Abingdon : the secular canons are related to have
therefore been despoiled of their possessions, and driven from their
abode ; and the property being transferred to the moniis, was at their
disposal for some years.

* Afterwards, as it is the case with the affairs of mortals, by the
beneficence of a certain king, their property was, after deliberate
counsel, restored to the aforesaid canons. And up to the year of our
Lord's incarnation 1122, they ruled over the same church *.'

It may however be possible that, though the compiler of the
Cartulary has placed the above memorandum (for it is not in any

* Against the addition of an hyde 'juxta Oxon' is to be set the omission in the
Domesday Survey of the one hyde of Whithill.

" Kemble, in the Codex Diplomaticus, No. 709, vol. iii. p. 327, puts for
some reason an asterisk to it, implying that, in his opinion, it vi^as not genuine.

^ The charter is printed ante, p. 142, but see also ante, p. 139.

' From the larger cartulary of S. Frideswide in the possession of the Dean and



OXFORD BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 167

sense a deed) after the charter of King Ethelred, and implied that
what is recorded took place between the restoration by that king and
the Norman Conquest, he has done so in error ; and that the source
of his statement, whether tradition or document, has been misunder-
stood. It has already been pointed out\ when discussing a similar state-
ment relating to the introduction of secular canons, that the granting
of the abbey to a certain abbot of Abingdon was most likely when
Abbot ^thelwold was made Bishop of Winchester, and in 964, as
is recorded, besought King Eadgar to give him certain monasteries
to restore ^: as the energetic disciple of S. Dunstan, his first care was to
turn out secular canons and put regulars in their place ; in some cases
perhaps there was some injustice, in others perhaps, where reform was
absolutely needed, the change was attended with beneficial results.
The reference to the king restoring the seculars seems also to point
to this view of the origin of the passage, for on the accession of
Eadward (the second king of that name, and called the IMartyr) in
975, the monks in their turn, as already shown when discussing the
question, were driven out and the seculars restored.

There is, however, a singular record, which points to the replacing
of monks by canons at a date after ^thelred's charter of 1004, viz.
a passage, which Leland in his Collectanea ^ gives as Ex ve/eri codice
Rofensis Monasierii, and belonging to the year 1049, ^"^^ which runs
as follows* : —

Canons of Christchurch, folio 8. Printed very imperfectly in Dngdale, vol. ii. p. 144.
Appendix A, § 61.

^ See autc, p. 139.

^ The entry there adduced in support of this explanation, it should be obser\'ed,
is from the Bodleian copy of the Chronicle, i. e. Chronicle E, which is supposed
to have been compiled at Peterborough, and takes especial notice of events in
Mercia. The full wording of the passage is as follows : ' In the year after he was
hallowed [i. e. Athelwold, Abbot of Abingdon, who had been hallowed Bishop of
Winchester, Nov. 29, 963] he made monasteries, and drove the clerks out of the
bishopric because that they would not hold any rule, and set monks there ....
Then afterwards he came to King Eadgar and besought him that he would give him
all the monasteries which heathens before had ruined, because that he would restore
them ; and the king blithely granted it.'

^ Leland, Collectanea, vol. iii. p. 73. Printed in Heame's ed.,1774, vol. iv. p. 72.

* After some trouble a MS. containing the passage has been found. Possibly it
was only an abstract of this which Leland saw. It is a chronicle evidently com-
piled at Rochester, consisting of 200 large folio leaves with double columns written
in one hand down to 1275, with illustrations (some of which are copied apparently
from a much earlier MS.), and continued by later hands to 1307. It is preserved
in the Cottonian Library (Nero, D. 2) and the passage occurs on folio 98 a. Eodem
etiam anno institiitio Canonicortim Sancie Frideswidc de Oxonia. The incidental
reference to a neighbouring monastery is not one likely to have been interpolated
without some authority.



1 68 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.

' 1049. King Edward the third, who is called Saint Edward, restored
the Monastery of S. Peter at Westminster and extended it, by granting
abundant possessions and liberties. The same year was the institution
of the canons of S. Frideswide at Oxford.'

Here, since a definite date is given for the change, there is more
reason to accept the passage, but still the possibility remains that the
chronicler has made a mistake between Eadward the Martyr and
Eadward the Confessor, and has transposed a passage belonging to
the one to a date which belongs to the other : while another writer
has referred to the regulars taking the place of the seculars later still,
giving the rather improbable date of 1060 \

The statement that the monastery was given to ' a certain abbot of
Abingdon ' has led some to suppose that at one time the indepen-
dence of S. Frideswide was at an end, and that it became simply a
cell to the larger abbey. Although this would account for the circum-
stance of the central church of the town being in the hands of the
neighbouring monaster)', on the whole it is not at all probable. The
Abingdon Chronicle is so full in recording the events of the period,
and the charters so numerous, that it is impossible to conceive any
great accession to the power and influence of Abingdon, as this would
amount to, without some record showing itself directly or indirectly.

As a matter of fact, throughout the seven hundred and forty printed
pages which the Chronicle occupies, S, Frideswide is only mentioned
twice; once in connection with some exchange of land in Henry I's
reign circa 1 1 20, and once in connection with S. Aldate's church during
the rule of abbot Ingulph, which commenced 11 30.

Abingdon undoubtedly was very wealthy at this time. This is
apparent, not from the fact only that we possess so fine a cartulary
preserved amidst the pages of a Chronicle, but from the fact that the
Domesday Survey testifies materially to the truth of the acquisition
which most of the charters purport to represent. Their property by de-
grees had come up close to Oxford during the previous century, forming
as it were a belt round Oxford on the southern and western side.
Charters granted by King Edwy'^ in 955-6 had practically subjected

' What could be the origin of this statement given in Sir John Peshall's edition
of Antony a Wood's notes on the city of Oxford (London, 1773, p. 121) has not
been discovered. It runs as follows : ' 1060, The secular canons of S. Frid. being
expelled from the monastery on account of their having wives, King Edward ordered
a set of regulars to succeed them in their office at the instance of Pope Nicholas II.'

- Chron. Mon. Ab., Rolls Series, p. 180. While Seacourt only just exists in name
on the way to Wytham, the local names of the fields and meadows given in the
course of the boundaries have been lost, so that the demarcation cannot be made
out ; but it is clear a considerable portion of the river Thames — namely from the



i



OXFORD BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 169

twenty hydcs, including Hincksey {ffengestes-tge), Seacourt {Seo/ecan-
ivvrfhe), and, just beyond it to the north, Wytham {Wththam). Also
twenty-five hydes at Bayworth [BccgefiweortheY, and certain land at
Kennington(C^«?^/««i?)^ Some few years later, i.e. in 985, Ethelred
had completed the circuit by a grant of ten hydes at Wootton ^. That
their property came up to the very Thames on the eastern side, even
close to Oxford, is illustrated by the dispute, in 945 or thereabouts,
concerning Beri meadow, the large piece of meadow land lying in the
Thames, over against Iffley, and about which there was some doubt
whether it belonged to Oxfordshire or Berkshire. It appears —
if we accept the story which the monk tells us — that the abbey gained
the victory ; but the means were perhaps not those which would be
successful in these days *.

S. Frideswide's monastery, then, if not subjected to Abingdon, was
at least thrown into the shade by its wealthier and more energetic
neighbour — and yet as Oxford, now under the Danish rule, was seem-
ingly in a prosperous condition, retrieving the devastations of past
years, S. Frideswide ought to have exhibited some prosperity also.
That we have no charter or reference to any before the time of
Ethelred in 1004 is accounted for by the loss by fire. That we have
no account of grants of land to the monastery between that date and
the time of Henry I, cannot be explained in the same manner.

Great Ford up to ' Eanflseds-gelade ' — formed the northern boundary. There is
reason to suppose that this was a restoration of property after the Danish incur-
sions, as they seem to have obtained a confirmation charter of all their property
on the south side of the Thames in this neighbourhood (including Hincksey,
Cumnor, Kennington, &c.) in 825 from Coenulf, King of Mercia, so as to be safe
when the land was shifting backwards and forwards from one kingdom to another
{ante, p. 1 1 1). Further (C//row. Ab., p. 1 26) the chronicler contends that it was all
granted originally by King Cead walla, as if it had been the original property of Hean.

^ Chron. Moil. Ab., Rolls Series, p. 219. The name by which the manor of the
25 hydes was known, is only represented now by the farm on the west of Bagley
Wood. Very few of the local names of the fields and boundary lines have survived.

^ Chron. J/on. Ab., p. 216. It evidently lay between the river on the east side
and ' Baggan-worth' of the previous charter on the west side, and occupied what
is now Bagley Wood. Elsewhere in the general charter relating to the Cumnor
district (see ibid. pp. 126 and 176), reference is made to the Bacgan-leah, which
name we retain in the well-known Bag-ley Wood.

^ Chron. Mon. Ab., p. 401. In the boundaries attached to the vill, and practi-
cally forming the parish of Wootton, between three and four miles south-west of
Oxford, are several names which occur in the other charters, thus uniting the series.
There are also one or two survivals in the names, e. g. fox hola cumbe, in Fox-
combe hill ; cealdan-wylle, probably in Chil'swell farm ; blacan grave in Biackgrove
farm. In one of the general boundaries (p. 126) we get brom-cumbe, which
possibly survives in Bro\vncomb Wood close to Bayworth.

* Chron. Mon. Ab., p. 88. See a summary of the case given in Proceedings
of the O. A. & H. S., vol. ii. p. 169.



170 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.

Besides Abingdon, which lay six miles to the south and on the
Berkshire side of the river, there was another formidable rival to
S, Frideswide's springing up some six miles to the west on the Oxford-
shire side, namely at Ensham. At the very beginning of the eleventh
century iEthelmar, ealdorman of Devonshire, the same who was one
of those to submit to Sweyn, in 1013 ^ — had exchanged with his son-
in-law ^thelweard certain lands, giving him thirty-six manszones, in
different districts, against thirty ma?istuttaiH, and had established at
Ensham a monastery. The charter of King Eihelred^ which is dated
1005, must from the signatures have been completed not later than that
date, and the greater number are the same as those who sign Ethelred's
charter, restoring S. Frideswide's. It must be observed however that
these lands, so far as may be judged from the boundaries of the grants
made to them at this date, appear to lie for the most part some dis-
tance from the abbey; and thirty manses of land which were close to
it are on the north-west, and so not calculated to encroach upon the
immediate neighbourhood of Oxford. It must also be observed that
as regards accession of lands, so far as can be judged from the absence
of charters, and the presence of a single entry only in the Domesday
Survey, they were not more prosperous than the Oxford house.
Although, as has been pointed out, there is not sufficient ground to
suppose that S. Frideswide put itself under the protection of Abingdon,
there is the clear evidence of a valuable charter, a copy of which is
preserved in the Ensham chartulary, that this monastery became
practically an adjunct to the minster of S. Mary at Stowe in Lincoln-
shire, which, in 1040, was founded mainly by the bounty of Leofric
and the Lady Godiva. This accounts, partly, for the meagre ap-
pearance which the abbey shows in Domesday. On the other hand,
by the chance of fortune, at a later period, the Eynsham house be-
came celebrated, and the house of Stowe declined, so that the reverse
of what had originally happened took place, and the house at Stowe
was merged into that at Ensham. Still it must not be overlooked
that in the eleventh century the union of the tv\^o monasteries of Stowe
and Eynsham created a rival influence which might well have inter-
fered with S. Frideswide's prosperity : and in the Domesday Survey it
is found that Ensham had a church in Oxford, namely, S. Ebbe's.

^ A.-S. Chron. sub anno 1013 : ' After the Danes had come over Waetling Street,
and when Oxford submitted, they went afterwards to Bath. And thither came the
ealdorman yEthelmar and the western thanes with him, and they all submitted to
Svein, and gave hostages.'

2 Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus , No. DCCXIV, vol. iii. p. 339.



OXFORD BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 171

At the same time that the Monastery of S. Frideswide seemingly
was shedding no lustre over the ciiy of Oxford, as others were over
the cities in which they were situated, the place of the Bishop's seat,
namely Dorchester, so far as can be ascertained, was not in any way
bringing the diocese into prominence on account of the energy or
ability of its successive Bishops. Something perhaps may be put
down to the account of the diocesan registers having been lost in all
probability when the see was removed by Remigius to Lincoln, in 1092 ;
for he may well have been too intent upon his new foundation, to think
about taking the proper precautions to preserve the story of the old
one. That there had been registers kept here seems certain from
such entries as the baptism of the kings Cynegils, Cwichelm, and
Cuthred, having found their way into the Chronicles ^ Yet it would
appear that William of Malmesbury, when he wrote his History of
the Bishops in 1 125 — that is, some thirty-five years only after the trans-
lation of the bishopric — was unable to obtain any information about the
diocese, and apparently had difficulty in making out even a complete
list of the bishops. It is quite possible that he made it from the
signatures to the few charters to which he had access.

Whether or not in the course of his researches, which distinctly in-
cluded visits to Glastonbury and Oxford, he went to Dorchester to
discover what archives might exist, cannot be determined. He seems
however to write as if from his own experience when he commences
his account of the diocese with the words Dorcesira est villa in paga
Oxnefordensi exilis et infrequens. He however goes on to say that
the old church with its chapels (of which we have at most but the
lower part of one wall remaining, if even that)^ was remaining in his
time in good condition and repair, as he writes, Majestas tamen ecclesi-
arum magna, sen veteri opera, seu sedulitate nova.

As regards the bishops, they seem during this century rather to have
had their chief seat here than at Leicester, which was the case in the
last century, but what the extent of their diocese was it is impossible
to determine. After Eadnoth and Escwi, which brought the list of the

' See ante, p. 86.

* The lower portion of the north wall of the nave shows rather early character
outside, against which the cloister of the monastery was erected. When the
monastery was founded in Stephen's reign, i.e. 1 140, and when, in the following
reign, they began building a new and larger church, they may well have made use
of some of the walling; but as they would want to keep the old building for the
service till the new one was erected, they would most likely build on one side of it,
and might therefore have utilised this one piece of wall only. As one cannot point
to any masonry in the neighbourhood of Oxford existing, which was standing at this
period, it is thought well to note this, though only a possible case.



172 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.

bishops down to 1002^, the next four given by William of Malmes-
bury are, Elfhelm, a second Eadnoth, Etheric, and then a third Eadnoth.
The signatures of these range between 1002 and 1046. Of the second
of them we read in the Chronicle, under 1012, that Eadnoth of Dor-
chester was one of the two bishops (Elfhun of London being the other)
to receive the body of the murdered ^Ifhege when brought into
London from Greenwich, and who buried it in ' S. Paul's Church.'
Later on, under the year 10 16, we find that this Eadnoth was fighting