that of Glastonbury, or that of Shaftesbury, be the just one, the fact
of the statement that his remains were brought to this neighbourhood,
would be sufficient to suggest a church being dedicated in his honour at
the time. Still the data are not sufficient to warrant any satisfactory
conclusion ; and when it is remembered that the church may perhaps
be, after all, dedicated to Eadward the Confessor °, it must be admitted
that there is no evidence for or against the foundation of the church
having taken place before or after the Domesday Survey.
The site of the church, like that of S. Mildred, is wholly obliterated.
It was situated between the High Street and the northern boundary
wall of S. Frideswide's, and the parish would therefore have been to the
south of All Saints' parish, with which in the fifteenth century it appears
to have been incorporated.
Contrasted with the full details we have of the parentage and life of 'â–
S. Mildred, the name of S. Aldate presents considerable difficulty. \
No early writer seems to have known this saint. In no ancient
' So Antony Wood apud Peshall, p. 116. But no reference is given. Through-
out numerous charters, entries in the Hundred Rolls, &c., &c., no single instance j
has been observed in which anything more than the name 'Ecd. Sancti EdwardV ^
is found.
^ Chron. Mon. Ab., vol. i. p. 443. In the list of the relics (ibid. ii. p. 157) they
are entered, ' De Sancto Eadwardo pars plurima.' The story adopted by nearly all
the martyrologists is that his remains, after reposing for a time at Wareham, \vi
translated to Shaftesbury. We note the date of the translation (June 20) still in ij
our Prayer Books.
^ It may be mentioned that it is impossible to distinguish between the dedica- -j
tions of the churches of S. Eadward throughout the country as to which belong ;j
to the Martyr and which to the Confessor.
DESCRIPTION OF OXFORD IN DO MRS DA V SdR VEY. 291
martyrologies or calendars does the name appear. The fanciful
identification with the imaginary Eldad of Geoffrey of Monmouth's
romance does not seem to have been definitely suggested till the
seventeenth or at the earliest till the sixteenth century.
The story of Hengist meeting Vortigern and giving the watchword
of ' Nemet oure Saxas/ is well known ; and how four hundred and sixty
barons and consuls {baroies et consules) of the British were slain ; and
how * the blessed Eldad buried their bodies with Christian burial in the
cemetery which was near the monastery of Abbot Ambrius \' This is
supposed, of course, to have taken place soon after the landing of Hen-
gist and Horsa, given in the Chronicle under the year 449. Elsewhere
Eldad is called by Geoffrey Episcopus Claudiocestrensis ^, and said to be
brother of Eldol, consul of Gloucester, who did such valiant deeds on
the battle-field against the Saxons. All this, inclusive of the names, is
pure invention, and of a very weak sort even for the twelfth century, so
far as the writer was actuated by the desire to pass his fiction off for
history. Still he succeeded, strange as it may appear, and a church
dedicated to a British bishop being too good a point to be lost, we
have the dedication of the church neatly introduced by Antony a Wood
as an argument to prove the antiquity of the church.
' Concerning the first foundation of which [i. e. S. Aldate's Church]
it is very ancient; if we regard to whom it was dedicated, and whose
name it bears, a British saint, about 450, as Leland says^, and whose
feast, as another author observes, was used to be kept at Gloucester
4th February. Through his means it was that Hengist, King of the
Saxons *,' &c.
The first time we hear of S. Aldate's Church, apart from the sup-
posed Confirmation Charter of Henry the First, is in the Abingdon
Chronicle. The story, which is a very singular one, belongs to the
next century, but, on account of the light it throws upon that charter,
it must be briefly referred to here. The chronicler introduces it thus : —
1 Galfredi Alonumetensis Historia, vi. 15, ed. Giles, 1844, p. 113.
- Ibid. viii. 7, p. 137.
3 But does Leland say so ? The reference is ' Com. in Cygfieam cantionem sud
voce C This must mean the word Claudia where Leland is justif5nng his use of the
word Claudia for Gloucester by referring to ' Nennius Britanntis,' and ' Annales
Britannoruin', which are only later forms of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He simply
writes, ' Annales Britannorum referunt olim sedem hie fuisse episcopalem antisti-
temque habuisse Eldadum,' and nothing more (see Leland's Itinerary, Heame's ed.
1744, vol. ix. p. 49). But it is not only useful to note the imperfect reference and
misstatement, but also the fact that Leland, whose Cygnca Cantio relates so much
to Oxford, had seemingly never heard of the suggestion that the church opposite the
entrance gate of St. Frideswide had as yet been connected with the imaginary
British Bishop.
' Antony a Wood. Apud Peshall, 1773, p. 144.
U 2
292 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.
' There is in the city of Oxford a certain minster {monasteriiim)
dedicated in honour of S. Aldad Bishop. Tv/o clerks (c/erici) of the
said town, Robert and Gilbert, brothers, share the whole benefice
equally with a certain Nicholas a priest ^.'
It appears that the two brothers had taken the monk's habit at
Abingdon in the time of Abbot Ingulph. Nicholas made a bargain
thereupon with Abingdon that he was to hold the said brother's
moiety as well as his own, paying Abingdon twenty shillings per
annum as long as he lived ; if he died as he was (viz. an ordinary
priest), his moiety should, with the other, go to Abingdon ; if he took
a religious habit he should not go to any other house than Abingdon.
He was taken ill suddenly in Oxford, and sent word of his illness to
Abingdon ; the brothers delayed to come ; when m extremis the
canons of S. Frideswide put on him their habit, and so the moiety
was lost to Abingdon, and gained by S. Frideswide. This is the
bare outline of the story, and it shows how S. Frideswide obtained
that moiety which the charter of Henry the First confirms to them.
But when did this take place 1 Ingulph was Abbot of Abingdon 1 130-
1158, and he is recorded to have received the two brothers. It must
therefore have been some time after 11 30, even supposing he had
received them immediately on his accession, for between the brothers
taking the habit and the death of Nicholas, some time elapsed (to
quote the exact words ' defluenie vero aliquanto tempore '). Henry the
First, in whose reign the charter confirming the moiety to S. Frides-
wide professes to be granted, died 1135. So far it would be just
possible, provided the charter was given quite at the end of Henry's
reign, for it to be genuine. But incidentally at the last moment,
before the death of Nicholas, the Abbot of Oseney is called in, by
name Wigod. So far as can be ascertained he did not become Abbot
until 1 138. This makes it impossible that S. Frideswide could have
obtained the moiety of S. Aldate's in Henry's reign, and therefore, in
that particular at least which can be tested, the charter is false, and it ;
' Chron. Mon. Ab., Rolls Series, ii. p. 174. Wood apud Peshall comments .
upon this in a curious way ; thus, ^Est in civil. Oxenford MonasteritiDi quoJdatn â–
S. Aldati episcopi venerationi consea-attim. This charter was wrote in King ;|
Rufus' time ; by which it is evident this church at that time was a monastery c
cloister to receive monks, or other devoted persons, to be prepared or trained up i
for the above religious houses, viz. S. Frid and Abeiido7t Monasteries ' (Peshall, ,1
p. 145"). The passage he quotes is not a charter; as will be shown it is not of^
William Rufus' time, but relates to events which could not have taken place before ;!
Stephen's reign ; and as to the 'monastery' as a preparatory cloister to others, the 31
word minster is often used simply in the sense of a church with a jiriest or priestss|
attached., S. Martin's Church in Cnut's Charter is called nionasterioluvi (seee'
ante, p. 164).
DESCRIPTION OF OXFORD IN DOMES DA V SC^R VE V. 293
tends to throw a doubt, of course, over other particulars which cannot
be tested. Ingulph Hved on till 1158, that is, well into Henry the
Second's reign, and any time before that date the two brothers might
have been received and have given their moiety to Abingdon ' ; Wigod
continued Abbot ofOseney, so far as can be ascertained, till 1168, and
any time therefore before that date the death of Nicholas may have
taken place, and S. Frideswide have obtained their moiety. If there-
fore the charter is of the time of Henry the Second there is nothing
to be said against it, and there is an error in the rubric ; but it is so
connected with the one ^ declaring the grant of this property to have
been confirmed by the Empress Matilda, in 1142, that some caution
should be exercised in accepting this explanation.
But then there is nothing proved as to the antiquity of the church
itself. The two brothers, Robert and Gilbert, might have succeeded
to or purchased one moiety of the benefice, and Nicholas the other.
Had they been the founders of the church the probabilities are that
they would not have been referred to by the chronicler in the manner
in which he writes. We are therefore thrown back into an obscurity
in regard to the origin of the church, just as absolute as in regard
to the life of the saint to whom it was dedicated.
That there are many saints of whom we find nothing recorded, and
whose names exist only in the churches dedicated after them, is true ;
but though this is common enough in Cornwall and Wales, and
somewhat so in the north, it is not the case of the churches lying in
the midland and southern counties, and the suggestion is somewhat
forced on the mind that the name Aldate (as it is most commonly
found written) is that of no saint at all.
One church, and one church only, is known to be so called, namely
a church at Gloucester. There seems to be little or no record
remaining which throws any light upon its origin ^. There is, how-
ever, this one point in common between the two, namely, that they are
each situated just within one of the four town gates ; that at Gloucester
just within and a little to the left on entering the old north gate of the
^ As the moiety is mentioned in the Privilegium of Pope Eugenius III. granted to
Abingdon in 1146, their reception of the brothers and acquisition of their moiety
must have taken place either at or before that date.
* See ante, p. 2S5, note i.
3 In the Cartularium Monasterii S. Petri Glouccstriae, Rolls Series 1S63-67,
where one would expect to find at least some references to S. Aldate's Church,
amongst the other churches, the name is not even mentioned. The Priory of
Deerhurst is entered as having a portion in the Church of S. Aldate in Gloucester
in the Taxatio Papae Nicholai, made c. 1291, and this is the earliest instance of
the name which has been observed.
394 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.
town, that at Oxford just within and on the left on entering the old
south gate of the town. It may be added that on one old map of
Gloucester and in another old map of Oxford they are inscribed ' St.
Aldgate's Church ^'
The calling of a church after its position as well as after the saint
to which it is dedicated, is not uncommon. In London it was often
necessary to have a second name, and so in the list of benefices
taken 31 Edward I. (1303), nearly all have such. We find, for
instance, Sancti Botulphi extra Bisschopesgate, Sancti Botulphi apud
Billingesgate, Sancti Botulphi de Alegate, Sancti Botulphi de Aldres-
gate ^' &c. It is therefore quite possible that the two churches, one in
Oxford and one in Gloucester, had originally some designation of this
kind. Supposing at Oxford the church had been called St. Martin at
Aldgate, it might have been shortened, just as St. Martin's at Carfax is
commonly called in conversation Carfax Church ; and were it not for
written documents the name of this dedication would thus very likely
have been lost. In the state of things at the Conquest it is quite pos-
sible that the church was called the Aldgate Church, and the Normans
thought Aldgate (or as it was softened Aldate) to be the name of a saint ^
There is, of course, no written evidence of this, for if the original name
before the Conquest had been enrolled in documents it would not have
been forgotten, and the error would not have happened. All that can
be said is that this view is as probable as that a church in Oxfordshire
should be dedicated in the eleventh or twelfth century to a saint
utterly unknown, and of which, amidst the numerous martyrologies,
no writer should ever have attempted a history. One thing may be
taken as certain, and that is, it was not originally dedicated to the
fanciful Eldad * of Geoffrey of Monmouth, since his romance was not
* Hall and Pinnell's map of the city of Gloucester, 1780, and Longmate's map
of Oxford, 1773, which accompanies Peshall's edition of Antony a Wood, In
Speed's map of Gloucester it is curiously spelt St. Aldame's.
^ Munimenta Gildhallae Londonic7isis, Rolls Series 1S60, vol. ii. pp. 22S-30.
Sometimes the names are singular ; for instance, Sancti Nicholai Aldrethegate ad
Macellas, Sancti Nicholai Olof (and this occurs elsewhere as S. Nicholai Bernard
Olof), Sanctae Mariae de Eldemariechirche, &c.
^ There is room for suspicion that the Est-rig-hoiel (? Est-bricg-hoiel) on the
first folio of the Gloucestershire Domesday (fol. 162 a, col. i), where the Castcllum
was built by William, was corrupted to S. Briavels, and hence was the origin of
that saint's name.
* By the Abingdon chronicler writing ' Aldad Bishop' it looks almost as if he
had in his mind Geoffrey of Monmouth's Eldad of Gloucester. He had evidently
read the romance, as in the beginning of his chronicle he speaks of Brutus, of
Faganus and Divianus, and of the burial of Lucius at Gloucester, &c. In the
charters the name is written simply Ecclesia Sancti Aldaii or Aldathi.
DESCRIPTION OF OXFORD IN DO MRS DA V SUR VE Y. 295
issued till 11 25 and a previous existence of the church is implied.
In all early cases the first syllable is Aid, and when we find corrup-
tions in later times it is S. Olds or S. Tolds » ; no trace of S. Eldad
ever having been written exists.
Thus much then for three churches out of the eight which arc
mentioned for the first time in the somewhat doubtful charter as con-
firmed to S. Frideswide's Monastery. It has been thought that such
dedications as S. Mildred and S. Eadward belong rather to the times
when S. Aebba, the sister of S. Oswald ^ was chosen by the com-
munity at Ensham as the saint in whose memory to dedicate their
church; and this may be so ; and if S. Aldate is a corruption of Aldgate,
as has been suggested, the fact would still point to a church having
been in existence on the spot sometime before the close of the eleventh
century.
Of the remaining five churches, namely All Saints', another S. Peter's,
another S. Michael's, and a chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity
close to the east gate, and one to S. Clement on the other side of
the river Cherwell, nothing can be said which points to their being of
an earlier date than the twelfth century, nor on the other hand that they
were founded afterwards. The buildings themselves offer no remains
whatever. All Saints', and S. Peter's in the Bailey of the Castle, were
entirely rebuilt from the ground in the eighteenth century, and the
latter of the two re-erected on another site in the nineteenth century,
while the little chapel of S. Clement's, which gave way to a four-
teenth century church, standing just on the other side of Magdalen
bridge, and in the middle of the eastern road out of Oxford, as S.
Mary Magdalen's stood in the middle of the northern road, was wholly
cleared away at the beginning of this century, and another church
erected in the fields. Of Trinity Chapel, and of the other S. Michael's,
even the exact sites may be said to be unknown, and it is not clear
whether the latter was built over the gate or adjoining to it.
^ In the English version of the Oseney Chartulary before referred to (p. 207),
amongst the signatures to a charter dated 1226 there is one translated 'Reginald
Chapelyn of ye church of Seynte Oolde of Oxford' (folio 14 b).
2 Beda, Hist. Eccl. Lib. IV. cap. 19, mentions her as the abbess of Coldingham.
She died in 683. It is Florence of Worcester wlio supplies the name of her
parents {Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 533). At the same time the martyrologists seem to
have mixed up two stories together in the lives they write of this saint. There was
another St. Ebba an abbess of Coldingham who lived in the ninth century, when
her house was attacked by the Danes. It is impossible to say to which of these the
monks of Ensham intended to dedicate their church. One other cliurch in Oxford-
shire, namely Shelswell (now destroyed), was dedicated in her honour, and also
Ebbchester in Durham. No others are known.
296 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.
There is another church of which the name may be thought to carry
the foundation back as far at least as the eleventh century, namely, that
of S. Budoc. It does not seem to have been under the charge of any
monastery, or we should have probably learnt something more about
it. The chief references definitely to the church itself are in the early
part of the thirteenth century. In 1206 we find that William the
chaplain of Oxford has letters of presentation directed to the Lord
Bishop of Lincoln for the church of S. Budoc in Oxford \ Later on
we learn the story how, during the Barons' wars, the church being in
the way of the fortifications of the castle, the King had it pulled down,
but Henry III. rebuilt it apparently on another site ^. There are how-
ever one or two incidental references to houses in S. Budoc's parish
in the twelfth century amongst the Oseney charters from King
Stephen's reign onwards.
To the question as to who S. Budoc was, no very satisfactory
answer can be given. It is easy to imagine some Cornish saint after
whom S. Budoc's or Buddock near Falmouth ^, and S. Budeaux (in
Devonshire) near Plymouth* are supposed to be named, yet no reason
could be well assigned for a church in Oxford being dedicated to a
Cornish saint. If the name had been S. Judoc, the saint of Brittany who
died about 658, and was much honoured in some parts of Normandy
and in Picardy at this time^, it would have been easy to have imagined
that some of the Conqueror's followers erected a little church outside
the West gate, either for travellers arriving in that direction, or for the
population which had sprung up outside the town in that part. As it
is, we must perhaps fall back upon the obscure Cornish saint, who
seems to be known only from the two places which appear to bear his
^ Rotiili Literartim Patenthim, anno 7° John, Memb. 7. The writ is dated,
apparently at Basing by the king^ May 6, I2c6.
^ Rotuli Literartim Clausarum, 6° Henry III, Membs. 10 and 3, and 7",
Membs. 21 and 7.
^ ' And thus within the space of half a mile I cam to S. Budoctis Church. This
Budocus was an Irisch man and cam into Coniewalle and ther dwellid.' — LelancTs
Itinerary, Hearne's ed. vol. iii. p. 14.
* ' A four mile npper a creke going up to Mr. Budokes side where is his Manor
Place and S. Budok Chirch ' (ibid. Heame's ed. vol. iii. p. 30). Wood apud Peshall,
p. 29S, refers to Oudoceus (which he spells Biidoceus), the son of a king of Brittany
whom Godwin gives as Bishop of Llandaff circa 560. Also to a certain Bodo. As
to Budic, or Budec, Geoffrey of Monmouth (Bk. vi. cap. 8) introduces the name
into his story as a king of Brittany who received Aurelius, Ambrosius, and Uter
Pendragon when they escaped for fear of being killed by Vortigem, but he does not
name Budoc.
* Orderic Vital, one of the chief historians of this time, devotes several pages to
a life of S. Budoc. His monastery of S. Evroult had acquired the old church
where his relics were preserved, and they had been twenty-four years at the time of his
D ESC RIP TION OF OXFORD IN DO MRS DA Y SUR VE V. 297
name. The church does not now exist, and even the exact site can-
not be identified \ while the parish has been wholly absorbed by
S. Ebbe's. So that whether it existed before the close of the eleventh
century, or did not come into being till the twelfth, there are no means
of ascertaining.
And there is a possibility of still another church having been in
existence before the close of the century, and that is S. Cross.
We have no mention of the church in records as existing in the
eleventh century, and only indirectly in the twelfth, but there is an
architectural feature belonging to the church, namely the old chancel
arch, which speaks, as plainly as the records, of a date, certainly very
early in the twelfth, and probably in the eleventh, when the structure was
erected. The Domesday Survey mentions S. Peter's Church, and that
alone as existing in Robert D'Oilgi's manor ; hence it may fairly be
argued that at that time the church was not built ; but then it must be
remembered that Robert D'Oilgi lived some three or four years after
the Survey was made, and there were still nine or ten years to the end
of the century, during which time, as the population on Holywell
manor increased, his brother Nigel, or perhaps his heir, Robert D'Oilgi
the younger, who later on was so munificent to Oseney Abbey, would
have gone on with work which was begun, and would not have allowed
those outside the wall no more than those within to be long without
a church. Still it must be remembered that the evidence rests upon
a single architectural feature, and that though this points to a date
within the eleventh century, it is to one quite at the close of it.
There is little to be said beyond what has been already said as to
the streets. It is not till late in the twelfth century that we begin to find
them called by name. Early in that century, for instance, we find the
following reference to a house which had belonged to the manor of
Tadmarton, which was situated ' m via scilicet qua itur a Sancti
writing (i. e. 11 16) in rebuilding it. At the same time the Hyde Abbey Chronicle
declares that the relics were brought over in 903 to the new minster at Winchester.
S. Judoc's father was a king of Brittany, and it may be that Geoffrey of Monmouth
took his name of Budec from Judoc, and it is quite possible that a confusion arose
in the nomenclature, though in the ordinary change of words Judocus would not
get into Budocus.
1 The most probable site was in the angle formed by the road which skirted the
castle ditch on the southern side and the stream, since in one of the Oseney charters
reference is made to a property extra portam occidentalem, in Parochia S, Budoci.
If it stood in the middle of this road, as S. Mary Magdalen Church stood, it would
have been in the way of fortifying the castle on this side, and Falk de Breaute, who
had not much respect for churches, would have demolished it when he was
preparing the castle against siege.
298 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.
Michaelis ecclesia ad castellum! This was practically what is now
represented by New-Inn-Hall Street, but was part of that continuous
street which went all round the town within the walls. . By degrees
this road was gradually blocked. As early as Henry the First's
reign, and when Bishop Roger of Sahsbury was chancellor (1101-3),
if we can trust the Frideswide Charters, the king grants to them the
way which goes along the wall of the city of Oxford, so far as their land
reaches, and that they may enclose the said way, and that they may
close or obstruct all the entrances of the whole of their priory, &c.^
In the next century (1244) the Grey Friars were allowed to enclose
the inner road for a considerable distance, in another part of the
southern wall in St. Ebbe's parish ^ And so it was continued, some-
times small portions being enclosed by individuals, sometimes large
portions being enclosed by colleges, e. g. Merton, Exeter, and New,
until now only here and there traces of such a street are left.
The four streets meeting in the centre must have existed, but we do
not know how they were called ; and it is not till we come to the charters
of the Abbeys of S. Frideswide, Oseney, &c., of the twelfth century, and
mainly of the latter part of that century, that we find any reference to
the streets into which the central part of the city was divided.
It has already been mentioned that Robert D'Oilgi built the bridge