Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A43253
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The legend of St. Cuthbert with the antiquities of the Church of Durham / by B.R., Esq.
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Hegge, Robert, 1599-1629.; R. B. (Richard Baddeley)
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1663
(1663)
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Wing H1370; ESTC R15307
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20,137
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102
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S. t CUTHBERT THE LEGEND OF St. CVTHBERT WITH THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE Church of DURHAM By B. R. Esq LONDON Printed for Christopher Eccleston at his shop in St. Dunstans Churchyard 1663. The PROLOGVE THough much of the ensuing Discourse be no more consistent with common Reason and probability the the Fables in the Alchoran and so cannot have any design of engaging the faith of the Reader to the veritie of the relations yet things of this nature giving some shaddow of satisfaction to the mind and being free from any real prejudice to Vertue of Religion men thriftie enough in the expence of their time are not seldome content to allow some wast hours in reading them and perhaps with some profit and observation At that time when this Legend bears date Miracles were cheap enough and the credulous ignorance of the Vulgar was easily abused with religious impostures But howsoever such juggles may appear now to the eyes of the more generally knowing and undeceived world I should have charitie enough to believe that the antique invention of them was upon the accompt of promoting the esteem of Holy Religion were not the observation too palpably notorious that they all tended over much to the end of private gain or reputation to the Miracle-mongers Not that I call in question the reasonablenesse of that antient policy how ridiculous soever it appears now for he was no unwise or unlearned * Sir W. Raleigh man which said That the wisdom of one age is the foolishnesse of another Who was the Author of this Book or when by him compiled or upon what accompt though probably for his own private divertisement I do ignore in an equal degree and am not able to give any other accompt thereof then what the Treatise it self affords Had he published it himself without any improbable conjecture it had passed censure with greater security the Author being a master of so much stile and language as the Book it self bespeaks him I am only instrumental in committing it to the Stationer and guilty of the vanity of this Prologue B. R. THE LEGEND OF St. CVTHBERT WITH The ANTIQUITIES of the Church of DURHAM HISTORY and PROPHECY set back to back make up the true Image of Janus whose two faces Time past and future honour as their Overseers In History Time lives after she is dead in Prophecy before she is born In the one she beholds what she was in the other what she will be But sith the Theorie of Time to come is the prerogative of a Deity Man must be modestly content with this blessing bestowed by History upon Mortality that through our Grandfathers eyes we may see what hath been This is all our sublunary Eternity if at the funeral of things History become the Epitaph and rescue their memories from the grave that entombs their ashes And this duty I owe to that Countrey where I had my Cradle to renew the decayed Epitaphs upon the Tombstone of her Antiquities Geographers deal with Countries even as Astronomers with their Asterisms and fancy them into shapes and resemblances so that by the liberty of phantasie Italy is compared to a mans legg Spaine to an Oxhide Britaine to an Hatchet I may liken the Bishoprick to the Letter Δ and Durham to a Crab supposing the City for the body and the Suburbs for the clawes This Countrey lyeth in the bosome of the Ocean and is embraced in the armes of two chrystal Rivers Teese and Derwen The antient Inhabitants in the time of the Romans were the Brigants in the Heptarchie of the Saxons they were called Deiri for the honour of which Province the Children thereof in the time of Aella being to be sold at Rome gave occasion of the replanting of Christianity by Angustine the English Apostle sent hither by Pope Benedictus at the entreaty of Gregory then Archdeacon of Rome who facetely alluding to the names of their Nation Province and King concluded ut Angli Angelis similes de irâ Dei eruerentur Allelujah cantare docerentur The first of the Saxon Kings who made conquest as well of Religion as Men that in this Province was dipt in the sacred Laver of Baptism was the renowned Oswald Qui Genti suae primitias sanctitatis dederit and is observed to be the first of the English Race that was illustrious by miracles This Prince sent once for a learned Monk out of Scotland Aidanus by name to convert his Subjects from Paganism and seated him in the Episcopal Chair of Lindisferne Anno Dom. 635. where while the Bishop taught in the Scotish tongue the King understanding both languages stood and interpreted his Sermons in English This great Monarch that great and pious Founder of the Church to whose womb all the Churches in the North owe their birth in a battel with a Pagan Prince lost his life and the day But with this advantage whiles Penda left him not a head to wear a Crown withall he received a more glorious Diadem of Martyrdom And as fury persecuting revenge after death tore his body in pieces so the devotion of Time dispersed the reliques to several places Nempe jacere Uno non potuit tanta ruina loco For whose sepulchre there was as great contention amongst the English Churches as in old time amongst the Graecians for the Cradle of Homer His Corps were brought to Lindisfern and from thence translated with St. Cuthbert his body to Durham Abbey His Arm was preserved in a Silver Casket at Bedburga or Bambrough not far seated from the Holy Island and at that time the great Metropolis of those parts This sacred Relique retained the blessing of Aidanus and was honored as a Monument of incorruption An History which to this effect by Beda is related That upon an Easter day as the King sate at dinner his servants told him that there was poor folk that expected alms at his gate who forthwith bid him both carry them meat and distribute the platter which was of silver among them with which fact of charity Aidanus who sate by him much delighted took him by the right arm with this hearty wish Never let this arm perish This glorious Martyrs death was the end of Aidanus life and the Pagans at one blow kill'd a Prince and a Bishop with sorrow who thought it a sin to live after so good a King was dead the Soul of which Bishop St Cuthbert happened to see in the dead of the night carried up with great melodie by a Quire of Angels into Heaven which vision so seized upon his affection that resolving upon an holier course of life he betook himself to the Monastery of Mailros built by Aidanus by the bank of Tweede and in his journey thither shewed a great specimen of his humility devotion and gratitude for being seized upon both by night and hunger he was forced to enter into an empty cottage where he found no other host for entertainment than a horse who eating and turning up
argued more pride than Religion 'T is true that an Hermit is either a god or a beast yet sith man is more symbolical with the one than the other it is easie to suspect which way the Metamorphosis will tend For if you would have the lively picture of an Hermit truly represented look upon Nebuchadnezzar in his curse when he was driven from men and did eat grasse as the Oxen when his body was wet with the dew of Heaven till his hairs became as Eagles feathers and his nails as the clawes of birds Thus therefore for an Hermit to excommunicate himself from being a holy Citizen of the World what is it else but to sin against the Common weal and definition of a man to whom society is as natural as to be a Creature so that whiles others think it devotion in him I shall rather think it a melancholy distemper Saint Cuthberts last Will and Testament directed to the Monks was to bury him at the East side of his Oratory in a Coffin that the Venerable Tuda gave him and for to wrap or winde his Corps in the sheet that Verâ—a Abbatesse of Tinmouth once sent him for a token which for the reverence of that Holy woman he had never worn in his life-time And lastly if they should be invaded by Pagans to carry his bones away with them Thus Saint Cuthbert Sainted himselt in his life-time and gave them notice what a precious Relique he should be when he was dead All these Petition were duely performed only at the request of the Monks he permitted that his body should be transported to Lindisferne where in St. Peters Church at the right side of the High Altar he was solemnly layd in a Tomb of Stone Now were the times when the Doctrine of Miracles begun to build Cburches and Religious Houses so to swarm and multiply that all England seemed but one great Monastery and called by the Pope Terra Sacerdotum But Time that hath the Sublunary World for her continual banquet hath so fed upon these antient buildings that some she quite devoured others pick'd to the bone and what she hath left for standing dishes Hostility hath quite eaten up and defaced besides that great Climacterical year when Henry the 8th durst incur those thundering Anathemata's which by the appointment of the Monks attended the violation of Abbey-lands Si de tot laesis sua numina quisque deorum Vindicet in poenas non sat is unuserit But I most bewail those Abbeys whose Names are buried in their ashes and their very ruines suffer the death of a Sepulcher and dye twice because they want a Monument that they lived Of these Monuments of Devotion that live the life of memory and belonged once to St. Cuthbert stood Collingham This Monastery consisted of Monks and Nuns over whom Ebba was some times Abbatesse who received her veyle of Finanus the second Bishop of the Holy Island Among the Bernicians likewise was the Episcopal seat of Hagustaldum or Hexam bestowed by King Alfred upon Saint Cuthbert which Malmesbury somewhat mistaken in the Scale of Miles placed but 50 miles from Yorke and commendeth for beauty of structure before any building on this side the Alpes In this Church sate 9 Bishops among whom the learned John of Beverley not to be named by an Oxford man without a preface of honour was advanced to that dignity by King Alfred and then swayed the Pastoral Staff till he was translated to Yorke In his younger yeares he was brought up according to the nobility of his birth under Hilda Abbatesse of Strenshall or Whitby in Yorkeshire of which shee was also Foundresse Afterward he was Scholar to the Genius of Learning Theodore of Canterbury who born at Tarsus is Cilicia was the first that brought Learning into England as well as Religion who bringing over with him Homer the first we read of in this Isle and other good Authors instructed many Famous Scholars in the Greek Tongue and Mathematicks where among the rest I find Saint Beda Herebald Whilfride and this John of Beverley who at the translation of the School of Crekelade which Theodore had there planted to Oxford was the first Master of Art in that Vniversity as it appreareth out of an antient Window in Salisbury Library under John of Beverleyes Picture And he that goeth higher to fetch the Antiquity of Oxford than from his time doth but grope in the dark This age of 800 years is enough to prove Cambridge the younger Sister till Lelands deduction will follow that Sigebert King of the East Angles founded that Vniversity because Bede and after him Malmsbury relate that he erected divers Schools in this Kingdom but in neither Author Grant or Cambridge is mentioned nor in any Writer since for 400. years after to be an Vniversity But to return with pardon to Saint Cuthbert who had now lyen Eleven years in his Sepulchre when the Monks thought by this time to take his bones disrob'd of flesh and put them among other reliques But whiles they opened his Coffin they start at a wonder they look'd for bones and found flesh they expected a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and saw an entire body with joynts flexible and his face so dissembling Death that else where it is true that Sleep is the image of Death here Death was the image of Sleep nay his funeral weeds were so fresh as if putrefaction had not dared to take him by the Coat This was rather to pay his debt to Heaven than to Nature that after he should restore his soul to God he should keep back the payment of his body from corruption This Miracle of incorruption Bede reports who was eleven years old at Saint Cuthbert his death in relating whereof he made no Lye but told one the History of whose Life and Death he writ and took upon trust from the information of the Monks of Lindisfern who had deflowred all the miracles of Saints in Holy Writ and bestowed them upon their Saint Cuthbert so barren brain'd Monks were they that would not invent new ones but such as were writ before to their hands for Adam could not be commander of the creatures in the state of innocency but St. Cuthbert also must have the savage beasts to do him homage Abraham could not entertain three Angels under on Oak but Saint Cuthbert must have Angels for his guests as the Monastery of Rippon The Children of Israel could not eat Manna and Angels food but Saint Cuthbert must have three Loaves bestowed upon him by an Angel which were baked in Paradise A Raven could not bring Elias flesh but an Eagle must bring Saint Cuthbert fish And here also this miracle hath an Idea in the Scripture that when his Mother sail'd with him from Ireland into Scotland the books of the Psalms fell into the sea which forthwith was swallowed up of a Sea calf and delivered to them at their landing Take but the Psaltes for a man and the Sea calf for