Excavations at St Austin's Abbey, Canterbury I. The Chapel of St Pancras. Excavations at St Austin's Abbey, Canterbury II. The Church of St Peter and St Paul

( 222 ) EXCAVATIONS AT ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTEBBUBY. BY W. H. ST. JOHN HOPE, M.A. L—THE CHAPEL OF ST. PANCRAS. THE superior attractions of the cathedral church of Canterbury and of the monastic buildings adjoining it have led to the remains of the Abbey of St. Austin without the walls not receiving the attention they deserve at the hands of Churchmen and antiquaries. Yet it is to this site that we must turn for some of the most important evidence of early church building in this country, dating from the first days of the new mission introduced by Austin in 597. For the story of these early buildings we are indebted in the first place to the Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bseda, who mentions four churches in or near the city of Canterbury. Two of these Bseda states were already in existence when Austin came to Britain. "There was," he says, " near the same city on the east a church anciently built in honour of St. Martin while the Romans still dwelt in Britain, in which the Queen (Bertha), whom we have beforesaid was a Christian, had been wont to pray. In this (church) therefore they themselves (i.e. Austin and his companions) also began to meet, to sing, to pray, to say masses, to preach, and to baptize, until the King (iEthelbert) having been converted to the Faith, they received greater licence to preach everywhere, and to build and restore churches." We are next told by Bseda that " when Austin received the episcopal seat in the royal city (as we have beforesaid), he recovered therein by the King's assistance a church which he had learned was built in that same place bj the ancient labour of Eoman believers, and ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 223 he hallowed it in the name of the Holy Saviour our God and Lord Jesus Christ, and established in the same place a habitation for himself and his successors. Moreover," Bseda goes on to say, " he made also a monastery not far from the same city towards the east, in which, by his persuasion, iEthelbert built from the foundations and enriched with divers gifts the church of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, in which the bodies both of Austin himself and of all the bishops of Durovernum, as well as of the Kings of Kent, could be placed." The fourth church is only mentioned incidentally by Bseda in the account of a fire at Canterbury during the episcopate of Mellitus, the third bishop from Austin, who was a sufferer from the gout and died in 624. On the occasion of this fire, Bteda says "no small part of the city had already been devastated, and the raging flame was advancing towards the bishop's house, when the bishop, trusting in the divine aid when the human failed, ordered himself to be carried to meet the raging masses of fire flying hither and thither. There was in the same place where the attack of the flames raged most fiercely a church (martyrium) of the blessed Four Crowned ones. The bishop being carried there by the hands of his servants, he an infirm man began to avert by praying the danger which a strong band of brave men had not been able to by much labour." Of these four churches we are now concerned only with the third, that of St. Peter and St. Paul without the walls. The foundation of it outside the city is a curious survival of the Roman tradition forbidding intramural interments, which were not allowed in the cathedral church of Canterbury until the consecration of archbishop Cuthbert in 740. Although we have no such architectural description of it as Eadmer's account of Christchurch, the fact of the abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul being tbe burial place of kings, archbishops, and abbots has preserved many notices of it in the records of their places of sepulture. From these we learn that it had its high altar towards the east, and on each side of its nave a porticus or chapel, in the northern of which Austin and his five immediate successors were buried. As 224 EXCAVATIONS AT we are told there was not room for any more, this porticus cannot have been very large. In the southern chapel were buried Queen Bertha, King iEthelbert, and bishop Letard, as well as King Eadbald and some of his successors. To the east of the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, and separated from it by the monks' cemetery, was a second church or chapel built in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Eadbald the son of iEthelbert, in expiation of his sins. The date of this church must fall between iEthelbert's death in 616 and 618, when the second abbot Jolm was buried in it. For this account and the later history of the abbey we are chiefly indebted to one of the monks, William. Thorn by name, who wrote a chronicle of it from its foundation down to 1397. The two churches of St. Peter and St. Paul and of Our Lady appear to have stood until about 1059, when the then abbot Wulfric, being desirous of making more room for shrines and relics, pulled down the east front of the abbey church and the western part of Our Lady's chapel, and having purged the cemetery between them, began to connect the two by new building. But the work was stopped by Wulfric's death in 1059, and remained unfinished until after the election of abbot Scotland in 1070. Scotland decided to pull down Wulfric's work and to build upon the whole of the site of Our Lady's chapel. He accordingly translated the relics of all who had been buried in it and constructed in the same place a. crypt to the Blessed Virgin, over which were erected the shrines of Austin and his fellows. Abbot Scotland, who died in 1087, is said to have finished the new work from the abovesaid oratory of the Virgin as far as the porch of St. Austin, in which he rested of old time. The abbey church was completed by Wydo, Scotland's successor, and so far as we at present know, continued down to the Suppression. The monastic buildings stood to the north of the church, with the outer court and principal gatehouse to the west, and the infirmary and its adjuncts on the east. To the south of the abbey lay the lay-folk's cemetery, as at Christchurch, and entered like that by its own gatehouse. ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 225 At the east end of the cemetery, and in a direct line with iEthelbert's church of St. Peter and St. Paul and Eadbald's chapel of the Blessed Virgin, was a third building of equally early date, the chapel of St. Pancras, which forms the subject of this paper. On the Suppression of the Abbey of St. Austin, as it had come to be called, on 30th July 1538, the site and precinct were reserved for tbe King, who proceeded to pull down the great church and to convert the abbot's lodging- and other buildings into a residence for himself.* But this afterwards shared the fate of the church, and by the middle of the seventeenth century, if we may judge by old engravings, the church of St. Peter and St. Paul and the monastic buildings bad been reduced almost to their present fragmentary condition. The buildings in the outer court adjoining the great gate had been converted into a house, which was for some time the residence of the "Wotton family. But the whole site gradually became more and more degraded, and Hasted, in his History of Kent, published in 1799, says : " So little is the veneration paid at this time to the remains of this once sacred habitation, that the principal apartments adjoining the gate-way, are converted into an ale-house; the gate-way itself into a brew-house, the steam of which has defaced tbe beautiful paintings over it; the great court-yard is turned into a bowling green; the chapel and isle of the church on the north side, into a fives court j and the great room over the gate, into a cock-pit."f In 1845 this portion of the precinct, which formed the old outer court, was bought by the late Mr. A. J. B. Beresford-Hope, F.S.A., and given by him for the site of a missionary college. This College of St. Augustine was thereupon established in the remaining buildings, to which new ones were added for the accommodation of the students. The sites of the cloister and frater, and of the kitchen and kitchenyard to the north of them, have since been included in the College property. * The priories of Dartford and Eochester were similarly treated, apparently to form, with the palace at St. Austin's, a series of posting houses for the King's use between London and Dover. t Vol. iv. 662, note b. VOL. XXV, . 226 EXCAVATIONS AT The lay-folk's cemetery had previously been sold by Sir Edward Hales, bart., the then owner, for the site of the Kent aud Canterbury Hospital, which was begun in 1791 and opened in 1793. The present hospital, which is the old one with additional wings, fortunately stands clear of any old buildings, immediately to the south of the nave of the abbey church. Tbe ruins of the nave and the greater part of its site are within the hospital grounds. East of the hospital is a square, flat-topped mound, now covered with large trees, on which formerly stood the abbey belfry. The rest of the site of the monastery is represented by a field of about three acres, till lately occupied as a farm-yard, lying to the north of the hospital and east of the college. The buildings that once almost covered it have all been swept away, and only a few fragments of rubble walling and the irregularities of the surface remain to tell of their existence. They included the central tower, the north and south transepts, and all the eastern part of the abbey church, with its crypt and flanking chapels and the site of St. Austin's shrine; the chapter-house (where most of the abbots were buried) and other buildings extending northwards from the transept; and tbe monks' infirmary, an establishment of some size, with a great hall, chapel, etc. The ruins of the early Saxon chapel of St. Pancras are in the south-east corner. Besides this chapel of St. Pancras, the field also covers the site of Eadbald's chapel of Our Lady; and of the eastern part of JEthelbert's church of St. Peter and St. Paul. The western part of this stood upon a triangular piece of ground already belonging to St. Augustine's Oollege. Various attempts have been made within recent years, but without effect, to rescue this historic site from its deplorable condition, and commit it to the safe keeping of some corporation representing the English Ohurch which here had its very beginnings. During the present year (1900), however, under the provisions of the will of a late owner, the field had to be sold. A strong effort was at once made to secure it, and through the ff£d ft P. Iff» * Sun, 8. P«r«i«ol S(r«(, Bottom, U.C. ^ e UK .*_S_fv. *v*^_. • Ik . K&' sss*- A . v. fe dSS? CANTERBURY-3T. PANCRAS. GENERAL VIEW. LOOKING EA8T. ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 227 exertions of the Rev. C. F. Routledge, F.S.A., Hon. Oanon of Canterbury, a sufficient guarantee fund was raised for the purpose. The property was eventually put up to auction, and has now passed into the ha.nds of four Trustees, who are Lord Northbourne, Canon Routledge, Mr. F. Bennett- Goldney, and myself, on the understanding that the site shall first be carefully excavated for tbe remains of the abbey church and buildings, particularly of the three Saxon churches, and then finally transferred to St. Augustine's College. Since the land did not actually come into our possession until 11th October, it was rather late to begin any excavation on a large scale, but as a considerable sum bad already been given for excavation purposes, over and beyond the purchase money, it was decided to undertake the exploration of the chapel of St. Pancras. The ruins of this had long been desecrated, and the greater part of the nave was covered by the wreck of a cottage, which was standing early in the last century. The area of the chancel had been excavated to a considerable depth and covered with chalk to form a comfortable bed for swine, who here lay sheltered by a roof of rough timber and hopbine. Another foul shelter of like construction abutted on tbe west end of the cottage. A clearance having first been made of these and other objectionable features, the work of excavation was begun on Monday, 5th November, under the direction and supervision of Oanon Routledge and myself, and continued until the end of the week. Owing to the direction of the wall dividing the properties, and to the fact that the cottage doorway was on the south side, the site of the cottage had passed into the possession of the Kent and Canterbury Hospital with the land sold by Sir Edward Hales. The chancel and north half of the nave of St. Pancras are therefore on our land, while tbe southern half of the nave belongs to the Hospital. The Hospital Committee, however, of which Canon Routledge is fortunately the Chairman, most kindly waived all objections, and we were accordingly able to demolish the cottage walls and make a complete clearance of everything encumbering . 2 228 EXCAVATIONS AT the site of the chapel. This has now been properly excavated down to the floor level, and for the first time we are able to speak definitely concerning the plan and architectural history of one of tbe oldest Saxon churches in this country. As at first planned the chapel consisted of an apsidal chancel or presbytery, apparently about 26 feet long and 25 feet wide, and a nave 42 feet 7 inches long and 26 feet *1\ inches wide. In the intervening wall was a colonnade of four Roman columns. The two central were about' 9 feet apart and carried an arch; the side openings were only 4 feet wide, and it is uncertain whether the columns carried arches or flat lintels. Of these columns the southernmost retains its base and a portion of the shaft, and is standing to a height of 3 feet. The next has gone, but the bed on which it stood is plainly visible, as well as a cast of the south side of the base and of the shaft above. On the north side the wall is ruined nearly to the floor, but we found in front of it fragments of a third shaft, and the upper portion of one retaining the half-round necking or astragal from which the capital rose. The diameter of the. columns at the' base was 16£ inches, which gives a probable height of 11 feet. Allowing 6 inches for the thickness of tbe impost this would give a total height for the central arch of about 15| feet. The side openings if arched would be 13£ feet high. Tbe columns were undoubtedly taken from some Roman building of a good period and carefully put together again. The remaining section for example consists of (a) the square base block, (b) the moulded base, and (c) tbe length of shaft rising from it. The fragment lately found of the upper part of a column shews a marked diminishing upwards to the astragal. The chapel had a wide west doorway, at first 7 feet 8 inches across, but this was narrowed to 6 feet 6 inches after the walls had been carried up about 3 feet.* It was flanked by bold pilaster buttresses of 14£ inches projection, and there were pairs of like buttresses at the western corners of the nave and an intermediate one in the middle of each side wall. The chancel walls ran straight for 10 feet as far as a * This doorway was further narrowed to 2 feet 7_ inches about 1120 by the nsertion within it of another doorway with a stepped sill. CANTERBURY. BASE OF ROMAN COLUMN.ST PANCRAS. SECTION ONE HALF FULL SIZE. DIAM. OF COLUMN .'.4/,* 9E0RGE E FOX. MAY, 1893 C F.KELL. & SON,LITH.8 FUBNIVAL ST HOLBORN, E.C. ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 229 similar buttress on each side, beyond which the apse began. Tbe apse itself has been entirely destroyed to make room for a later square-ended chancel, with the exception of the small fragment on each side shewn on the Plan. As these sections are apparently without curvature, and there are no traces whatever of foundations for a considerable distance from the present east wall, the apse must have taken approximately the form indicated on the Plan. Some slight traces of walling were found on this line in the south-east angle, and. it must also be noticed that an apse of similar form terminated the Saxon church at Rochester built by Ethelbert in 604* To this first simple plan of an apse and nave, in which the Rochester example also agrees with it, there have been added a western porch and north and south chapels. The porch was built up against the pilasters flanking the nave doorway, and was 9£ feet wide and 10| feet projection internally. Its north wall is still standing to a height of over 11 feet, and retains the impost and springing of the western arch of entrance. This was 6 feet 4£ inches wide, and 7 feet 8^ inches high up to the impost, which was formed of two projecting courses of brickwork 4 inches thick. The arch was therefore about 11 feet in height. The side walls extended 16 inches beyond the entrance to form flanking pilasters or buttresses, like those on either side the nave doorway. North and south buttresses were also begun on the line of the arch, but they seem to have been abandoned in the building before they had been carried up far, and the finished portions cut away. The foundations or lowest courses of both remain. Of the side chapels, or porches, as they should be called, only the lower portion of the southern is left, but the other certainly existed, for the blocked doorway into it may be seen, and the abuttal of its walls against the nave is plainly marked by the external plastering abruptly ceasing where the walls should come, and continuing beyond them.f * See the plan in Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XVIII. 261. t A foundation wall has since been unoovered on tho line of its western wall, but there are uo signs of corresponding foundations on the north aud east sides. 230 EXCAVATIONS AT The side porches were exactly similar in length and breadth to the western porch, and the surviving one had its side walls prolonged in the same way as buttresses. The absence of buttresses at right angles to these may shew that the western porch was begun before the others, and that its cross buttresses had then been abandoned. The porches do not seem to have had any outer doorways, but were entered from the nave by openings 39 inches wide inserted when they were added. The insertion of these doorways necessitated the cutting away of the external buttresses at the same point. All the doorways run straight through the walls and have no rebates for doors, which must have been hung from wooden frames wedged into the openings. At the same time as the porches were added the side openings of the colonnade between apse and nave were walled up with brick, perhaps because the central arch shewed signs of weakness. It will be seen from the Plan that at a much later period this same gable was strengthened by buttresses of some size and projection. As the nave walls are now for the most part reduced to from 12 to 20 inches above the floor line, and in the south porch to 33 inches, it is difficult to say anything as to their upper works or window openings. We found large masses of fallen wall lying on the floor and outside the building, just as they had been thrown down at the destruction of tbe chapel after the Suppression. They have of course been left where found, but those outside have not yet been fully examined. The masses within the chapel shew no traces of windows, but tbey have furnished other unexpected evidence which goes far towards unravelling the story of the building. The chapel was constructed throughout of Roman bricks, hardly any of which are whole, evidently taken from some destroyed Roman building, perhaps the same that furnished the columns. In two places, one on either side of tbe nave, the usual regularity of the courses is broken by a rude attempt at herring-bone work. Many of the bricks have the characteristic Roman pink mortar adhering to them, and lumps of the same mortar are also used here and there for sefe '. _! P»fe*5_ •«k •••___- • C P. IT#H * Saw, B. p«TNt_tiI Street, H„lb»n,, K.r. ; CANTERBURY-ST. PANCRAS. PART OF ARCADE BETWEEN APSE AND NAVE, WITH ROMAN COLUMN. ST. AUSTIN^ ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 2B1 building material. A fallen fragment of the east wall of the nave fortunately contains a segment of the chancel arch. This was turned entirely with brick, as were probably the other arched openings. The walls were faced with a fine white plaster, which may or may not be original, bearing traces of whitewash. But an examination of the mortar yields the most valuable evidence. The standing portions of the nave and chancel are built throughout of a distinctive bright yellow mortar, which is also found in the fallen portions of the chancel and in the mass with the bit of chancel arch. Tbe west and south .porches, on the other hand, and the blocking of the colonnade, are built with a perfectly white mortar having a considerable mixture of clean gravel, the difference in colour and character being very marked. Under ordinary circumstances such a difference would not only point to a distinct interval in time, but justify the conclusion that the porches, etc. had been added to an older building. Such a conclusion would also be strengthened by the fact that the fallen mass with the fragment of the chancel arch has the yellow mortar, as have two other masses lying in line with it. But the other pieces further west, which can only have fallen from the nave walls, since they lie upon its-floor, and not from the porches, are clearly built with the white mortar. Further, an examination of the west wall where it joins the porch shews distinctly that for about three feet up the nave wall has the yellow mortar, and the porch the white; while above that point not only does the straight joint between nave and porch become a true bond, but the walls were both carried up with the white mortar .alone. The evidence is therefore conclusive (i) that the chapel was first planned with an apse and nave only; (ii) that when they were begun, yellow mortar was used in their construction; (iii) that the apse was probably completed, together with the east end and perhaps the eastern parts of the side walls of the nave, all with tbe yellow mortar; (iv) that a pause occurred in the building when the west part had been carried only a few feet up; (v) that when the work was resumed the porches were added to the plan, the 232 EXCAVATIONS AT weak east wall strengthened by walling up the side openings, and the chapel completed, all the new work being laid with the white mortar. There is of course nothing to indicate the length of tbe pause in the building or the cause of the change in the mortar, but the interval can hardly have been a long one. The chapel no doubt had a wooden roof, and was paved with a floor of white cement, 6 inches thick. A good fragment of this remains against the north wall, with a surface coat of a pinkish colour, but this is so thin as to be readily scratched with a shovel and shew the white underneath. Upon this floor in medieval times was laid a pavement of tile pavers 4 | inches square, alternately yellow and black or dark green, portions of which remain here and there. Against the south wall is a low rubble bench table, which extends eastwards from the blocked door of the south porch into the angle and returns along tbe east wall as far as the chancel arch. This same corner of the chapel seems also to have been enclosed in later times as a chapel. Part of the western step of this remains, with a rebate for a tread of tiles, which were of an ornate character. At some period late in the fourteenth century the apsidal chancel was taken down and replaced by a square-ended one 30 feet long and 20 feet wide, of two bays, and large buttresses were added to strengthen the eastern gable of tbe nave. A chamber, perhaps one of a series, with a fireplace and a western door, was added about the same time on the north. The new chancel had a large east window, the arch of which is left. In the south wall are a piscina and a fourcentred arched recess for the sedilia, over which are traces of a window. There was also a window opposite, and probably others in the western bay. The floor has been entirely destroyed, through the area of the chapel having been excavated to a depth of nearly 3 feet to form a pig-sty. The portion of the site of the chapel within the Hospital grounds was partly explored in 1881 by Canon Routledge,* who opened out the western porch, the western doorway and south wall of the nave, and the south porch with its altar, * Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XIV. 103—107. M $ W**«.3_r* c r. Ken * ».,, 8. r.r.ir.i mr««(, Hoi»»™, K.C. CANTERBURY-ST. PANCRAS. __ __«l [ FN MASONRY WITH SEGMENT OF THE CHANCEL ARCH. THE NAVE. LOOKING WEST. SHEWING PIECE OF FALLEN MASONRY WITH stowe ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 233 together with the fragment of the apsidal chancel wall further east. As will be seen from the Plan, this has been cut away for a length of 7 feet from the nave and a later wall built parallel with it on the south, apparently at the same time as the rebuilding of the chancel. The recess thus formed was a grave, probably of some benefactor to the new work, whose name has yet to be recovered. The south porch was entered from the nave by a new doorway with marble step, inserted to the west of the old entrance, of the same date as the new chancel. Against the east wall is the block of an altar, 4 feet 6 inches long and 2 feet 34 inches wide. When first excavated by Mr. Routledge this had a tile floor on either side. In the south and west walls are two vertical chases about 2 feet 9 inches from the angle and 6 inches wide, extending upwards for 20 inches from the floor, apparently for the fixing of a wooden seat. I t has been suggested* that there were wooden steps here from an outer door at a higher level than the floor. But there are no traces of such a door, and drawings of the chapel made iu 1722 and again in 1755, when the porch walls were standing to a height of 11 or 12 feet, shew distinctly that there was no entrance on. either side of the angle. The north porch was perhaps taken away when the chancel was rebuilt, when both porch doorways were blocked and the new doorway made into the south porch. In the angle, formed by the west wall of the nave and the north wall of the western porch are the foundations of a chamber of medieval date, about 11 feet square, built up against the chapel. Its west wall is not parallel with the nave wall and seems to have continued further north. The chamber had plastered walls, and was paved with large tiles 9£ inches square, but there is nothing to indicate its use. The entrance into it was probably on the north. In the west end of the north wall of the nave was a very narrow doorway with a descent of three steps into the chapel, which may have communicated with the chamber outside. The chapel, or at any rate the nave of it, was roofed with thin red tiles at the time of its destruction. * Arahmologieal Journal, Iiii. 324... 234 EXCAVATIONS AT Prom this architectural description of the chapel it is now time to turn to its written history. Although the building, as its Plan shews, is of very ancient date, it is not mentioned by Bseda or any other early writer, and the oldest existing account seems to be that written towards the end of the fourteenth century by William Thorn, under the year 598 : " Moreover there was not far from that city towards the east about midway between the church of St. Martin and the city walls a temple or idol-place where King iEthelbert according to the custom of his people was wont to pray, and with his nobles to sacrifice to demons a,nd not to God; which temple Austin purged from the defilements and impurities of tbe heathen, and having broken in pieces the idol that was in it, he changed it into a church and dedicated it in the name of St. Pancras the martyr, and this was the first church hallowed by Austin. There is still an altar in the south porch of the same church at which the same Austin was wont to celebrate, where the image of the King formerly stood. While Austin was celebrating mass on this altar for the first time, the devil, seeing that he was driven forth from the house which he had for so long time dwelled in, strove to utterly overthrow the aforesaid church, the marks of which thing are still visible on the outside of the east wall of the porch aforesaid." This story of the beginning of St. Pancras is placed by the writer immediately after the account of the founding of Christchurch, but before that of the church of St. Peter and St. Paul. Seeing, however, that an interval of eight centuries separated the good monk from, the incident he relates, we must be careful not to build too much upon his story, and we know far too little about pagan Saxon temples to justify us in accepting all that is said about iEthelbert and his idol-place. What the building actually shews is that some Roman structure supplied the materials, and such might as well have been without the walls as within the city. The plan of Sfc. Pancras is beyond question not that of a temple, but of a Saxon church of very early type, having features in common with other early Kentish churches, X C. T. Krll V A n . ». P-nmjri.. SfrHt, Hotbar*. KC. CANTERBURY-ST. PANCRAS. THE SOUTH PORCH AND ITS ALTAR. ST. AUSTIN^ ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 235 including St. Martin's hard by, Rochester (founded 604), Lyminge (founded 633), and Reculver (o. 669), to which may be added those at Brad well, Essex (c. 653), and South Elmham, Suffolk, which Mr. Micklethwaite thinks was built for Pelix, first bishop of East Anglia 630 to 647. The balance of evidence is therefore all in favour of St. Pancras being a church actually built by Austin, perhaps for use during the erection of the larger church of St. Peter and St. Paul, which was still unfinished at bis death in 605, though founded in 598. But it will be safer for the present to suspend judgment on this and other points, since there is a possibility of the recovery before long of tbe plan of the church of St. Peter and St. Paul itself, and perhaps of that of Eadbald's chapel of St. Mary. There are still two other interesting items about St. Pancras recorded by Thorn. One is that Thomas Ickham, who was sacrist as early as 1358 and died in 1391, fecit capellam sancti Pancracij at a cost of 100 marks. This large sum was apparently spent, not on rebuilding but re-roofing the chapel. We learn from the other notice that in the year 1361 " on the night of St. Maurus the abbot, such a storm of wind arose that trees were prostrated and roofs and belfries thrown down, so that it seemed as if the whole fabric of the world was falling. During the tempest a certain chaplain of holy conversation, clad in a hair shirt night and day, and wasting his body with vigils, fastings, and prayers, Ralph by name, hoping that the danger threatening all at the time would decline, sat himself down in tbe chancel of the chapel of St. Pancras, as in the safest place, iuasmuch as the roof of the aforesaid chapel had been newly built. What more ? A great beam having been thrown down by the madness of the wind upon the image of the Blessed Virgin, the aforesaid priest, while bending before the image at his prayers, was killed, the image remaining unhurt, and he was buried in the chapel aforesaid under a marble stone before the rood." Many of the wills of the fifteenth century proved in tbe Consistory Court at Canterbury contain bequests to or directions for burial in the chapel of St. Pancras, which 236 EXCAVATIONS AT is usually described as "within the cemetery of tbe monastery of St. Austin outside the walls of the city of Canterbury," and the cemetery itself was also a favourite place of burial. One of these wills, that of Hamon Bele, dated 7th November 1492, contains a bequest of £3 6s. 8d. "ad reparacionem capelle Sancti Pancracii infra precinctum cimiterii Sancti Augustini ac ad reparacionem Capelle ubi Sanctus Augustinus primo celebravit missam in Anglia dicte Capelle Sancti Pancracii annexe." Bseda tells us that Austin and his companions first used St. Martin's church for their services, but here we see Thorn's account of what befell Austin when he first celebrated mass at the altar (primo missam celebraret) expanded into the statement that his first mass in England was said there. If a tale can thus grow in one century, we should be more than ever cautious in accepting without question a story eight centuries old. I t will be seen from the general Plan that the chapel of St. Pancras was really in the cemetery, and the wall which extends westward from the north side of the western porch is for the most part the medieval division between the cemetery of the monks east of their church, and of tbe layfolk to the south, an arrangement which had its parallel in the neighbouring monastery of Christchurch. POSTSCRIPT. Mr. Routledge has kindly furnished me with the following notes of some interesting discoveries made by bim in the western porch'. " At a depth of 15 inches below the tiled pavement were discovered some stone coffins, in one of which was a perfect skeleton, in the others fragmentary bones. The body in each case has been laid on the bare earth, then built round with stones accurately following its shape, and covered with large chamfered slabs of what looks like Portland oolite. "At the north-east corner of the porch, immediately against the west wall of the nave, was found a small leaden coffin, slightly over 2 feet in length, containing some detached P O R C H SOUOCOTL, as first planned and begun, to be built. Scucon additions to plan whilst in bud ding. )2 Century insertion, 14-*^& 15^ century cdteroLtions and additions C H A P E L OF ST PANCRAS. CANTERBURY. Scale of io 5 * 3 2 i o i- i i i i i ' i i i I !5 __±^ 20 25 _=____: Feet C FKELL« SON UTH.S. «JRNIVAL ST HOLBORH.E.C. WH ST JOHN HOPEJHENS.ET.DEL I902. C r. Krll If Sm Holbor*. KC. CANTERBURY, ST. PANCRAS. LEADEN PLATE AND CROSS FOUND IN THE WESTERN PORCH ( _ LINEAR). ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 237 bones of an adult, evidently relies. The inscription was unfortunately broken in pieces by the strokes of a workman's pickaxe. The fragments (which are still in the possession of Canon Routledge) are so small that it has heen impossible to decipher the inscription, but the word 'sacrum' is legible, together with portions of other words." Near one grave, against the south wall, there have lately been found (1) a thin plate of lead, 7 inches long and 2£ inches wide, inscribed : -h HIO IACET BeNBDICT' SACEEDOS SUE MAEGAEETE with ligulate and inscribed letters of the style of the twelfth century; and (2) a lead cross, 4£ inches wide, 4f inches high, and § inch thick, with a deeply cut transverse inscription in two lines: •I- BENEDICTVS | SACEEDOS. For notices of the discovery of other examples of these " absolution crosses," as they have been termed in England and France, see Archceologia, xxxv. 298, xxxvi. 266, and xxxvii. 37, 38. The lettering of Benedict's plate should be compared with that found in tbe grave of Archbishop Theobald in the cathedral church in 1787, engraved in Archceologia, vol. xv. pi. x. ( 238 ) EXCAVATIONS AT ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBUEY. BY THE EEV. C. E. ROUTLEDGE, M.A., E.S.A., HONOEABY CANON OF CANTERBUEY. II.—THE CHURCH OF SS. PETER AND PAUL. THE Trustees did not obtain possession of the site until 11 October 1900, when it was too late to attempt any extensive excavations.. It was, however, decided to uncover the remains of the early Saxon church or chapel of St. Pancras, which are partly in the newly acquired field and partly in the grounds of the Kent and Canterbury Hospital; and through the kind co-operation and courtesy of the Hospital authorities tbe church was fully explored from 5—10 November under the direction and supervision of Mr. W. H. St. John Hope and myself. The results are fully described in Mr. Hope's paper. I must preface this report by a warning that, owing to the incompleteness of the excavations under the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (which will probably not be finished before the autumn of 1903), the statements and opinions expressed, for which I alone am responsible, are of necessity somewhat conjectural, and liable to subsequent modification. The excavations were resumed in tbe spring of 1901, and carried on continuously during five months. The Trustees were fortunate enough to secure the assistance of Mr. George Hubbard as Honorary Architect, and of Mr, Sebastian Evans, whose careful continuous superintendence of the work, quickened and made fruitful by a zealous and intelligent interest, deserves our warmest thanks. Although more than £600 have already been expended, probably at least £1,000 more will be required before we can issue a final report on. DYGONS CHAPEL ALTAR\ CENTRALCHAPEL 0 0 o o I I iT t i i •" 19 J£_ 30 ROUGH GROUND PLAN OF EXCAVATIONS AT ST AUGUSTINE'S ABBEY. (CRYPT) ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBUEY. 239 the Architectural History of the Abbey Church and its surroundings; but enough has already been done to furnish a general outline of its leading features, and we were greatly aided in our researches by the well-known picture taken from Thomas of Elmham's MS. History of tbe Monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul, written about 1414, and preserved in the Library of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. The original picture measures 16 by 12i inches, and comprises the high altar with the shrines of the Saints and the apsidal chapels behind. The difficulties attending the excavation were much increased by the destructive vandalism of former years and a subsequent period of almost systematic neglect, accompanied by the ravages of time. There can be little doubt that, ever since the dissolution of the monastery and the temporary use of a portion of it as the palace of Henry VIIL, the ruins of the abbey have been looked upon as a profitable quarrying-place for stones, employed in the reparation of walls, pig-styes, and dwelling-houses in various parts of Canterbury. The whole of tbe eastern part of the church had been levelled to the ground, so that there were practically no remains of it visible ; a large deep hole had been dug down to the crypt for the purpose of extracting building material and (possibly) objects of interest and intrinsic value; and about twenty years ago earth was deposited on the site to the depth of many feet, taken from the ground devoted to the erection of a neighbouring brewery. This last unfortunate deposit has added enormously, not only to the labour of excavation, but also to the consequent expense. It would hardly be beyond the mark to calculate that it has already been necessary to remove hundreds of cart-loads of earth, at an expense of not much less than £200—a proceeding that would have been wholly unnecessary but for a gross act of carelessness, as the earth transferred from the brewery-site could just as easily and conveniently have been deposited in any other part of the Abbey field. We have' also found, as might have been expected, that graves have been disturbed, relics carried away, and shrines 240 EXCAVATIONS AT plundered, either at the dissolution of the Monastery in 1538, or owing to the avaricious policy of King James I., who in 1618 granted Letters Patent to certain persons therein named (of whose skill and industry he had received information) to discover, search, and find out treasure-trove, plate, jewels, copes, vestments, books, and the like, hid or supposed to be hid in various abbeys within his realm. Though the principal object of our investigation has been the unravelling of the mysteries of the great church itself, experimental holes have been dug here and there in the adjoining ground, and we have discovered distinct traces of the Chapter House, Dormitory, and (possibly) the Infirmary, a full report on which must be reserved for a subsequent article. I t will be clearly understood that the explorations have been chiefly made in the crypt, at an average depth of 11 feet from the surface of the field, but from them we can form a good idea of the main features of the eastern part of the church above. In the crypt is a large eastern apse with a surrounding ambulatory, out of which open a central and two flanking apsidal chapels (see Plan). Each of the flanking chapels is, at the nearest point, distant 17 feet 7 inches from the central one, and the chord of the whole apse is 67 feet. Tbe Central Chapel has been changed in shape internally by later alterations, so that it has almost lost its semicircular appearance. Across the extreme east of the arc runs a straight wall, with a door at the north end, forming a recess behind the altar, which may possibly have been used as a place of deposit for important relics, though a deep hole has been dug there without anything being found. The altar, a considerable part of which still remains, measures 5 feet 10^ inches by 2 feet 9 | inches, and is highly decorated with colour. (Was it perhaps that one dedicated to St. Mary, St. Michael, and St. Gabriel, which we know to have been in the crypt ?) There are some interesting paintings on the walls, some of them two or three layers deep. In the lowest layer is a representation of heraldic lions. On the south side of the chapel is a niche 1 foot 6 inches by 1 foot 3 inches, A* CENTRAL CHAPEL OF CRYPT. I rWA «.*".,!!_*•: NORTH APSIDAL CHAPEL. ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 24 1 and on the wall towards the north-east a deep recess 5 feet 10^ inches by 4 feet 6 inches. The chapel measures 11 feet in width at tbe entrance, and has a depth of 13 feet 1 inch to the cross wall mentioned above. Above this cbapel it is possible, though not undoubtedly proved, that there originally stood the shrine and altar of St. Austin, with the shrine of St. Laurence to the north and the shrine of St. Mellitus to the south, the two latter having been the immediate successors of St. Austin in the See of Canterbury. The North Apsidal Chapel, situated directly beneath the shrine of St. Mildred, is 9 feet 10 inches wide at tbe entrance, and has an extreme depth of 12 feet 3 inches. On one of its walls there are still evident extensive remains of painting. The altar, 5 feet 6 inches long by 2 feet 4 inches wide, rests on painted tiles. In front of it we discovered the component parts of an almost perfect skeleton which had once been enclosed in a wooden coffin, the iron nails and fragmentary pieces of wood being still distributed in the soil. The bones bad undoubtedly been disturbed and any valuable relics carried away. It is not an impossible conjecture that this altar was dedicated to St. Richard, and that the bones were those of Wido, tbe second Norman abbot (1087—99), who completed the work begun by Abbot Scotland, and finished the whole church in 1091. The South Apsidal Chapel is beneath the shrine of Adrian, who was abbot in 671---708. He had himself refused the Archbishopric of Canterbury, being content to be the friend and supporter of Theodore, and was a great benefactor to the abbey. The Chapel is 9 feet 6 inches wide at the entrance, and has an extreme depth of 12 feet 6 inches. I t contains a perfect altar (5 feet 1\ inches by 2 feet 3 inches), on each side of which is a Purbeck marble bracket 4 feet 2 inches above the tiled floor. There is an interestingaumbry to the east of the altar, measuring 3 feet 2 inches by 2 feet 9 inches, and on the western side a small cupboard recess, measuring 3 feet 2 inches by 2 feet 9 inches. Immediately in front of the altar was discovered a marble mensa or altar slab (4 feet by 2 feet 1\ inches), broken off at the corner, with the dedication crosses inscribed on it, and a small VOIJ. xxv, » 242 EXCAVATIONS AT insertion near the centre (measuring 1 foot 4 inches by 1 foot 1 inch), which perhaps contained some relic. This mensa belonged most probably to one of the altars in the upper part of the church. The ambulatory round the main apse has.an average width of 11 feet 4 inches. On the inner side of it are now visible the foundations and rubble work (most of the external facings having been removed) of eight massive pillars arranged in a semicircle, distant 4 feet 10 inches from each other, and still farther westward two small stone columns, distant 5 feet 3 inches from the adjoining pillars, and the same distance from each other. They seem to have formed two of the supports of the high altar above, which is fully described in Elmham's History, with its silver reredos, its reliquaries of Bishop Leotard and of King Ethelbert, and the six volumes of books sent by St. Gregory to St. Austin. Other columns may probably be discovered by further excavations to the westward. East of the Central Chapel of the apse is a rectangular chapel, measuring roughly 37 feet by 20 feet 9 inches (the western end of it being irregular owing to the obtruding apse), which was erected some time in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Almost in the middle of it was found the body of Abbot Jobn Dygon (1497—1509). His head was enclosed iu a large leaden painted mitre, and among the contents of the grave were a leaden chalice and paten, two finger rings, and a coffin plate with an inscription in Latin, which, after the usual complimentary remarks to be found in epitaphs, informs the reader that Dygon conferred so many benefits on the monastery that he could justly be called its second founder, and that he governed tbe Abbey thirteen years, two months, and nineteen days. It seems a sort of bathos to confess that the only preserved record of Dygon's history is that of his name as one of the guests who sat at the high table at the banquet given on the occasion of Archbishop Warham's enthronization in 1504. The use of lead in these articles seems to point to the great poverty of the monks in the reign of Henry ¥11. The rectangular chapel seems to have been enlarged about tbe close of the fifteenth century, perhaps by Abbot i - " . _. SOUTH APSIDAL CHAPEL. ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY, CANTERBURY. 243 Dygon himself. An exterior wall was erected, incorporating the existing buttresses, four on each side—tbe extra space thus acquired being 5 feet 2 inches wide—and the former wall would then have been pierced by arches, so as to afford access to the chapel from the surrounding added passage. Possibly this extension was made for the purpose of allowing pilgrims to pass round more easily, and view some special relics or shrines exhibited within. It has been suggested that the shrines of St. Austin, St. Laurence, and St. Mellitus may have been transferred there from their former position, when a direct communication was made between tbe rectangular chapel and the central apse of the great church. But there are some puzzling features connected with this part of the ruins, the solution of which must be left to a future period. The only other important discovery has been that of a sinall, graceful, apsidal chapel at the east of the northern transept, and the outer wall of the same transept, with a singular recess once decorated with painting. These, however, have only been partially explored. Amongst other relics found during the excavations were a gold noble of Edward III., a leaden seal formerly attached to a bull of Pope Alexander III. (1159—81), who canonized St. Tbomas of Canterbury, an enormous quantity of worked ashlar, carved marble fragments, and bits of porphyiy and serpentine mosaic, with some brightly painted stones and gilded pinnacles, apparently belonging to some rich shrine. B 2