Unfortunately for the early spread of the Gospel, King Edwin lost his life A. D. 633. while contending against the Mercians and the Cambro-Britains. The Christian instructors of Northumbria were then obliged to fly from the rapacity of the victors, and seek for refuge in other parts of the kingdom, while the converts easily relapsed into their former state of idolatry. But Northumbria was afterwards liberated by Oswald, a descendant of the rightful kings of that country. In his A. D. 635. flight to Scotland he had been taught the Christian religion by the monks of Hii; and having sent to them for a supply of missionaries, the Church of Northumbria acquired from him a greater state of stability. Christianity being also patronized by the wealthiest rulers of the land, some of the choicest estates were given to the support of the church. The lands in Lancashire between the Mersey and the Ribble were very early possessed by Thegns, " a species of nobility," as Mr Turner in his History of the Anglo-Saxons has defined them, "peculiar to these ancient times,-whose rank was attainable by all, even by the servile ;whose title was apparently attached to landed property, and descended with it ;and whose essential qualification was the proprietorship of territory." One of these Thegns possessed Manigceastre, as well as a considerable district of country around it; it was therefore most probably to him alone that the Kirk-man was indebted for the carucate of land recorded in the dom-boc. The estate bequeathed was situated immediately contiguous to the Den of Woden, converted into a Christian Temple, its medium of communication having been the shallow passage across the river Irwell, which, before the channel was deepened for navigation, had borne the name of Woden's Ford. It formed an islet named a Holme or Hulme, the appellation which the township now on its site bears at the present day. In old deeds it is more explicitly named THE KIRKMAN'S HULME. Traces of the streams by which the insularity was formed are still discernible. The Hulme or islet was constituted partly by the waters which flow in the vicinity of Mancastle, such as the Medlock, Cornebrook, and the expansions of the Tib, a current now nearly obliterated, and partly by the broader river of the Irwell, in which these minor streams were lost. In proportion as Christianity prevailed, the temples dedicated to Odin were 1823, but found that the owner of the ground had completely removed every vestige of the figures, and otherwise defaced the cave, with the provident view of saving his grounds from antiquarian trespasses. This is a sort of taste which can only be paralleled with the destruction of Arthur's Oven in Scotland, and Robin of Redesdale in Northumberland,-profanities that have invoked from a correspondent of the learned Dr Dryasdust a malediction which I am unwilling to repeat.-See the Dedicatory Epistle to Ivanhoe. gradually abandoned, and churches which had never been polluted by idolatrous sacrifices were erected in their room. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, exhorted the Thegns to erect and endow a competent number of churches within the precincts of their estates, and, with the view of stimulating their industry, he promised to secure to them and their heirs the right of patronage. At this period, then, it is highly probable that the church of St Michael, which occurs in the Doomsday Book, was first erected. Its consecration to a calendared saint was considered essential, being calculated to inspire a greater degree of reverence ;indeed, without this preliminary ceremony no temple could be used for divine offices. An annual festivous commemoration of the event named a wake or fair followed. This is still kept up in the immediate vicinity of Mancastle, where the church is supposed to have stood," although not a vestige of the ecclesiastical 8 Mr Whittaker has supposed that the church of St Michael, mentioned in the Doomsday Book as one of the two ecclesiastical buildings existing in Manchester in the time of the Conqueror, was indebted for its origin to the Christian missionaries who preached to the Roman Britons. On this hypothesis his inference is natural enough, that it would be resorted to by the early Saxon converts. But, unfortunately for this antiquary's speculations, there is an equal, if not far greater probability, that the church was founded at a much later period. Mr Whittaker has likewise speculated upon the construction of this early ecclesiastical building. But the discussion is an uninteresting one. The architecture of both the Britons and early Saxons was so barbarous, that it is perfectly immaterial to the historian whether the Saxons upon the dawn of Christianity repaired to some old neglected hovel which had been used as a British church, or erected a new edifice, equally rude, for themselves. The palace of the King of Northumbria was at this time nothing more than a large hall, built of unwrought stone or turf, with two opposite openings for doors, the roof being composed of branches of trees covered with straw or reeds, the hearth being placed in the middle of the floor, and an aperture in the centre of the roof for the transmission of the smoke :—what then is to be expected from the ecclesiastical buildings of the same rude period? Ancient writers inform us that the first Anglo-Saxon churches were, like those of the Britons who preceded them, constructed of wood or unwrought stone, and covered over with reeds or straw. h So named from the Saxon Feria, signifying a holiday. The holiday of the church was again named a wake, vigil, or eve, owing to the evening preceding a holiday being esteemed a part of it, when the services to the tutelar saint began. And as the new converts were encouraged, with the view of reconciling them to the loss of their pagan festivals, to meet in the church-yard, to erect booths of branches about the church, and to feast in them several days, provisions were naturally required for their entertainment. Little traders were thus induced to resort to these feasts for the purpose of vending their wares, until at length a fair began to be considered more in the light of a commercial mart than as a religious feast. Mr Whittaker has observed that "the feast of St Michael was not then, as it now is, placed towards the rear of the year. It was near the front of it, and very nigh to Easter. For the plough-alms are ordered by the council of Ænham The church and pa edifice, whence the custom has originated, now remains. i But Theodore not only prevailed upon the Saxon rulers to increase the number of churches in the country,—he likewise summoned a council of the English bishops, with their chief clergy, to meet him at Hertford, for the purpose of dividing too large bishoprics, of distributing each diocese into a proportionate number of churches, and of allotting each to the care of a resident clergyman. For the distribution of every diocese into parishes we are likewise indebted to this active prelate. All prior ecclesiastical boundaries had been found to be vague and indeterminate. Mr Whittaker has very properly remarked, that "as dioceses had been previously made commensurate with provinces, in like manner, parishes would now be made commensurate with baronies, the church being in the centre of them." The Thegn-land, and consequently the parish of Manchester, was origi in 1011 to be discharged within fifteen days after Easter, by the laws of Ethelrid more determinately on St Michael's day, and by the constitutions of Canute, the successor of Ethelrid, on the fifteenth day after Easter. In these days, therefore, Michaelmas was always within fifteen days, and was actually on the fifteenth after Easter Sunday; and on this day was the fair of Aldport originally celebrated. But as Aldport decayed, and the new town arose, the mart naturally lost its importance. It was still, however, observed as a festivity for the servants, under its former appellation of a fair, and would be so as long as St Michael's day continued a festival of the church and a day of vacation from labour. And, when this was abolished at the Reformation, that was naturally adjourned to the time on which it is now kept, the neighbouring holidays of Easter." i The evidence adduced by Mr Whittaker to show that St Michael's church was originally built in the immediate vicinity of Mancastle, where the Saxon thegn to whom it devolved would naturally take up his residence, is very satisfactory. I remember to have heard some years ago of human bones having been found in Aldport, indicative of the cemetery which, in very early times, was attached to the churches of our ancestors. If I do not forget, the discovery was made upon the occasion of stone pipes having been laid in the vicinity of Knott Mill. j "The Saxons," says Mr Whittaker, "like the Britons, had no city pre-eminent over the rest, and the general metropolis of the provinces would naturally, therefore, like them, have acknowledged no archiepiscopal authority. But the devotion of the converts to their apostle conferred the pre-eminence on him, and the compliment paid to the person was continued to the See of Augustine. And Canterbury was formally appointed the ecclesiastical metropolis of the nation. The chair of York was afterwards invested with the same privileges. And, on the speedy multiplication of dioceses in Northumbria, it began to exercise the same powers. In this division of the Northumbrian kingdom the south of Lancashire continued a member, not only of the province, but the diocese of York, as the north of it did to the later ages."—Whittaker's Manchester, Vol. II. p. 378. * "When a parish had been formed," remarks Whittaker, " it was assigned to a priest, and hence was named a priestshire; and after Theodore had introduced into England the practice of auri B nally very large, extending over the present township and parish of Assheton.' The whole," adds this historian, "was skirted by the parishes of Eccles and Flixton on the west, and washed by the currents of the Mersey and Tame on the south; it reached up to the hills of Saddleworth on the east, and bordered up to the parish of Prestwich to the north. It was a level but irregular area of fiftyfive or sixty miles in circumference; the longest diameter, crossing from east to west, and being about twelve or thirteen in extent, and the shortest, running from south-west to north-east, and being about seven and a half. The town was situated not exactly in the centre, but near the northern and western margins of it, the boundaries of Prestwich ranging within three miles, and those of Eccles within one of the town; and the limits of Flixton, Cheadle, Stockport, and Rochdale, lying at the distance of five, eight, and eleven from it." m Manchester was 180 years under the dominion of the Saxons." At length cular confession, the priest, who was the general confessor or shrift of his own proper district, gave his own recent appellation to the parish under him, which was also denominated a shriftshire." 1 Whittaker's History of Manchester, 4to, Vol. II. p. 375. m At this period the Anglo-Saxon church began to enjoy a state of comparative tranquillity. Each thegn could boast of having upon his lands a kirk, to which was attached a manse. "The requisites to constitute this dignity," observes Mr Turner in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, "were the possession of five hides of land, a judicial seat at the burgh-gate, a distinct office or station in the king's hall, by which was probably meant a seat in the Witena-gemot, a kitchen, a church, and a bell-house."-Besides the donations of land by which the church was supported, there was the institution of tithes, which, from being at first voluntary, was, in the sixth and seventh centuries, exacted as a debt. Being partitioned into three shares, it was distributed to the church, the rector, and the poor. Several other charities were likewise converted into obligations, as the ploughalms, which consisted of one silver penny for every hide of arable land, this due being collected at Easter; the Kirkshot, which was a tax payable at Martinmas for the house which each individual occupied the preceding Christmas; the Leot-shot, which consisted of a certain quantity of wax discharged from each hide of land of the value of one silver penny, being paid thrice in the year, namely, at Candlemas, the vigil of Easter, and All Saints :-the Soul-shot, or burial fee, was an occasional support. Oblations were necessarily uncertain. Regarding the leot-shot, Mr Whittaker has observed, that "this particularly remains in our own parish at present, being a halfpenny from each house, and denominated the wax-money; a right," he indignantly adds, "that has been impertinently endeavoured to be discredited among us, but which results from more express laws, and is founded on more ancient prescription than half the just demands in the kingdom."-Whittaker's History of Manchester, 4to. Vol. II. p. 433. a It may be worth while noticing, that about A. D. 689 Manchester was the temporary residence of Ina, king of Wessex, and Ethelburga his queen. I find the authorities for this information given in Mr Ormrod's Cheshire. It is stated, that "about A. D. 689 Ivor and Henyr, sons of Northumbria began to suffer from the invasion of the Danes and other Northmen. Wearied eventually with the fruitless resistance of nearly a century to incessant eruptions of these hordes of pirates, the province cheerfully submitted to the government and protection of Egbert, the uniter of the kingdoms of the octarchy. After Northumbria had thus fallen under the dominion of the West-Saxons, "the south of Lancashire and the parish of Manchester," observes Mr Whittaker, "were dissevered from the diocese and province of York, and were annexed to the province of Canterbury, and the diocese of Litchfield." In the reign of Ethelrid, a succeeding monarch, the Northmen, by a decisive action fought at York, acquired possession of Northumbria, when Manigceastre A. D. 870. was overrun by a horde of these plunderers, its castle having been seized, and its dwellings nearly destroyed. During these successive eruptions most of the Christian churches were pillaged and burnt, while the worship of Odin and the charms and incantations of magic were restored. All lands were likewise subject to a tax named Dane-geld, which was paid to the Danes as a tribute for their forbearance. The Danes of Northumberland having next begun to encroach beyond the borders of Mercia, Edward the elder appointed his sister, the famous Elfleda, to the government of that province; and, among many other places of defence, this Lady built a castle at Runcorn, upon the mouth of the Mersey, then called "the River of Mercia." Her death induced Edward to take the dominion of Mercia into his own hands, which he so fortified that the Danes were kept in the great the daughter of Cadwallader, are said to have landed from Ireland, and, with the assistance of two kings of Wales, to have wasted the province of Chester, and to have demanded of the Saxon kings the countries from which they wrongfully expelled their parents, but experienced two sanguinary defeats from the Saxons, commanded by Ina, king of Wessex.' "After this," adds the chronicle quoted by Lhuyd, " Ina departed himself with Adelard his cousin to Queen Ethelburga, wife of Ina, being then at Manchester, and continued there almost three months." • In the collections of Mr Greswell there is the following notice :-" The inhabitants of Manchester are said to have behaved themselves valiantly against the Danes when they landed about A. D. 869." He then quotes a tradition from an old MS. in the possession (A. D. 1808) of the Reverend J. Brooke, A. M. "There is now to be seen in Denton, Gorton, Birch, &c. a ditch, called Nicko or Micko ditch, which (tradition says) was made in one night from Ashton moss to Ouse moss, such a number of men being appointed to the work as to cast up each the length of himself, in order to entrench themselves from the Danes, then invading England. The land on one side of the ditch is called Danes to this day; and the place in Gorton called Winding hill is said to take its name from the Britons winding or going round to drive off the Danes. The township of Redditch (adjoining to Gorton and Denton) is said to take its name from the water in this ditch, after the engagement, being red." |