The Church of Grasmere: A History. Armitt Mary L.

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York.

      But when Oswy died (670 or 671) and his son Ecgfrith succeeded, Chad retired, and Wilfrith was made sole Bishop. Now began a very active and happy period of his life. Enjoying undivided power, a position which suited his nature, he moved about his huge diocese, everywhere creating new foundations and building fresh churches. With skilled workmen under him, he was the great architect and builder of his time. First he turned his attention to the head church in York, which had become, since Oswald's days, ruinous. After building there an edifice unique in its time, he took his masons to Ripon, and there he built a basilica of dressed stone with pillars and arches and porches. He also enriched its altar with vases, and a vestment of purple and gold, and laid upon it a book of the Gospels, marvellously illumined, and enclosed in a gold and jewelled case. Wilfrith made the dedication of this church, which was attended by King Ecgfrith, and by tributary kings, reeves and abbots, an occasion of great splendour. Standing before the altar, with his face towards the concourse of people, he recited the names of the lands with which Ripon was endowed, as also of certain sanctuaries of the Britons which were taken over by it.

      Now this enumeration of lands, said to be given by princes with the consent of the bishops, is of great interest.5 Were these lands within Alchfrith's former sub-kingdom – the nucleus being his monastic endowment? – and was it intended to create a bishopric there at Ripon, separate from the one at York? Certainly the great tracts of country mentioned were to be ecclesiastically ruled from Ripon, whether by abbot or bishop.

      Moreover, in the confused and certainly corrupt list of names that has come down to us of Wilfrith's remarkable recitation, several have been localized within that last conquered portion of Northumbria lying to the west, which may have been called by the Celts who lost it, Teyrnllwg.6

      Whatever had been Alchfrith's intentions about Ripon, Wilfrith's were clear in thus making it the church centre for a district as wide as a diocese. In effect, it was a diocese; though only for a short time was there a recognized Bishop of Ripon. And this was after Ecgfrith and Wilfrith had unhappily quarrelled, and Wilfrith had been expelled from Northumbria, when Theodore, the new archbishop, who had been called north to re-organize the huge diocese, made finally five bishoprics out of it; and Eadhed (after temporarily ruling a see at Lindsey) became, according to Bede, the Bishop of Ripon. But upon the reconciliation of Wilfrith with King Aldfrith, who succeeded Ecgfrith, Eadhed retired from Ripon, and Wilfrith again took possession of it, and ruled it – though only as abbot – until his death.

      Wilfrith's inauguration of Ripon, which took place in the period of his sole prelacy of Northumbria (671 to 678) was then an event of great importance for the district round the great Bay, and for Grasmere; indeed it is hardly too much to say that its results lasted over a thousand years. For in spite of the bishop's loss of power, his scheme ultimately held good. When the long dark days of Danish anarchy were passed, the western district which he gathered in to the fold of Ripon emerged as an ecclesiastical entity, and it kept its bounds through the administrative changes of the Norman kings, which carved out of it the barony of Kendal, and made of it parts of Westmorland, Cumberland, Yorkshire and Lancashire. The archdeaconry of Richmondshire, which was formally constituted a section of the diocese of York in 1090, is in fact almost identical with Wilfrid's province of Ripon. It is true that Ripon ceased to be its centre, that establishment sinking again into a monastery, which lay indeed a few miles beyond the boundary of Richmondshire; while a new centre was created at Richmond, a little town without significance standing in another Yorkshire vale.7 This great church province was ruled over by an archdeacon, who possessed almost the powers of a bishop,8 until it was transferred by Henry the Eighth in 1541 from the diocese of York to that of Chester; and it remained intact until 1847, when it was broken up among what are now the dioceses of Carlisle, Manchester, and Ripon.9 Our own part of it became the archdeaconry of Westmorland, under Carlisle.

      After Wilfrith had lost favour at the Northumbrian court, and carried his grievances to Rome, King Ecgfrith secured the co-operation of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury (669) in the organization of the Northern Church. As has been said, there are indications that church work went on busily in the district of the great Bay. St. Cuthbert, who had served his apprenticeship as a monk at Ripon, was made bishop in 685 and administered his great See from Lindisfarne. Into his charge Ecgfrith expressly gave Cartmel with its Britons, and the newly-conquered district round Carlisle. Carlisle became indeed a thriving church centre, with royal nunnery and monastery, and with missions spreading round it. Bede has drawn a striking picture of the bishop's visit to the ruined Roman city, when a vision of the king's overthrow came upon him; as well as of his last meeting with St. Herebert, the hermit of Derwentwater, who was wont every year to seek his counsel. The district of Cartmel he placed in the charge of the "good Abbot Cineferth," as if it were too distant from Lindisfarne for his immediate care. But, while his own easiest route to Carlisle would be by the straight road along the Roman Wall, he would not be ignorant of that other road striking northwards through the mountains from the great Bay. He may, indeed, have travelled this road himself on his missionary journeys, and even have halted to preach in the vale of Grasmere. It is certain at least that some of the holy men working for the Anglo-Scottish Church at this period must have done so. With the defeat and death of Ecgfrith the glory of the Northumbrian kingdom came to an end indeed; but the church continued to prosper; and in the two hundred years between that event and the final relinquishment of Lindisfarne as a See, on through the ravages of the Danes, it wrought a mighty work, not only in the old kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira, but in the region westward. Many of our existing foundations may well date back from that time; and it is probable that the ruined or entirely vanished chapels of our district were built in that age of piety.10 We know from Bede that there was a monastery at Dacre in Cumberland, which existed at least until 926.11 It has been suggested that a certain monastery, founded by a Northumbrian nobleman in the reign of Osred (slain in 717) was situated at Heversham in Westmorland.12 Certainly at Heversham may be seen the fragments of a cross wrought in patterns such as experts ascribe to the Anglian school of workmanship introduced by Wilfrith.13

      Then too a thrilling event in hagiological history touched our parts nearly. When the monks of Lindisfarne fled before the ravaging Danes with St. Cuthbert's body, they went westward for safety, and their wanderings brought them into Cumberland and Westmorland.14 A gap in their travels which the antiquary has yet failed to trace may possibly have been filled by a route through Craven – that perpetual haunt of refugees – and about Morecambe Bay.

      Certainly a well-used road must have passed not far from our district in the days of Northumbrian anarchy, when Danish kings and allies reigned alike at York and at Dublin. Windermere indeed is associated with the murder (741) of two young princes of the royal house.15

      THE DEDICATION

      To the question so often asked, When was the church of Grasmere founded? no more than a conjectural answer can be given. The district formed part – though a remote one – of Northumbria, and doubtless shared in the conversion of that kingdom. Even before that time it may have been touched by those successive missionary efforts, which have been happily classed as the Romano-British of Ninian at the end of the fourth century, the Irish of Patrick in the fifth century, and the Kymric of Kentigern in the sixth; and these efforts were followed up by the steady work of the Anglo-Scottish monks, and the establishment under the Anglian kings of an organized church.16

      The dedication of the Grasmere church favours the supposition that its foundation was early. Its name-saint is King Oswald, who planted a cross as a standard in the battle by which he gained Northumbria, and who was killed at Maserfeld by the heathen Penda in 642. He became the idol of the Northumbrian christians, and his relics were cherished in many a shrine. When danger threatened Lindisfarne, his head was placed for

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