Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

these aisles remained with their arches filled up and plain square-headed windows inserted.

"The north side of the nave is the oldest part of the church; its two Norman arches being fine specimens of twelfth-century work. These arches are richly carved, and of different pattern: the one is zigzag, and the other enriched lozenge with scolloped labels; the central pillar is round, with the usual bold square abacus; the two responds are of the same character, excepting that the face of the capital of the westernmost is curiously ornamented with circular work. These arches were at one time frescoed. The two responds seem to indicate that the original aisle consisted of only two bays, but it was afterwards lengthened, as another semicircular arch of plainer work can be traced on the outside, and a small portion of it also on the inside close to the tower.

"The chancel-arch was taken down at the beginning of the present century, but the half-pillars that supported it were left. These are round, with capitals plainly foliated, and square abaci, having their corners chamfered or cut off. The mortised holes in the pillars shew that at one time there was a roodscreen.

"The south arcade of the nave consisted of three bays, with pointed arches and octagonal pillars. The mouldings, &c., indicate that this aisle was of the Decorated style, but of rather poor character. The respond of the east end is weak, and the work throughout rather rough. Several portions of square-headed windows have been found during the present restoration built up in the walls; these in all probability originally belonged to the south aisle.

"The chancel, like the body of the church, has undergone some changes, as it bears traces of having been lengthened some years after the portion nearest the nave was built, the south wall not being in a straight line, and the side windows of different dates. These windows consist of two lights. Of the earlier ones, that on the south side has geometrical tracery, the other is plain lancet-shaped. On the north side there is also a small one-light leper's window with cusps, corre sponding exactly in shape with the piscina within the altar space on the south side. These may all be considered as early Decorated, and probably are of the same date. There is no doubt that this chancel was subsequently lengthened, and the piscina was then removed to its present position. The latter windows are square-headed, and that on the south side has poor debased tracery. The east window of this period was probably removed, and the unsightly churchwardens” window inserted, when the monuments on each side, bearing date 1726 and 1762, were erected. There is one peculiar feature about the chancel-arch not yet mentioned, viz. that the shaft of the southern respond stands back about a foot from the place it should occupy on the base. The question is-was it originally left so, or was it removed at some subsequent time?

"The porch on the south side was probably built at the time when the aisles were removed and the arches filled in. It had this inscription over the doorway, 'Edward Andrews, the founder hereof. Ao. Dan. 1594. R.E. 35. Deo gracias ".' It was built out of the materials of the original porch, as the shafts of the doorway arch were of Decorated character, corresponding to the aisle. Instead of the arch a flattish stone was placed upon them. The gable was ornamented with two grotesque and rudely carved figures of auimals, much older than the Elizabethan finial set up between them.

"The doorway into the church was circular-headed, but without any ornament, and most likely was a portion of the Norman doorway of the north aisle.

"The tower was built within the nave and upon three arches, all of which were filled up about fifty years ago to support the tower, which was deemed unsafe. The side arches seem to indicate that it was built while the aisles were standing, on the south side, but in the masonry that filled up the last bay of the arcade is a square-headed window, now blocked up: it was most likely inserted to admit light into the belfry after the removal of the aisle.

[ocr errors]

The dates of the various parts of the church are probably as follows:-The Norman arches on the north side and the chancel-arch about 1160 (Henry II.); the western portion of the chancel the end of the thirteenth century, the period of transition from Early English to Decorated (Edward I.); the south aisle the middie of the fourteenth century (Edward III.); the tower and eastern portion

"Vide Burton's History respecting Andrews, &c."

of the chancel about 1500 (Henry VII.); both aisles removed and porch built 1594 (36th of Elizabeth).

"The church is now being restored to something of its original character, mainly at the expense of the present noble owner of the manor, Lord Berners. . . . Three pieces of stained glass windows of the fourteenth century, taken out of the church before commencing the restoration, are in the safe keeping of the Rev. T. Norris, the curate of the parish. Two of them consist of collections of different glass, probably the remains of windows placed in the church in years gone by; some of the pieces are very rich, especially the rubies. The third piece is a portion of the coat of arms of the Bakepuiz family, who were formerly lords and patrons of Alexton, whose chief seat was (according to Burton) Barton Bakepuiz, and whose family adhered to the noble house of Ferrers, Earls of Derby, to whose deeds they appear often to be witnesses. The Bakepuiz family adopted (as was commonly the case in those days) the arms of their suzerain lord. They bore upon their escutcheon the following,-Gules, two bars argent, three horse-shoes in chief or; the three horse-shoes being the emblem of the house of Ferrers.

"In Burton's time two other escutcheons adorned the windows of the church :1. Gules, with a mullet sable upon the uppermost bar; these being the arms of Hakluit, who held a separate manor at Alexton 36th Elizabeth, and who had also a separate manor at Hallaxton. 2. The other coat of arms was Gules, three pole-axes or; the bearer of these unknown."

The first Part of the Society's Transactions, announced at the General Meeting, Jan. 27, 1862, has just been issued. This, as we learn from the Preface, is not in any way to interfere with the issue of the yearly volume of the Associated Societies, with whom, as heretofore, the Leicestershire Society will be in union; but its object is to preserve a record, in more detail than can there be given, of the Papers read and objects exhibited at each meeting since the formation of the Society. A Part, containing about 100 pages, is to appear yearly, until all the past Transactions have been published. The present Part extends from Jan. 10, 1855 to Dec. 29, 1856, and contains many interesting and wellillustrated papers, among which we would particularly mention one by Mr. James Thompson, on "The Early Heraldry of Leicestershire."

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. Nov. 5. J. H. HINDE, Esq., in the chair. The attendance was unusually large.

After the election of two new members, the Rev. Dr. Bruce drew attention to three large casts upon the table which had been sent to him, accompanied by a letter from Mr. H. Laing, of Edinburgh, in which that gentleman said, "I have this day sent to the Museum three casts from the concentric circles on the rocks of Argyleshire, for presentation to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, by Professor J. Y. Simpson. It may perhaps be already known to you that one of these singular relics of early times had been discovered a few miles from Edinburgh; if not, you will feel interested in the discovery. I hope soon to have an opportunity of taking a cast from it." A great number of these, Dr. Bruce said, had been found in different parts of Northumberland-in Doddington and elsewhere. It was thought, indeed, that they were peculiar to Northumberland; but he saw in Hutchinson's "Cumberland" that there was a drawing of one in one of

GENT. MAG., March, 1862, p. 328.

the plates. He believed that no reliable opinion had been formed as to their origin, whether they were military or religious.

Dr. Charlton presented to the Society a mediæval lady's shoe, found after the fire at Naworth Castle. He remarked that the Society had several Roman shoes, but they had never had a good specimen of the mediæval ones. The shoe excited no little amusement at its rather ungraceful proportions-the sole being thicker and probably even heavier than any of the strongest men's boots of the present day.

The Rev. Dr. Bruce read a paper on some discoveries which have been recently made at Bnwell Little Park, the residence of G. W. Rendel, Esq., of which the following is a summary:

"Dr. Bruce began by referring to some discoveries in Cumberland which had been communicated to him by Mr. Parker, of Brampton. These were some of the traces of Roman occupation in the vicinity of the old church of Brampton, and the discovery of an inscribed stone found in the Bank's Head Mile Castle, mentioning the Emperor Antoninus Pius. He then ref rred to some coins and an inscription to the Emperor Gordian, which had been discovered at Benwell during the building of Mr. Mulcaster's house and the excavations of the Whittle Dene Water Company's reservoir. Coming to more recent discoveries, he went on to say:-On Saturday last (Nov. 1) when the workmen who are putting in order the orna. n ental ground adjoining the recently-erected edifice of G. W. Rendel, Esq., at Benwell Little Park, were proceeding with their labours, they hit upon something that seemed to be unusual. By Mr. Rendel's directions, they proceeded with caution, and thoroughly excavated the spot which had attracted their attention. The portion of the ground which has heen examined lies just outside the east rampart of Condercum, near its south-east angle. There are here, as well as on the south of the station, numerous remains of suburban dwellings, which seem to be strug gling to free themselves from the sod which envelopes them. A square building, measuring about 15 ft. (inside measurement) each way, was laid bare; four or five courses of wall were standing. Near the south wall two altars were found, lying obliquely, with their inscribed faces downwards (as is usually the case); and in various positions near the spot were several large stones, portions of a statue, and the fragment of an inscribed slab, which may be afterwards alluded to. At the same spot some burials seem to have taken place. Both the altars contain much that is new to the students of lapidary literature; in attempting to make any remarks upon them therefore, after only a few hours' consideration, we may justly claim the liberty of altering or amending at a future time any opinion we may now give.

"The first altar which I shall describe is 4 ft. 4 in. high, and 16 in. wide in the body. It is formed of a sandstone of the district, and is in some places reddened by fire. The decorations upon it are of a highly ornate character, tastefully designed and skilfully executed. The face of the capital has been broken off; but a portion of the face was found close at hand, and it enables us to ascertain what the whole was when complete. The altar is carved on all four sides; this is an unusual, though not quite singular circumstance; an altar now at Castle Nook, near Alston, being also ornamented on the back as well as the sides. The altar is provided with a focus; and the volutes on each side of it seem to have bad for their model a bundle of leaves of Indian corn. An altar which I saw in Florence last autumn, impressed me with the idea that the rolls on the top of the capitals of the Roman altar were symbolical of the fagots which were to consume the offering; this altar confirmed me in the opinion. On the sides of the capital we have vine-branches shaded with leaves, and laden with bunches of grapes. The mouldings of the base are graceful; two of them are of the kind called the cable pattern, so often used in Norman architecture, and thought to be peculiar to the Gothic style. One side of the altar has, in basso relievo, the sacrificing knife, the other the pitcher for holding the wine used in the sacrifice; and on the back is a circular garland. The inscription on the face of the altar is well cut, and the letters are of most tasteful form, but several of them are tied together after the manner of our modern diphthongs. These tied letters are generally understood to indicate a somewhat advanced period of the empire. The inscription, deprived of its complications, is

DEO

ANTENOCITICO

ET NVMINIB.

AVGVSTOR.

AEL. VIBIVS

> LEG. XX. V.V.
V. S. L. M.

which may be read in English,-To the god Antenociticus and the deities of the Emperors, Elius Vibius, a centurion of the Twentieth Legion, styled the Valerian and the Victorious, freely dedicated this altar, in the discharge of a vow to objects most worthy of it.' The god Antenociticus is quite new to us. Prior to this discovery, we had no idea that any such demon as he graced the calendar of heathen Rome. Beside the greater and lesser deities of Greece and Rome, there is a crowd of local deities that are only known to the 'painful students' of stony mythology. Among the district gods of Roman Britain we have Vitres, Hamia, Setlocenia, Monnus, Mogon, Belatucader, and Cocidius; and an altar recently found near Petriana (Walton-house) seems to reveal to us another strange god of the name of Venauntis. This altar, so far as I can understand it, makes known to us still another. Whether the name is derived from the district where the deity was supposed to exercise his sway, or whether it is descriptive of his qualities, I am at present unable to give any opinion. The genius or godship of the emperors was often worshipped, and that seems to have been the case here. It will be observed that the emperors are spoken of in the plural number,-AVGVSTORVM. The other altar also which we have to consider, speaks of a plurality of emperors. Who can have been intended? We have a plurality of emperors in the time of Antoninus the Philosopher, when he shared the purple with Lucius Verus; in the time of Severus, when he associated his two sons with himself; and at the close of the short reign of Elagabalus, when he called Severus Alexander to divide with him his obloquy and danger. We need scarcely go farther in this enumeration, for the style of this altar does not belong to a later age. Possibly it was carved when Septimius Severus, and his sons Caracalla and Geta, were the lords of this lower creation.

"The other altar is not early so ornate as the first. Neither its design nor its execution is good. The letters of the inscription are rudely formed. It has probably been committed to unskilful hands, for circumstances seem to warrant the opinion that it must have been nearly contemporaneous with the other. It has no focus. The inscription reads thus:-

DEO ANOCITICO

IVDICIIS OPTIMO-
RVM MAXIMORVM

QVE IMPP. N. SVB VIB: (VLP.?)

MARCELLO COS. TINE

IVS LONGVS IN PRAE

FECTVRA EQVITV..
LATO CLAVO EXORN..
TVS ET Q. D.

which may be translated, -Tineius Longus, holding office in the Præfectship of knights, adorned with the broad stripe, and a quæstor, dedicated this altar to Anociticus (qy. Antenociticus), in consequence of the decisions of our most excellent and most mighty emperors given under Vibius Marcellus, a man of consular rank.' The first thing that perplexes us in this inscription is the similarity of the name of this god with that on the other, and yet they are different. Probably the same god is meant, and most likely the first A on this altar is intended to stand for ANTE on the other, though there is nothing to indicate it. At the end of the first line there is a character resembling a Q; close examination induces me to suppose that it is only the leaf-shaped stop so often introduced in inscriptions. I was in hope when I saw the epithets optimorum maximorum that I should have been able by them to have ascertained the emperor to whom they were applied; but I have not succeeded. These terms (optimus and maximus) are frequently applied to Trajan, both on coins and sculptures, and occasionally to Antoninus Pius, but I can find no instance of their being applied to any of the conjoint emperors. The nearest approach to it that I have yet observed is on the Arch of Severus at Rome. Ori

ginally the names of the two sons of Severus were appended to his own, but when Caracalla murdered Geta, he had his brother's name struck out from the inscription, and the gap filled up with the words OPTIMIS FORTISSIMISQVE PRINCIPIBVS. It may be that this altar belongs to the time of Severus. The flattery implied in the use of the words optimus maximus will be noticed when it is remembered that these are the epithets almost universally applied upon altars to Jupiter, the king of gods and men. The last letter on the fourth line is indistinct; it looks like an F, but it is possibly a B, the rounded parts of the letters having been worn off with the angle of the altar. Tineius is a somewhat peculiar name, but several examples of it occur in Gruter. The expression Lato clavo exornatus is new in the altars of the north of England. It no doubt indicates that the person possessed senatorial rank. In Rich's "Illustrated Latin Dictionary" we have the following explanation of Clavus Latus:- The broad stripe; an ornamental band of purple colour, running down the front of a tunic, in a perpendicular direction, immediately over the front of the chest, the right of wearing which formed one of the exclusive privileges of the Roman senator, though at a late period it appears to have been sometimes granted as a favour to individuals of the equestrian order.' There is a passage in Suetonius's Life of Augustus Cæsar which seems to throw some light upon this subject. He says,―That the sons of senators might become early acquainted with the administration of affairs, he permitted them, at the age when they took the garb of manhood (toga virilis), to assume also the distinction of the senatorian robe, with its broad border (latum clavum induere), and to be present at the debates in the senate-house. When they entered the military service, he not only gave them the rank of military tribunes in the legions, but likewise the command of the auxiliary horse. And that all might have an opportunity of acquiring military experience, he commonly joined two sons of senators in command of each troop of horse.' Although Suetonius refers to a state of things more than a century earlier than the erection of this altar, it almost seems as if he had written this sentence by way of explaining to us this inscription. Tineius Longus, though probably not having a seat in the senate-house, was a man of senatorial rank, and was sent to flesh his sword in the flanks of Caledonians worthy of his steel. The last two letters in the inscription may admit of some question. Probably in addition to his other orders, he held the rank of quæstor, which is indicated by the initial letter of the word. Most likely D stands for dicavit, 'he dedicated.' It will be observed that Tineius Longus, whilst doing honour to his god, does not neglect his own dignities. These he blazons forth in considerable detail. Is he the only person who has made religion a stalking-horse to personal applause? For many a century the name of Tineius Longus was buried in oblivion; now at length the altar, once more brought to the light of day, is true to its trust, and the blushing honours of its dedicator will gain greater celebrity than ever. All who are familiar with the inscriptions found in the north of England will be prepared to admit the fact, which this stone presses upon us, that Rome sent some of her greatest men to Britain. A leaf fills up a blank at the close of the last line. The letters on this altar have been coated with red paint. The remains of this are clearly to be discerned. I think that the other altar has been similarly treated, though the marks of it are not so distinct. Most of the inscriptions found in the catacombs of Rome are painted red, but this is the first time I have known any of our local inscriptions to be coloured.

"Near the south wall of the building the remains of three skeletons had been found. They evidently had not fallen in unawares or by chance, inasmuch as they were lying in due order, pretty nearly parallel to the wall east and west. Then, besides these, at the other angle there were remains of urn burials-fragments of charred bones, and fragments of land shells, which Dr. Bruce conjectured were those of snails. Then, it was a curious thing to find burials not within a Roman station, but so near it as these. The question was, How can these bones have come here? The urn burials, he thought, no doubt belonged to the Roman period, and the others might have taken place in Roman times too; because in the decline of the Roman time in Britain they contracted their fortifications-everything

indicated it."

Mr. Rendel said that since he had the pleasure of shewing Dr. Bruce these discoveries, there was a little further light thrown upon the position in which the human remains were found. They had found that the

« ZurückWeiter »