Again toward the close of the twelfth century, when Bishop Pudsey meditated the erection of a chapel communicating with his Cathedral from which female worshippers might not be wholly excluded, he selected for his purpose the site of the present NINE ALTARS. The foundations had actually been laid, and he "had made considerable progress with the work, when its marble pillars began to totter, and

STATUE OF ST. CUTHBERT IN DURHAM CATHEDRAL.

fissures were discernible in its walls. The architect had probably not gone down to the good foundation, which might have been obtained. The failure, however, is attributed to St. Cuthbert; who finding that he was likeley to be so nearly approached by the sex he detested, affected the god, shook the little Olympus of his resting-place, and made the obnoxious fabric totter to its base."* Imbued with the notions prevalent at the period, the workmen would easily be brought to accept any interpretation of an accident, which it might suit the monks to give; and they would have shrunk from the prosecution of their task, on witnessing half the tokens of his displeasure which the Saint is related to have manifested. Of the Prelate who employed them who could presume to doubt that he felt acutely this rebuke of his sainted predecessor; and perhaps he would not complain of the interruption, inasmuch as his obsequious abandonment of the site would forthwith be interpreted into a recognition of the power of the Saint, in the magnifying of whose influence he, in common with the monks, was so largely interested.* At all events he did abandon the inauspicious attempt, and disposed the position of his receptacle for female devotees at a more respectful distance from the hallowed and uncorrupted body,-CARO CARIE CARENS,-of him whose abrenunciation of the proximity of the sex was so stern and uncompromising.

To prevent the possibility of misapprehension on a point so important, the limit was distinctly marked by a blue stone cross, inserted in the pavement of the Cathedral floor, which even now is visible, be tween the extreme western pillars of the nave, beyond which the objects of his dislike might not approach with impunity towards his shrine. As Davies informs us, "There is, betwixt the pillars, on the North-side, which the Holy water did stand in, and the Pillar which standeth over against it on the South-side, from the one of them to the other, a Row of blue Marble; and in the midst of the said Row there is a Cross of blue Marble, in token that all Women, who came to hear Divine Service, should not be suffered to come above the said Cross; and if it chanced that any Woman came above it, within the Body of the Church, then straitwayes she was taken, and punished

* Raine, p. 69.

The portents by which the attempt made by the emperor Julian, in the fourth century, to reinstate the temple of Jerusalem, had been miraculously defeated, could not be unknown to churchmen; and, being known, they would doubtless be dwelt upon as fondly by medieval writers and preachers, as they appear to have been in yet earlier ages. And hence, in the case of any sudden subsidence of the foundations of Pudsey's projected edifice, the memory of the monks, stored with incidents so congenial to their tastes, would readily supply hints for turning the event to account, and for improving it into a miracle, without the exertion of the imaginative faculty usual on such occasions.-See Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xxiii., and the authorities quoted by him,-Warburton's Julian, &c.

for certain dayes; because there was never Woman came there where the holy man, St. Cuthbert was, for the Reverence they had to his sacred Body. Also if any Woman chanc'd to come within the Abbey-Gates, or within any Precincts of the House, if she had been seen but her length within any place of the said House, she was taken, and set fast, and punished, to give example to all others, for doing the like."

For the latter restriction we agree with Mr. Raine in thinking that there might have been "a better reason." But in neither case was intrusion lightly passed over, the temerity of trespassers was as promptly punished, as it was rigorously interdicted. Thus, a memorable instance of an intrusion within the abbey being repelled, occurred in the case of "Queen Philippa, the wife of Edward III., who, when at Durham with her husband in 1333, was compelled to leave his bed in the priory (now the deanery) in the middle of the night, and run half dressed to the castle; the monks having discovered the sinful intrusion of which she was unwittingly guilty." So much for the vigilance with which the precincts were guarded in the one case. Nor was the embargo maintained less rigorously in the other. The following sentence pronounced in 1417, upon two unfortunate and over curious intruders within the Church, and the subjoined certificate of its actual fulfilment will prove the extent to which its sanctity was asserted.

איי

"Mandate to summon certain women of Newcastle to receive the punishment enjoined them, by reason of their having essayed to go up to the Feretory of St. Cuthbert.

The official of the Lord Bishop of Durham, to the parochial chaplains of the churches of St. Nicholas and All Saints, in the town of Newcastle upon Tyne, wisheth health through the Author of health. Whereas Matilda Burgh, and Margaret Usshar, servants, as they assert, of Peter Baxter of the said town, led by the instigation of the devil, and by their own desperate audacity, came lately to the cathedral church of Durham, clad in man's garments, with mind and purpose to approach bodily to the Feretory of the most holy confessor Cuthbert, knowing this to be prohibited on pain of the greater excommunication, and of violation of the liberty of the Church to all women whatsoever: and Whereas they have in the presence of us, sitting in our tribunal, been convicted, and have confessed themselves guilty of this grave offence: and Whereas from offences of this nature a disposition to proceed to yet further wickedness is inferred: We, with the consent of Master John Houteman, vicar-general of our

* Raine, p. 16.

Lord the Bishop of Durham, and of other men skilled in the law, with us at that time sitting, have enjoined upon the said women duly sworn, these penances for their offence, viz:-that they and each of them shall walk on three feast days in front of the procession about the church of St. Nicholas, and on three other feast days about the

church of All Saints aforesaid in that same man's attire, in the same manner and form in which they so daringly approached the said cathedral church of Durham. We therefore enjoin and command you, so far as regards the said women performing the said penance as aforesaid, that ye cite them on alternate days into your Churches, and publicly and solemnly declare the cause wherefore they perform such penance, that no other women hereafter may have the hardihood to advance to such a height of delinquency: Citing also, nevertheless, the said Peter Baxter, and his wife to appear before us or our Commissary in the Galilee* at Durham, on the Monday next after the feast of St. Michael next, to alledge and set forth reasonable cause (if such they have) why they ought not to be punished in form of jaw, as fosterers, abettors and counsellors in this behalf, and further

The Consistory Court of the diocese was held for many years in the Galilee, of the erection of which by Bishop Pudsey we have had mention made above. The tomb of Langley, another prelate of the church, formed the tribunal. The inscription on the arch above is most appropriate : "Judicium Jehova est, Domine Deus, da servo tuo cor ¡ntelligens ut judicet populu' tuu' et discernat inter bonu' et malum." 1 Kings iij. 9.

to do and receive what justice shall suggest :-and what ye shall do in the premises, see that ye certify openly to us at the said day and place together with these letters under your seal.

Given at Durham, the 18th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1417.

"Certificate touching the penance of the two women who endeavoured to approach the Feretory of St. Cuthbert.

By authority of this mandate I cited the underwritten Matilda and Margaret unto the penance by you judicially enjoined upon them, who with all humble obedience have appeared, and the said penance have devoutly fulfilled, by going about the church of All Saints in front of the procession on Sunday last, according to the manner and form on them enjoined and on the other Sundays are alike [ready] unto the said penances, if they be not able to find grace: nevertheless, if it be your pleasure, it were good that remission were graciously conceded:-And so I am ready in all things, so far as within me lies, to perform your venerable mandate:-And the aforesaid Peter I have cited according to the form of the mandate, and the wife of the aforesaid Peter hath travailed so heavily with her two twins, that she cannot decently appear.

By me Robert Croft, chaplain of the Church of All Saints."