1830.] Mr. URBAN, 113 waters of the Tavy, where he will find beautifully picturesque combinations at every step. The blue waters of the river making their gurgling "music with the enamelled stones," dark foliage here and there overhanging the banks, the stillness of the scene perchance broken by the flight of the king-fisher, whose bright cerulean plumage flashes like a meteor across the sombre tints of the trees.* Notices of Tavistock and its Abbey. Feb. 4. HAVE been favoured by Mrs. Bray, of the Vicarage House, Tavistock, whose antiquarian taste is well known by her historical romances, with the enclosed drawing of two pieces of panel, in the possession of the Rev. E. A. Bray, F.S.A. her husband, relics of the ancient decorations of Tavistock church. I beg to offer it to your Mis cellany, accompanied by some notes which have been collected by myself, with a view to editing an account of Tavistock Abbey and its environs. In these notes you will have little more than a skeleton or outline of such an undertaking, and whether I may ever fill them up as I could desire, must depend upon leisure and that encourage ment which is necessary to every lite rary undertaking, which the author does not wish ultimately to prove a mulet on his zeal and exertions. Certain it is that Tavistock and its environs afford highly beautiful objects for graphic illustration, that several characters eminent in history are connected with the place, and that the parish chest is remarkably rich in ancient deeds, and churchwarden's accounts, some of which I examined at Tavistock in the year 1827, but many more still remain, which I hope ere long to have an opportunity of perusing. In the mean time I shall be happy if the subsequent cursory memoranda may be found acceptable to your, readers. The church, monastic dwellings, and precinct of the Abbey of Tavistock in Devon, were situated within a few yards of the right bank of the river. Tavy, on a narrow plaiu, very slightly elevated above the bed of that river, and surrounded on the north, south, and eastern sides by eminences. The Tavy is a rapid stream, and has its course through a rocky channel; the depth of this river is very variable, depending much on the quantity of rain which descends from the high lands above mentioned. When this is con siderable the Tavy becomes an object of much interest, from the efforts of its wild and roaring waters to surmount the opposition presented to their course by the numerous fragments of rock, which lie scattered in the bed of the stream. It is most probable that the eminences surrounding Tavistock Abbey were, in remote times, thickly covered with wood; this must have greatly heightened the beauty of the swelling uplands, which, as it were, flank the course of the river, and thus the site was admirably well chosen for a life of seclusion and holy contemplation; "Locus amœnus opportunitate nemorum, capturâ copiosâ piscium, ecclesiæ congruente fabricâ, fluvialibus rivis per officinas monachorum decurrentibus, qui suo impetu effusi quicquid inveni rent superfluum portant in exitum." Such is Malmesbury's account of the beauty and conveniences of the place. The etymology of the name Tavistock does not appear to be of difficult solution."The place on the Tavy" is evidently implied by the compound; but it may be observed that by early writers of the monkish age, the Tavy. is called the Tau, and that the Taw, the Towy, the Tay, and the Taf, are common appellatives of many British' rivers. The Tavy discharges itself into' the Tamar, a few miles above Plymouth; of which last mentioned river it may be accounted a branch. There can be little doubt, therefore, that the Tavy is an abbreviation of the British words Tau vechan, or the little Tau, thus distinguishing the tributary branch from the Tau Mawr (afterwards Ta *To obtain an idea of a Devonshire stream, in all its beauty, the traveller should visit the Walkham at Warde Bridge, about four miles from Tavistock. At this spot the stream makes its way between, thickly rocks, and on the bank, contiguous, is an clustering fragments of dark moss-grown enchanting little wood, where the oaks are seen flourishing amidst huge masses of granite, covered with moss and lichens. The Exeter Domesday assigns a large, proportion of wood to the manor of Tavistock. In dry seasons the rambler may de-' Malmesbury de gestis Pontif. Angl. scend into the channel worn by the apud Scriptores post Bedam, p. 256. GENT. MAG. February, 1830. 114 Notices of Tavistock and its Abbey. mar), the great Tau. When the Saxons established their town and monastery on the banks of the Tau vechan, they were content to affix a short adjunct from their own language to the original British words, and the abbreviated form, so much sought by common parlance, easily moulded Tau-vechanstoke into Tavistock. The Saxon Chronicle indeed strongly countenances this opinion; in that venerable record it is called Ereringstoke, which, without any distortion, may be read At-tavingstoke.* Ordgar, Duke or Heretoch of Devon, a dignity equal to that of permanent viceroy or petty prince, founded the Abbey at this place, A.D. 961, in consequence of a remarkable vision which appeared, according to the Cartulary of Tavistock, to him and his wife. The structure was completed by his son Ordulf, about twenty years after. It was appropriated to the residence of monks of the Benedictine order, and dedicated to St. Mary and St. Rumon. Leland found a MS. Life of Rumon in Tavistock Abbey, at the time of the suppression of monasteries. He appears by this account to have been one of many saints, who emigrated from Ireland into Cornwall in the 5th or 6th century, for the purpose of enjoying the deepest seclusion, and to have erected for himself an oratory in what the author terms a Nemean forest, formerly a most frequented haunt of wild beasts. This, according to the MS. was at Falmouth, where he died and was buried; but the fame of his sanctity still surviving, Ordulf, on completing the monastery at Tavistock, was induced to remove his bones from their resting place, and to enshrine them in the Abbey Church, where they became an object of ignorant devotion. Malmesbury seems to lament that the miracles of Rumon, in common with those of many other saints, owing to the violent hostility of subsequent times, remained unrecorded. No doubt this hiatus was amply supplied in the *The passage in the Saxon Chronicle runs thus: Ondulfer mynster ær Ærefingstoke fopbærndon, the apparent pleonasm, by the repetition of the preposition eet, does not militate against my definition, as custom had incorporated it in the compound, forming collectively the name of the place. [Feb. volume found by Leland, and the labours of him who perhaps was really a zealous and fearless propagator of Christianity in the primitive times, were converted into a series of ascetic mortifications, degrading to reason, and worse than useless to society, while his sanctity became attested by the detail of miracles more absurd than the wildest of the Arabian tales. Of the reputed saints, however, many were really such in their day; heroic soldiers, like St. Paul, of Christ's Church militant on earth, in perils and persecution; but the purity of their doctrines becoming obscured during temporal convulsions, the monks issued from their scriptoria new versions of their lives, which suited their own purposes for the time, but have had the effect in these enlightened days of clouding the memory of holy men with much of doubt and incredulity. In an account of Tavistock Abbey it is impossible to pass over the story of King Edgar's marriage with Elfrida, the daughter of Ordgar, the Heretoch of Devon. I shall be content to relate it in Malmesbury's own words.* "There was in the time of Edgar one Athelwold, a nobleman of celebrity, and one of his confidants. The King had commissioned him to visit Elfthrida, daughter of Ordgar, Duke of Devonshire (whose charms had so fascinated the eyes of some persons that they commended her to the king), and really equal to report. Hastening on his to offer her marriage if her beauty were embassy, and finding every thing consonant to general estimation, he concealed his mission from her parents, and procured the damsel for himself. Returning to the king he told a tale which made for his own purpose, that she was a girl nothing out of the common track of beauty, and by no means worthy of such transcendant dignity. When Edgar's heart was disengaged from this affair, and employed on other amours, some tattlers acquainted him how completely Athelwold had duped him by his artifices. Paying him in his own coin, that is returning him deceit for deceit, he shewed the earl a fair countenance, and, as in a sportive manner, appointed a day when he would visit this far famed lady. Terrified almost to death with this dreadful pleasantry, he hastened before to his wife, entreating that she would administer to his safety by attiring herself as unbecomingly as possible; then first disclosing the intention of such a proceeding. But what did not this woman dare! She was hardy enough to deceive the confidence of her first lover, her husband; to call up every charm by art, and to omit nothing * Historia Novella, translated by Sharp, 154. 1830.] Notices of Tavistock and its Abbey. which could stimulate the desire of a young and powerful man. Nor did events happen contrary to her design, for he fell so desperately in love with her the moment he saw her, that, dissembling his indignation, he sent for the Earl into a wood at Warewelle called Harewood, under pretence of hunting and ran him through with a javelin; and when the illegitimate son of the murdered nobleman approached with his usual familiarity, and was asked by the king how he liked that kind of sport, he is reported to have said, 'Well, my sovereign liege, I ought not to be displeased with that which gives you pleasure. This answer so assuaged the mind of the raging monarch, that for the remainder of his life he held no one in greater estimation than this young man; mitigating the offence of his tyrannical deed against the father, by royal solicitude for the son. In expiation of this crime, a monastery, which was built on the spot by Elfthrida, is inhabited by a large congregation of nuns. Elfrida bore Edgar a son, Ethelred, and in order that he might be elevated to the throne, she treacherously caused Edward, his half-brother, who enjoyed the kingly office about three years and a half, to be murdered by an attendant at the gate of her castle, while he was on horseback, and taking from her hand a cup of wine, which he requested as a boon of hospitality, after the fatigues of the chase. Elfrida became penitent, after the fashion of those days, and endeavoured to expiate the sin of blood, by a life of superstitious mortification and seclusion in the nunnery which she had founded at Wherwell. False religion rather encourages than represses crime; it sets as it were a certain price on its perpetration, and holds out the delusive idea that the deeds of hell may be bought out and exchanged at a fixed rate, for the glory and felicity of heaven. To return to Ordgar, the founder of Tavistock Abbey, Malmesbury, whom we have above quoted, and who wrote in the time of King Stephen, tells us that the tomb of Ordgar was to be seen in his day, as also that of his son Edulf or Ordulf, of whose remarkable bodily strength he relates an anecdote to the following effect. For nuus of the Augustine order, at Wherwell in Hampshire. This sets aside the claim which has been made for Hare wood in Cornwall, the seat of the Trelawny family, as the scene of the above transac tion. 115 a Ordulf was one day in company with his kinsman King Edward; approaching the city of Exeter, the porter in charge of the gate by which they were to enter was out of the way, and had and on the inside by bolts. Órdulf, secured the gate on the outside by bars, willing to give his royal cousin" touch of his quality," jumped off his horse, and seizing the bars with both hands, with a slight effort broke them them in two. Warmed with the success of this first essay, with a single kick he burst the remaining fastenings asunder, tearing the gates off their hinges. The surrounding attendants extolled the feat with expressions of the highest admiration; but the king, calling to mind perhaps the demoniacs of scripture, who resided in the tombs, and whom no human bonds could confine, told his relative, half in joke, half in earnest, that his was the strength of no man, but of a devil incarnate! Some circumstances are added to this story, concerning Ordulf's striding across streams ten feet wide; an useful accomplishment in a country every where intersected by water courses, and in those days doubtless but ill provided with bridges. Browne Willis tells us, that in his time the sepulchral effigies of this Saxon giant, of great length, were still preserved by lying under au arch in the north side of the cloisters of the Abbey church. This identical arch, as I apprehend, still remains, a solitary remnant of the immediate appendages of the Abbey church. The ar chitecture of this recess is of the time of Henry III. and as there is no example extant which can lead us to conclude that sepulchral figures were placed over tombs in the middle ages, until the twelfth century, and as it was usual to re-edify and remodel the monuments of saints and remarkable persons (of which custom the shrine of Edward the Confessor, now in Westminster Abbey, is a prominent example,) Ordulf's tomb perhaps underwent a renovation about this period, and was supplied with a sepulchral effigy. In digging the foundation of the house called the Abbey house, on the site of which the Bedford Arms Inn now stands, a remarkably rude and small sarcophagus was found, not more than A tolerably correct view of it is engraved in the Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet, vol. II. 116 Notices of Tavistock and its Abbey. three or four feet in length, containing some large bones. Two of these, each belonging to a thigh, are preserved in the parish church of Tavistock, and the larger is shewn as appertaining to the body of the founder Ordgar, the smaller to that of his wife; the size of the stone chest not more than three or four feet in length, and the dissimilarity of the dimensions of the bones, seem indeed to countenance the idea that the perishing remains of Ordgar and his wife, as benefactors to the monastery, might have been collected by a pious care, and deposited in one common receptacle by the monks of St. Rumon. Among several interesting architectural fragments, which are preserved with the sarcophagus itself, by the good taste of the Rev. E. A. Bray, the present vicar of Tavistock, under a gothic arch in the Vicarage Garden, (of which arch more hereafter,) were two fragments of stone tablets, inscribed in a delicate Roman character; one bore the legend, The last inscription may perhaps be a monitory sentence to the visitor of the founder's tomb, that he should exhibit as benevolent a disposition as Ordgar towards the abbey: "ut ille indolem sicut conditor abbatiæ nostræ præstet animam.t Ordgar, the founder, is said to have resided at Tavistock, and the site of his house is still traditionally pointed out. Before I dismiss the notice of the above They have been measured for me by Mr. James Cole, the sexton of Tavistock: the larger thigh bone is 21 inches in length, 54 in circumference; the smaller 19 in length, 44 in circumference. If these were really the bones of Ordgar and his wife, as probably they were, it is not surprising that their son Ordulf should be tall. It is with regret that I record that some one has grossly abused the kindness of the worthy vicar, who grants ready access to every one wishing to view these relics, and has cut off all further examination of the inscriptions by carrying them away. He must be a pitiful antiquary indeed who can stoop to disgrace himself by thefts which cannot long enrich himself, and who abstracts from the pleasure and information of the public at large in a present and future age. [Feb. brief particulars relative to him and his son, which have reached these later days, it may be well to observe that the account of the remarkable strength of the latter need not be rejected as altogether an idle tale. Most of these magnified relations have, like the lives of the deified personages of the Greek and Roman age, some foundation in real circumstances. Modern times have afforded us indisputable instances of individuals gifted with wonderful muscular power. Ordulf might have removed in a manner surprising to the ordinary race of men, some obstacle which opposed the entrance of King Edward and his train, into the city of Exeter, and possessed of a stature beyond the usual standard, and of strength in proportion, might have excelled, in passing brooks, dykes, or other obstacles, all his competitors in the chase. The Abbey Church being completed by Ordulf, Almer became the first Abbat. Ethelred, the grandson of the founder, who had succeeded to the English Crown by the death of Edward the Martyr, granted a charter to the Abbey, exempting it from all secular service, except rate for military expeditions, and the repair of bridges and castles. In the preamble to this instrument, he laments that certain been allowed, without his consent (he stained with infidelity, had persons, being, as it might be said, in an infant and powerless state, not more than Monks of Tavistock from their sacred twenty years of age), to drive the places and possessions. This stain of infidelity was, I apprehend, nothing more than a disbelief in the sanctity of Monks from Church benefices, in monachism, and the expulsion of the which they were replaced by the much more deserving and useful class of ecclesiastics, the secular Clergy. The suc cess of the artifices of Dunstan, in favour of the monkish order, is however well known. The Charter contains the customary anathemas against all infringement, and is witnessed by Ethelred or Adelred, King of all Britain, Alfthrith or Elfrida his mother, Dunstan the Archbishop of Canterbury, and numerous prelates and mag nates of the realm. In the year 997 the Danish fleet, under Sweyn, entered the Severn, and See Charter of Inspeximus, Edw. III. Dugdale's Monasticon. |