-- XIII.-WINDOW, AND WATER DRAIN IN ABBOT'S REFECTORY DOUBLE CUPBOARD IN ABBOT'S PARLOUR PAVING TILE AND INCISED STONE IN PRIORY RUINS XIV. SEPULCHRAL SLAB IN THE ABBEY CHURCH, SHREWSBURY XV.-SEALS OF RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, AND OTHER HIGH ADMIRALS OF ENGLAND Collectanea Archaeologica. SHROPSHIRE, ITS HISTORY AND AN ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH ARCHEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION ASSEMBLED IN CONGRESS AT SHREWSBURY, AUGUST 6TH, 1860. BY THE PRESIDENT, BERIAH BOTFIELD, Esq., M.P., M.A., F.R.S., F.S.A., ETC. I APPEAR before you on this occasion in a double character, one as the elected President of "the British Archæological Association, established in 1843 for the encouragement and prosecution of researches into the arts and monuments of the early and middle ages;" the other, as a native of Shropshire welcoming that Association to this town and county, and offering to them some remarks on the chief objects of interest which they propose to visit during their present Congress. First, then, let me offer to you some general remarks on those antiquarian studies in the pursuit of which we are now assembled, some, it may be, for amusement, as the pastime of an idle hour, some as a gratification to their taste or imagination, some in the philosophical spirit of inquiry for the ascertainment of important truth. Secondly, I would direct your attention to the vestiges of antiquity in Shropshire as connected with its history during the Celtic, the Roman, and the Saxon periods, and from the Norman invasion down to a comparatively recent time. This Association may be regarded as a kind of itinerant university, just anchored to one spot, but riding free on the tides of life, and on the currents of thought. The feeling generated by the pursuit of a common object passes with electrical rapidity from man to man. We are all the communicants and recipients of unconscious influence, whether for good or evil. Association in itself suggests and supplies the means by which great and definite objects may be most effectually promoted and attained. Let us take for our motto the last words of the Roman Emperor Severus, who on his death bed at York exclaimed: "Laboremus." Let us labour, we say; let us convert that which was a curse into a blessing; let us show that the spade can earn its B laurels as well as the sword; let all societies formed for the promotion of archæology keep that end steadily in view, and directing all their energies to that object, let them banish for ever all unseemly dissensions, as the first Christian emperors expelled dæmons, and dedicated their temples to the living God. "One of the main practical benefits to be derived from Archæology at the present day is the intelligent and reasonable preservation of ancient buildings, both as records of ancient art and proofs of national history. Another tendency of this study is the improvement and advancement of architectural science by a scientific and systematic study of existing monuments. Archæology, as the handmaid of history, is a science inseparable from, if not identical with it, and it requires to be treated with all the learning, all the reasoning, all the argumentative discrimination which the study of history imperatively demands. It should be remembered that archæology is a science, a science in the same sense as history, whether ethnological, political, or social. The past is the pedestal of the future, and progress, like the old poetic oak, needs to strike its roots as far downwards as it rears its head upwards. If you want a people really to cherish the love of their native place, and to improve and to adorn it at some cost to themselves, fill their minds with the grandeur of its past history, let them be made conscious of their identification with the centuries that are past, and then demand of their sympathies a future worthy of their ancestors."1 The history of a nation has to do with things which books can never supply; the manner of the people, their modes of life, action, and thought. We know more of the daily life and habits of the Romans from a visit to Pompeii and Herculaneum, than from any narrative, however vivid, of its annals. "Man in all countries has a resemblance to himself, and there is a still closer affinity between the manners and customs of nations derived from a common stock. In this way it is that what seems a riddle in one country finds its solution in another; and a fragment of truth, unintelligible in the district in which it is met with, is seen to correspond or harmonise with some other fact discovered elsewhere, so that both are found to explain and illustrate each other."2 Things that appear strange and unusual to us on a first sight are found to be common and intelligible when we enlarge the sphere of our observation. The antiquities of any one country cannot be well understood without knowing those of many others. The antiquities of Mexico, the discoveries at Nineveh, and the monuments of Egypt, have all contributed to our knowledge of the early history of mankind, by the comparative view which we have there been enabled to take of the state of the arts and of civilization at that remote period. 1 Professor Earle, in Arch. Camb., S. iii, vol. iii, p. 199. 2 Address by the Hon. Lord Neaves to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1859, p. 11. Add to which that the antiquities of one country nearly always illustrate and explain those of another; at all events, in those portions of the globe inhabited by related divisions of our common race; and that as the history of any single country cannot be well understood without some knowledge being acquired of that of neighbouring states, so the accomplished antiquary must not expect to make up his budget of knowledge without collecting many of its stores from the treasury of other nations. His task is indeed laborious, and time and leisure sufficient for its performance are rarely accorded to any one; still every man is bound to labour in his own little way, each for the same end, and could we make our individual efforts profitable to the common cause, we should associate ourselves together, allot our particular labours to each other, according to our several inclinations and capacities, and, as industrious bees, bring home the sweets of our operations and of our excursions to be elaborated and distributed for the good of the community.1 "Architecture," it has been well said, "forms a perpetual commentary upon the pages of the historian, who can ill dispense with the aid which the imagination thus receives." If intellectual impressions are strengthened by visible objects, and if history be "Philosophy teaching by example," it is surely the reverse of wisdom wantonly to demolish the monuments of antiquity, when neither utility nor convenience demand their destruction. The history of every nation may be said to be written on tablets of stone, and to be inscribed on the walls of their dwellings. Such is the unchanging character of the architecture of each nation that their works are readily distinguished wherever they are found. We recognise the temples of Greece on the shores of Asia Minor, and in the island of Sicily. The Roman practice of building was as unchanging as the Chinese; the same principles of construction were observed on the banks of the Severn and the Thames, as on those of the Tiber or the Po. The Norman castles of England had the same distinctive features as those of France, and these again resembled those in Sicily and Apulia, being all the work of the same people. "I may venture to suggest the importance of some knowledge of Heraldry to the student of historical antiquities. For the correct understanding of family history, of topographical and territorial learning, of ecclesiology, and of architecture, it is indispensable. Heraldic blazoning is mixed up with almost all the fine arts of the middle ages. In architecture it soon took a prominent place among what may be called surface ornament, not affecting the shape and frame, the type and style of building, but furnishing in infinite variety subjects of embellishment, mixed with much of personal interest. If the shield of rich blazoning, or the cognizance of some old name, covered 1 "On the Study and Preservation of National Antiquities," by the editor of the Archeologia Cambrensis. Vol. i, pp. 6, 7. with dust or dirt, still creates an interest on the wall of a ruined church, or as part of the tracery of a monumental tomb, we may imagine what effect was produced by the brilliant colours of the old herald's 'tinctures' adorning not only the walls, but repeated in the tiles of the pavement, and glowing in the gorgeous colouring of the windows; when each bearing and difference, the square banner of the knight and the squire's pennon, told a universally understood history of the founders and benefactors of the church, and perhaps called up some memory of battle or siege, and of honour won in the field or tourney-yard." When history affords no clue, and tradition sheds but an imperfect light on remarkable places, their names frequently illustrate the subject, especially when viewed with relation to the similarity of position occupied by places which bear synonymous appellations. The application of etymology to elucidate obscure points of archæology is obviously suggested by the consideration that names endure much longer than the things they designate. The rivers, mountains, and forts frequently retain their earliest appellations, in which we recognise the Celtic tongue. When we meet with names of places composed of street, or chester, we feel certain that a Roman thoroughfare ran through the former, and that a Roman camp or station existed at the latter. The marks of Anglo-Saxon colonisation may be discerned in the termination of by, ham, ley, wick, and worth, which prevail throughout the island, more particularly the second of these, on the eastern side, where the Saxons first landed.2 "It is not the least remarkable feature in the dialect of Shropshire, that it should have borrowed scarcely any words directly from the contiguous territory of Wales, and Mr. Hartshorne thinks this fact may serve to prove that the English language as spoken by Salopians in an agricultural district, is marked by extreme accuracy and purity. Wales seems to have presented an insurmountable barrier. Totally dissimilar in all its forms of speech and in its terminations, the Welsh has never incorporated itself in the least degree with our provincialisms. Even in that part of the country round Oswestry, where an intercourse with the principality is the greatest, and there is no natural line of demarcation to cut off the admixture of the two languages, they have in no way merged into or corrupted each other. There is nothing like a Cambro-British patois, or an Anglo-Welsh idiom observable. The English here is quite as free from Welsh expressions as it is in the centre of the kingdom." There is, however, a Welsh accent peculiar to the Borders of Wales, the further diffusion of which was probably checked by the Severn. So great were the diversities in pronunciation in Shropshire, that Mr. 1 Scotland in the Middle Ages. Sketches of Early Scotch History and Social Progress, by Cosmo Innes. Edinb. 1860. 8vo. 2 Salopia Antiqua, by Rev. C. H. Hartshorne. Lond. 1841. 8vo. pp. 237-9. |