Dorchester

From Goulder Chapter I: Places Visited on the Way to Oxford, Part 1.

This is not, of course, Dorchester in Dorset, but the town of the same name which is situated on the River Thame, half a mile north of its confluence with the Thames.

HISTORY

There was a settlement at Dorchester during most of the last two thousand years before Christ. Indeed, it appears to have been one of the most important inhabited sites in the neighbourhood. The Romans fortified it, and traces of their ramparts still remain on the west and south sides of the town. A track, now overgrown with grass, can be distinguished branching off the main road at the north end of the place. It was the Roman road to Alchester near Bicester.
In the first quarter of the seventh century, Pope Honorius I[1] charged a monk of St Andrew’s monastery on the Coelian Hill in Rome with the task of converting the people inhabiting the middle districts of England. His name was Birinus and he was consecrated a bishop by Asterius[2] of Milan. In 634, he landed at the head[3] of Southampton Water and, finding that the West Saxons living near the coast had not yet been converted, he turned his attention to them. In the same year, he baptized Cynegils,[4] king of Wessex. The ceremony took place at Dorchester, and St Oswald[5] of Northumbria, who was in the town to negotiate a marriage, acted as sponsor to Cynegils.
St Birinus set up his cathedral at Dorchester and died there about 650. Soon after he was dead, his vast missionary diocese was divided. Hampshire and Dorset were cut off and put under two new bishops, one at Winchester, the other at Sherborne. This move was partly dictated by politics. Things had been going badly for Wessex. The empire conquered by Cynegils’ predecessor, Ceawlin,[6] was breaking up under constant attacks by Mercian armies. Bythe middle of the seventh century, the whole of the territory which the West Saxons had ruled north of the Thames had passed into Mercian control. Dorchester had become a Mercian town and it was obviously impossible to maintain a West Saxon bishop­ric there. Henceforth its fortunes were bound up with those of the Mercian kingdom and it was the seat of one of the Mercian bishoprics until, in the course of the great reshuffle of sees which took place after the Norman conquest, Bishop Remigius[7] removed his throne to Lincoln. This was in 1072. The descent of Lincoln from Dorchester explains the surprising fact that Oxford remained in the diocese of Lincoln throughout the middle ages.
In 1140, another chapter in the history of Dorchester began, when Bishop Alexander[8] of Lincoln sent the Canons Regular of St Augustine[9] to take charge of the church which had served as the cathedral of the bishops of Dorchester. The canons, anxious to secure prestige for their monastery, announced in 1224 that they had discovered the body of St Birinus. They tried to refute the common belief that St Hæddi[10] had moved the saint’s relics to Winchester in the last quarter of the seventh century. They put it about that it was the relics of a saint called Bertinus[11] and not those of Birinus which had been translated. It is impossible to say now whether they were right, but the story sounds ben trovato. A furious controversy about the matter raged for many years between the canons and the monks of Winchester. The dispute was eventually referred to the pope, and Cardinal Stephen Langton[12] was appointed to make investigations. He, in turn, dele­gated the problem to one of his archdeacons. It was decided to examine the question on the basis of miracles – whichever place received the most favour to be declared to possess the saint’s body. In the end, the pope issued a non-committal bull slightly in favour of Dorchester. On the strength of this, the canons built a new shrine and transferred the bones – whosesoever they were – to it.
When Henry VIII[13] suppressed the monasteries, Dorchester Abbey was valued at £190. The church was bought by Richard Bewforeste[14] for £140 and left by him to serve as a parish church.

THE BUILDINGS

The abbey church was dedicated to St Peter, St Paul and St Birinus, and was the successor to the little cathedral built in 634. This church, patched up and enlarged from time to time, did duty throughout the Saxon period and was taken over by the Austin Canons when they arrived in 1140.
By 1175, the canons were ready to build a new church. The Saxon building was demolished and a small church of Norman pattern with an eastern apse and low central tower was put in its place. Some of the masonry from this building still remains in the north wall of the nave and in the transept. The eastern apse ended a short way to the east of the present chancel arch.
In the thirteenth century, an aisle and some chapels were added on the north of the chancel. The north transept was about twenty-five feet longer than it is now, and there was a chapel measuring twenty feet from east to west springing from its eastern side. The transept was shortened and sealed off in post-Reformation times.

Soon after 1300, the central tower went the way of many Norman towers and fell down. The canons used the occasion to build another chapel to the south of the chancel. The south door, now protected by a porch, was constructed at the same time. In 1320, the spacious south aisle was built on to the nave to give more room to the parish­ioners, who worshipped in the part of the church west of the screen. There are signs of this screen on the great piers west of the transept. During this alteration, the west wall of the south transept was not removed, and forms the curious barrier at the east end of the nave aisle. No north aisle could be built because the cloister ran along the side of the nave. The doors which led to it are now blocked up. In the fourteenth century, the old east end was pulled down and replaced by the present magnificent structure. In the fifteenth century, the wooden porch which covers the south door was erected.

TOUR OF THE CHURCH

Nothing remains of the monastic buildings except the school-house to the west of the tower. Outside the church on the south side are some fine fourteenth-century buttresses and an old preaching cross which has now been restored. These crosses were ruthlessly thrown down at the Reformation and many churchyards contain a pathetic stump.
Inside the church, the first thing which strikes us is the wall which blocks the east end of the south aisle and the unusual height of the altar which stands before it. The wall, as has already been explained, was the west wall of the south transept and, before the aisle was built, was an outside wall. The altar before the screen was built over a crypt, which accounts for its elevation. On the wall, there are some four­teenth-century paintings. Our Lord is shown after death, with fallen head and closed eyes. The pictures have been touched up. Such representations covered the walls of our churches before the Reforma­tion, but they were usually obscured with whitewash when the Faith was suppressed.
There is a Norman font with its original lead basin in the south aisle. The figures on it are those of Our Lord and His apostles. Near the font is a stone bracket for a statue with elaborate carving showing sleeping monks and the devil blowing a horn. Right across from the door by which we came in is the north wall of the nave. It is much as the canons built it in the twelfth century, but there are two windows which were constructed in the fifteenth century. They were made high up so as to clear the cloister roof which lay on the other side.
From the west end of the nave the full splendour of the church can be appreciated. There is a view of the fine east window through the chancel arch. As you go up the nave you will notice the blocked-up cloister doors on your left, and you pass beneath the door in the chancel arch which led into the rood-loft. Under the crossing was the canons’ choir. You can now make out the detail of the east window. The upper three rows of glass date from the fourteenth century and depict the crowning with thorns, the scourging, the carrying of the cross, the Resurrection, Our Lord’s appearance to St Mary Magdalene, and the descent into hell. The lower glass is modern. Glass from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries survives in the window on the south side of the sanctuary. There is a representation of a funeral which some say is that of Our Lady but others hold to be the translation of the relics of St Birinus. The north window is truly marvellous and has a tree of Jesse carved in stone on the mullions, showing the human descent of Christ. It climbs up over the whole interior face of the window.
The sanctuary contains a beautiful sedilia[15] and piscina.[16] There are unusual little windows behind the seats of the former. A splendid double piscina is to be seen to the west of the present sanctuary which doubtless was in use before the church was extended eastwards. On the north side of the space between the stalls and the rails is a brass of an unknown abbot.[17] There is also the matrix of a brass commemorat­ing John de Sutton.[18] It is on the south side almost corresponding to the brass of Bewforeste. Several other matrices for brasses are to be found in the floor.
Between the chancel and the south choir aisle is some beautiful arcad­ing dating from the fourteenth century. This aisle was planned as a resting-place for the relics of St Birinus and there are some fragments of the shrine preserved in wire-netting at the east end of the aisle. Close under the arcading dividing the aisle from the choir is a memorial to the Seagrave family. The name of the cross-legged knight, whose tomb occupies the dividing line between the two south-aisle chapels is not known. The double brass to the south of it commemorates Sir John Drayton[19] and his wife Alice. A little to the east of this, alongside the wall, is a memorial to John de Stonor[20] a famous judge of Edward III’s[21] time. The family arms are repeated four times, at the ends and side of the sepulchre. West of this is the tomb of the Richard Bew­foreste who bought the church, and his wife. Finally, behind the southern range of choir stalls is the ‘effigy of an unknown fourteenth­-century prelate in full pontificals. The colour still shows in the folds of his vestments.
Before leaving the church, it is worth while comparing the recent wall painting in the Lady Chapel with the medieval figures on the far side of the wall cutting off the south nave aisle. How badly the pallid sentimentality of the modern work stands up against the virility of the medieval ! On the way out, near the line of pillars which separates the nave from the south aisle is another interesting comparison. Could anything be further from the spirit of the Catholic middle ages than the inscription on the tomb of Mrs Sarah Fletcher whose nerves were too delicately spun to bear the rude Shakes and Jostlings which we meet in this transitory World, Nature gave way. She sank and died, a Martyr to Excessive Sensibility. And this lady had committed suicide because her husband ran off with another woman! The coroner’s jury found that she was temporarily out of her mind and so could be buried in church. The date was 1799.

Also very much worth visiting is the small but very fine Catholic parish church of St Birinus. It is in the 'Arts and Crafts' style, and its Altar and elaborate Rood Screen have not been reordered.
For more on the Abbey, see their site.

[1] Pope 625-638.
[2] Archbishop of Milan 630-640. Some authorities hold that the actual consecra­tion took place at Genoa.
[3] Probably his landing-place was Cerdicesora, the modern Totton, where the founder of the West Saxon royal house, Cerdic (reigned 495-534), had landed before him.
[4] King of the West Saxons 611-641. ‘ King of Northumbria 634-642.
[5] King of Northumbria 634-642.
[6] King of the West Saxons 560-593.
[7] Bishop of Dorchester 1067-1072, of Lincoln 1072-1092.
[8] Bishop of Lincoln 1123-1148.
[9] The Canons Regular of St Augustine (bishop of Hippo 396-430) or Austin Canons or Black Canons emerged from obscure beginnings in the early twelfth century. They made their profession to a particular house like monks, not to a province like friars. Their life was similar to that of the monastic orders, but they were not so strictly bound to their cloister. They exercised a limited external ministry. In England they possessed one hundred and seventy houses at the time of the dissolution. The habit consisted of a black tunic, over which a white rochet and a black cloak with a hood were worn in choir.
[10] Bishop of Winchester c. 679-705. He was the fourth successor to St Birinus.
[11] The identification of this saint is guesswork. There was a St Bertin or Bertinus who died about 709. He was abbot of St Omer and spent most of his life as a mission­ary in the Pas-de-Calais. It is just possible that Dorchester might have acquired a relic, but surely not his whole body. More likely, the canons at Dorchester invented the name.
[12] Archbishop of Canterbury 1207-1228. Cardinal 1206.
[13] Reigned 1509-1547.
[4] Died 1554.
[15] Seats for the celebrant, deacon and subdeacon at Mass. In medieval English usage, they sat in the order given above with the celebrant in the eastern seat. According to Roman custom the celebrant sits in the middle with the deacon on his right, the subdeacon on his left.
[16] In the early middle ages, piscine were used for two purposes : (1) for the washing of the priest’s hands at the offertory, and (2) for the disposal of the ablutions after the Communion of the celebrant. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth cen­turies, the custom arose of drinking the ablutions as is done now. During the early period many double piscine were built, with one drain for the washing of the hands and another for the ablutions. In the later period, one drain alone was necessary, i.e. for the washing of the hands, and single piscine became the rule. The water was carried off through a lead pipe which led directly into the earth.
[17] A brass plate near this tomb bears the words Here lieth Sir Richard Bewforeste. It gave, rise to the belief that there were two Bewforestes-the man who bought the church after the suppression and this abbot. The theory is, of course, possible. But it is more probable that the plate has been moved from the lay Bewforeste’s tomb on the other side of the church.
[18] Abbot of Dorchester 1333-1349.
[19] Died 1417.
[20] Died 1354.
[21] Reigned 1327-1377.