The story is of interest to us mainly as bearing witness to the fact that in the year 1022 the church of Jarrow remained a popular centre of worship. In the case of Monkwearmouth history and legend alike fail us; we must judge for ourselves. The tower of the church was evidently built at two distinct periods. The porch and the parvise over it appear to belong to the age of the founder. They also show traces of the fires of the Danes. This is not the case with the superstructure. Incontestably of Saxon work, it belongs to the same period which saw the erection of at least four church towers in the valley of the Tyne. As it exhibits no traces of the burning of the year 866, its date and theirs must be looked for somewhere in the next two centuries. The reign of the Northumbrian Guthred (A.D. 884-894) has been ascertained to be a period when relations between Church and State were more than ordinarily friendly. At this time the tower of Monkwearmouth Church may well have been completed. It can hardly have been built at a much later date, for there is other and different work in the [Illustration: JARROW CHURCH.] same church which appears to belong to the age before the Conquest. The modern arch between nave and chancel rises on its south side from an ancient substructure, of which one feature is the cushion moulding at its base. There is something here begun by Anglo-Saxon masons, but carried out apparently by Norman builders. It was possibly a work of the reign of Edward the Confessor, and apparently implies some contemporaneous reconstruction of the early porch or chancel. Subject, then, to the chances of time and of warfare, the churches of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow still carried on their existence. The latter was certainly in use at the date of the Conquest. This was a period of trouble and disaster. Oswulf, the Earl of Northumberland, is displaced, and soon after murders his successor. Gospatric next buys the earldom, and forthwith rebels. The Conqueror marches northward in person, and appoints Robert Cummin to the vacant office. He, too, is assassinated in the city of Durham. This event is followed by the King’s return, and the wholesale devastation of the lands north of York. Ethelwin the Bishop, accompanied by his canons, flees northward with the body of St. Cuthbert. They rest for a night in the church at Jarrow. Their pursuers follow on their track and set the building on fire. Northumbria is devastated by Norman and Scottish enemies at once; and for nine years the land lies waste. During this period we may well believe that both our churches stood unroofed and desolate; their walls, on the other hand, certainly resisted the flames, and were preserved to be ere long the home of a new band of settlers. * * * * *