The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer; Vol. 4, July-Dec 1884Various
History
The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer; Vol. 4, July-Dec 1884
Various
Archaeology -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Antiquities -- Periodicals
ecclesiastical plate, mediæval lacework, illustrated missals, and other
manuscripts, prints, &c.
Saturday was one of the most interesting days of the congress, it being
devoted by a greater part of the members to a pilgrimage to
Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, places well known as the abodes of the
Venerable Bede, the earliest of our English Church historians. Before
starting, however, the Institute held, as is its established custom, its
annual meeting, over which Lord Percy presided in virtue of his office.
The balance-sheet and other accounts, which happily showed an excess of
income over expenditure, were read and passed, and so also was the
annual report, which recorded the fact that during the past twelvemonth,
thanks to a committee appointed for that purpose, the Institute had been
regularly incorporated--that is, placed under the Incorporated Societies
Act--whilst another committee had been engaged on reporting on its
books, prints, papers, &c., with a view to their re-arrangement. The
rest of the report was taken up with a record of the resignation of the
much-respected secretary, Mr. Albert Hartshorne, and the appointment of
Mr. Hellier Gosselin in his place; and this was followed by a short
obituary notice of some of the members of the Institute who have died
since the Lewes congress, including Mr. John Henry Parker, C.B., author
of the “Glossary of Architecture,” and the best explorer and interpreter
of Ancient Rome; the Rev. Henry Addington, the most learned of
Bedfordshire antiquaries; the Rev. James Fuller Russell; and the Hon.
William Owen Stanley, M.P. A few alterations in the rules of the
Institute were proposed by the Rev. Mr. Spurrell, but were negatived, it
being felt by the meeting that such matters had better be left in the
hands of the council. It was agreed that next year’s congress should be
held at Derby. At twelve o’clock a special train took the members of the
congress to Monkwearmouth, where the ancient parish church was the
object of a pilgrimage. The tower is by far the most interesting portion
of the church, being not only undoubtedly Anglo-Saxon, but of very early
Saxon date. It was built towards the end of the seventh century by
Benedict Biscop, who employed French workmen on its details, and caused
them to insert windows of glass, a luxury till then unknown in churches.
Bede gives a long account of this church, and of the monastery adjoining
it, which contained, it is said, 600 monks prior to its destruction by
the Danes. Like Jarrow, the monastery, on its revival and restoration,
became a cell subordinate to St. Cuthbert’s great church at Durham. The
details of the structure of Monkwearmouth Church were described at
considerable length by the Rev. Mr. Boyle, who pointed out some very
curious dwarf figures on either side of the western doorway of the
tower, which were repeated in the interior, and remarked on the quaint
manner in which the square stones of the early Saxon churches had been
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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