DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6886#0048
46 HISTORY OF
the East Saxons. The rest, it will not be uncharitable to suppose, they, by a pious
fraud, supplied from their own invention; to add, as they thought, and they
knew how it would weigh in the general estimation of those times, to the security,
honour, and characteristic sacredness of the place.
When these inventions were first propagated cannot now be ascertained; nor
would it be of any real importance, if it were possible to trace them to their pre-
cise origin: but it may gratify curiosity to state three periods which have been
considered as the most probable for their fabrication : the reign of King Edgar;
that of Edward the Confessor; or the time immediately subsequent to the Norman
conquest.
The former of these eras, however, does not seem altogether to justify the
opinion. It is true, that, in the reign of Edgar, St. Dunstan bore a supreme
sway in every thing that was subject, or could be subjected, to ecclesiastical juris-
diction. If it were not by his own original and immediate direction that this
monastery was repaired, he at least influenced that monarch to command the
pious work, and attended himself to the execution of it. But though he was
educated in monachism, and, with an ardent as well as unremitting zeal, not only
supported, but extended that system to the absolute persecution of the secular
clergy; there is no existing authority to justify the opinion, that the forger}r of
histories or miracles was a prevailing practice, in which he lived and ruled. His
power was too predominant to stand in need of such auxiliary contrivances.
Edward the Confessor, to whom this church is indebted for its first display of
grandeur and magnificence, possessed, with moderate parts, a very powerful ima-
gination. He seems to have been peculiarly calculated to become the tool of de-
signing priests, and the ladder of ambitious statesmen. The stories, therefore,
might have been artfully invented, relative to the great antiquity and sacred con-
secration of this church, in order to quicken and enlarge his munificent disposi-
tions towards it.
the East Saxons. The rest, it will not be uncharitable to suppose, they, by a pious
fraud, supplied from their own invention; to add, as they thought, and they
knew how it would weigh in the general estimation of those times, to the security,
honour, and characteristic sacredness of the place.
When these inventions were first propagated cannot now be ascertained; nor
would it be of any real importance, if it were possible to trace them to their pre-
cise origin: but it may gratify curiosity to state three periods which have been
considered as the most probable for their fabrication : the reign of King Edgar;
that of Edward the Confessor; or the time immediately subsequent to the Norman
conquest.
The former of these eras, however, does not seem altogether to justify the
opinion. It is true, that, in the reign of Edgar, St. Dunstan bore a supreme
sway in every thing that was subject, or could be subjected, to ecclesiastical juris-
diction. If it were not by his own original and immediate direction that this
monastery was repaired, he at least influenced that monarch to command the
pious work, and attended himself to the execution of it. But though he was
educated in monachism, and, with an ardent as well as unremitting zeal, not only
supported, but extended that system to the absolute persecution of the secular
clergy; there is no existing authority to justify the opinion, that the forger}r of
histories or miracles was a prevailing practice, in which he lived and ruled. His
power was too predominant to stand in need of such auxiliary contrivances.
Edward the Confessor, to whom this church is indebted for its first display of
grandeur and magnificence, possessed, with moderate parts, a very powerful ima-
gination. He seems to have been peculiarly calculated to become the tool of de-
signing priests, and the ladder of ambitious statesmen. The stories, therefore,
might have been artfully invented, relative to the great antiquity and sacred con-
secration of this church, in order to quicken and enlarge his munificent disposi-
tions towards it.