DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6886#0061
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 29
was Abbot of Malmsbury, and not of Westminster. The observation also natu-
rally suggests itself, that the succession of the abbots, and the duration of the term
in which they held their offices, are recorded with an assumed degree of precision
by Sporley, far better suited to peaceable and prosperous times, than the incursions
of such ravaging and infidel enemies as the Danes; who are said to have destroyed
the place, and left it in ruins : in which dilapidated state it is supposed to have
remained for a long series of years. It is not, indeed, to be reconciled to the
ordinary notions of historical veracity, that the times of those abbots should be
made out with such pretensions to accuracy, when there is so much apparent
obscurity and perplexity in the accounts of those who succeeded them.
Dart has, in his Westmonasterium, taken Sporley for his groundwork, and made
such additions as he could extract from subsequent writers, and the ancient records
that came under his inspection: yet, when he arrives at this period of his list of
abbots, he accounts for the deficiency of original materials in a manner which
appears to strike at the credibility of those which he has found and adopted.—" It
" is to be observed," he says, " that the affairs of this abbey till this time are in-
" volved in great darkness, for two reasons: the first, the ignorance of the times;
" the second, the Danish disturbances: and it is, I suppose, for this reason too, that
" from Erkenwald till Dunstan, who began to rise in the time of Abbot Alfnod,
" the affairs of the see of London are not once mentioned, save that venerable
" Bede takes notice of one Waldhere in his time: so that, for near three hundred
" years, there is only a bare succession of names, without even the times they
" lived in: much less then is it to be expected, that this small convent, a part of,
" and then in subjection to, that see, should be more remarked for its affairs*."
The royal benefactions which are mentioned by Flete as having been made to
* Vol. II. p. 5.
was Abbot of Malmsbury, and not of Westminster. The observation also natu-
rally suggests itself, that the succession of the abbots, and the duration of the term
in which they held their offices, are recorded with an assumed degree of precision
by Sporley, far better suited to peaceable and prosperous times, than the incursions
of such ravaging and infidel enemies as the Danes; who are said to have destroyed
the place, and left it in ruins : in which dilapidated state it is supposed to have
remained for a long series of years. It is not, indeed, to be reconciled to the
ordinary notions of historical veracity, that the times of those abbots should be
made out with such pretensions to accuracy, when there is so much apparent
obscurity and perplexity in the accounts of those who succeeded them.
Dart has, in his Westmonasterium, taken Sporley for his groundwork, and made
such additions as he could extract from subsequent writers, and the ancient records
that came under his inspection: yet, when he arrives at this period of his list of
abbots, he accounts for the deficiency of original materials in a manner which
appears to strike at the credibility of those which he has found and adopted.—" It
" is to be observed," he says, " that the affairs of this abbey till this time are in-
" volved in great darkness, for two reasons: the first, the ignorance of the times;
" the second, the Danish disturbances: and it is, I suppose, for this reason too, that
" from Erkenwald till Dunstan, who began to rise in the time of Abbot Alfnod,
" the affairs of the see of London are not once mentioned, save that venerable
" Bede takes notice of one Waldhere in his time: so that, for near three hundred
" years, there is only a bare succession of names, without even the times they
" lived in: much less then is it to be expected, that this small convent, a part of,
" and then in subjection to, that see, should be more remarked for its affairs*."
The royal benefactions which are mentioned by Flete as having been made to
* Vol. II. p. 5.