Introductory material

PREFACE.

This small volume is a reprint, with hardly any change, of three lectures which were given to a local society in Wells in the months of December 1869 and January 1870, and which were printed at the time in a local paper. I have added some notes and references, but the substance is essentially the same. The subject seemed to deserve more than local attention on more grounds than one. I wished to point out the way in which local and general history may and ought to be brought together. As a general rule, local historians make hardly any attempt to connect the history of the particular church or city or district of which they are writing with the general history of the country, or even with the general history of its own class of institutions. On the other hand, more general students of history are apt to pay too little heed to the history of particular places. I have here tried to treat the history of the Church of Wells as a contribution to the general history of the Church and Kingdom of England, and specially to the history of the Cathedral Churches of the Old Foundation. I have also a special object in calling attention to the origin and history of those foundations, to their original objects and their modern corruptions. It is quite impossible that our Cathedral institutions can stay much longer in the state in which they now are, a state which satisfies no party. If they are not reformed by their friends, they can hardly fail to be destroyed by their enemies. The awkward attempt at reform which was made thirty years back was made in utter ignorance of the history and nature of the institutions. Instead of reforming them, it has merely crippled them. Our Cathedral Churches have indeed vastly improved during those thirty years; but it has been almost wholly because they have shared in a general improvement, hardly at all by virtue of the changes which were specially meant to improve them. I wish to point out the general principles of the original founders as the model to which the Old Foundations should be brought back, and the New Foundations reformed after their pattern.

What I have now written is of course a mere sketch, which does not at all pretend to be a complete history of the Church of Wells, either architectural or documentary. I had hoped that Professor Willis would have allowed me the use of the materials of both kinds on which he grounded his lectures in 1851 and 1863. But it seems that he reserves them for the general work for which architectural students have been waiting so long. I have therefore been left to my own resources, that is, as far as documents are concerned, to the ordinary printed authorities in Anglia Sacra, the Monasticon, and elsewhere. But it is to be hoped that some day or other the documents that are locked up in manuscript at Wells and at other places may be made available for historical purposes. Some of our capitular records would be excellently suited for a place in the series issued by the Master of the Rolls.

I have given an historical ground-plan, but the scale of the book forbade any strictly architectural illustrations, while it seemed needless to give any mere picturesque views of a building of which engravings and photographs are so common.

Somerleaze, Wells, May 18th, 1870.

LIST OF BISHOPS.

BISHOPS OF SOMERSETSHIRE OR WELLS.

Consecration. Death or

Translation

Æthelhelm 909 914[1]

Wulfhelm 914 923[1]

Ælfheah 923 937?

Wulfhelm 938 955?

Brihthelm 956 973

Cyneward 973 975

Sigar 975 997

Ælfwine 997 998?

Lyfing 999 1012[1]

Æthelwine}[2] 1013 1023?

Brihtwine } 1013 1023?

Merewith 1027 1033

Duduc 1033 1060

Gisa 1061 1088

BISHOPS OF BATH.

John de Villulâ 1088 1122

Godfrey 1123 1135

Robert 1136 1166

Reginald 1174 1191[3]

BISHOPS OF BATH AND GLASTONBURY.

Savaric 1192 1205

BISHOPS OF BATH AND WELLS.

Jocelin of Wells 1206 1242

Roger 1244 1247

William Button 1248 1264

Walter Giffard 1265 1266[4]

William Button 1267 1274

Robert Burnell 1275 1292

William of March 1293 1302

Walter Hasleshaw 1302 1308

John Drokensford 1309 1329

Ralph of Shrewsbury 1329 1363

John Barnet 1363[5] 1366[6]

John Harewell 1367 1386

Walter Skirlaw 1386[7] 1388[8]

Ralph Erghum 1388[9] 1400

Henry Bowett 1401 1407[10]

Nicholas Bubwith 1407[11] 1424

John Stafford 1425 1443[12]

Thomas Beckington 1443 1465

Robert Stillington 1466 1491

Richard Fox 1492[13] 1494[14]

Oliver King 1495[15] 1503

Hadrian de Castello 1504[16] 1518[17]

Thomas Wolsey 1518[18] 1523[19]

John Clark 1523 1541

William Knight 1541 1547

William Barlow 1549[20] 1554[21]

Gilbert Bourne 1554 1559[22]

Gilbert Berkeley 1560 1581

Thomas Godwin 1584 1590[23]

John Still 1593 1608

James Montague 1608 1616[24]

Arthur Lake 1616 1626

William Laud 1626[25] 1628[26]

Leonard Mawe 1628 1629

Walter Curll 1629[27] 1632[28]

William Piers 1632[29] 1670

Robert Creighton 1670 1672

Peter Mews 1673 1684[30]

Thomas Ken 1685 1690[31]

Richard Kidder 1691 1703

George Hooper 1704[32] 1727

John Wynne 1727[32] 1743

Edward Willis 1743[33] 1773

Charles Moss 1774[33] 1802

Richard Beadon 1802[34] 1824

George Henry Law 1824[35] 1845

Hon. Richard Bagot 1845[36] 1854

Robert John Lord Auckland 1854[37] 1869[38]

Lord Arthur Charles Hervey 1869