DOCKLINTON'S AISLE. 19 In the Oxford Sausage there is an eighteenth-century epigram 'on Part of S. Mary's Church being converted into a law School.' 'See here—an event that no mortal suspected; See Law and Divinity closely connected! Which proves the old proverb, long reckon'd so odd, The aularians having no extra-diocesan privileges, the principal of every hall and his scholars were obliged by the University statutes to repair on solemn days to their parish church for Divine Service, though sometimes they had a private oratory'. The appropriation of an aisle of St. Aldate's to the scholars of Broadgates may perhaps lend some colour to Wood's assertion that the budding monks who first inhabited, as he asserts, the 'ancient hostle,' performed in the adjoining Church, of which the Priory were joint-patrons, those usuall rites and services that were required by their rule.' Leonard Hutten says: In this Church there is a Chappell of newer building than it selfe, but the Founder or Builder thereof I doe not find. It is peculier and propper to Broadgates where they daily meete for the celebration of Divine Service? It was the Chapel of Pembroke College till 1732, a rent being always paid of 6s. 8d. The founder was John de Dokelynton, who also built the tower and steeple in the ninth of Edward III (1335, 6), and it was usually called by his name. Wood calls it 'Trinity Chapel and Doclinton's Chantry.' He says": 'John Doclinton or Ducklinton (he was a fishmonger, and white fishes in a red circular feild are in this chapple to this day) severall times maior of this city, desiring the health of his soule, did to the honor of the Virgin Mary and All Saints institute a perpetual chantry, 9 Edw. III, in a chappell of his own building on the south side of this church. Wherin ordaining a chapleyn to celebrate divine service for his and the soules of his wives, Sibyll and Julian, for the soules of his father and mother, and also of Henry bishop of Lyncoln, while living and when dead, setled on him and his successors for ever an annual revenew of 5 marks issuing out of severall of his messuages in Oxon, viz., out of that that he then inhabited in Fish Street, another in St. Michael's parish at North Gate, out of two shops in the parish of All Saints, out of another tenement near Soller Hall in St. Edward's parish, and out of another in Grandpont neare Trill Milne. This gift and institution (as also the license of the king and Alexander Medbourn, the then rector of this 1 The principal of Hinxsey Hall in St. Aldate's parish was licensed in 1485' ad celebrandum in oratorio' (Wood's City, ed. Clark, O. H. S., i. 201). 2 Antiquities of Oxford (Elizabethan Oxford, ed. Plummer, O. H. S., p. 88). 3 City, ii. 37. 20 JOHN DE DOCKLINTON. church, for it) was confirmed by way of inspeximus by Henry Burwash, bishop of Lyncoln, the same year 16 calends of Aprill: and afterwards paid to St. Frideswyde's Priory 6d. per annum, as appears by one of their rentalls of all their revenews in Oxon for the year 1517 in which this chappell is stiled Trinity Chappell.' As a fishmonger he naturally lived near his trade in Fish (St. Aldate's) Street. Wood elsewhere says that he owned Borstall Hall (in High Street) 'in the raignes of Edward II and III', which his wife Sibyll granted in 1336 to William Sedbury of Worcester; and that in his will (1348) he bequeathed Soller Hall (in Bear Lane) to his wife Alice 2. This then was a third consort. Chaucer speaks of a Solar Hall at Cambridge. Wood inclines to identify Docklinton's Inn in Fish Street with the Christopher 3. Docklinton's name is of frequent occurrence. About 1284 the priory demised to John de Doklindon and Juliana his wife a seld, rented at 125., in the parish of All Hallows (Ch. 398). In 1303 he was bailiff with John of Beverley. In 1312 he conveyed Hart Hall to Bishop Walter de Stapledon and also Arthur Hall. The former he had bought in 1301 from Elias de Herteford the younger for £20, the latter in 1308 of Agnes de Staunton. In 1318 he witnessed an agreement between the Abbess of Godstow and the Rector and Scholars of Stapledon Hall, and another in 1323 between Agatha Oweyn and the same; also two grants by Elena le Boun to Thomas le Macoun in 1315, a grant of John de Ew to John de Durham on the morrow of the Conception of the Virgin 1317, and a conveyance of Nicholas Bone to Thomas and Agnes le Mason in 1322. A grant from Thomas and Agnes to Nicholas, Feb. 6, 132, is witnessed by him as mayor. In 1335 he bequeathed 20s. to each of the four Orders in Oxford. While mayor in 1327, we find him taking part in an extraordinary riot on the part of the joint commonalties of Oxford and Abingdon, in which Abingdon Abbey was sacked and pillaged of its treasures and muniments. A number of rioters were hanged, but whether Docklinton was found guilty is not clear. In the 35th of Edw. I (1307). he witnessed the lease to Balliol College of the old Synagogue, afterwards one of the numerous Broadgates Halls, almost opposite the east end of Pennyfarthing, now Pembroke, Street. In 1341 Adam de Kemerton was instituted to a chantry in St. Aldate's, no doubt Docklinton's. Richard de Lelewood left a bequest in 1349 for the repair of the Lady Chapel, and John Shawe in 1361 for St. Peter's light 6. Docklinton's Aisle, under part of which is a vaulted Norman crypt 1 City, i. 129. He had a daughter 2 City, i. 174. Perhaps wife is a mistake for daughter. Alice who owned, 1356, a (Wood MS. D. 2, fol. 58). 3 City, i. 198. hall and a shop annexed to it in St. Edward's parish She granted it to John de Norton. 3 Bodleian Charters, 287. 4 Oxford City Documents, ed. Rogers, O. H. S., p. 165. THE AISLE NOW REBUILT. 21 long used as a charnel-house, was a fine specimen of Decorated architecture at its best. When Dr. Ingram issued his Memorials (1837) it was still divided from the nave by the original massive wall pierced by three acutely pointed arches of different sizes. On opposite sides the corbel-heads of King Edward III and his queen Philippa remained, having once, Dr. Ingram suggests, supported the luminaries of SS. Peter and Paul. The piscina and a niche for a small figure of a saint existed on the south side near the place where the altar once stood. After 1674 the east window, an elaborate specimen of pure Decorated tracery, was somewhat obstructed by a small mortuary chapel built by John West, Esq., lord of the manor of Hampton Poyle'. In Mackenzie's print (1835) of the church, looking westward, this chapel has a Gothic appearance. Against the west window of Docklinton's aisle, in the companion print looking eastward, is a small classical addition, apparently a porch, which Dr. Ingram calls 'a modern excrescence,' but which looks like good work of Charles II's time. The south wall of the aisle had three windows, and a west and east window. It has in the present century been lengthened in both directions, and the additions at both ends swept away, but the tracery of the east window has been kept as an ornamental division between the aisle and its continuation, after the fashion of the beautiful chapels at Coutances. The hood-moulding of one window has the original finials. The chamber above was lit by six square-headed double-light Perpendicular windows, and was reached by a newel staircase at the south-west external corner. What Dr. Ingram calls the 'disgraceful termination' of this staircase, a double-gabled erection with a sundial on its southern face, may have been a later addition for the storage of books and papers. The aisle had a battlemented parapet. Round the churchyard used to be a stone wall with a substantial gateway at the west, and another towards the south-east. A glance at any old picture of this, reputed the most ancient, as certainly it was the most 1 On Oct. 9, 1674, his daughter Anne died in St. Aldate's parish, and was buried in the churchyard 'on the south side close under the wall of the chancell.' A 'little chappell' was in the same month 'built over her by the fond father,' and a monument placed to the truly virtuous Mrs. Ann West, the youngest and dutiful Daughter of the above.' He, his wife Mary Kirke, and another daughter were laid there. He was described as a Benefactor to the Church and the Poor of the Parish.' Mr. West, who was one of Charles II's Gentlemen Pensioners, died Jan. 8, 169. Anne's shield was 'Ermine, a bend indented sable,' impaling her mother, viz. 'parted per fess or and gules a lozeng counterchanged of the feild on a canton azure a lion couchant or collared and chained argent holding a cutlas blade in his two pawes.' Wood, ii. 295. The present Master tells me that he remembers a beautiful little chapel to the east of the aisle. 22 THE NAME 'SAINT ALDATE. lovely of Oxford parish churches 1, and a second glance at the present uninteresting edifice, must disenchant any one with the well-meant blundering of the 'restoration' era of a generation back. If the spires of Oxford, which is incredible, are still 'dreaming,' that of St. Aldate's is an architectural somnium aegrum. In the churchwardens' accounts of 26 Hen. VIII, 20s. appears as received for 'a tenement next ye church style now called ye church howse.' It adjoined a property of the prioress of Studley 2. Speed says that The old-fashioned it is of antiquity Besides the crypt there still remains a pure Norman arcading inside the church. The piety of the Norman Castellans,' writes Mr. Green, ' rebuilt nearly all the parish churches of the city.' this church was founded, or restored' in 1004. guide-books content themselves with saying that beyond the reach of satisfactory investigation,' and that it was once wooden. Mr. Parker dismisses as an idle tale the fabulous connexion with the probably mythical British saint Eldad, through whose means Hengist was defeated, and who caused the corpses of the 460 British barons and consuls, murdered on Salisbury plain, to be 'buried in a cimitery near adjoyning.' This saint is described by Leland as Bishop of Gloucester about A.D. 450. There is at present a St. Aldate's Church in Gloucester, mentioned first in any extant writing c. 1291. Like the one in Oxford, it is situated just inside an ancient gate of the city, on the left hand; and Mr. Parker conjectures that in both cases Aldate is really Aldgate, i. e. Old Gate, the saint's name to whom the church is dedicated having slipped out, just as St. Martin's at Quatervois is commonly called Carfax Church. The Normans, he suggests, took Aldgate, softened to Aldate, to be the name of a saint. Early in the twelfth century we find mention of 'Ecclesia S. Aldae.' Afterwards the name appears as S. Aldatus or Aldathus. The churchwardens' accounts, temp. Henry VIII, speak of ye feast of S. Aldate,' but this need not mean more than the parish feast. Wood says, 'This church hath bin anciently and com 6 1 A very pleasing water-colour by the younger Prout of Docklinton's aisle and the 'school' overhead has lately been presented to the College by Mr. Alfred Thomas Barton, M.A., Vicegerent and Senior Tutor.. 2 Wood MS. D. 2, fol. 67. The house (demolished in 1831) at the southeastern extremity of Pembroke Street was called Church House. 3 Early History of Oxford, p. 290 sq. 4 Wood MS. D. 2, fol. 67. 5 City, ii. 34. In an Exeter College computus of 1358, 'iiiid. pro vino dato Radulpho Codeford quando alloquebatur Rectorem de Seynt Holde.' History of Exeter College, Boase, O. H. S., p. xxi. His name was Walter de Leverton, a B.A. THE DIVIDED PATRONAGE. 23 monly called by the names of St. Ald's, St. Old's, St. Olave's, and now at this day St. Toll's.' The present traditional designation 'St. Old's' is now almost peculiar to University men, the younger townspeople pronouncing 'Aldate' as it is spelled, as they do also 'Magdalen.' In the 1773 map of Oxford by Longmate, the name is actually given as 'Aldgate,' as it also is in a guide-book which I have of 1827. Noble gives it thus in 1806. In the English version (made about the end of the fifteenth century) of the Oseney Cartulary, a charter of 1226 is signed by Reginald, Chapelyn of ye church of Seynte Oolde of Oxford.' At the general taxation in 1296, the 'verus valor' of this Church was four marks. In Henry VIII's reign it was valued at £54. In 1773 the real worth was put at £100. The patronage of this church was given by King Charles I to Pembroke College. How at an earlier date St. Frideswyde's and Abingdon Abbey came to share the advowson is told in a curious story in the Abingdon Chronicle, ii. 174, 1751:— Est in civitate Oxeneford monasterium quoddam Sancti Aldadi episcopi venerationi consecratum. Cujus omne beneficium duo clerici ex eadem villa, fratres, Robertus et Gillebertus, cum quodam Nicholao sacerdote aeque dimidiabant. Contigit autem ut, vocante Deo, praedicti duo fratres habitum monachi in hoc Abbendonensi coenobio, hujus abbatis, scilicet Ingulfi, tempore susciperent, et partem ecclesiae quae eis contingebat, cum terra et domibus infra civitatem, hereditario jure sibi pertinentibus, huic ecclesiae dono perpetuo contraderent. Quod videns Nicholaus, alterius partis ecclesiae dominus, abbatem simul et conventum convenit, postulans ut ei partem fratrum praedictorum cum sua, quamdiu viveret, tenere concederent, ita ut censum quem pars accepta exigebat (scilicet xx. solidos) annuatim persolveret. Conditionem etiam talem imposuit : ut cum habitum mutare vellet, non nisi in ecclesia ista mutaret, vel etiam si in illo habitu, quo tunc erat, vitam finiret, pars dimidia ecclesiae supradictae, quae sua erat, cum altera parte in perpetuum isto loco remaneret. Rogante etiam Nicholao, in privilegio Romano ista ecclesia posita est, quod tunc temporis renovabatur. Reversus ergo ad propria, ii. solidos per annos singulos in recognitionem pacti praenotati, extra censum consuetum, dum vixit persolvit. Defluente vero postmodum aliquanto tempore, Nicholaus idem, subita aegritudine correptus, letali morbo se sensit detineri. Qui salutis propriae recordatus, ad fratres suos Abbendoniam nuntium transmisit, petens ut religionis habitum indueret priusquam deficeret. Qui cum mortem ejus nondum sic imminere putarent, et iccirco aliquantulum venire tardarent, Nicholaus in extasi detentus jacuit. Astantes autem Sanctae Fritheswithae canonici, jamque mortuum putantes, et idem fortasse propter 1 Rev. Joseph Stephenson, ed. in Rolls Series. |