DEYORGILLA: HER ABBEY AND HER COLLEGE.* Two books of the
present season are of special interest to Balliol men. One, Devorgala, Lady of Galloway, by Mr. Wentworth Huyshe, is an account of the foundress and her work in Scotland; the other, edited by the Rev. If. E. Salter, a distinguished authority on the academic, ecclesiastical, and municipal history of the Middle Ages, is a collection of deeds relating to the properties which Balliol College possesses, or has possessed, in the city of Oxford. The two books vary in purpose and in type. Mr. Salter's is the production of a fine modern scholar, while it must frankly besaid that Mr. Hushes has no pretensions to scholarship at all. The Abbey of St. Mary of the Sweet Heart was founded, Mr. Huyshe says, by Devorgilla in 1275, and he laments that no contemporary authority given us any information about the circumstances connected with its foundation. He is evidently unaware of the important document in the Laing Charters, published in 1899. It is a confirmation, issued by David IL in 1359, of the original charter of Devorgilla ; it shows that the year of foundation was not 1275, but 1273; it tells that the original monks of Sweet Heart were drawn from the Abbey of Dundrennan ; and it gives an account of the lands conveyed to her new • (1) Dovorgillo, Lady of Oatiovay. cad her Abbey of Ms avail Heart. By Went worth Huyidie. Edinburgh: David Henske. [7e. 6d. net.]—(2) The Orford Deeds of Ballad Coney.. Edited by the Rev. If E. Salter. Oxford: Printed for the Oxford Historical Society at the Clarendon Press. Me. net.)
establishment by Devorgilla's gift. Ignorance of this does. ment is a serious blot upon a history of the Abbey ; and the sin of omission is balanced by sins of commission in the insertion of several msh statements unsupported by any evidence. It is necessary to say this, but, when it has been said, Mr. Huyshe's book remains a pleasant and sympathetic narrative, beautifully illustrated by the author and by Mr. F. Fisai.
"Not rough nor barren are the winding ways Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with Bowers," he prints on his title-page, and he has been able to find some flowers and to arrange them for the delectation of his readers. The life of a great thirteenth-century lady km much of interest, and the history of her Abbey is not without its impressive moments. There is reason for believing that it was at Sweet Heart or New Abbey that the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered in person to Edward I, in 1300, the famous letter from Boniface VIII., inhibiting him from proceeding further with the conquest of Scotland. The Archbishop had found the concluding stages of his journey both dangerous and difficult. "I kept myself concealed," he says, "in certain secret places near the sea which separates England and Galloway, and took advantage of an opportunity at ebb tide. Guided by some who were certain of the direction of the crossing, I passed with my horses and harnesethrough four streams of water, not more dangerous because of the depth of water, than because of the ins and outs of the shore and the quicksands." The journey did not promise to end in a " welcome to the weary," for the Archbishop (Winchelsea) was the bearer of unpleasant tidings and the King was a man of quick temper. But Edward restrained himself and promised to consult his Parliament, and the Archbishop seems to have thought that the temporary departure of the English army from Scotland was the result of the Papal intervention. Of the subsequent history of the Abbey little is known, but it is interesting to find that, at the suppression of. the monasteries in Scotland, Lord Herries succeeded in protecting for• a time the Abbey " Muir he was moist part brpcht up in his youth." Mr. Huyshe gives an interesting account of the Abbey buildings, with useful plans.
Mr. Salter's study of Balliol possessions in Oxford is based upon charters, and be has been hampered by the fact that " Balliol, unlike the other ancient colleges, has no rentals, no college accounts, and no registers before 1540." His docu- ments begin with three tenements or sites in Hor•semonger Street, purchased by Devorgilla in 1284 for eighty marks. Mr. Salter estimates that the property was about ninety feet wide and about a hundred and ninety feet from north to south. " It must have covered what is now The western half of the front quadrangle." The houses already on the site were the first simple buildings of the College, as refounded by Devorgilla, who also endowed her• foundation with lands and rents in Stamfordliam and Howgh. With property out- side Oxford this book is not concerned, but the site secured by Devorgilla was soon enlarged, and Mr. Salter, by grouping together the deeds relating to the ground on which Balliol now stands, has made it possible to trace the additions and extensions. These gifts date from the early years of the fourteenth century, and they were followed by other grants and purchases. "It will be noticed," says the editor, "that many of the tenements were not acquired, in the first instance, for the purpose of enlarging the college, but were purchased as an investment and as a source of income; but before the end of the eighteenth century it had been found necessary to use for college purposes all the property which the college owned between Trinity College and St. John's." A court stretched for many years far into Broad Street, like that which still remains in front of St. John's, and Mr. Salter suggests that "when it was decided to pave, or as we should say to metal, Broad Street and St. Giles, these who had a frontage on these streets were allowed to push their boundaries forward so that the road might be narrowed and the expense of paving reduced." This court or enclosure was removed in accordance with a Mileways Act of 1771, which ordered that Broad Street should be widened by the removal of the wall on the south side of Balliol College so as to allow part of the "garden" to be taken in. A print of 1752 shows that some beautiful trees had to be sacrificed.
Apart from the site of the College, the most interesting- possessions of the College .in OxfOrd were an early, gift by William Burnet the obscurities of which are ingeniously an, ravelled by Mr. Salter. It was part of the old. Oxford Jewry, and included, the site of the synagogue, and it was lost to Balliol in the reign of Henry VIII., when the College was " the victim of the Cardinal's astuteness." Balliol also owned, in the Middle Ages, the site of the Divinity School and land between the Canterbury gate of Christ Church and the• President's Lodgings at Corpus Christi (granted to Canterbury College in 1394 for a perpetual rent of 26s. Bd.). Property- in St. Gilles's, sold by Balliol to Worcester in 1804, was resold, by Worcester to the University in 1838 for a mach largersum, as part of the site of the Taylorian. %Riot, has therefore not been altogether fortunate in its Oxford property, but others of the documents have a more satisfactory history to • tell. Mr. Salter prints a number of revisions of the early statutes of the College, and thus increases the value of hie. work as a contribution to academic history. But it is stilt more important as a contribution to the topography of one of the moat ancient of English cities. A topographical survey of Oxford from the twelfth century to the present day would throw much light upon social and municipal history, The old city is not too large for such a survey, and there is more- information available than can be found elsewhere. Mr. Salter has already done admirable work on this subject, as on many other aspects of mediaeval history, and if he continues to- enlighten the members of the Oxford Historical Society on such topics, the history of the best loved of English towns will be in good hands.
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