difference between the three and the four hydes may be that the latter includes the land on which the monastery itself was built, and the 'curia' thereto belonging. The fourth plot, consisting of two hydes, was in Cutslow; this is duly entered in the Domesday Survey as of two hydes', and the name is still found as that of a farm, on the northeastern side of Oxford; like the rest the boundaries are of uncertain identification. The fifth paragraph consists of a recital of the liberties of S. Frideswide's, and these amongst other general customs include the tithing of Headington, at which latter place it will be observed that the charter is supposed to be signed. It is called a 'royal vill,' but whether that involves the king having a definite residence there may be open to question.

That this series of boundaries are copied from genuine documents by the transcriber of the S. Frideswide cartulary, there is no valid reason to doubt, nor will it be disputed that they belong substantially to the year 1004. S. Frideswide's, therefore, though in comparison with that of the neighbouring Abingdon Monastery, it was a poor foundation, held considerable property as the total of eighteen hydes testifies.

The entries conclude with a list of the signatures attached to the charter as follows:

:

This schedule was written by command of the aforesaid king in the royal vill, which is called Hedyndon, on the day of the octaves of S. Andrew the apostle [i.e. Dec. 7] with the consent of these chief men who appear written beneath.

I, Etheldred, King of the English, have granted this charter to the aforesaid with perpetual liberty in the name of Christ.

I, Alfrich, Archbishop of the church of Canterbury, have corrobo

rated the same under anathema.

I, Wulfstan, Archbishop of the city of York, have confirmed it.

I, Elfgifu, the royal spouse, have honoured this gift.

I, Athelstan, the eldest of the royal family, together with my brother, was kindly present as a witness.

I, Alfean, Prelate of Venta, have subscribed thereto.

I, Alstan, Bishop of the church of Wells, thereto have confirmed it.

I, Alfun, Bishop of the church of London, have consecrated it.
I, Godwine, Bishop of the church of Lichfield, have secured it.
I, Orbyrht, Bishop of the South Saxons, have concluded it.

I, Ethelrich, Bishop of the church of Sherborne, have consented.
I, Alfwod, Bishop of the church of Crediton, have revived it.

The Domesday Survey under 'Land of the Canons of Oxford and of other clerks' gives four hydes near Oxford, and two hydes at Cutslow. The other lands under the same head are those of the clerks, and apparently have nothing to do with S. Frideswide.

I, Alfric, ealdorman.

I, Leofwyne, ealdorman.

I, Wulfgar, abbot.

I, Alsigge, abbot.

I, Athelmer, earl.
I, Ordulf, earl.
I, Æthelmer, earl.
I, Elric, earl.

I, Ælfgar, earl.

I, Goda, thane.
I, Æthelwerd, earl.
I, Athlwyne, earl.

I, Ordmere, earl.
I, Leofwyne, earl.
I, Godwyne, earl.

&c., as in the aforesaid codicil.

Without entering into many details which a survey of these witnesses suggest, such as their rank, their style and title, or the fanciful mode of signature, no doubt due to the ingenuity of the clerk who drew up the charter1, it is important to consider their bearing upon the date. It may be said generally that a correlation of the whole series as far as dates are known agrees very well indeed with the date in the body of the charter 2. Consequently there are none of the difficulties which so constantly beset the historian in assigning the date

1 It will be observed that there are besides the King, eleven Prelates, the Queen (the expression used is 'thoro consecrata regio'), the king's eldest son Æthelstan, two nobles with the titles of 'dux' (which has been translated 'ealdorman'), nine with the title of 'comes' (which has been translated earl), one minister (translated 'thane'), and two abbots.

2 The following are the dates which should tally with 1004. Ethelred the King, 979-1016: Ælfgifu must be Emma, the second wife, who came over from Normandy in 1002 according to the Chronicles C, D, E, F, during Lent (that is, some six months before the edict was issued for the massacre of the Danes), and who seems to have assumed on her marriage the name of Ælfgifu, the first wife not signing apparently any charter whatever, the queen-mother Ælfthyth signing throughout either as regina or as mater regis. In one charter, dated 1002 (K. D. D. No. 1296), we have the signature Ælfgifu conlaterana regis, but as the same form occurs in 1005 and after, it must belong to Ælfgifu-Emma, though occasionally she signs also as Queen. That Æthelstan was the eldest son is borne out by signatures in some twenty charters or more, where his name comes before that of his three or four brothers. His style is sometimes filius regis, sometimes clito. The first time his signature appears is perhaps in 988 (K. C. D. 666) and with the title of primus, his brothers not being mentioned; but if so, Æthelred must have married very young. On his not succeeding to the throne instead of his brother Eadmund see Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. i. 3rd edition, 1877, Appendix SS. p. 685. Elfric, Archbishop of Canterbury 990-1005. Wulstan, Archbishop of York 1003-1023. Ethelric, Bishop of Sherborne 1002-1009. Elfwold, Bishop of Crediton 988-1008. Elphege (more correctly perhaps spelt Ælfeah), Bishop of Winchester 984-1005. Elfstan, Bishop of Wells 990-1012. Alfun or Elfwin, Bishop of London 10041012. Godwin, Bishop of Lichfield 1004-1008. Ordbryht, Bishop of Sussex (i.e. Selsey) 989-1009. The above dates are taken from the valuable Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum. As to the ealdormen and earls the material for identification is very slight, as there are often more than one bearing the same name. Probably Alfric was the ealdorman slain at the battle of Assandun in 1016, while Leofwyne was probably ealdorman of the Huiccas, who seems to have succeeded to Mercia in 1017, &c. &c. There are few if any names in the list which are not also found elsewhere about this date. Finally the second Indiction agrees with the date of 1004.

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to a charter, when the copyists have combined signatures to the confirmation charter and those of the original into one series.

In giving William of Malmesbury's account of the foundation of S. Frideswide's', in the Gesta Pontificum, the continuation of the passage was omitted. It is continued as follows:

'In the time of King Ethelred, however, when the Danes, being condemned to death, had taken refuge in the monastery, they as well as the buildings, were through the insatiable rage of the English destroyed by fire. But soon the repentance of the king caused to be built for them a purified shrine and a restored monastery; their lands were given back, and fresh possessions added 2.'

When William of Malmesbury treats the subject in his history of the kings, he makes a singular error. He has transferred the burning of the church with the Danes in it to some nine years after the date of the charter (which it will be remembered recites the event as having already taken place), and further connects the burning of S. Frideswide with an event which took place in Oxford of another kind, which will have to be discussed later on. The passage runs :

'The year following [i. e. 1015] a great council of Danes and of English assembled at Oxford, and there the king [Ethelred] commanded Sigeferd and Morcard, the chief nobles amongst the Danes, to be killed, under a pretence of treason which had been charged against them by the treachery of Edric. Deceiving them by his friendly advances, he had enticed them into his private chamber (triclinium), and when they had been made to drink deeply by his servants, who were expressly charged to this effect, he put an end to their lives. The reason of this murder was said to be that he desired their property. Their servants were determined to revenge the death of their lords, but were repulsed by force, and driven into the tower of the church of S. Frideswide. And as they could not turn them out, they were burnt by fire. But soon, by the King's penitence, the stain was blotted out; the holy place was repaired. I have read this in writing, which is preserved in the Archives of that Church as a proof of the fact "."

It must first be claimed that there are not likely to have been two burnings of the same church from Danes taking refuge there, within so short a period, and both recorded in the archives. We have moreover a copy of the very charter to which William of Malmesbury refers, and which he duly quotes in his Gesta Pontificum, and that clearly ascribes the burning to the massacre on S. Brice's day. It is therefore obviously 1 See ante, p. 94. The few words connecting the two passages are repeated.

2 W. Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Angl. lib. iv. § 78. Rolls Series, 1870, p. 316. See Appendix A, § 30.

3 W. Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Angl. lib. ii. § 179, Eng. Hist. Society's ed. London, 1840, vol. i. p. 297. Appendix A, § 44.

a blunder on his part in taking or reading the notes which he made for his history. But though it is a blunder, the passage ought not to be at once dismissed. It shows so admirably how a chronicler compiles his Chronicle. He has (as will be shown afterwards) an account of two thanes being enticed by Eadric into a chamber and slain. How was this to be connected with the burning of a number of Danes in the tower of the church? His ingenuity is admirable: he invents the fact of the servants of the thanes desiring to avenge the deaths of their two lords, and that it was these who took refuge in the tower and so were burnt. It shows how cautious one ought to be in accepting the additions to the original chronicles made by successive chroniclers.

Henry of Huntingdon does not mention Oxford in recounting the circumstance of the massacre of the Danes, probably not having seen the S. Frideswide charter; but he writes as follows:

'The king being elated with pride, secretly ordered all the Danes to be treacherously murdered on one and the same day, that is to say on the festival of S. Britius. And of this piece of wickedness, I in my youth heard some very old people speak, how the King sent secret letters to each city, in accordance with which, on the same day and at the same hour, the English either killed all the Danes who were unprepared, with swords, or having suddenly seized them burned them with fire '.'

It is not improbable that the story he had heard of the massacre was the Oxford story, as it will be shown further on that he had a friend in Oxford who might have told him of the tradition of the place. The burning by fire was at least a very rare form of capital punishment at this time, even if any example could be found; but the Danes being burned in the tower of S. Frideswide would be just the kind of story which would be handed down with horror, and which would become transformed into the shape in which Henry narrates it.

It is very singular that, so far as has been observed, no other example of a single massacre on S. Brice's Day has been recorded than this one at Oxford, and it will be seen that we only obtain that through the chance circumstance of the charter of King Ethelred having been preserved. It is perhaps too much to hope that Oxford was the only place where the edict was put into force.

Having seen the manner in which William of Malmesbury compiles his Chronicle, there is no reliance to be placed upon the detail which he gives of the Danes having taken refuge in a tower, which differs Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, Rolls Series, 1879, p. 174. Appendix A, § 45.

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from that given in the charter. It is quite possible that S. Frideswide had a tower, and it is just possible it may have been of wood, and so easily burnt; but it is more likely that the Danes had taken refuge in the church itself, as a place of sanctuary: if this were so, the fury of the mob would pay no attention to it; they would throw torches on the boarded roof, covered perhaps with wooden shingles, which would soon catch alight, and falling down within the walls of the church, would either suffocate the fugitives, or compel them to rush out and meet their fate.

At any rate it was a horrible as well as discreditable business, and it is a great misfortune that Oxford was the scene of such an event, and the more so as it is the only place we find connected with the edict; it is, too, only the second event which has brought Oxford prominently forward in history.

How far the events of the next few years may have been the results of the revenge to which the Danes would be naturally aroused, cannot be determined; nor is it known whether Exeter had been the scene of crime like Oxford or not. Certain however it is, that early the next year Exeter was entered by the Danes, and, as would appear, through the treachery of the reeve appointed by the Norman Lady Emma, Ethelred's second wife. The ealdorman Elfric, pretending illness at a critical moment, also treacherously allowed the Danes, under the command of Sweyn, to sack Wiltun and Salisbury and to return safely to their ships. In East Anglia, however, matters went differently, when the following year Sweyn landed on the coast; but Ulfkytel seems not to have been able to assemble the whole country, and so they got away again, though with no plunder, as it would appear, but with great loss of men. In the year 1005 all we find recorded is that a great famine spread over the land; but in 1006 the Danes came again from the Isle of Wight, straight up Hampshire, and so to their old quarters at Reading. The few words of the Chronicle are as eloquent as brief:

'1006. And then at the midwinter they went to their ready farm: out through Hampshire into Berkshire to Reading, and there they did their old wont; they lighted their war beacons wherever they went. Then went they to Wallingford, and that all burned; and were then one day in Cholsey; and they went then along Æscesdun to Cwichelmshloewe, and there abode as a daring boast; for it had been often said that if ever they should reach Cwichelmshloewe they would never again get to the sea. Then they went homewards another way'.' One hundred and thirty-five years had elapsed since the Danes came to Reading on the occasion already recorded. History so far Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, C, D, E, sub anno. Appendix A, § 46.

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