144 J. HOPKINSON 



to the year 1237, was but little more than a transcript of the 

 ' Flores Historiarum ' of Koger of Wendover, also a St. Albans 

 Monk, who died in that year. This condensed account, which 

 proves that Matthew Paris was not its author, is thus translated 

 by C. D. Younge : — 



"The same year too [1250], on the day of Saint Lucia, about 

 three o'clock, an earthquake took place in England, and it is 

 a very marvellous thing that such an event shovxld take place in 

 that country, nor has such a tiling ever taken place within any 

 one's recollection, except in this instance. For the island is 

 solid, and rocky, and very destitute of caverns. Moreover, with 

 the earthquake, there was also a terrible noise as of thunder, 

 and a subterranean roaring, events which were said to presage 

 some impending pestilence of no small importance, or some 

 revolution in the kingdom, or the death of some famous prince." 



That this was not written by Matthew Paris is shown first by 

 his statement that an earthquake was an unusual occurrence for 

 the chalk area of the vicinity of St. Albans and the Chilterns, 

 away from the sea, being misconstrued into the statement that it 

 was a marvellous thing for one to take place in England, and 

 next by the fact that, of the twenty-five or thirty English 

 earthquakes previously recorded, Paris described, in his ' Historia 

 Major,' one in London in 1247 and another at Wells, etc., in 

 1248, and also stated that there were frequent earthquakes in 

 England in the half -century ending 1250. 



25th May, 1551. 



Three centuries elapse before we have another record, and for 

 that we are indebted to John Stow, who in the first edition of 

 his ' English Chronicles ' (1565) mentions one on the 25th of 

 May, 1551, as having been felt at Albury, and in the second 

 edition (1580) adds Benning-ton. This addition is important, 

 for it was most widely felt in Surrey and there is an Albury 

 in that county. There is also a Bennington in Lincolnshire, but 

 it was a southern earthquake only, as the two versions, taken 

 together, show. It is therefore necessary to quote both of them. 



In 1565 Stow wrote : " The 25 daye Maye, beying Monday, 

 betwene the howers of eleuen and one of the clock at after noone, 

 was an erthquake of halfe a quarter of an howre long at 

 Blechynglye, at Godstone, at Croydon, at Alberie, & at dyuers 

 other places in Southery & Myddlesere [Surrey and Middlesex]." 



In 1580 he wrote more briefly : " The fiue and twenty of May, 

 about nwne, was an earthquake at Blechingly, Godstone, Titsey, 

 Eigate, Croydon, Benington, Alberie, and divers other places in 

 Southery." 



Between these dates Stow had evidently heard of more places 

 in Surrey where the shock was felt, only two of which he 

 mentioned, and also that it had been felt at Bennington as well 

 as at Albury. This is of course Albury between Bennington 

 and Bishop's Stortford, not Aldbury near Tring. 



