66 The Life and Times of Aldhelm. 



Leland in his Collectanea ^ supplies us with some extracts which 

 throw a glimmer of light on the history of this place in remote 

 times. — " Some people say " are his words " that there was a house 

 of nuns close by the Castle of Ingelbourne, in a certain hamlet 

 called Ilanburgh, by the Saxons termed Burgh ton. They were 

 guilty of acts of incontinence with the soldiers of the castle, and so 

 were all expelled by the Archbishop of the Saxons. They were 

 under the direction of Dinoth, (Abbot of the famous monastery of 

 Bangor,) who numbered some 2000 monks in different places that 

 looked up to him as their superior." — The time that is alluded to 

 would be about the close of the sixth century. Allowing that there 

 is some truth as the existence of this convent, it is but too probable 

 that its inmates were dispersed and their house destroyed by 

 the ruthless Saxons, who in their heathendom exterminated 

 every trace of civilization, and burnt alike the churches and dwel- 

 lings of the British Christians. It is certainly remarkable, that 

 of the innumerable Roman villas and towns of which the 

 foundations have been discovered in all parts of England, every 

 one bears marks of having been destroyed by violence and not by 

 time, fire apparently in almost every instance having been the 

 agent of destruction.^ 



No long time after the suppression of this early British monas- 

 tery, Providence guided the steps of Maildulf to this spot. Struck 

 with the similarity of the wild woodland to his own native country, 

 and its suitableness for the retired life of a hermit, he determined 

 to settle here. The king's palace and his manor were near at hand, 

 at what was then called " Cair-dur-burh," afterwards "Broken- 

 berg," ^ so termed no doubt from some "broken" or rifled sepulchral 

 " barrow." He asked permission to build himself a cell (iugurium) 

 under Caer-Bladon, i.e. the castle on the Bladon, the name given to 



infantiae atque ab ipso tyrocinio rudimentorum liberarum liberalibus literarum 

 studiis et in gremio sanctse matris ecclesiaj nutritus vitam duxit." 

 1 Leland, Collectanea, ii., p. 304. 

 2 Parker, Introduction to Gothic Architecture, p. 10. 



» Leland, Collectanea, ii., p. 302. \ 



