178 Liecent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, and Articles. 
name of the Irish teacher Maildulbh, either in that form or in the form 
Meldun or Meldum. We have Maildubiensis Eeclesia, Maldubiensis, 
Maldubesburg, Maldulfesburg, Maldumesburg, Meldulfesburg, Meldu- 
besburg, Meldumesburg. Other forms of the name are clearly connected 
with Aldhelm—Ealdelmesbyrig, Mealdelmesbyrig, Maldelmesburuh.” 
He quotes Mr. Plumer as saying in his edition of Bede’s work, ‘‘ The 
greater fame of Aldhelm eclipsed that of the original founder, and we 
find the place called Ealdelmesburg, Aldhelm’s borough.” ‘‘ By a con- 
tamination of this with the older forms we get Mealdelmesburg, which 
became the prevailing form and through various gradations . . 
became the modern Malmesbury.” But the Bishop, arguing on the 
analogy of the Gaelic of to-day, suggests that we may take it as almost 
or quite certain that when Maildubh addressed his favourite pupil 
and eventual successor he did not call him Aldhelm, or pronounce 
the dh in his name, but called him ‘‘ Mallem,” ‘‘ My dear Aldhelm ”’— 
and that from this comes the M at the beginning of ‘‘ Malmesbury.” 
Coming to the buildings erected by Aldhelm, he points out that before 
the existing Norman Church at Malmesbury was built there was a group 
' of Churches there, somewhat after the fashion of the groups of Churches 
at the great monastic centres in Ireland. They were six in number :— 
St. Andrew, St. Lawrence, St. Mary, St. Michael, SS. Peter and Paul, 
and the old Basilica. Probably several of these were displaced by the 
building of the existing Church. As regards the Church erected by 
Aldhelm near Wareham, he identifies with it the curious early wall of 
herring-bone masonry afterwards incorporated in the defences of Corfe 
Castle, giving reasons why neither St. Martin’s at Wareham, nor Worth 
Matravers, nor St. Aldhelm’s Chapel, on St. Alban’s (rightly St Aldhelm’s) 
Head, will suit the accounts that we have of the site of the building. The 
Church which he built at Sherborne, the seat of his bishopric, was still 
standing in the time of William of Malmesbury, and the author is dis- 
posed to think that the great Church at Malmesbury was also not yet 
superseded by the Norman building. He emphasises the fact of the 
continual intercourse with Rome in Anglo-Saxon times, and remarks 
that it was only the accident of the death of Kenwalch, King of Wessex, 
which prevented Benedict Biscop settling in Wessex with his collections 
of precious MSS. and other art treasures brought from Italy and Southern 
Gaul, instead of in Northumbria. The Bishop dwells at considerable 
length on Anglo-Saxon art, and more especially on the subject of the 
sculptured stones and crosses of the period, giving illustrations of the 
stones at Ramsbury, Rowberrow, West Camel, Doulton, Gloucester, 
Bradford, Bath, Colerne, Littleton Drew, and Frome, the altar of 
Wolvinius, the Stole of Frithestan, and the cross of Drahmel, at Brussels. 
He then minutely discusses the possible routes of the saint’s funeral 
procession, from Doulting, in Somerset, where he died in 709 to 
Malmesbury, and the site of the seven stone crosses set up to mark the 
resting-places at stages of seven miles on that journey which were still 
standing in William of Malmesbury’s days. The route seems to have 
been a circuitous one, for it is said to have been about fifty miles in 

