B A T 



44 



A pension of 66/. 13*. 4J. was settled upon the abbot, with 

 f mailer um on sixteen other officer* and monks. The 

 bite and demesne! of the abbey were given to a person 

 named Gilmer. who pulled down a considerable portion of 

 the building* in order to dispose of the materials. He 

 afterwards sold the estate to Sir Anthony Browne, who 

 began to convert part of the abbey into a mansion, which 

 was finished by his ton, the first Lord Montague. This 

 afterwards fell to decay ; and when the property was sold 

 to Sir Thomas Webster, the ancestor of Sir Godfrey Wei. 

 bter, the existing proprietor, the present dwelling was erected 

 on one side of the quadrangle of which the old abbey 

 appears to have consi-u 1. 



Battle Abbey stands on a gentle rise, with a fine sweep 

 if it of meadows and woods, confined by wooded hills, 

 which form a \allcy winding towards Hastings, and there 

 ting the sea. The ruins show the antient magnificence 

 u-tnre : their circuit is computed at about a mile, 

 and Gilpin considers that the style proves that the greater 

 part mubt have been rebuilt 'in the time of the later 

 Henries, when our architecture began to assume a lighter 

 and more embellished form. The remains occupy three 

 sides of a large quadrangle, the fourth having probably 

 been taken down to admit a view of the country when 

 what is now the middle side was converted into a dwelling 

 The two wings are in ruins. The side of the quadrangle 

 that faces the town contains the grand entrance, which is 

 a large square building, embattled at the top with a hand- 

 some octagon tower at each corner. The front is adorned 

 with a series of arches and neat pilasters ; and this entrance 

 is altogether a very rich and elegant specimen of Gothic 

 architecture. This pile is locally called ' the Castle,' anc" 

 until 1794, when the roof fell in and rendered it unfit foi 

 the purpose, it was used as a town-hall by the people o 

 Battle. The side of the quadrangle opposite this entrance 

 consists only of two long, low, parallel walls, which formerl; 

 supported a row of chambers, and terminated in two elegan 

 turrets. The remaining side, which forms the existing 

 mansion, has undergone the greatest dilapidations. Hen 

 stood the abbey church, though the ground-plan canno 

 now be traced; the only vestiges of it are nine elegan 

 arches, which seem to have belonged to the inside of i 

 cloister ; they are now filled up, and appear on the outsid< 

 of the house. Contiguous to the great church are the ruin 

 of a hall, which appears to have been the refectory in ordi 

 nary use by the monks. There is another building of the 

 same kind a little detached from the abbey, and which i 

 of great beauty, although its dimensions, 1C6 feet by 35, ait 

 not in good proportion. It has twelve windows on one sid 

 and six on the other, and is strongly buttressed on the out 

 side. This appears of older date than the remaining por 

 tions of the abbey : it is now used as a barn ; its origina 

 purpose was probably to accommodate the numerous tenant 

 to whom the monks gave entertainments at stated times 

 The floor of the hall is raised, and there is an ascent to : 

 by a flight of steps. Underneath are crypts of freeston 

 divided by elegant pillars and springing arches, which form 

 a curious vaulted building, now converted into a stable. 



The town of Battle owes its origin to the abbey. Unde 

 the encouragement of the monks, houses to the number o 

 150 were gradually erected in the vicinity : and to the tow 

 thus formed, a market, to be held on Sundays, was grante 

 by Henry I. At the commencement of the seventeen! 

 century Anthony Viscount Montague obtained an act o 

 parliament for changing the market-day to Thursday, o 

 which it is still held. The present town consists of on 

 street, running along a valley from north-west to south-eas 

 The church it dedicated to St. Mary, and is a very ham: 

 some edifice, consisting of a nave, chancel, two aisles, an 

 a substantial tower. The windows of the north aisle arc 

 decorated with numerous figures, portraits, and devices i 

 painted glass. The incumbent is styled ' Dean of Battle 

 though the living is, in fact, a vicarage in the archdeaconry 

 of Lewes and diocese of Clnchester, charged in the king' 

 book at 24/. 13*. 4rf. The lord of the manor is patron . Th 

 number of houses in the parish was 515 in 1831, when th 

 population amounted to 2999 persons, of whom 1 538 wen 

 females. The only manufacture for which the place i 

 remarkable is the excellent gunpowder, well known t 

 sportsmen by the name of Battle powder. It is eon 

 to be surpassed only by that of Dartford : there arc Severn 

 extensive mills in the neighbourhood for the mruui.x 

 ture of it. Besides the weekly market, there is one on 



n A T 



to secoml Tuesday of every month fir rattle, at which, n* 



ell as at the fairs, oi: In ;nul .'jml N\embcr, 



ni.iei-.i':.lo business is transacted. 'l'ht> town possesses 



ehwiqr-wbaol for f >rty boys. The Burrcll MSS. in the 



inti-h Mueum state that the hundred of B.mle ' i< a 



ranchise, the inhabitants whereof are exempt from nttcnd- 



ng assizes and sessions, or serving on juries, and the lord 



.ppnints a coroner thereof.' The petty sessions are holdou 



at Battle. 



(Camdcn's Britannia ; Dugdale's Monatticon ; Gilpin's 

 Jbtervationt on the Coast* of Hampshire, Snrr, and 

 Pennant's Journey from L/mdon to the lilt of 

 'izht.) 



BATTLE-AXE, a military weapon of offence used in 

 liflerent countries from the remotest linn's. Sir Samuel 

 Meyrk'k vs, as it was suggested liy, so it immediately fol- 

 the invention of the hatchet. The two Greek names 

 f.ir the battle-axe (iji'vij (arinf), and iriXirrr (;x'/rAtu), occur 

 in Homer in the same verse, //. 0. 1. 71 1. What was the 

 precise difference between the two weapons we are not told 

 liy antirnt writers, but it seems probable that the <urinr was 

 similar to our hatchet, while the pelekut, which is usually 

 translated in Latin by biprnnix, had evidently two heads or 

 : for Homer mentions another instrument of the same 

 kind in the 23rd book of the Iliad, called 'll/niriXirov (htmi- 

 pelekon), or the half-axe. Suidas interprets 'lljmrt.Vn-n 

 (hfmipeleka), by <ii /lofoaro/ioi aivat, one-edged axes. 

 Kn-ter's note on 'H/jurtXira.) Thepelettut, atbipennix, was 

 also called securis Amazonica, the Amazonian axe, from its 

 having been supposed to have been used by those female 

 warriors. The best representation of the antient form of 

 this bipenni* is probably to be found in Pctit's Dissertatin 

 de Amazonibiu, 8vo. Amst. 1687, where it appears on the 

 reverse of a coin of Thyatira, as well as upon the reverses 

 of two coins of Marcus Aurelius. Numerous other coins of 

 Treat antiquity bearing the bipennit are referred to in 

 Ka-ehe's Lexicon Rei Nummariee, torn. i. col. 502, et srq. ; 

 Supplem. torn. i. p. 596. 



Among the nations and tribes who joined the great expe- 

 dition of Xerxes, we find battle-axes among the Sae;r (He- 

 rodot vii. c. Ixiv.), and the Egyptians {ibid, c. lxx\i\.i. 

 Brenmis, at the siege of the Roman capitol by the Guuls, 

 was armed with a battle-axe. The Vindelici fought agi 

 Drusus with the battle-axe. (Horat. Carm, iv. 4.) Tacitus, 

 speaking of a later period (Hist. ii. 42), describes Otho's 

 forces as cutting through helmets and breastplates with their 

 swords and axes (gladiis et securibus). In the Roman 

 armies, however, we do not find the battle-axe in ordinary 

 u-o. It seems to have been considered as the weapon mure 

 peculiarly used by uncivilized nations. Aroraianus Marcel- 

 linus (fol. Par. 1681, lib. xix. c. vi.), under the year 359, 

 describes a body of Gauls as furnished with battle-axes and 

 swords. 



The introduction of the battle-axe into this country has 

 been frequently attributed to the Danes ; but proofs of an 

 earlier use of it in our islands are deducible. Mr. Hayman 

 Rooke, in a memoir printed in the Arrhtrologia of the So- 

 ciety of Antiquaries, has engraved a fragment of a battlo- 

 nxe found among some Druidical remains at Aspatria in 

 Cumberland, in June, 1789 (Archernl. vol. x. p. I 13); nnd 

 in the same volume, pi. xl., are two representations of the 

 old Galwegian bill or battle-axe, each two feet MX inches 

 long, found in a moss near Terreaglcs. Remains of others 

 arc stated to have been found among the barrow- on the 

 downs of Wiltshire, and in the north of Scotland. The Danes 

 and Norwegians, however, probably made more use of this 

 instrument than any other nations of their time. 



At the battle of Stamford Bridge, between Harold of 

 England and Harold Harfager of Norway, when the Nor- 

 wegians gave way and the English pursued them, a total 

 stop is stated to have been put to the pursuit for some hours 

 by the desperate boldness of a single Norwegian, who de- 

 fended the pass of the bridge with his battle-axe. He killed 

 more than forty of the English, and was himself at List slain 

 only by stratagem. (Hen. Hunting!. 1. vii. 21 1.) 



That the battle-axe was used in England in the Saxon 

 .\c lime the authority of different MSS. of the ninth 

 century, anil the English arc represented as using it, in the 

 Bayeux tapestry. The pole-axe, with an edge on one side 

 and a sharp jxiint on the other, is believed to have come in 

 with the Normans. 



When King Stephen was taken prisoner by the Earl of 

 Gloucester, we arc told by Gcrvas of Canterbury that he 



