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By the Rev. C. W. H. DICKER. 



3rd Dec., 1907.) 



^ERNE, anciently Cernel, enjoys a legendary reputation 

 dating from a traditional visit of S. Augustine to 

 Wessex in A.D. 603. Its authentic history, how- 

 ever, begins with the building and endowment 

 of a monastery here by Ailmer in the reign of 

 King Edgar (957-975), from which period the 

 religious community then founded seems to have 

 had an existence of continuous prosperity until its 

 suppression in 1536. Frequently recorded grants 

 of land and other gifts and privileges bestowed upon "the 

 Church of S. Peter at Cerne " prove its claim to be reckoned as 

 one of the great abbeys of England. 



The Book of Cerne in the Cambridge University Library has 

 long been known to antiquaries, and contains a number of 

 Charters which throws valuable light upon English monasticism. 

 From the Domesday Survey we learn that in Edward the 

 Confessor's time the village was large and flourishing. Whether 

 the settlement originally sprung up around the monastery, or the 



