BOLDON BOOK 



had fallen into disrepair, and erected the community into a borough. But 

 when upon inquiry it appeared that the land belonged to the convent he 

 restored it to them along with his new borough. 1 



We must think of Bishop Pudsey's city then as a prosperous walled 

 town, probably far less agricultural in its aspect than the other boroughs of 

 the bishopric. Pudsey, as we have seen, paid great attention to the embel- 

 lishment of his capital, adding to the cathedral, restoring the walls, bridges, 

 and castle, and replacing many old buildings with new and better ones,* play- 

 ing, in short, ' si licet parva componere magnis,' the role of a little Augustus 

 in this northern Rome. 



From the capital we may pass to that one of the episcopal boroughs 

 about whose constitution we have the fullest information. This is Wear- 

 mouth, which later received the name of Sunderland, which it still bears. 

 The two settlements are close together, but it is not clear how the name of 

 the younger fastened itself upon and absorbed that of the elder. 8 Bishops- 

 wearmouth, as it was called to distinguish it from the monk's vill of the same 

 name on the northern bank of the river, formed part of the ancient patrimony 

 of St. Cuthbert,* but Boldon Book clearly distinguishes between it and Sunder- 

 land. It is plain enough, however, how with that increase of commercial 

 relations which marked the twelfth century, a sea-port village would naturally 

 grow into a borough. Just as Durham had its castle and cathedral church, 

 so Wearmouth had its situation at the mouth of a navigable river to serve as 

 the focus for the concentration of an industrial and commercial population. 



The charter by which Bishop Pudsey accorded to the burgesses of 

 Wearmouth the constitution or customs of Newcastle must be regarded 

 rather as the recognition of an existing borough than as the creation of a 

 new one. s Spearman, the Durham antiquary, assigned the document to the 

 year 1 1 54." But this is impossible, for it is witnessed by Philip the Sheriff, 

 who did not assume that office until 1 1 8o. 7 As Boldon Book describes Wear- 

 mouth as a borough the charter must have been issued between 1180 and 1183. 



The town of Gateshead, lying on the right bank of the Tyne just 

 opposite Newcastle, must have been in its origin connected with that large 

 settlement, and might even in a sense be regarded as its suburb. But even 

 as late as 1080, when Bishop Walcher was murdered there, Gateshead was 

 not yet a borough. Symeon and Florence in their accounts of the event 

 describe Gateshead as a ' place,' and although they mention a church there is 

 no other evidence of any concentration of population there. A century later 

 the inhabitants obtained a charter 8 from Bishop Pudsey, which appears to 

 convey an even smaller measure of privilege than that granted to Wearmouth. 



1 Feod., 198 n. ; Coldingham, cap. vii. in Scriptures Trei. (Surtees Soc.), p. 12. 



* Vid. up. p. 304; cf. Coldingham, lac. tit.; Symeon of Durham (Rolls Scr.), i., 168. 



3 See Hutchinson, Hiit. of Durham, ii. 516 ; Surtees, ibid., i. 224-225. 



4 Symeon of Durham (Rolls Ser.), i. 69-70 ; FeoJ., pref., xvii. 



1 The text is given in Surtees, Hut. of Durham, i. 297-298, and Boldon Boat (Surtees Soc.), App. No. iv. 



* J. Spearman, Enquiry into the Ancient and Present State of the County Palatine of Durham, Edinburgh, 1 729 ; 

 cited in, Summers, ///'//. of Sunderland, i. 215. 



1 Vid. inf., p. 313, n. 2. 



8 The text is printed in Boldon Book, App. No. iii. Hutchinson, Hut. f Durham, ii. 454, assigns the 

 document to the year 1 1 64. He seems to have obtained this date either from an endorsement on the original, 

 or, as is far more likely, from some of the transcripts of which he made use. In any case it appears to be 

 either traditional or else purely arbitrary. The charter itself is undated and unwitnessed, and the text affords 

 no means of dating it by internal evidence. 



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