X XIV. 



King Bertric had been buried in this church, which had been built by 

 his relative Aldhelm. Under the guidance of Mr. Hardy, of Swanage^ 

 many of the party inspected the outside of the building, where much was 

 found to corroborate what Mr. Blackett had said. The church of Saint 

 Mary was next visited, which is one of the largest and oldest churches in 

 the county of Dorset. The oldest portion of the structure is the chapel 

 of King Edward the Martyr, which was probably the chapel of the priory 

 believed to have been founded by Aldhelm. Having pointed out the 

 principal architectural features of the building the party were directed 

 to the east end of the north aisle, where two inscribed stones, 

 with another in the porch of the aisle on the south side of the 

 tower, have been built into the wall for purposes of preserva- 

 tion. The deciphering of these stones has caused archseologists 

 much trouble. Mr. Blackett said the inscription on the large 

 stone in the north aisle was believed to be " Cattug C, (Fi) lius 

 Gideo" with the mark of contraction over the "e," expressing the 

 genitive case Gideonis. This mark of contraction touches the second 

 " t " in Cattug, and has by some antiquarians been taken for part of that 

 letter which they had therefore read as " G." But only the previous day 

 Mr. John Rhys, Professor of Celtic at Oxford, examined the stone, and 

 he asserted it to be a not unusual mark of contraction of the genitive 

 case. The stone was discovered built into a wall of the church at the 

 restoration in 1842, and when it was placed in its present position for 

 preservation it was unfortunately put in upside down. Much of the 

 inscription was gone, and it was extremely difficult to form any decided 

 opinion about it. Mr. A. Owen thinks it affords most important evidence 

 of the existence of a British Christian church on this spot early in the 

 fifth century. Cattug was the name of many religious persons in British 

 history, and the principal person of that name who occurred in history 

 was Cattug or Catocus, an Armorican Breton, who formed one of the 

 deputation sent by the Gaulish bishops about 430 to revisit the churches 

 in this country in order to oppose the Pelagian heresy then prevalent 

 among them. He appears to have remained in England, and may have 

 built a church or founded a school in Wareham. Mr. G. E. Robinson 

 had described the stone in Arch. Cam., 1874, and identified Cattug with 

 a Welsh saint. The other stone in the north aisle was alluded to by Mr. 

 Blackett, who remarked nothing could be made of the inscription on this 

 fragment but the name "Gongorie." In the Beckett Chapel at the 

 south-east corner of the sacrarium was a fragment of stone with 

 characters of the same date, and in the porch at the west end of the 

 south aisle an inscribed stone there had the words " Filius VT.," also in 



