80 ON MILTON ABBEY CHUECH. 



■with telling force on the fortunes of that great battle, which is 

 commemorated, not only in a very spirited poem of that age, 

 but by the following concise entry in the Saxon Chronicle, 937 : 

 — "This year King Athelstan, and Edmund, his brother, led a 

 force to Brumby, and there fought against Anlaf, and, Christ 

 helping, had the victory, and there they slew five kings and 

 seven earls." Can we wonder, then, that after gaining so 

 decisive a victory, Athelstan, being a thoroughly religious man, 

 should have expressed his thankfidness for the double blessing 

 that had been granted him — signal encouragement during the 

 progress of so critical an enterprise, and then ultimate complete 

 success. And when the king determined to found a religious 

 house as a thankoffering for such a victory, what place could be 

 so appropriate for a site as the spot where he had received so 

 remarkable a revelation ? I ought to add that the revelation was 

 made to Athelstan on the 28th of July, the feast of St. Sampson, 

 Bp. of Dol. in Brittany, and this will account for his name 

 appearing in the list of the Abbey's patron saints, of whom 

 there are as many as four — St. Michael, St. Mary, St. Sampson, 

 and St. Branwalader, the last being unique, 



THE BUILDING ITSELF. 



So much, then, for the original foundation of this Minster. 

 Happily in the present day, when the knowledge of ecclesiastical 

 architecture is so much more general than it used to be, it is 

 scarcely necessary to mention that this beautiful building is by 

 no means the one which Athelstan built. At that time church 

 architecture was quite in its infancy, and it required a space of 

 at least 400 years from the days of Athelstan before so exquisite 

 a creation of art as this building could ever be produced. The 

 rude, archaic Saxon had first to expand into the stately, massive 

 Norman, with its splendid doorways, unrivalled wealth of mould- 

 ings ; and that style again, as time advanced and fashions 

 changed, gave way to the beautiful simplicity of Early English, 

 with its slender shafts and pointed arches, such as we find in 

 such profusion in our noble Cathedral at Salisbury, and even 



