26 Dr. Wilson on Linton and its Legends. 



which must have been dated prior to the year 1214, it appears 

 as Lyntonrotherick ; and in a later Confirmation by Bishop Walter 

 (1232) it is Lintonrotheric. The Rohdus Redituum Monasterii 

 de Kalkow (c. 1290) values the rectory of Lynton rothrig at 

 twenty marks yearly. In the more recent " Rentall of the 

 Abbacie, 1597," the name occurs simply as lyntowne ; the affix 

 ruderic, or rotheric, having ceased to be employed. 



It will be less easy to trace the order of the changes in the 

 fabric of the church than that of the orthography of its name. 

 Not a single feature remains in its architecture sufficiently di- 

 stinct to enable us to judge with precision as to the style in 

 which it has been originally constructed. No massive pier, nor 

 circular arch, nor deeply recessed doorway, nor chevron mould- 

 ing presents itself to denote the Saxon or early Norman charac- 

 ter of the period at which we have supposed it to have been 

 founded ; or, more probably, in which it was re-edified. Still the 

 character of the basement, which can be traced at intervals round 

 nearly the whole of the exterior of the building ; and that of one 

 or two of the lower courses of its masonry, solid, regular and 

 carefully executed, which bear distinct marks of antiquity, and 

 are undoubtedly remains of the original structure ; point to an 

 age when the devotion of our ancestors gave to church architec- 

 ture a strength and a dignity which, at least in such obscure 

 positions, - it has never attained in our more calculating times. 

 Any sacred edifice, constructed even in the thirteenth century, 

 or at any later period, with masonry thus finished in execution, 

 would hardly have failed to have presented some of the other 

 attributes of the then prevailing ecclesiastical style in its more 

 perfect forms; and, in particular, the essential feature of the 

 buttress could scarcely have been omitted, the foundations of 

 which might still have been traced in the basement of the struc- 

 ture. But the buttress formed no part of the early Norman 

 style, which prevailed up to the close of the twelfth century ; and 

 it becomes important to note that no trace of the buttress can be 

 perceived in the ground plan of Linton. On the other hand, we 

 have nowhere evidence, from other subsisting remains, that the 

 art of the builder had acquired any marked perfection in this 

 country prior to the era of David, when the munificence of that 

 monarch raised it at once to a distinguished position. On 

 grounds so slight as these, and which are all that appear attain- 

 able, I am inclined to fix the first date of the existing structure 

 at Linton at a period near that of the death of Earl Henry ; and 

 to attribute its erection to the liberality of Cumyn, who, in be- 

 stowing it on the monks of Kelso, seems to have desired to have 

 rendered it worthy of its destination, and of the grateful piety of 

 his object. 



