178 Recent Wiltshire Boohs, Pamphlets, and Articles. 



name of the Irish teacher Maildulbh, either in that form or in the form 

 Meldun or Meldum. We have Maildubiensis Ecclesia, Maldubiensis, 

 Maldubesburg, Maldulfesburg, Maldumesburg, Meldulfesburg, Meldu- 

 besburg, Meldumesburg. Other forms of the name are clearly connected 

 with Aldhelm — Ealdelmesbyrig, Mealdelmesbyrig, Maldelmesburuh." 

 He quotes Mr. Plumer as saying in his edition of Bede's work, " The 

 greater fame of Aldhelm eclipsed that of the original founder, and we 

 find the place called Ealdelmesburg,_Aldhelm's borough." " By a con- 

 tamination of this with the older forms we get Mealdelmesburg, which 

 became the prevailing form and through various gradations . . . 

 became the modern Malmesbury." But the Bishop, arguing on the 

 analogy of the Gaelic of to-day, suggests that we may take it as almost 

 or quite certain that when Maildubh addressed his favourite pupil 

 and eventual successor he did not call him Aldhelm, or pronounce 

 the dh in his name, but called him " Mallem," " My dear Aldhelm " — 

 and that from this comes the M at" the beginning of " Malmesbury." 

 Coming to the buildings erected by Aldhelm, he points out that before 

 the existing Norman Church at Malmesbury was built there was a group 

 of Churches there, somewhat after the fashion of the groups of Churches 

 at the great monastic centres in Ireland. They were six in number : — 

 St. Andrew, St. Lawrence, St. Mary, St. Michael, SS. Peter and Paul, 

 and the old Basilica. Probably several of these were displaced by the 

 building of the existing Church. As regards the Church erected by 

 Aldhelm near Wareham, he identifies with it the curious early wall of 

 herring-bone masonry afterwards incorporated in the defences of Corfe 

 Castle, giving reasons why neither St. Martin's at Wareham, nor Worth 

 Matravers,nor St. Aldhelm's Chapel, on St. Alban's (rightly St Aldhelm's) 

 Head, will suit the accounts that we have of the site of the building. The 

 Church which he built at Sherborne, the seat of his bishopric, was still 

 standing in the time of William of Malmesbury, and the author is dis- 

 posed to think that the great Church at Malmesbury was also not yet 

 superseded by the Norman building. He emphasises the fact of the 

 continual intercourse with Borne in Anglo-Saxon times, and remarks 

 that it was only the accident of the death of Kenwalch, King of Wessex, 

 which prevented Benedict Biscop settling in Wessex with his collections 

 of precious MSS. and other art treasures brought from Italy and Southern 

 Gaul, instead of in Northumbria. The Bishop dwells at considerable 

 length on Anglo-Saxon art, and more especially on the subject of the 

 sculptured stones and crosses of the period, giving illustrations of the 

 stones at Kamsbury, Kowberrow, West Camel, Doulton, Gloucester, 

 Bradford, Bath, Colerne, Littleton Drew, and Frome, the altar of 

 Wolvinius, the Stole of Frithestan, and the cross of Drahmel, at Brussels. 

 He then minutely discusses the possible routes of the saint's funeral 

 procession, from Doulting, in Somerset, where he died in 709 to 

 Malmesbury, and the site of the seven stone crosses set up to mark the 

 resting-places at stages of seven miles on that journey which were still 

 standing in William of Malmesbury's days. The route seems to have 

 been a circuitous one, for it is said to have been about fifty miles in 



