46 



Malmesbury. 



King Edgar under Abbot JElfric." (W. of Malmes., 

 Bonn's Antiq. Libr., p. 139.) ["Pra)terea datur 

 animadvertendum quod tunc basilica sancti Petri pri- 

 maria in ccenobio fuerit, quae nunc in secundis habetur : 

 Ecclesia Beatse Marise, quam monachi modo frequen- 

 tant, postea diebus Edgari sub Abbate Elfrico cedifi- 

 cata"~\ 



Here the worthy Monk on whom we principally lean for 

 authentic particulars to elucidate the ancient archi- 

 tectural operations of his Monastery, seems, like 

 greater men before and after him, to have been 

 nodding. For, if we rightly understood his medieval 

 Latinity, has he not just told us (above p. 41) 

 that Aldhelm's Church of St. Mary, "in all its glory, 

 and uncontaminated by alteration, lasted down to 

 his own time?" Also (p. 42 at foot) that Abbot 

 JElfric transferred the dignity of " principal church " 

 (caput loci) from the older church of "The Saviour, 

 Peter and Paul," to Aldhelm's St. Mary's-, and that 

 iElfric's building was limited to erecting the offices 

 of the monastery ? But in the passage quoted at the 

 top of the present page he speaks of the church which 

 existed down to his own time as having been built by 

 JElfric. These noddings of historians are mighty in- 

 convenient to those who in later days desire to get at the 

 fact and the truth. It remains therefore only to suppose 

 either (what is likely enough) that the Historian him- 

 self had no very certain account of the matter and 

 gave merely the traditions of his House : or that, if 

 he had such certain information, he forgot himself 

 upon this occasion, when speaking of the church 

 of his own day as having been built by iElfric ; and 

 confused with the act of building, .-ZElfric's act of 

 transferring the "principal dignity" to the church 

 really built by Aldhelm. 



