68 The Life and Times of Aldhelm. 



in tho first instance, as the Dean of Chichester tells us, 1 had very 

 much the character of Moravian settlements, or rather of those 

 stations established in the south of Africa by the Bishop of Cape 

 Town. They were lay institutions connected with the church, a 

 few of the inmates of which were ordained, though they formed the 

 exception rather than the rule. In fact, they were most instru- 

 mental in bringing the population at large under the sway of the 

 Gospel, when, possessed of lands, their occupants became themselves 

 the cultivators of the soil, and could address in terms of equality 

 and brotherly love the slaves whom they had set at liberty, and 

 teach them to serve Him whose service is perfect freedom. 



It was the germ of such a society as this, afterwards developed 

 by the zeal and influence of Aldhelm into a more regularly consti- 

 tuted monastery, that the hermit Maildulf established here. It is 

 commonly supposed that the name of the town is derived from him— 

 Maildulf s-byrig, softened down in the course of centuries to Malmes- 

 bury. Bishop Gibson 2 carries us however a step further, and 

 argues, from the forms of the name with which he meets in the Saxon 

 Chronicle,— sometimes Maeldemesbyrig , and at others (or rather in 

 other manuscripts) Aldelmesburh — that the word contains something 

 of Maildulf, and something of Aldhelm, and is a compound made 

 out of both these names. That Bede 3 calls this place " Maildulphi 

 ur ls" (= Maildulf s-bury), and that such a designation was ac- 

 quiesced in by others, is true; but its earliest name, after the 

 introduction of Christianity into Wessex, was certainly Mal-dunes- 

 berg or Mel-dunes-berg, — and in Latin we have the form " Meldunense 

 Monasterium," — as though the root of the word in Anglo-Saxon was 

 mcel-dun, that is the " hill of the cross," — or, as we might say — 

 " church MIL" 4 That these two forms "Maildulf s-berg," and " Mai- 

 dunes-berg," were at one time regarded as distinct names, is clear from 

 an expression in a charter of Eadgar, 5 in 975, in which the two 



1 Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, i., p. 30. 

 2 In the glossary to his edition of the Saxon Chronicle. His words are — 

 " Nomen igitur loci, turn Maildulphi, turn Aldhelmi, aliquid continet, et ex 

 utroque conflatur." 3 Eccl : Hist : B. 5, c. 18. 



4 The town of Maldon, in Essex, is derived from mcel-dun. 

 5 Kemble, Cod : Dip : No. 584. 



