24 
print, deceived by the presence of a stolen mail bag which was 
found among the rafters of the inn, and imagining that the 
character given by the author of Guy Mannering to a well- 
known northern hostelry belonged to other baiting houses as 
well, stated boldly in a leading article that mine host of Selby, 
in days not so far gone by, robbed and murdered his guests, 
and hid their bodies beneath the cellars of his house ! This 
theory may only be mentioned to be dismissed. 
Another view is that this is a Christian cemetery of the 
eleventh and twelfth centimes, and that the name of Church 
Hill, which the place bears, is evidence of the existence of the 
first Christian church or monastery upon the site. To consider 
this we must enter very briefly into the early history of the 
ecclesiastical colonisation of the place. The chronicle of Selby 
tells us how, soon after the Conquest, Benedict of Auxerre 
came over the sea on a mission to Selby. After many adven¬ 
tures he found the place he was in quest of, and landed, 
probably, at the bottom of Ousegate, setting up upon the 
river’s bank a cross of wood. On this site, which would be 
regarded with sacred interest thenceforward, Benedict erected 
some temporary buildings for residence and worship. They 
were probably of wood. A stone church was begun in a very 
short time upon a different site. It is evident there was no 
ecclesiastical building at Selby, when Benedict came to it. 
The church at the end of the present Ousegate was only a 
temporary structure, and the Christian dead would be laid, 
not around it, but within the enclosure devoted to the church 
of stone, which seems to have been almost immediately begun. 
If any member of the sacred brotherhood died in the interval, 
we are only following analogy if we suppose that his body 
was afterwards removed to the consecrated enclosure. In 1274 
we learn that there was a chapel in the town of Selby bearing 
the name of St. Germanus, but that it was not consecrated, 
seeing that the dead were interred in the burial ground of the 
monastery. The historical argument therefore is against the 
idea of there having been any Christian cemetery at the 
Church Hill. The name may have its origin in the erection 
on the spot of a temporary church before the present abbey 
