Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 26, 2025
Whether the story is sufficiently historical to enable us to claim the continuance of Christian monasteries of the British among the barbarian Saxons so late as 540, I am not clear. There was a little Irish monastery at Bosham, among the pagan South-Saxons, a hundred and forty years later. It is easy, I think, to overrate the hostility of the early English to Christianity.
Through the warm summer rain we came before daylight had fully broken to Bosham, not passing through Chichester, for the gates would be closed. And just before the sun rose, Dicul the priest came from his house to the little church and saw us sitting in the porch, waiting him, while the horses cropped the grass on the little green outside the churchyard, hobbled in forest fashion.
One of his biographers, Herbert of Bosham, who was his secretary and is likely to have understood his views, though he was if possible of an even more extreme spirit than his patron, records the speech in which the archbishop made known to the king the answer of the Church.
Truly it was an evil moment when the thought of taking to the sea occurred to me, and I would give a broad slice of my earldom to be back at Bosham." Hour by hour the waves increased in size and violence, and often poured in over the sides. The number of men on board was too great for all to work effectively.
It is amusing to find Becket's faithful clerks, on the Friday when they were to arrive at that hospitable convent, trying to coax their master to grant them leave, after their journey, to eat a little meat: "for, suppose there should be a scarcity of fish." Here they were joined by Herbert de Bosham, who had been sent to Canterbury to collect such money and valuables as he could bring away.
And then the words of the good Prior of Bosham helped me, teaching me that my life was surely spared for somewhat. These good folk of the farm tended me most kindly, for they knew me by sight as a close friend of both king and bishop, and for their sakes were glad to do all they might for me.
The Register, in some cases, gives the amount of land with which the church was endowed. Bosham, in Sussex, the estate of Harold, had, in the time of King Edward, a hundred and twelve hides of land. At the date of the survey it had sixty-five hides. This was an enormous endowment. Some churches had five acres only; some fifty; some a hundred. Some are without land altogether.
"Lord earl," said I, "you will make me vain." "Earl, forsooth!" he cried, "the clothes have made you mighty courtly all at once. Godwine and Redwald are going back to Bosham, and the earl bides at Chichester Cross mind you that!" And he swung himself on his horse laughing, and we rode away, while the people shouted, for they had gathered in twos and threes to look on him.
That I must take back myself; and though I could not fairly be blamed for loss of ship and crew, the thought of having to break the tidings to those who would mourn for their lost ones was very hard to me. But it must be done, and there was an end. Now came to me, as I thought of these things, my friend the Prior of Bosham, and he sat down beside me and asked how he could further my plans.
The Saxons gave a shout of joy when they first made out the outline of the hills of the Isle of Wight, some twelve hours after leaving the mouth of the river; but it was not until eight hours afterwards that they entered the harbour of Bosham.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking