and arches of stone, is not easy to conceive; the very terms, indeed, seem necessarily to imply it. The same remark may be extended and applied to St. Peter's church at York, which was a spacious and magnificent fabrick of stone founded A.D. 637 by king Edwin soon after he was baptized[1]. For that it had such porticos within, appears from Bede's relation of the death of king Edwin, who was killed in battle A.D. 633. 'His head,' says he, 'was brought to York, and afterwards carried into the church of the blessed apostle St. Peter, and deposited in St. Gregory's portico[2].'
"Other notices occur in the same author of churches built in or near his own time of stone, as St. Peter's in York last mentioned, and the church at Lincoln, built by Paulinus, after he had converted Blacca, prefect or governor of that city, which was a stone church of excellent workmanship[3], and those other churches he speaks of might have been of stone, for aught that appears to the contrary. Bede is indeed rather sparing in his de-
- ↑ "Mox ut baptisma consecutus est (Ædwinus) majorem et augustiorem de lapide fabricare curavit basilicam." Bedæ Hist. Eccl. Lib. ii. cap. 14.
- ↑ Adlatum est caput Ædwini Regis Eburacum, et inlatum postea in ecclesiam B. Apostoli Petri;—positum est in porticu S. Papæ Gregorii. Bedæ Hist. Eccl. Lib. ii. cap. 20. Mr. Collier cites this passage from Bede, and seems to have adopted the common error of taking porticus for a building withoutside the church; and thence falsely infers, that it was not the custom of that age to bury within-side. "'King Edwin's head (says he), was deposited in St. Gregory's porch; from whence we may probably conclude, that his children before mentioned, who are said to have been buried in the church, were only buried in the porch, the custom of that age going no further." Collier's Ch. Hist. Vol. I. p. 86.
- ↑ "In qua civitate et ecclesiam operis egregii de lapide fecit." Bedæ Hist. Lib. ii. cap. 14.
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