The consideration of the history of some of these monasteries would alone throw doubt upon the authenticity of their early charters. St. Æthelwold, St. Dunstan, and King Edgar restored or rather re-founded in the tenth century several of the early monasteries, such as Peterborough and Ely, which had altogether disappeared. [177] Abingdon had barely escaped the same fate. [178] In these cases the lands of the old foundations escheated to the king's fiscus, the word used by Ælfric in his Life of St. Æthelwold, or to certain noblemen. From what we know of the avidity displayed by kings, bishops and noblemen at the end of the eighth century in obtaining the 'books' of land that had been invested with royal charters, we cannot doubt that when an ancient monastery decayed or was despoiled by king or noble, its charters were transferred to the king or noble. The tenth-century re-founders of the monasteries were compelled to re-purchase the lands of the old foundations, and they obtained new charters of immunity, etc. from the king. It is, of course, not out of the question that they recovered the early charters and handed them over to the new foundations. But the old charters must have disappeared in many instances, for we read of the stealing or destruction of 'land-books' as one of the steps taken by those who desired to obtain wrongfully possession of lands belonging to a monastery. [179] Moreover, it is evident that the re-founders of the monasteries did not always succeed in obtaining recovery of the old possessions of a particular monastery, and that the revived abbey was frequently endowed with lands quite distinct from those of the old abbey. Records or traditions of the original founders of the vanished monasteries existed in most cases, and the inmates of the re-established house, being by no means deaf to the claims of antiquity, usually went behind the re-foundation and produced charters professing to come from their original founder. In default of other evidence, his name could readily be recovered from the curious list of founders of monasteries, some of which we do not know outside this list, appended to or connected with the tract on the Saints of England that has recently been edited and dissected, in his usual able manner, by Professor Liebermann. [180]
This decay of monasteries arose from various causes. In Mercia and East Anglia it was largely the result of the ravages of the Danes. In Northumbria scarcely a single monastery survived the incessant attacks and ravages of the Northmen, and we accordingly find that kingdom unrepresented by charters until the closing years of the tenth century, with the exception of a curious charter of 685 regarding a gift of land to St. Cuthberht by King Ecgfrith of Northumberland. [181] This is a somewhat suspicious document, since its proem is clearly made up from the language of Beda. The early eleventh-century Historia de Sancto Cuthberto refers to this and to numerous other early grants, [182] so that it is possible that the monks of Lindisfarne, who alone of the Northumbrian societies ensured the preservation of ancient MSS., may have carried some of their early charters about during their pious wanderings with the body of St. Cuthberht. Perhaps some of the Northumbrian charters escaped the fury of the Dane only to perish at the hands of Englishmen during the fratricidal strife of the seventeenth century. For during that regrettable war the bulk of the records of the northern monasteries were destroyed by fire at York.
The mention of Northumbria recalls to our mind the name of the illustrious Beda, the teacher of western Europe in history, science and chronology. His well-known letter to bishop Ecgbert, [183] written in 734, proves how wide was the use of royal diplomas for monasteries at this time, and also suggests, by his account of private ownership of some of these monasteries and of the great abuses of which they were the scene, other reasons for the decay of monasteries and the alienation of their lands. The learned monk, in the evening of his pure and well-spent life, blames the carelessness of bygone kings who had scattered their foolish donationes so widely that it was difficult to find a vacant place for the establishment of a bishop's see. [184] There are, he says, numerous places invested with royal privileges (stilo stultissimo in monasteriorum ascripta vocabulum) [185] absolutely devoid of monastic conversation, and that are, as the folk say, useful neither to God nor man. The binding nature and religious character of these royal diplomas is well brought out by the fact that he deemed it necessary to argue that the conversion of a monastery so protected into a bishop's see could not be regarded as a sin, whereby the unjust judgments of princes might be corrected by the examination of better princes, and the lying stile of wicked scribes be cancelled and annulled by the discreet sentences of wise priests. Incidentally we obtain evidence that the Northumbrian royal diploma had the same objects and was drawn up in much the same way as the early instruments that have come down to us from Kent, Mercia, and Wessex. Beda complains that the lay owners of these private monasteries obtain from the king, in exchange for money, grants of territory under the pretext of founding monastries, and that they cause the land to [be] 'ascribed' to them in hereditary right by royal 'edicts', and that they obtain the confirmation of their 'letters of privileges' by the subscription of bishops, abbots and powerful laymen, as though the letters were truly worthy of God. [186] They thus, he observes, obtain land freed alike from divine and human service, meaning that they have obtained exemption of the land from worldly service by the royal privilege and that they neglect to perform any religious duties, the implied condition of the grant of such immunity. The bishops he blames for subscribing these privileges, even when they do so in obedience to the king's orders. In his History of the abbots of his monastery, Beda tells us that Benedict Biscop, the founder and first abbot of Wearmouth in 674, obtained a letter of privilege from pope Agatho, with the king's licence, rendering the monastery free form all outside interference. [187] The third abbot Ceolfrid is recorded to have obtained a similar privilege from pope Sergius, which was brought home, explained before a synod (i.e. council), and confirmed by the subscriptions of the bishops present and of the king. [188] In the eighth century the old connexion between the royal diploma and the ecclesiastical synod is well exemplified by the numerous instruments that are on the border line between a royal charter and the official note of the proceedings of an ecclesiastical council. We have, it will be remembered, claimed that the early O.E. royal diploma was from the first influenced by the conciliar document, and it does not entirely escape the influence of or sever the connexion with the latter until the tenth century. The semi-ecclesiastical nature of the royal diplomas is also illustrated by the eighth- and ninth-century instances where disputes as to the title conferred by them are discussed and adjudicated upon by ecclesiastical councils attended by the king. But these councils, it must be remembered, are not exclusively ecclesiastical in their character.