Now that the Nave is to be built, it has been considered desirable, that, inasmuch as the parishioners of Hexham have never within living memory had a Nave to their church, something with reference to the subject in general, and a description of the proposed new Nave should appear in the Parish Magazine. I propose to deal with the general subject in three sections:— I. Ecclesiological, II. Historical, and III. Archæological. Mr Temple Moore will deal with the description of the designs.
The term Nave refers to the main portion or body of a Church, from the Latin navis, gremium, cumulus; German, hoch schiff; Italian, nave; French, nef; Spanish, coro; (the Chancel being called capilla major); Greek, naos; symbolical of the Ship of Christ, the Church. The idea is as old as the Apostolical Constitutions, and is preserved in the English baptismal service. The notion was occasionally carried out practically, as the Church of St Vincent and St Anastasius in Rome has its walls curved like the ribs of a ship; and the Nave of Payerne is of uneven width to represent a vessel beaten by the waves.
In by far the greater number of Parish Churches the Nave constitutes the major portion. The simpler plans, including Nave and Chancel only, with no aisles. Such a plan was capable of an endless series of variations and extensions, and in Western Europe the general tendency was to develop it in the form of a cross, in an equally endless succession of proportions and dimensions; until we in England culminated with the supreme magnificence of the plan of old St Paul's; with its long Nave, and equally long Chancel, each of twelve bays, and its grandly developed Transepts of five bays in each wing, and aisles on either side to each.
A fully developed cross Church, such as Hexham was in intention, and is again intended be, was divided into three portions in its use, whether cathedral, conventual, or parochial, the eastern arm, Quire or Chancel, was devoted to the clergy, or in conventual Churches to the choir monks, or canons, as the case might be. The Nave, west of the Rood Screen was assigned to the people in all parochial, most cathedral and collegiate, and a large number of conventual and monastic churches; with the exception of those austere orders of monks, the Cistercians and Carthusians. Even the former of these admitted guests, lodging in the abbey for a time, to the nave or a section of it. The Carthusians allowed no layman to enter their churches. The transept was for an entirely different purpose, and was in no sense for any congregational use, either by the clergy as a body, or the people. It was for monumental and chantry uses, and as such became largely appropriated by private individuals, who in many cases built portions of, or extensions to it, for the purpose of having their own memorial or chantry chapels. In the North of England these were termed porches, an expression which was often applied to a whole transept or aisle, as well as the small adjuncts to the doorways of the nave, which are generally understood to be referred to by the term porch. The extensions frequently went by the name of the founders, as the “Claxton Porch” at Redmarshall and the “Conyers Porch” at Sockburn. The nearest local instance is Bellingham, where the one transept, to the south, is called the “de Bellingham porch,” after the family of that name, now settled at Castle Bellingham, in Ireland. All these are large lateral extensions to the churches. In the unreformed church the chantry altars, at which masses for the departed were said, were placed against the eastern wall, and screened off from the space to the west of them, and from each other, either by stone divisions called perpeyn walls, or by wooden parclose screens. These had doors to the west, which were locked when the chapel was not in use, but stood open when mass was being said. The area of the transept not absorbed by the chantry chapels, was left unoccupied, and formed a passage or gangway in front of them. In the great eastern transepts, called the “Nine Altars,” at Fountains and at Durham, the doorways at the north and south ends are placed hard to the west angles, so as to keep the eastern part free for the chapels, and remove the line of traffic as far from them as possible. This use of the transept gives it its English name of the “Cross Alley.” Transept is derived from trans across, and septum an enclosure, a derivative of sepes, a hedge or division.
The nave was essentially the domain of the people. In it they assembled to hear the services, there they were baptized, and there they were brought after death, through the south door, the coffin lying on the bier with the north door open for symbolical reasons. The parish altar was, in conventional churches with parochial naves, placed west of the rood screen, from which the sermon was preached by one of the clergy to the people assembled. In Parish Churches the chancel arch divided nave from quire, and over it the doom was painted to warn the beholders of the terrors awaiting the wicked. After the reformation the canons of the church required that the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Apostles’ Creed be written in the vulgar tongue and placed at the east end of the church. The term church meant the nave. The 15th century contract for the building of Catterick Church, Yorkshire, requires the mason to build a “Church and a Quire,” or, as we should say, a nave and a chancel. Roger Thornton of Newcastle, in his will, refers to the nave of Hexham Abbey, then being built, as “yeir kyrk,” i.e. their church, showing that the word church means in its restricted sense the nave only.
In order to adequately realize the important position of the Church at Hexham at the time of its rise, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that, though not the first foundation in Northumbria {St Edwin's foundation at York dates from 633, and St Aidan's at Lindisfarne from 635} it was amongst the very earliest, and as such, was surrounded by a country for the most part in a state of paganism. Under these circumstances it was perforce a missionary centre, St Wilfrid was a vigorous missioner. In addition to the nine monasteries he is said to have originated, it is certain that he intended to make, and in fact made, Hexham a centre from which at least the greater part of the present county of Northumberland was influenced in the spread of Christianity. There is a curious proof of this in the art of the sculpture on the memorial crosses of the period, which, within a radius of some 40 miles, exhibit substantial proof, that what has been termed the “Hexham school” of work in the designs, was copied in neighbouring places, if, as is possible in some cases, the work was not actually done in Hexham. The beautiful vine scrolls of St Acca's cross, have their parallels and imitations, at Falstone, Nunnykirk, Rothbury, Simondburn, and Stamfordham.
The Church at Hexham was founded between the years 672 and 678. The exact date is unknown, but as Prior Richard, who lived in the 12th century, and had access to authorities now lost, says 674; there can be little doubt that was the notable year in the history of Hexham.
The status of the church was certainly that of a conventual establishment with Wilfrid at its head. The rule was probably of the same form as that of the contemporary foundations of Benedict Biscop at Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, where the inner life is revealed in the valuable biographies of the earlier abbots left to us by Bede. In a few years from the foundation political events caused it to be raised to the dignity of the church of a newly created see, and as such it remained until the first quarter of the ninth century. The intervening period was that during which the Anglo-Saxon Church developed and flourished, and it is certain that Hexham became the parent of numerous subordinate churches scattered over the area assigned to the see. There are contemporary remains of several of these, and a larger number of sites are indicated by fragments of ancient memorials from the cemeteries in connection with them.
The Danish wars of the ninth and tenth centuries, reduced the larger number, if not the whole of the churches in Northumbria to an intermittent or continued state of ruin and abandonment, and Hexham shared the fate of the others. It had fallen from the position of the centre of a bishop's see to that of an ordinary parish church, and from that to desuetude.
It was not destined to undergo the total obliteration that was the fate of so many churches at that unsettled period, even those of the rank and dignity of Cathedrals, such as Elmham in Norfolk, and Selsey in Sussex. The causes for this immunity were several, the extensive possessions and great prestige of the church, and the very substantial character of Wilfrid's building were all important factors tending to its survival.
In 854, the sees of York and Lindisfarne were both vacant, and the territory of the extinct see of Hexham was divided between them; York acquiring the portion from the Tees to the Tyne, and Lindisfarne that from the Tyne to the Aln. In this way York gained its ascendency over Hexham, though this was not effected in its entirety for more than two centuries later. It was not until the settlement of the Congregation of St Cuthbert, under Bishop Aldhune on the hill of Durham, that they felt sufficiently secure to turn their attention to Hexham. Soon after 995 Collan was appointed provost, or controller of the estates, by the Bishop of Durham. This was done without interference on the part of York, and successive appointments to the same office followed, while some twenty years later, priests were instituted to attend to the spiritual wants of the place. What they did is not clear, but they certainly frequented the church, in whatever condition it was, to search for the relics of its sainted bishops, Acca, Alkmund, Eata, and others. In the meantime the provost remained with the congregation at Durham. This arrangement continued till the time of the great change at Durham, effected by William of St Carilef, the second Norman bishop, in 1083. He succeeded in ejecting the married priests and their families, the descendants of the bearers of St Cuthbert's body, and replacing them with Benedictine monks. The elder Eilaf who had succeeded his father Alured, the first priest of Hexham, in 1085, was treasurer of Durham, and rather than submit to the change, he left that city and received from Archbishop Thomas I of York a fresh appointment to Hexham, and leave to restore the church there. He found the place waste, and had to support himself by hunting. His task of dealing with the structure of the church was not completely carried out at his death, but was continued by his son, the younger Eilaf; and he, in 1113, induced the Archbishop, the second Thomas, to send him two secular canons from Yorkshire to assist him. A few years later a body of Regular Canons, of the order of St Augustine, were introduced under Archbishop Thurstan, and were ruled by the first prior Asketill.
Thus a complete change took place in the fortunes of the church, and Eilaf's position was weakened. He eventually retired to Durham, where he died in 1138, having first assigned his Hexham possessions to the Prior and convent, who thereby became endowed with the original patrimony given by Etheldreda to Wilfrid. In the same year the “Battle of the Standard” was fought at Northallerton, when the Scots were defeated, and a period of peace was secured to the border country.
For the greater part of the twelfth century the Canons used the ancient church, and such buildings as they had added to it, of a more or less temporary character. The third prior, Richard, who wrote a history of Hexham, says nothing in his description of Wilfrid's church, about any additions to it in his days beyond the sentences: “We have built upon the ruins of many edifices, which waste and devastation have destroyed. The foundations of many others may still be traced.”
In the time of his successor John, who died about 1209, the building of the Church and Priory on a large scale must have been begun, and it is clear from the substantial, and even ornate, nature of the work, that very considerable wealth had been accumulated in the century-and-a-half of peace, between 1138 and 1296, when, in the latter year, the men of Galloway overran the district and reduced to desolation and ruin, what must have been at that time, as beautiful a House, both for God and man, and surrounded by as fair a domain as could be seen in the land.
The long peace was broken through the death in 1286 of Alexander III of Scotland, leaving his grandchild Margaret heir to the throne. She was in Norway at the time, and died on her way home. Out of the many claimants to the throne, Edward I, as arbiter, supported the cause of John Baliol who ascended in 1292, acknowledging Edward as his overlord. This fact, John's weakness of character, and Edward's determination to conquer Scotland, led to the long and disastrous wars which continued with little intermission until the defeat of the Scots at Neville's Cross in 1346.
Hexham was, from its position, an especial sufferer. The terrible raids of the Galwegians in 1296 and 1297, were followed by others, especially after the defeat of the English at Bannockburn in 1314, and all possibility of completing the noble scheme of reconstruction, by adding the nave to the new church in a commensurate form, was at an end. During the second half of the 14th century various works were done in the way of repairing the damages wrought by the Scots, but we get no direct reference to the nave, till the mention of the church in Roger Thornton's will of 1429. At that time it is clear that works were in progress, and it is also clear they were never finished. The two known causes for this laxity on the part of the Convent, were the poverty of the house, as it never recovered the effects of the Scotch wars; and the decay, i.e. the premature decay, and decline of the popularity of the Augustinian order. This is an ecclesiastical question too large to be dealt with here, but it is commented upon in the introduction to Canon Raine's Priory of Hexham.
The dissolution of the smaller conventual houses took place generally in 1536, after visitations by Drs Legh and Layton in 1534 and 1535. The blow fell at Hexham in the month of September 1536, but the canons, under the Master of Ovingham, refused to surrender, on the plea of a charter of re-foundation. Archbishop Lee had actually addressed a letter to Mr. Secretary Cromwell {not to be confounded with Oliver Cromwell}, pleading for the preservation of the Priory, but without the desired effect, and the final suppression occurred in February 1537.
The immediate effect was that the church was shorn of all its possessions, which passed into lay hands. The Spiritualities, were provided for by allowing a small stipend to a chaplain, who was legally styled perpetual curate. From time to time various augmentations of the living have been made, until under the Ecclesiastical Commissioners it reached its present value.
The lectureship was founded by Richard Fishborne of London, who left money in 1625 for that purpose. Some of the incumbents have also been lecturers, including the late and the present Rectors.
The Church at Hexham was therefore, Cathedral and Parochial for 439 years. Conventual and Parochial for 424 years, and finally Parochial for 362 years, up to the present day.
The building, as left at the dissolution of the Priory, has served as the mother church of a large parish, and has been kept in repair by the parish, and voluntary contributions. The ruins of the abandoned Nave have gradually dwindled away, until little is left beyond the ragged remains of the south and west walls. Of late years somewhat altered conditions, and a considerable increase in the population, have rendered some extension a necessity. The question of another church in Hexham has scarcely been mooted; on all grounds, more especially historical and architectural, the building of the Nave in a manner worthy of so great, ecclesiastically, and so noble, architecturally, a church as Hexham Abbey is, is to be preferred.