of which is an oratory containing the cradle of Christ, and his bath, and the bed of the Virgin Mary, according to the testimony of the Assyrians.

From the Temple of the Lord you go to the church of St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Mary, towards the north, where she lived with her husband, and she was there delivered of her daughter Mary. Near it is the pool called in Hebrew Bethsaida, having five porticoes, of which the Gospel speaks. A little above is the place where the woman was healed by our Lord, by touching the hem of his garment, while he was surrounded by a crowd in the street.

From St. Anne we pass through the gate which leads to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, to the church of St. Mary in the same valley, where she was honourably buried by the apostles after her death; her sepulchre, as is just and proper, is revered with the greatest honours by the faithful, and monks perform service there day and night. Here is the brook Cedron; here also is Gethsemane, where our Lord came with his disciples from Mount Sion, over the brook Cedron, before the hour of his betrayal; there is a certain oratory where he dismissed Peter, James, and John, saying, "Tarry ye here, and watch with me;" and going forward, he fell on his face and prayed, and came to his disciples, and found them sleeping: the places are still visible where the disciples slept, apart from each other. Gethsemane is at the foot of Mount Olivet, and the brook Cedron below, between Mount Sion and Mount Olivet, as it were the division of the mountains; and the low ground between the mountains is the Valley of Jehoshaphat. A little above, in Mount Olivet, is an oratory in the place where our Lord prayed, as we read in the Passion, "And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast; and being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground." Next we come to Aceldama, the field bought with the price of the Lord, also at the foot of Mount Olivet, near a valley about three or four arbalist-shots to the south of Gethsemane, where are seen innumerable monuments. That field is near the sepulchres of the holy fathers Simeon the Just and Joseph the foster-father of our Lord. These two sepulchres are ancient structures, in the manner of towers, cut into the foot of the mountain itself. We next descend, by Aceldama, to the fountain which is called the Pool of Siloah, where, by our Lord's command, the man born blind washed his eyes, after the Lord had anointed them with clay and spittle.

From the church of St. Mary before mentioned, we go up by a very steep path nearly to the summit of Mount Olivet, towards the cast, to the place whence our Lord ascended to heaven in the sight of his disciples. The place is surrounded by a little tower, and honourably adorned, with an altar raised on the spot within, and also surrounded on all sides with a wall. On the spot where the apostles stood with his mother, wondering at his ascension, is an altar of St. Mary; there the two men in white garments stood by them, saying, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing into heaven?" About a stone's throw from that place is the spot where, according to the Assyrians, our Lord wrote the Lord's Prayer in Hebrew, with his own fingers, on marble; and there a very beautiful church was built, but it has since been entirely destroyed by the Pagans, as are all the churches outside the walls, except the church of the Holy Ghost on Mount Sion, about an arrow-shot from the wall to the north, where the apostles received the promise of the Father, namely, the Paraclete Spirit, on the day of Pentecost; there they made the Creed. In that church is a chapel in the place where the Blessed Mary died. On the other side of the church is the chapel where our Lord Jesus Christ first appeared to the

apostles after his resurrection; and it is called Galilee, as he said to the apostles, "After I am risen again, I will go before you unto Galilee." That place was called Galilee, because the apostles, who were called Galileans, frequently rested there.

The great city of Galilee is by Mount Tabor, a journey of three days from Jerusalem. On the other side of Mount Tabor is the city called Tiberias, and after it Capernaum and Nazareth, on the sea of Galilee or sea of Tiberias, whither Peter and the other apostles, after the resurrection, returned to their fishing, and where the Lord afterwards showed himself to them on the sea. Near the city of Tiberias is the field where the Lord Jesus blessed the five loaves and two fishes, and afterwards fed four thousand men with them, as we read in the Gospel. But I will return to my immediate subject.

In the Galilee of Mount Sion, where the apostles were concealed in an inner chamber, with closed doors, for fear of the Jews, Jesus stood in the middle of them and said, "Peace be unto you;" and he again appeared there when Thomas put his finger into his side and into the place of the nails. There he supped with his disciples before the Passion, and washed their feet; and the marble table is still preserved there on which he supped. There the relics of St. Stephen, Nicodemus, Gamaliel, and Abido, were honourably deposited by St. John the Patriarch after they were found. The stoning of St. Stephen took place about two or three arbalist-shots without the wall, to the north, where a very handsome church was built, which has been entirely destroyed by the Pagans. The church of the Holy Cross, about a mile to the west of Jerusalem, in the place where the holy cross was cut out, and which was also a very handsome one, has been similarly laid waste by the Pagans; but the destruction here fell chiefly on the surrounding buildings and the cells of the monks, the church itself not having suffered so much. Under the wall of the city, outside, on the declivity of Mount Sion, is the church of St. Peter, which is called the Gallican, where, after having denied his Lord, he hid himself in a very deep crypt, as may still be seen there, and there wept bitterly for his offence. About three miles to the west of the church of the Holy Cross is a very fine and large monastery in honour of St. Saba, who was one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. There were above three hundred Greek monks living there, in the service of the Lord and of the saint, of whom the greater part have been slain by the Saracens, and the few who remain have taken up their abode in another monastery of the same saint, within the walls of the city, near the tower of David, their other monastery being left entirely desolate.

William of Malmesbury, from whose history we have taken a short account of Aldhelm, was Sawulf's contemporary, but a younger man. He wrote his

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History of the Kings of England" in the reigns of Henry I. and Stephen. It ended with the year 1142, which seems to have been the date of its author's death. This monk of Malmesbury was an enthusiast for books, and, like Bede, he refused to be made an abbot, because he desired to give to study all the time not occupied by the religious exercises of the brethren. When John Milton was writing a "History of Britain" by help of monastic chroniclers, and, having parted from Bede, he came in due time to the record left us by this literary monk, he said that among our old chroniclers "William of Malmesbury must be acknowledged, both for style and

judgment, to be by far the best writer of them all." William wrote at Malmesbury not only the "History of English Kings," but also a "History of English Prelates," and many other books.

With the year 1142 ended not only William of Malmesbury's "History of the Kings of England," but also the "Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy," by Ordericus Vitalis. Orderic, who was sixty-seven years old when he brought his narrative down to the end of his own working life, had in the year 1085 been placed as an English boy in the Norman abbey of St. Evroult, and had lived there devoted to the contemplative life, and active with his pen. When fifty-three years old, he was in the writing-room of his monastery, quietly at work upon his history, and, falling into recollections of his childhood, spoke thus of his position at St. Evroult :

"Then, being in my eleventh year, I was separated from my father, for the love of God, and sent, a young exile, from England to Normandy, to enter the service of the King Eternal. Here I was received by the venerable father Mainier, and having assumed the monastic habit, and become indissolubly joined to the company of the monks by solemn vows, have now cheerfully borne the light yoke of the Lord for forty-two years, and walking in the ways. of God with my fellow-monks, to the best of my ability, according to the rules of our order, have endeavoured to perfect myself in the service of the Church and ecclesiastical duties, at the same time that I have always devoted my talents to some useful employment."

William of Malmesbury and Ordericus Vitalis ended their work in 1142, in Stephen's reign. In the same reign, in the year 1147, Geoffrey of Monmouth produced his "History of British Kings." Geoffrey was a Welsh monk who was made Bishop of St. Asaph not long before his death in 1154. His History contained more fable than chronicle. By "British" kings he meant kings of Britain before the coming of the English. Of English kings there were trustworthy chronicles; Geoffrey provided a chronicle of British kings, not meant to be particularly trustworthy, but distinctly meant to be amusing. It was partly founded on Breton traditions, and it did obtain a wide attention. It was the source of a new stream of poetry in English literature, and it is this book that brought King Arthur among us as our national hero. Geoffrey's History does not itself belong to the subject of this volume. The old romances of King Arthur are not religious. They are picturesque stories of love and war, and of each in rude animal form.

But the way in which the legends of this mythical hero have been dealt with in our country furnishes one of the most marked illustrations of the religious tendency of English thought. For while amongst Latin nations the Charlemagne romances have given rise to fictions which, however delightful, express only play of the imagination, the romances of which Arthur is the hero have been used by the English people in successive stages of their civilisation for expression of their highest sense of spiritual life. In the very first years of the revived fame of Arthur, when Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of British Kings" was being

It

separate legend of Joseph of Arimathea to the stories of King Arthur, and setting in the midst of their ideals of a life according to the flesh the quest for the Holy Graal. The Holy Graal was the dish used by our Lord at the Last Supper, into which also his wounds were washed after he had been taken from the cross, a sacred dish visible only to the pure. could be used, therefore, as a type of the secret things of God. Walter Map, who thus dealt with the King Arthur legends, was a chaplain of the Court of King Henry II. He was born about the year 1143, and called the Welsh his countrymen, England our mother." He studied in the University of Paris, was in attendance at the Court of Henry II., and in 1173 was presiding at Gloucester Assizes as one of the King's Justices in Eyre. At Henry II's Court, Map was a chaplain; Henry died in 1189, and Map was not an archdeacon until 1196, in the reign of Richard I. He was then about fifty-three years old, and after that date we hear no more of him.' We must dwell now for a little while upon the origin of our religious treatment of Arthurian romance.

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1 See the Volume of this Library containing "Shorter English Poems," pages 12-16, for illustrations of Walter Map's Golias poetry.

Medieval tradition said that there were Nine Worthies of the world, three heathen, three Jewish, and three Christian:-namely, Hector, Alexander, and Cæsar; Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabæus; King Arthur, Charlemagne, and that Godfrey of Boloine who headed the crusaders when the Holy City was taken in the year 1099, who was then elected the first Latin King of Jerusalem, but chose the humbler title of "Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre," and would wear no earthly diadem where his Redeemer had been crowned with thorns. If our British Worthy ever lived, his time was the earlier part of the sixth century, when he led tribes of Celtic Britons in their resistance against the incoming of the English. There is more record of a chieftain of the North, named Urien, about whom were the bards Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Aneurin, who lamented for the chiefs slain in the battle of Cattracth.' To Gildas, said by tradition to have been a brother of Aneurin, there is ascribed an ancient history of the disasters of the British ("De Calamitate, Excidio et Conquestu Britanniæ"), but it was written in no friendly spirit, and is the work of an English monk, who probably wrote in the seventh century. By him Arthur is mentioned, and in another work, a History of the Britons," ascribed to Nennius, a disciple of Elbodus, who may have lived in the latter part of the eighth century, and whose work is really Celtic in feeling, Arthur is more fully spoken of. Here there is record of the twelve battles in which he routed the Saxons— namely, 1, at the mouth of the river Gleni; 2, 3, 4, 5, by the river Duglas in the region Linuis; 6, on the river Bassas; 7, in the wood Celidon; 8, near Gurnion Castle; 9, at Caerleon; 10, on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit; 11, on the mountain Bregovin; 12, when Arthur penetrated to the hill of Badon, and 940 fell by his hand alone. There was at any rate early tradition, mixed already with fable, of the prowess of the chief who led his followers in a great war of independence.

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Arthur's name is also associated from old time with localities in many parts of Britain. At Caerleon-upon-Usk he is said to have held his court; that is the Isca Silurum of Antoninus, where the second Augustan legion was long in garrison, the ancient capital of Britannia Secunda (Wales), and a place of importance in the twelfth century. Here the remains of a Roman amphitheatre form an oval bank, which is called "Arthur's Round Table." He held court also at Camelot, which is identified with Cadbury in Somersetshire, three or four miles from Castle Cary. This place is called Camelot sometimes in old records, and near it are the villages of West Camel and Queen's Camel. John Selden, in his notes to Drayton's "Polyolbion," spoke of Cadbury as a hill, а mile compass at the top, four trenches encircling it, and twixt every of them an earthen wall; the content of it within about twenty acres full of ruins and relics of old buildings." There is also Tintagel, on the coast of Cornwall, Arthur's birthplace. At Camelford, about five miles from Tintagel, the last battle is said to have been fought with

tree.

Mordred. In a convent at Amesbury, not far from Stonehenge, Arthur's penitent wife, Guenevere, is said to have ended her days, and his body was taken to Avalon, which is Glastonbury, on a peninsula formed by the river Brue, the Roman Insula Avalonia, or Isle of Apples. The Roman name was only a Latinising of the Cymric, in which Afall is an appleThe great abbey at Glastonbury once covered sixty acres, and the modern town has almost been built out of its ruins. Here Joseph of Arimathea was said to have been buried. It was said also that King Arthur was buried here between two pillars; and as the revival of King Arthur's fame took place in Henry II.'s time, that king, when on his way to Ireland, in the year 1171, ordered Henry of Blois, then Abbot of Glastonbury, to make search. The search was made, and care was no doubt taken to make it successful. Between two pillars, at a depth of nine feet, a stone was found, with a leaden cross, inscribed on its under side in Latin :- "Here lies buried the renowned King Arthur, in the Isle of

Avalon;" and seven feet lower down his body was found in an oaken coffin.

It must have been about this time-when Arthur had become the hero of romance, and his bones were found at Avalon, to please the king-that Walter Map, perhaps asked by the king for a connected body of Arthurian romance, gave life to such a body by putting into it the very soul of our mediæval religion. Many in the world were becoming better studied in the animal life of the new stories about Arthur than in Bible truth. Shakespeare long afterwards indicated this in Dame Quickly's confusion of ideas between Arthur and Abraham, when of the dead Falstaff she said, "Nay, sure, he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A made a fine end, and went away, an it

had been any chrissom child." Map took the legend of Joseph of Arimathea, who also was said to be buried at Glastonbury, and to whom the monastery had a chapel consecrated, by additions of his own drew from it a symbol of the mystery of godliness, and by his genius associated this for all time with the animal romances. The simplest form of the tradition of Joseph of Arimathea is that about sixtythree years after the birth of Christ he was sent by the Apostle Philip, with eleven more of Philip's The twelve, it was said, disciples, into Britain. obtained leave from Arviragus, the British king, to settle in a small uncultivated island, afterwards known as Avalon, and the king gave each of them a hide of land for his subsistence, in a district long afterwards known as the "Twelve Hides of Glaston.' By them the religious house was founded, St. Joseph

flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth." Joseph answered, "That speech is like the speech of proud Goliath, who reproached the living God in speaking against David. But ye scribes and doctors know that God saith by the prophet, Vengeance is mine, and I will repay to you evil equal to that which ye have threatened to me. The God whom you have hanged upon the cross, is able to deliver me out of All your wickedness will return upon you.

your hands.

For the governor, when he washed his hands, said, I am clear from the blood of this just person.' But ye answered and cried out, His blood be upon us and our children: ' According as ye have said, may ye perish for ever." The elders of the Jews hearing these words, were exceedingly enraged; and seizing Joseph, they put him into a chamber where there was no window; they fastened the door, and put a seal upon the lock; and Annas and Caiaphas placed a guard upon it, and took counsel with the priests and Levites, that they should all meet after the sabbath, and they con

being its first abbot, and great privileges were obtained for it.

Of Joseph's history, after he had begged the body of Christ for burial, as told by all the four Evangelists, this was the account given in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, and familiarly known before Map's time :

JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.

Joseph, when he came to the Jews, said to them, "Why are ye angry with me for desiring the body of Jesus of Pilate? Behold, I have put him in my tomb, and wrapped him up in clean linen, and put a stone at the door of the sepulchre : I have acted rightly towards him; but ye have acted unjustly against that just person, in crucifying him, giving him vinegar to drink, crowning him with thorns, tearing his body with whips, and prayed down the guilt of his blood upon you." The Jews at the hearing of this were disquieted, and troubled; and they seized Joseph, and commanded him to be put in custody before the sabbath, and kept there till the sabbath was over. And they said to him, "Make confession; for at this time it is not lawful to do thee any harm, till the first day of the week come. But we know that thou wilt not be thought worthy of a burial; but we will give thy

trived to what death they should put Joseph. When they had done this, the rulers, Annas and Caiaphas, ordered Joseph to be brought forth.

In this place there is a portion of the narrative lost or omitted, which cannot be supplied.

When all the assembly heard this, they wondered and were astonished, because they found the same seal upon the lock of the chamber, and could not find Joseph. Then Annas and Caiaphas went forth, and while they were all wondering at Joseph's being gone, behold one of the soldiers, who kept the sepulchre of Jesus, spake in the assembly, that while they were guarding the sepulchre of Jesus, there was an earthquake; "and we saw an angel of God roll away the stone of the sepulchre and sit upon it; and his countenance was like lightning and his garment like snow; and we became through fear like persons dead. And we heard an angel saying to the women at the sepulchre of Jesus, Do not fear: I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified; he is risen, as he foretold. Come and see the place where he was laid; and go presently, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead, and he will go before you into Galilee; there ye shall see him, as he told you."" Then the Jews called together all the soldiers who kept the sepulchre of Jesus, and said to them, "Who are those women, to whom the angel spoke?

Why did ye not seize them?" The soldiers answered and said, "We know not who the women were; besides, we became as dead persons through fear, and how could we seize those women?" The Jews said to them, "As the Lord liveth, we do not believe you." The soldiers answering said to the Jews, "When ye saw and heard Jesus working so many miracles, and did not believe him, how should ye believe us? Ye well said, 'As the Lord liveth,' for the Lord truly does live. We have heard that ye shut up Joseph, who buried the body of Jesus, in a chamber, under a lock which was sealed; and when ye opened it, found him not there. Do ye then produce Joseph whom ye put under guard in the chamber, and we will produce Jesus whom we guarded in the sepulchre." The Jews answered and said, "We will produce Joseph, do ye produce Jesus. For Joseph is in his own city of Arimathaa." The soldiers replied, "If Joseph be in Arimathæa, Jesus also is in Galilee; we heard the angel tell the women." The Jews hearing this, were afraid, and said among themselves, If by any means these things should become public, then everybody will believe in Jesus. Then they gathered a large sum of money, and gave it to the soldiers, saying, "Do ye tell the people that the disciples of Jesus came in the night when ye were asleep, and stole away the body of Jesus; and if Pilate the governor should hear of this, we will satisfy him and secure you." The soldiers accordingly took the money, and said as they were instructed by the Jews: and their report was spread abroad among all the people. But a certain priest Phinees, Ada a schoolmaster, and a Levite, named Ageus, they three, came from Galilee to Jerusalem, and told the chief priests and all who were in the synagogues, saying, "We have seen Jesus, whom ye crucified, talking with his eleven disciples, and sitting in the midst of them in Mount Olivet, and saying to them, 'Go forth into the whole world, preach the Gospel to all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and whosoever shall believe and be baptised, shall be saved.' And when he had said these things to his disciples, we saw him ascending up to heaven." And they sent forth men, who sought for Jesus, but could not find him: and they returning, said, "We went all about, but could not find Jesus, but we have found Joseph in his city of Arimathæa." The rulers hearing this, and all the people, were glad, and praised the God of Israel, because Joseph was found, whom they had shut up in a chamber, and could not find. And when they had formed a large assembly, the chief priests said, "By what means shall we bring Joseph to us to speak with him?" And taking a piece of paper, they wrote to him, and said, "Peace be with thee, and all thy family. We know that we have offended against God and thee. Be pleased to give a visit to us thy fathers, for we were in utmost surprise at thine escape from prison. We know that it was malicious counsel which we took against thee, and that the Lord took care of thee, and the Lord himself delivered thee from our designs. Peace be unto thee, Joseph, who art honourable among all the people." And they chose seven of Joseph's friends, and said to them, “When ye come to Joseph, salute him in peace, and give him this letter." Accordingly, when the men came to Joseph, they did salute him in peace, and gave him the letter. And when Joseph had read it, he said, "Blessed be the Lord God, who didst deliver me from the Israelites, that they could not shed my blood. Blessed be God, who hast protected me under thy wings." And Joseph kissed them, and took them into his house. And on the morrow, Joseph mounted his ass, and went along with them to Jerusalem. And when all the Jews heard these things, they went out to meet him, and cried out, saying, "Peace attend thy coming hither, father Joseph!" To which he answered, “Prosperity from the Lord attend all

the people!" And they all kissed him; and Nicodemus took him to his house, having prepared a large entertainment. But on the morrow, being a preparation-day, Annas, and Caiaphas, and Nicodemus said to Joseph, "Make confession to the God of Israel, and answer to us all those questions which we shall ask thee; for we have been very much troubled, that thou didst bury the body of Jesus; and that when we had locked thee in a chamber, we could not find thee; and we have been afraid ever since, till this time of thy appearing among us. Tell us therefore before God, all that came to pass." Then Joseph answering, said, "Ye did indeed put me under confinement, on the day of preparation, till the morning. But while I was standing at prayer in the middle of the night, the house was surrounded with four angels; and I saw Jesus as the brightness of the sun, and fell down upon the earth for fear. But Jesus laying hold on my hand, lifted me from the ground, and the dew was then sprinkled upon me; but he, wiping my face, kissed me, and said unto me, 'Fear not, Joseph; look upon me, for it is I.' Then I looked upon him, and said, Rabboni Elias! He answered me, 'I am not Elias, but Jesus of Nazareth, whose body thou didst bury.' I said to him, Shew me the tomb in which I laid thee.' Then Jesus, taking me by the hand, led me unto the place where I laid him, and shewed me the linen clothes, and napkin which I put round his head. Then I knew that it was Jesus, and worshipped him, and said, 'Blessed be he who cometh in the name of the Lord.' Jesus again taking me by the hand, led me to Arimathæa, to my own house, and said to me, 'Peace be to thee; but go not out of thy house till the fortieth day; but I must go to my disciples.'

There is nothing here of the Holy Graal, nor is there evidence of any connection of that legend with growing traditions of St. Joseph, until Walter Map told of the appearance of St. Joseph to a certain hermit in the year 717, as a way of opening the story which was to introduce a new element into Arthurian romance :

PRELUDE TO THE FIRST ROMANCE OF THE ST. GRAAL.

He who accounts himself the least and most sinful of all, salutes, and begins this history to all those whose heart and faith is in the Holy Trinity. The name of him who wrote this history is not told at the beginning. But by the words that follow you may in a great measure perceive his name, country, and a great part of his lineage. But he would not disclose himself in the beginning. And he has three reasons for that. The first is that if he named himself, and said that God had revealed through him so high a history, the felon and envious would turn it into scoff. The second is that all who knew him, if they heard his name, would value the less his history, for being written by so mean a person. The third reason is, that if he put his name to the history, and any fault were found committed by him, or by a transcriber from one book into another, all the blame would fall on his name; for there are so many more mouths that speak evil than good, and a man gets more blame for a single fault than praise for a hundred merits. And however he may wish to cover it, it would be more seen than he should like. But he will tell quite openly how the History of the Saint Graal was commanded to him to be made manifest. It happened 717 years after the passion of Jesus Christ that I, the most sinful of all men, was in a place wilder than I can describe

And then the story begins with the vision of Joseph, who tells how the Holy Graal, or dish from which the