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This is what Murray rightly speaks of as "The venerable church of St. Mary at Stow, the mother church of the great Minster."

Stow is thought to be identical with the Roman Sidnacester, and the first church was built there in 678 by the Saxon King Egfrith, husband of Etheldred, the foundress of Ely, at the time when Wilfrid's huge Northumbrian diocese was divided. From 627, when Paulinus, Bishop of York, preached at Lincoln, baptized in the Trent and built the first stone church in Lincolnshire, to 656, the province of Lindisse, or Lindsey, was under the Bishop of York. From 656 to 678 it was under the Bishops of Mercia, whose "Bishop-stool" was at Repton, and after 669 at Lichfield. In 678 King Egfrith of Northumbria established the diocese of Lindsey, with Eadred as first bishop, with its "Bishop-stool," and a church of stone built for the See at Sidnacester or Stow. This lasted for 192 years; then, in 870, the Danes overran Mercia and burnt Stow church and murdered Bishop Berktred. Then from 876, when England was divided between Edmund Ironside and Canute, Lincoln became an important Danish borough. This period is marked by the number of streets in Lincoln called 'gates,' and by the enormous number of villages in the county ending in the Danish 'by,' which we find side by side with the Saxon terminations 'ton' and 'ham.' The Danes held Lincoln certainly till 940, during which time the province had no bishop. In 958 Lindsey was united with Leicester, and the "Bishop-stool" was fixed at Dorchester-on-Thames till, in 1072, it was transferred to Lincoln, and the province of Lindsey became part of the diocese of Lincoln under Remigius, the first Bishop of Lincoln. Stow being burnt in 870, remained in ruins till about 1040, when Eadnoth, seventh Bishop of Dorchester, rebuilt it, using the materials of the older church as far as they would go, as may be seen in the lower part of the transept walls. He probably built the massive round-headed tower arches. Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife, Godiva, helped liberally both with the building and the endowment. The Early Norman nave, and the upper parts of the transepts are probably the work of Bishop Remigius (1067-1093) who, we are told, "re-edified the Minster at Stow." The chancel is late Norman, of the best kind, and, together with the rich doorways in the nave, may be assigned to Bishop Alexander (1123-1147) whose great west doorway at Lincoln is of similar workmanship. A few Early English windows, and the Perpen