Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/286

 232 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ia S.VHJ.MABCH 19,1921. Personally I am not aware of any tradition in England that churches dedicated to St. Michael should always be on high ground. But in my native county of Somerset, I know several which occupy that position quite a third of the total number which bear the name of the saint. Everyone knows St. Michael's on Glastonbury Tor, and Mine- head parish church. Then there are the churches at South Brent, Milverton, North Cadbury, Compton Martin, Templecombe and Penselwood. The churches at East Coker, Haselbury Plucknett, and Somerton might also be included for they are on knolls, if not actual hills. The parish church in the village in which I live Pinhoe -is a striking example. It is upwards of a mile away and stands over 200 feet above the village street. The old church at Honiton stands some 500 feet above sea level, and, probably, 150 feet above the centre of the town. Another instance is the church at Brent Tor in Devon. This one is 1130 feet above sea level. These are just a few local cases which may be interesting. W. G. WILLIS WATSON. Pinhoe, Devon. Baedeker's 'Southern Italy' (13th edn- 1900), at p. 196 says : " About 2 miles to the west of Manfredonia, on the road to Foggia, is the Cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore di Siponto, a fine example of the Romanesque style, with a crypt .... A road .... leads hence to (10 m.) Monte Santangelo (2655 ft. ; ) with a picturesque castle, and a famous old sanctuary of San Michele, where a great festival is celebrated on 8th May. The chapel consists of a grotto to which 86 steps descend and where as the legend runs, St. Michael appeared to St. Laurentius, Archbishop of Sipontum, in 491." Other authorities put the date 494 and others 530-40. As to the dates of the apparition of St. Michael on St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, see US. xii. 239. It was probably in the sixth century, and that on Mont Saint-Michel Brittany, was probably about 708. These reported apparitions no doubt account for the popular view that St. Michael ought to be honoured in. high places. Mgr. Duche^ne, ' Christian Worship ' (S.P.C.K. 1.903), at p. 276, says: " The only angel of whom we find a commemo- ration before the ninth century is- St. Michael. Festivals of this kind can be attributed only to the dedications of churches. This was the case, in fact, with the Byzantine festival of the 8th oi November, relative to the Church of St. Michael in the baths of Arcadius ; also with the festival of the 8th of May, relative to the celebrated sanctuary f Monte Gargano, and with that of the 29th of September, relative to a church (destroyed long ago) in the suburbs of Rome at the sixth, milestone on the Via Salaria. This festival of St. Michael is the only one of the kind which appears in the early Roman liturgical books. It is found in an authority as early as the Leonine Sacramentary, that is, of the sixth century. The Gallican books and calendars make no mention of a day especially assigned to the commemoration of St. Michael the archangel." The 6th Lection in the 2nd Nocturn. for May 8, after relating the starting of the cult of St. Michael on Monte Gargane, proceeds : " Nee ita multo post Bonifacius Papa Romae n summo circo ^ancti Michaelis ecclesiam dedicavit tertio Kalendas Octobris." " In summo circo " cannot refer to a church at the sixth milestone on the Via Salaria. It would seem more probable that it refers to the church of San Michele in Sassia near the Vatican : but in fact neither of these churches was built on high ground : nor were any of the six churches dedicated to St. Michael in the City of London, parti- culars of which are given by Stow. Of the two modern Benedictine Abbeys in England dedicated to St. Michael, Farn- borough is at the top of a hill, and Belmont in the Wye valley close to the river, and of old parish churches I know of several dedi- cated to this saint in England equally low- lying. Still no doubt the late Mr. Francis Bond is right in saying, ('Dedication of English Churches' (1914), at p. 36), that St. Michael is " especially the protector of high places." He instances amongst others the Skelig Michel on the west coast of Ireland, the chapel of St. Michel at Le Puy, on the stump of an old volcano, and his church on the summit of Brent' Tor, in the middle of Dartmoor. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. Not all churches of this dedication stand upon high ground. St. Michael's, Ports- mouth, is probably not more than 10 ft. above sea level. St. Michael's, Croydon, is in a low part of the town, though not quite the lowest. St. Michael, Queenhithe, in the City was at the foot of the hill near the riverside and St. Michael, Paternoster Royal, is but a little way up College Hill. WALTER E. GAWTHORP. 16 Long Acre, W.C.2. Churches or chapels on hill tops were often dedicated either to St. Michael the Arch- angel, or to St. Catherine of Alexandria. Well-known examples of the former are-