Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/144

106 between 664 and 673; adding, that the establishment was re-edified A.D. 1130, and filled with Benedictine nuns. About A.D. 1720 portions of the nunnery were yet "standing." (Harris.) The original name of this island signified "Sheep Island." "Insula, quæ vocatur Scheapieg, quod interpretatur insula ovium." (Asser's Alfred, by Wise, 5.)

226. .—in Thanet. There can be no reasonable doubt that this is the place entitled "St. Mildred's" in (D.B.) Among the possessions of the church of St. Augustin the description of the property in Thanet hundred commences thus; "Ipse abbas tenet Tanet manerium, quod se, &c.; the abbot himself holds Thanet manor:" the name of St. Mildred's being added as if in a parenthesis. Both Lambarde and Hasted consider St. Mildred's identical with Minster. Apparently the latter name was established in A.D. 1291, for in the (Taxation of P. Nicholas), under the deanery of Westbere, occurs "Ecclia de Menstre cum capella," together with "Vicarius ejusdem;" the "Ecclia Sancte Meldrede" elsewhere mentioned being the church so designated in the city of Canterbury. In (Val. Eccl.) we have "Ecclia de Mynster, cum capellis Sancti Lawrencii, Sancti Petri, et Sancti Johannis;" wherefore it was then deemed the mother church of the Isle of Thanet. (D.B.) speaks of "a priest" at St. Mildred's.

It is affirmed, that an abbey was founded here in A.D. 596 (or speedily after), and (at a future period) called St. Mildred's, after Mildred, granddaughter of Penda, king of middle England, who was the abbess A.D. 680. (Lambarde.) Another version is, that the abbey was instituted about A.D. 670 (Tann. Notit., Kent, LX), by Domneva or Domnena daughter of King Edgar, who placed here her daughter Mildred, afterwards canonised, as abbess over seventy nuns. (Monast. I, 447.)—Here is a large cross church with the tower at the west end. The chancel and transepts are E.E., the major part of the remainder of the building Tr. Norm. The chancel is groined as far as the transepts, which also were designed for groining, but not completed. The church well merits examination.—Under an ogée canopy is an ancient tomb of Edile de Thorne. (Hasted.) At the abbey farm are some considerable remains of old buildings, which are all Norm., with the exception of some Perp. alterations.—Bede states, that Augustin and his associates landed in the Isle of Thanet, asserting it to be separated from the mainland of Kent, "a continenti terra," by the river" Vantsuma," or Wantsome, which was