Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/198

156 confirmation from the observation in (D.B.), that "Hagelei" (Hawley in Sutton, Hasted) "is affirmed to have been taken away from Dartford: Testant quoque (sc. homines de hundredo) quod Hagelei de isto manerio ablata est." (D.B. II.)—The church is principally Dec., some of the work being early, with a small portion Perp.—Sutton at Hone possessed a hospital temp. K. Richard I, or K. John. (Monast. VI, 669.) About the same period, or rather earlier, a commandery of knights hospitallers also existed here. (Tanner in Monast. VI, 804.)

Toward the end of the eighth, or the commencement of the ninth, century a synod was held at Aclea, or Aeclea, the identification of which place has not been accomplished hitherto. Wilkins (Concilia, I, 153) has a very short notice of this council, for which Spelman is his authority. He states, that a MS. in the public library of Cambridge gives A.D. 788 as the date of the council; but Florence of Worcester 781; whereas the period inferred from the Saxon record described below is A.D. 810, a considerable variation from both the Cambridge MS. and the chronicler. Spelman conjectures Aclea to have been in the bishopric of Durham, because he finds there two places, one called Aclea simply, the other Schole Acle; "una Aclea dicta simpliciter, altera scholaris Aclea (Schole Acle) nuncupata;" but the latter term at least seems quite different from that, of which the verification is in question. Kemble's Cod. Dipl. (II, 19) contains a document, which appears to throw some light upon this obscure point. The charter begins by reciting the decision of the assembly at "Aeclea," then mentions, that, notwithstanding this decision, the evil it was designed to repress had been revived thirty-four years afterwards, and that, in consequence, another meeting of spiritual and secular persons was summoned at Canterbury A.D. 844, King Ætheluulf and others being named as present. The matter in debate is declared to have been an unjust claim to certain property really belonging to Christ church, Canterbury, and to the monasteries at Folkstone, Dover, and Liminge: "familiam aecclesiae Christi, et familiam aet Folconstane, familiam quoque at Dobrum, necnon et familiam aet Liminge." The estate is specially described as having been that of Osuulf, "duke, and prince of the province of East Kent; dux atque princeps prouinciae orientalis Cantiae." The question therefore concerned Kent alone, and seems to have been the sole cause of the original council of Aeclea being convened; under which circumstances what so likely, as that the