Page:Somerset Historical Essays.djvu/31

 After this interlude we find ourselves again with William of Malmesbury, though at first only for a single sentence.

Of the Nobles buried at Glastonbury. How venerable was this church to the great ones of the land, and how desirable as a resting-place, is shown by many proofs with which I will not weary my readers.

This has occurred at an earlier point in G. R.3 (p. 25). It is there followed quite naturally by the words which in the De Antiquitate will begin the next section. The present section is filled out by a series of examples which the writer says he will pass over (praetermitto &hellip; praetermitto etiam &hellip; taceo &hellip;). The first of these examples is K. Arthur, of whom a good deal is here said. Yet William of Malmesbury declares in Gesta Regum (II, p. 342) that his grave is unknown, and recounts no more about him than the little that he found in Nennius: he has no use for 'Britonum nugae' (G. R. I, p. 11 ).

Of the Two Pyramids. That which is almost wholly unknown would I gladly tell, if I could shape out the truth of it: namely, the meaning of those pyramids which stand at a few feet from the Old Church in the cemetery of the monks. The nearest to the church is twenty-six feet high, and has a number of names, which perhaps may refer to persons buried beneath. The second is eighteen feet high, and on it can be read 'Hedde episcopus', 'Bregored' and 'Beoruuard'. The last of these was abbot after Hemgisl. Of these abbots, and of the whole series of abbots and what gifts they obtained for the abbey from various kings, we propose from this point onward to speak in detail.

The whole of this section is in G. R.3 (p. 25), where it is followed by: 'And first of the blessed Patrick, from whom the series takes its start'. The story of Patrick we have had at a much earlier point in the De Antiquitate (pp. 18 ff.). But the sequence in G. R.3 commends itself as far more natural, and more in harmony with the author's declared purpose of proving that St Dunstan was by no means the first abbot of Glastonbury. It was the Canterbury Chanter's error on this point that had moved the historian to write his Enquiry into the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury.

We must carry our analysis a little further, until we come to K. Coenwalch and the Saxon charters and so reach the point at which our documentary evidence begins.

Of Kings, Abbots, and other Founders of the Church of Glastonbury set out in order. First it is to be remembered that the twelve disciples of St Philip and St James. &hellip;. Then next St Phagan and St Deruvian. &hellip; Then long afterwards St Patrick. &hellip; To him succeeded St Benignus: his epitaph