Page:St. Oswald and the Church of Worcester.djvu/14

 dated, but it is attested by twelve members of the familia with no distinctive titles after their names. When we compare them with the former list we find that six are the same—four priests, and two other persons, one of whom was there called 'clericus', and the other was left undescribed. Six names are new, but four of them recur in documents of 824 and 825; so that we are led to place this charter towards the end of Bishop Denebert's time.

There is now a gap in our information until we come to the time of Bishop Alhun. Then, in 849, we find seven priests, a 'praepositus' or provost, and a deacon (B. C. S. 455). Afterwards, in 855, there are six priests, three deacons, and two others not described by any title (B. C. S. 490). One of the priests is now the provost, and he heads the list. Then under Bishop Werfrith, one of King Alfred's learned men, we have lists for the years 872, 889, 892, 897, and 899 (B. C. S. 533, 559, 570, 575, 580). The numbers remain much the same, and at first one or two of the old names survive from Bishop Alhun's days. We can watch the old men falling out, and new men coming in to fill their places. A provost still appears in 872, but not after that date. In 899 'Cynelm abbas et diaconus' heads the list, and Abbot Cynelm stands in the same position in an undated Saxon grant which belongs to the same period (B. C. S. 608).

After this our information fails us for more than half a century, until we get a list again in 957, one of the last years of Bishop Coenwald. This list (B. C. S. 993) is of special value, as it enables us to observe the continuity of the familia, as represented in the numerous lists which occur in Oswald's charters from 962 onwards. But of this we must speak later.

We have thus had clearly in our view for a century and a half the constitution of the church of Worcester—the bishop and his familia, a body of clergy who are joint holders with the bishop of the estates of the church. There is but one church of Worcester, and but one familia. And there is no hint anywhere of monasticism; for though at the close of the ninth century we find the list headed for a brief period by an abbot, we cannot safely conclude even that the man who bore this title was himself a monk, much less that the society he presided over was monastic.

There seems, therefore, to be no room for a church of St Mary or for a community of monks. The suggestion that there was such a church side by side with St Peter's appears to be quite a modern one, based only on notices to be found in some of the early Worcester charters. But the evidence which at first sight seems to support such a theory will be found on examination to melt away altogether.