The shrine of Saint Paulinus, 11th-14th century

Anneliese Arnold discusses evidence relating to the shrine¹ of Saint Paulinus at Rochester Cathedral between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 1988 (no 2). In the year 601, Paulinus was sent by Pope Gregory from St. Andrew's Monastery in Rome to reinforce the mission of St. Augustine. In 625, Ethelburga of Kent was married to Edwin, King of Northumbria. Paulinus, who had been consecrated bishop by Justus, Archbishop of Canterbury. went with her to York. As a result of his preaching Edwin and his chiefs accepted christianity at the assembly of Goodmanham in 627 and were baptised. A cathedral was begun at York. Paulinus taught the faith not only in Northumbria but also in what is now Lancashire, in Cumbria, on the Trent and in Lincoln. He received the pallium in 631 but upon Edwin's defeat (after the invasion of the heathen Cadwallon and subsequent death in 633, he fled with the widowed queen back to Kent. He became the third Bishop of Rochester in 633.

St. Paulinus, a drawing in the margin of a medieval manuscript from Rochester.

Paulinus died at Rochester on the 10th October 644 and was buried in the vestry³ (in secretario) of the Saxon cathedral. Bede has given a description of him by a priest and abbot of veracity'- 'He was a tall man, having a slight stoop, with black hair, an ascetic face, a thin hooked nose, and a venerable and awe-inspiring presence.'⁴ There is no contemporary account of the nature of his burial, and we find nothing about it in Bede. However, we do have evidence of comparable burials of this period, notably in the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul (later St. Augustine) at Canterbury.⁵ The excavation of that site reported in 1917 uncovered the porticus or aisle in which St. Augustine and his immediate successors were buried. Standing in a line against the north wall are three of their actual tombs.

1. Laurentius d. 619 A.D.

2. Mellitus d. 624. A.D.

3. Justus d. 630 A.D.

The now empty tombs are those of Laurentius and Justus. They are rectangular masses of rubble and pink mortar in which wooden coffins were enclosed. The form of the coffins is preserved in the mortar. The tomb of Mellitus is similar but the interior cannot now be seen. (The bodies of the three archbishops were removed in 1091 through gaps cut in the front or back of the tombs and re-buried in the new Norman Abbey church). We may assume that the burial of Paulinus in the middle of the 7th century was not dissimilar from the burials of his contemporaries at Canterbury and that the memory of his place of burial was kept alive throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, in spite of raids by the Danes and the possibility - probably exaggerated by the Normans - that 'the church at Rochester was in a ruinous condition'. In 1086/7 not only was the place of his burial known but he was canonised and his remains translated from the Saxon cathedral to the Norman cathedral - begun by Bishop Gundulf ca. 1080. Archbishop Lanfranc 'caused the body of St. Paulinus to be raised, and placed in a silver shrine which he had had made.'⁶

Cathedral with a standing shrine - drawing from a medieval manuscript from Rochester

The quire at least must have been completed and hallowed by then. A translation would not have been made to an unconsecrated place; and offerings by a lay woman 'at this time' are recorded in the Vita Gundulfi.⁷ In 1631 an antiquarian published an epitaph to Paulinus of Rochester, 'one of her first prelates (who) is said to have been buried with this inscription over him.'⁸

'Siste gradum clama, qui perlegis hoc Epigramma,
Paulinum plora, quem substraxit brevis hora,
Nobis per funus; de praesulibus fuit unus;
Prudens, veridicus, constans, et firmus amicus,
Annui sunt rati Domini super astra regentis.
Qua draginta dati quatuor cum sexquoque centis.'

Translation:

Stay they steps, utter a cry, thou (who) readest this
inscription. Bewail Paulinus, whom a short space of
time has removed From us by death; he was one of
the prelates, Prudent, truthful, a constant and firm
friend. The vears of the Lord who rules above the skies,
Are supposed to have been (at his death) six
Hundred and forty-four.

He claimed that the inscription had been formerly in the church but had now perished, presumably at the destruction of the shrine. A later antiquarian⁹ suggested in 1796 that on linguistic grounds the epitaph published by Weever could be of Norman origin and indeed suggested the name of Gundulf as possible author. Nothing else is known about the translation of the remains of Paulinus in 1086/7. We do not know for certain the size of the shrine, where it was placed and whether it contained all the remains of his body or only some relics, with the main bones buried elsewhere.¹⁰ What is known is that relics were taken from the body. York claimed to have had fingerbones and teeth. John Adair¹¹ states that there is real evidence that northern monks brought the relics of St. Aidan and St. Paulinus to Glastonbury for safe keeping when the Danes were ravaging the north. The relic of Paulinus, which can been seen today in an early Tudor reliquary in Glastonbury Museum, might be one of the relics brought down from York. The custom of taking relics became widespread in the 11th century at the time of the Norman translations.¹²

Sedilia, showing the location of a non-ferrous metal object.

The Cathedral Church at Rochester was enlarged and rebuilt in later centuries; and St. John Hope¹³ tries to reconstruct the plan of Gundulf's Norman church. He places the 'Tomb of Paulinus' upstairs (i.e. not in the crypt) in an extension at the east end,¹⁴ presumably corresponding in plan to the small rectangular chapel in the crypt, the foundations of which were discovered by Mr. Ashpitel c. 1850. There is no mention of any translation after 1086/7 and we may assume that the body of the saint was not moved even at the time of the enlargement of the quire and crypt at the beginning of the thirteenth century. However, his silver shrine was coined by the monks during the episcopate of Gilbert Glanville (1185-1214) to pay for a suit against the bishop in the court of Rome. It must have been necessary to renew or refurbish the shrine either after this incident or after the sacking of the church by King John in 1215.¹⁶ There is a possible reference to the remaking of the shrine towards the end of the thirteenth century in the new Early English quire. St. John Hope writes¹⁷¹⁸ wrought with his own hands, with the apostles carved upon it and a figure of St. Andrew standing above. The "almery with the relics" (which he also made) (my italics) not unlikely stood in the recess west of Bishop Gilbert's tomb,¹⁹ or in that opposite.’ There is a clear reference to the shrine in the wardrobe account of 28 Edward I (1299-1300).

Oblaciones Regis Regine et filij sui:
Eodem die (27 Feb.) in oblacionibus factis
nomine Regis per dominum Radulfum de
Stanford in ecclesia prioratus Roffensis ad feretra sanctorum Itomari et
Paulini quolibet loco vijs . . . summa XIII|s²⁰

This is the first time that we find two shrines, of Paulinus and Ithamar, ²¹ mentioned together; and it may imply that they had been brought together in one place. In any case they must have been of considerable importance and popular repute for the king to have made an offering. There is a further reference to the shrine of Paulinus at this period in the Registrum Roffense:²²

'Herbert, a priest, who in his last moments bequeathed to this shrine (of Paulinus) twelve seems of barley and his palfrey of the value of 2 marks.'

This reference is not dated but it probably refers to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, as it is placed between the work of Richard de Walden, Sacrist at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the renewal of the shrine by Bishop Hamo de Hythe in 1344. In 1344 at the feast of St. Michael the shrines of St. Paulinus and St. Ithamar were made new with marble and alabaster at a cost of 200 marks.²³ Only one sum is mentioned for the two shrines, which again may imply that they stood close together. St. John Hope concludes:²⁴

The amount spent upon the two shrines shews that they were standing structures, and not mere ornamented coffers or boxes of bones.

This work was undertaken by Bishop Hamo de Hythe, a great benefactor of the cathedral and its priory, at a time when many famous shrines were being renewed, as for example at St. Albans (beginning of the fourteenth century), Lincoln (St. Remigius, mid-fourteenth century), and Durham (St. Cuthbert, 1376). After 1344 there is no further mention of the shrines of St. Paulinus and St. Ithamar, and interest seems to have centred on the shrine of St. William²⁵ for the remainder of the mediaval period. In 1538 the three shrines at Rochester were destroyed²⁶ together with all the shrines in England. Only the exact location of the shrine of St. William is still known; the location of the shrine of St. Paulinus (and of the shrine of St. Ithamar) remains uncertain. Two interesting suggestions were made by eighteenth century antiquarians of good repute before the sweeping restorations of the nineteenth century cleared away much mediaval material. Thorpe in 1788²⁷ confidently places the shrine of Paulinus in the centre of the first bay of the presbytery. He numbers important positions on his plan of the cathedral and No. 23 marks 'the stone upon which the shrine of Paulinus was placed'. He explains that 'this large brassless slab seems also to have covered the remains of a prelate of a later age.' Gough²⁸ uses scholarly methods to study the burials during the different centuries and tries to retrace the story of the burials of the saints, kings and nobility, especially those of the mediaval period. He suggests that the penthouse top of the tomb of Bishop Granville on the north side of the presbytery may originally have come from elsewhere. It may have been a depository of relics, perhaps even relics of St. Paulinus; it may even have been a substitute for the silver shrine which the monks had coined. The damaged state of the marble is consistent with its having been moved; but there is no positive evidence for its having been the shrine of St. Paulinus nor for its original location. An even more unlikely suggestion is made by Denne²⁹ who identifies a tall skeleton dug up by workmen in the old Chapter House in December 1766 with that of Paulinus. The Chapter House however was not built until after the translation of the bones of Paulinus in the eleventh century and in any case his relics were removed 'into the new church',³⁰ and there is neither likelihood nor evidence for a further translation into the Chapter House. The most promising line of enquiry is suggested by St. John Hope in the postscript to his 'Architectural History of the Cathedral Church and Monastery of St. Andrew at Rochester'.³¹

In discussing the several shrines and relics in the church, mention ought to have been made of a singular discovery made during the search for the foundations of Gundulf's east end in 1881. In cutting a trench in the crypt across the site of the little eastern chapel the workman found a box containing human bones, buried with its lid just level with the eastern floor. The bones were not arranged, but deposited anyhow in the box, the skull being with the leg bones. Unfortunately the box was not noticed until it had nearly all been broken up, and nothing could be made from it. Not improbably the bones had been taken out of one or other of the shrines when they were destroyed in 1538 and deposited for safety where they were found. They were reburied in the trench before it was filled up.

3. Part of plan of Crypt from Archeologia Vo. XLIX showing position of box of bones found in 1881.

Although he does not make a possible identification, it is likely that these are indeed the bones of Paulinus. It was not uncommon in the Middle Ages for a shrine containing relics to be placed in the church above a burial of most of the body in the crypt. (cp 86 Swithun at Winchester Cathedral) St. William was almost certainly buried in the tomb to the east of Walter de Merton in the north quire transept. Thorpe suggests that the remains of the monument(31) which now supports the effigy of John de Sheppey might be those of the shrine of Ithamar. The only way to settle the question would be by exhumation and carbon dating. One other possibility remains. Work with a metal detector in 1982 revealed the presence of a large non-ferrous object under the westernmost seat in the sedilia (see illustration). Could this be the 'almery with relics' to which St. John Hope(32) refers and which would certainly have been an object of sufficient worth to justify hiding in this unlikely spot? As we look forward to extensive work in the quire and crypt in the 1990s, we should bear in mind the desirability of archeological investigation of the crypt floor between the graffiti, the brassless slab in the presbytery and the sedilia with a view to recovering the mortal remains of Paulinus and re-erecting his shrine. Close study of the mediaval Latin sources might well provide us with the necessary clues.

Anneliese Arnold
Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 1988 (no 2)

Footnotes

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1 The word shrine originally applied to reliquaries, but it is now commonly used either for sacred images of special importance, usually kept in a church, or for any holy place - especially one connected with pilgrimages. (Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 1252).

2 Illustrations on pages 16-17 are adapted from the 'Chronicle Roffense' a Cottonian Manuscript, Nero DII, now in the British Library.

3 Bede, A History of the English Church and People, (Penguin Books) 1968, III, 14.

4 Ibid. II, 16.

5 W. St. John Hope, St. Austin's Abbey, Canterbury, Burials of the Early Bishops. Arch. Cant., 1917 XXXII, pp. 1-26.

6 'Lanfrancus archiepiscopus ... fecit etiam levari corpus sancti Paulini et in feretro argenteo quod ipse fieri fecit poni.' Cott. MS Vespasian A. 22, f 88 (cited in: W. St. John Hope, The Architectural History of the Cathedral Church and Monastery of St. Andrew at Rochester. 1900, p. 7*).

7 Vita Gundulfi, para. 18, p. 42, in: R. Thompson, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts. (Life of Gundulf, pp. 27-29, translation of the Vita by the Nuns of West Malling Abbey 1984).

8 Weever, Ancient Funeral Monuments within the Diocese of Rochester. London, 1631, p. 311 (the translation in: History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Rochester ... edited by T. Collings, Chatham 1848, p. 72.

9 Gough, Sepulchral Monuments, 1796, I1. 1.

10 For an account of the distribution of the bones of St. Augustine in 1091 to three separate places in the new Norman Abbey at Canterbury see: R. U. Potter, Tombs of the Kings and Archbishops in St. Austin's Abbey. Arch. Cant., 1926, XXXVIII p. 1021.

11 John Adair, The Pilgrims Way, 1978, p. 86

12 Notable examples are:

1. The opening of the tomb of Edward the Confessor, when Bisop Gundulf of Rochester tried unsuccessfully to pull out a hair from the Confessor's white beard for a relic. The story is told by Gough, I, 1 p. 1.

2. The Translation of St. Augustine and his Successors at Canterbury, told by P. U. Potter in Arch. Cant. 38. р. 97.

13 W. St. John Hope, The Architectural History of the Cathedral Church and Monastery of St. Andrew at Rochester, London 1900.

14 Ibid. Plate I, Rochester Cathedral Church, Conjectural Plan of Gundulf's Work.'

15 Journal of the British Archaeological Association, IX pp.271-85.

16 St. John Hope, p. 116*

17 Ibid. p. 116.

18 Monk and Sacrist, latter part of the thirteenth, early fourteenth century.

19 There is doubt whether the superstructure belongs to Glanville's tomb.

20 Society of Antiquaries, London, MS 119, 33, cited in: St. John Hope, p. 117 (footnote).

21 For the history of the shrine of Ithamar see: A. Arnold, The moving statue, a case of mistaken identity? in: Friends' Report, Rochester 1986, p. 14 ff.

22 Thorpe, Registrum Roffense, London 1769, p. 124. (translation in: T. Collings, 1848 p. 7).

23 'Episcopus circa festum Sancti Michaelis feretra sanctorum Paulini et Ithamari de marmore et alabaustro fecit renovare: pro qua quidem renovacione ducentas marcas dedit.’

Cott. MS Faustina B.5, f. 90: (St. John Hope p. 117+). 200 marks would be worth about £50,000 today.

24 St. John Hope, p. 117.

25 A. Arnold, William of Perth, Rochester 1981.

26 St. John Hope, p. 117. The marble fragments he refers to are now preserved in the Lapidarium.

27 Thorpe, Custumale Roffense, London 1788, p. 260 no 23 and Plate XL p. 174

28 Gough, II.1, p. CCCXXI.

29 Samuel Denne, The History and Antiquities of Rochester, (published by Wildash) Rochester 1817.

30 Vita Gundulfi, para. 18, p. 41 f. Life of Gundulf, p. 27.

31 Ibid. p. 219 f.

32 J. Thorpe, Custumale Roffense, p. 260 no 22.

33 St. John Hope, p. 116.