Plates 2.51-2.52: Engravings of the Malmesbury Chasse (Maidulf Reliquary) (Original Explanatory Account)

It was some years ago the property of the late Richard Bateman, of Old Windsor, Esquire, by whom it was purchased in Wiltshire, and is said to have contained some relick of Maidulf, a Scotch Monk, famous for his erudition and piety; who, about the year 630, retired to a great wood, where Maidulsbury, now Malmesbury, stands; and gathering together first a company scholars, and afterwards of persons disposed to live under regular discipline, began a Monastery at that place, which became very famous¹. The possessions of this monastery were greatly increased by St. Aldhelm, who had been educated here under Maidulf, and who died A. D. 675. After the death of Maidulf, Aldhelm was appointed to be abbot of Elutherius bishop of the West-Saxons. This house was afterwards greatly enriched by the bounty of several Saxon kings and noblemen.

About the year 950, King Edwy removed the monks, who were of the Benedictine order, and placed secular clerks here; but about twenty years afterwards king Edgar dispossessed them, and restored the regulars. Maidulf’s first church here was dedicated to our Blessed Saviour, St. Peter, and St. Paul: but in after-times the Blessed Virgin and St. Aldhelm were the tutelar saints of this abbey.

This Reliquary is enamelled in different colours on copper, which is lined with oak. The figure in the centre of the upper part of it is intended to represent God the Father, who is seated on a rainbow. The letters alpha and omega on each side of the head allude to the passage in Scripture, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.”² In the four corners of this compartment are the figures of an angel, an eagle, a bull, and a lion. The figures on the right and left are, perhaps, intended for Patriarchs or Prophets. In the centre below is a representation of our Blessed Saviour on the cross: over the head of the figure are the usual letters I.H.S and beneath them X.P.S.; above the cross are two angels, and beneath are two figures, representing the blessed Virgin and the Beloved Disciple; on each side are representations of the four Evangelists. At the end of the Reliquary, where the door is placed, is the figure of St. Peter, with a key in his right hand; which figure is somewhat injured by the frequent opening of the door by the pious persons who formerly paid their devotions to the relick therein contained. At the other end is a male figure holding a book, which was probably intended to represent the person whose

¹Leland says, this monastery was founded A. D. 637. (Collect. vol. I. p. 301); but in p. 302 he places it in A. D. 642. Bertwald’s donation of Somerford to this abbey, in Mon. Angl. tom. I. p. 50, is dated 635; but it should be A. D. 685, as in Anglia Sacra, vol. II. p. 11.
²Rev. i. 11. xxii. 13.

The reverse is ornamented in a mosaic pattern not inelegant. The work of this Reliquary is undoubtedly of a much later date than either that formerly belonging to Croyland abbey, or that which was preserved in the cathedral of Hereford, called the Shrine or Reliquary of St. Ethelbert, and lately in the possession of Dr. Russell, one of the Canons of that church; though, from the style of the ornaments on the pillars which divide the compartments of the Reliquary here represented, it is supposed that it could not have been made later than towards the end of the tenth, or the beginning of the eleventh century. The chrystals on the top of the Reliquary, commonly called British beads, were worn by the Druids on solemn occasions, and afterwards served as ornaments to the Shrines and Reliquaries of Saints. The same kind of stones appear on the top of the Shrine of Reliquary formerly belonging to the Monastery of Croyland, preserved in the Museum of the late Gustavus Brander, Esquire, which is described in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. V. p. 579; where may be seen an accurate engraving of that curious remain of antiquity.