A Descriptive and Historical Guide to Tynemouth, with Notices of North Shields, Seaton Delaval, and Neighbouring Antiquities (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1849. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... heathen Danes so frequently to plunder the peaceful inmates of the cloister--that the history of this foundation through the eighth and ninth centuries, is little more than the record of a series of ravages by the northern pirates, who despoiled the Monastery in A. D. 788, 79i, and 800. We do not know whether "On the deep walls the heathen Dane Had poured his impious rage in vain--" when he thus visited the defenceless monastics; but we read that in A. D. 865 on the invasion under Hinguar and Ilubba "the noble edifice" was destroyed by fire, and the nuns of St. Hilda's convent at Hartlepool, who had fled to Tynemouth for refuge, were "translated by martyrdom to Heaven." But in 870 the Monastery had been partially rebuilt; and in 876 was ravaged by the army of Halfden the Danish King, and its buildings were again levelled with the ground. But fire, and sword, and robbery, and murder, could not quench the holy flame, which, fed by the pious zeal of Anglo-Saxon coenobites, shone from St. Oswin's house at Tynemouth, "far to the Cleveland hills, and northward to the Tweed." The Monastery seems to have been in some degree rebuilt and inhabited, but in A. D. 1008 it was again wasted by Danish marauders, and appears to have remained thence for many years deserted by the monastic community, who seem to have been overwhelmed by this final devastation. Before the end of that century, however, the Monastery was restored and re-endowed; and it afterwards became not less eminent for sanctity, than it was rich in temporal possessions. In the mean time, the monastic fraternities were driven from their home; and the remembrance of the holy martyr St. Oswin was for awhile obliterated from the minds of men. But the historical notices of Tynemouth during the eleventh century, discl...