In the Shadow of Saints

Front matter

IN THE SHADOW OF SAINTS: THE LONG DURÉE OF LYMINGE, KENT, AS A SACRED CHRISTIAN LANDSCAPE

ARCHAEOLOGIA

Gabor Thomas with contributions by Eric Andrieux, Lisa Backhouse, Ian Bailiff, Robert Baldwin, Rachel Ballantyne, Martin Bell, Paul Bennett, Duncan Brown, Christopher Green, David Holman, Matilda Holmes, Peter Marshall, Phil Mills, Cynthia Poole, and Daniel Secker

Contents

GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 PART 1: SITUATING LYMINGE: RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL 4 AGENDAS Between myth and reality: Lyminge’s origins as an Anglo-Saxon monastery and cult centre 4 Monasteries in a changing world: reconstructing Lyminge’s post-foundation trajectory 5 Mercian hegemony and Viking raiding (mid-eighth-mid-ninth century) 6 The ending and afterlife of the monastery (mid-ninth-mid-eleventh century) 6 Reading the stones: the architectural legacy of early Kentish monasticism 7 PART 2: REVIVING SANCTITY: A REVIEW OF CANON JENKINS’ WORK AND LEGACY 9 Canon Robert Jenkins, cleric and scholar, by Robert Baldwin and Gabor Thomas 9 An overview of Jenkins’ discoveries 11l Old Churchyard 11 Abbots Green 13 Jenkins’ observations on the extant church 14 PART 3: RE-EVALUATION: THE RESULTS OF RECENT ARCHAEOLOGY WITHIN THE 14 CHURCHYARD Re-investigation of Jenkins’ discoveries in the Old Churchyard, July-August 2019 14 Introduction 14 General description of the foundations 15 Analytical characterisation of the mortared foundations and their implications, by Martin Bell 16 and Gabor Thomas Eastern apse and associated elements 17 Cross wall between nave and apse 21 Associated finds from the area of the apse 22 The nave 23 Structural interpretation 25 Independent scientific dating 28 Other structural elements 28 Re-investigation of structural remains in the vicinity of Jenkins’ ‘atrium’ and ‘western apse’ 28 Background 28 Objectives 29 Description of the structural elements 29 The period 1 building 30 Possible buttresses 31 An early west wall 3] Internal platform 31 The curving foundation 31 The phase 2 building 32 The north-west corner 32 Removal of the internal platform 32 A west door 32 Steps 32 Structural interpretation 33 Dating of the structural elements 33

Structural analysis and reappraisal of the standing church, by Daniel Secker 34

The Norman church: description and reconstruction of plan Comparators

Part 1: Situating Lyminge: Research Questions And Historiographical Agendas

This study is guided by a series of academic agendas on the experience and legacy of early medieval monastic centres, the background to which is explained in three sections. The first connects Lyminge with recent work on sacred heritage as a critical lens for examining its origins, significance and long-term legacy as an early centre of English Christianity inextricably intertwined with the golden age of Anglo-Saxon saints. The second outlines the historical context for Lyminge's experience and fate as a monastic community and raises questions and issues that are subsequently addressed through the archaeology. The final section situates Lyminge within the historiography of the study of Anglo-Saxon and Norman ecclesiastical architecture in Kent, highlighting the importance of new analytical and scientific studies of extant fabric and buried structural foundations for advancing future research agendas.

Between myth and reality: Lyminge's origins as an Anglo-Saxon monastery and cult centre

Lyminge illustrates how hagiography valorising a ‘golden age’ of Anglo-Saxon royal saints shapes narratives and conceptualisations of sacred Christian landscapes. As with any monastery from the pre-Viking period, Lyminge’s biography must be pieced together from an eclectic range of historical sources. While the Kentish setting provides immediate advantages for historical reconstruction, not least the comparatively rich availability of authentic pre-Viking charters, here as elsewhere, most portrayals of pre-Viking monastic culture rely heavily upon later hagiographical sources (Blair 2002). In the following we appraise the value of this varied historical material for interpreting Lyminge’s pre-Conquest archaeology.

Hagiography impinges particularly closely on the question of when and by whom a monastery was established at Lyminge and, by extension, its saintly associations as a cult site. The key source is a body of hagiographical work known as the Kentish Royal Legend, which reached its literary zenith in mid-eleventh-century Canterbury as a vehicle for promoting a series of female saints’ cults intertwined with the genealogy of the Kentish royal house (Rollason 1982; Love 2019). Two strands of this complexly stratified narrative tradition have particular relevance to Lyminge. The first is an account, given by some versions of the Legend, of Lyminge’s foundation by Queen Ethelburga, daughter of Ethelbert of Kent and widow of Edwin of Northumbria. This historicising link lies behind the modern church dedication and the traditionally ascribed foundation date of ap 633. The second is a description of the translation of Lyminge’s relics to St Gregory’s Priory, Canterbury in 1085, contained in a work by the prolific eleventh-century hagiographer, Goscelin of St-Bertin (Colker 1977; Baldwin 2017). The latter account has been particularly influential in shaping archaeological interpretations because, as will become evident later, it supplies details relating to the architectural setting of the shrine.! Moreover, it refers to the translation of not one but two venerated burials which, if believed, suggests that Lyminge had acquired relics additional to those of its royal foundress at some point in its pre-Conquest history.

This detail has relevance to the proposition, based on a reading of certain historical sources, that the main saint venerated at Lyminge was not its reputed royal founder, Ethelburga, but Eadburg, identified by some scholars as the Eadburg who succeeded Mildreth as abbess of Minster-in-Thanet (Rollason 1982, 21-5; Biddle 1986, 8; Kelly 2006, 102-3; Baldwin 2017; Love 2019, for counter argument see Brooks and Kelly 2013, 29, 465).

While more generalised, the image projected by the charters is nevertheless consistent with the view that Lyminge was founded in the seventh century as a royal nunnery. One of its principal roles, as with sister houses at Minster-in-Thanet, Folkestone and Minster-in-Sheppey, was to promote the sanctity and prestige of the independent Kentish dynasty (Kelly 2006; Brooks and Kelly 2016, 28-35; Yorke 2017). However, the first charter to make direct reference to Lyminge as a monastic community — dating to around ap 700 — is unhelpfully late for confirming the particulars of its foundation. Subsequent references to the identity of its shrine are scanty and some are of questionable authenticity (Brooks and Kelly 2016, 286-93). However, recent work on a manuscript in Hereford Cathedral library provides contemporary insights into the kind of activity that may have been evident at Lyminge in the early years of the eleventh century in and around the shrine of St Eadburg (Love 2019).

! Goscelin describes the monument of St Ethelburga as standing under an arch in the north porticus beside the south wall of the church (eminentiusque monumentum. ..in aquilonali porticu ad australem parietem ecclesiae arcu involutum: Colker 1977, 72, and cf 83).

In the Shadow of Saints: the long durée of Lyminge, Kent, as a sacred Christian landscape

Previous historical examinations have tended to view pre-Viking Lyminge through the distinctly separate lenses of either hagiography or charters. However, the most recent contribution to the literature, written by a Lyminge-based scholar, Baldwin (2017), departs from the prevailing orthodoxy by attempting to construct a narrative interwoven from both.? Baldwin's paper was written during University of Reading excavations on Tayne Field (2012-15), which unearthed the ceremonial nucleus of a royal precursor to Lyminge's documented nunnery (Thomas 2013; 2017). This timing is pertinent because it exemplifies how recent schemes of archaeological research — in both Lyminge and Folkestone — have fostered a resurgence of interest in the pre-Viking saints of Kent. This broader historiographical landscape is now surveyed to situate Lyminge within recent discourse on 'sacred heritage' as a conceptual cornerstone for the current study.

The revival of interest in the royal saints of East Kent finds its wider context in the intersection of sacred heritage and the ‘spiritual re-enchantment of contemporary western society in an age of growing secularisation (Gilchrist 2019, 21—36).

Gilchrist has provided a detailed definition and contextualisation of sacred heritage as a source of spiritual re-enchantment. Several of the traits defined by Gilchrist are present in the East Kent setting. First, the region provides an illuminating case study in the revival of pilgrimage as a vehicle for spiritual and personal self-fulfilment (Mayhew-Smith and Hayward 2020, 38-60). This is reflected in the recent inclusion of the *Royal Saxon Way! by Kent County Council in its list of Kent’s pilgrim routes. This is a new linear coastto-coast route linking all of East Kent’s early monastic foundations within a wider network of twenty-four historic churches? Second, recent schemes of research in Lyminge and Folkestone have been driven towards unravelling the deeptime significance of these places, including a consideration of how their later medieval and modern afterlives have been shaped by saintly and spiritual associations (Doherty et al 2020).

? The archaeological evidence comprises a suite of high-status timber halls known as a great hall complex, established on a site with elite occupation extended back into the 6th century (Thomas 2013; 2017; 2018). It was first published as Baldwin 2016, with a revised version published as Baldwin 2017.

3 The main route runs between Folkestone and Minster-in- Thanet via Lyminge. There is a shorter circular route between Folkestone and Lyminge that includes the ancient foundations of St Martin’s, Cheriton and St Oswald’s, Paddlesworth. Further details on the route are available via Lyminge Parish Council

at http://www.lymingeparishcouncil.org.uk/The_Royal_Saxon_Way_42226.aspx. See also Doherty et al 2020.

Third, at Folkestone in particular, there has been a strong emphasis on integrating intangible forms of heritage such as folklore, place-names and oral traditions with more traditional forms of archaeology and historical enquiry (Doherty et al 2020). Finally, in focussing attention on the saintly associations of wells and watercourses, work conducted at both sites illustrates how topography and topographical distinctiveness insinuates itself in conceptualisations of sacredness.

The project upon which this paper is based, and the University of Reading research excavations that preceded it, engaged closely with artists,‘ schools and the public to channel creative and personal responses to Lyminge’s early medieval past, resulting in a ‘multi-vocal’ discourse on its sacred heritage (Knox 2013). Shaped through the imaginative and emotional responses, such personal connections do not necessarily map on to the scholarly agendas of archaeologists and historians. Yet there is unifying presence behind much of this creative and intellectual endeavour: Canon Jenkins, the Victorian cleric-scholar whose investigations in and around the churchyard were motivated by a desire to revive Lyminge’s former glory as a formative centre of English sainthood and Christianity. Drawing inspiration from recent work at Glastonbury Abbey and other long term examinations of sacred Christian landscapes, this study deconstructs Canon Jenkins’ legacy through a rigorous reassessment of the archaeology preserved in and around the churchyard. This deconstruction enables the realities and myths of Lyminge’s archaeology to be freshly perceived both as an aim itself and as an exemplar for guiding future studies engaged in unravelling the complexities of places of Christian sacred heritage.

Monasteries in a changing world: reconstructing Lyminge’s post-foundation trajectory

Lyminge’s subsequent development and afterlife as a monastery brings into focus other scholarly debates that help to frame the research agenda for the current study. For convenience, this trajectory is examined in two chronologically consecutive phases.

^ See the Pathways installation at Lyminge Parish Church at: http://www.lymingeparishcouncil.org.uk/Pathways Art Installation 42390.aspx.

In the Shadow of Saints: the long durée of Lyminge, Kent, as a sacred Christian landscape

Mercian hegemony and Viking raiding (mid-eighth-mid-ninth century) Patronised by a succession of powerful rulers in the second half of the seventh century, monasteries grew to play a pivotal role in the dynastic politics of the independent Kentish realm. In the century that followed, these institutions gained new sacropolitical significance as pawns in the geopolitics of Mercian hegemony, which climaxed under Offa in the 780 to 790s (Brooks 1984). Lyminge offers direct insight into the machinations associated with the Mercian alienation of Kentish monastic houses. Charters dated to the two decades either side of Ap 800 associate Lyminge with the rule of the Mercian noblewoman, Selethryth, who served simultaneously as abbess of Minster-in- Thanet, placing her in a position to appropriate the economic and spiritual capital of both institutions (Brooks 1984, 184—5; Rollason 1984, 24—5; Brooks and Kelly 2013, 31-2, 403). It is worth pausing to reflect on the experience of monastic centres in other parts of Greater Mercia to help navigate the Kentish scene. Excavated evidence from the eastern English sites of Flixborough and Brandon offers insights into the transformations that monastic enterprises experienced in the later eighth to early ninth centuries through profit-driven Mercian investment, attested by sophisticated infrastructure, specialised production and conspicuous modes of consumption (Blair 2005; Loveluck 2007, 130-1; Blair 2011b; Tester et al 2014; Blair 2018, 182-6, 220-6). As we shall come to see, Lyminge provides distinctively Kentish perspectives on this theme.

One final Lyminge charter of this period demands our attention. Made in favour of the previously mentioned pluralist Selethryth in ap 804, it grants a ‘refuge of necessity’ for the Lyminge community within the defended urban enclave of Canterbury (Brooks and Kelly 2013, 463-6). This provides crucial evidence for the strategies used to perpetuate monastic and spiritual life in the face of the earliest phase of Viking raiding. We bring new evidence to bear on the resilience of monastic communities over this troubled period using scientific dating to demonstrate significant and sustained activity at Lyminge into the second half of the ninth century.

The ending and afterlife of the monastery (mid-ninth—mid-eleventh century)

This period of Lyminge’s existence provides

a microcosm for the process of ‘secularisation’

by which the wealth and power of formerly independent monastic institutions were progressively eroded by royal, aristocratic and episcopal authority (Blair 1985; 2005, esp 121-34,

279-345). Lyminge is last attested as a monastic community in a charter of ap 844 (Brooks 1984, 202-6; Brooks and Kelly 2013, 33-5). By the time it re-emerges from historical obscurity, around

AD 960, it had been absorbed within the See of Christ Church Canterbury having previously been in the gift of a West Saxon king following Kent’s permanent annexation by that kingdom

in AD 825 (Brooks and Kelly 2013, 34-5). There

is evidence through a new hagiography of St Eadburg, attributed to the patronage of Archbishop Ælfric around ap 1000, of a desire to bolster or revive the cult status of Lyminge at that time (Love 2019). However, in 1085 the process of suppression took a more symbolic turn when its relics were translated to Canterbury to sacralise the Norman archbishop Lanfranc’s new foundation of St Gregory’s Priory (Rollason 1982, 24). While there is no evidence of an attempt by Late-Saxon archbishops to re-establish a monastic presence

at Lyminge along reformed lines, it persisted as a focal point of religious and spiritual life as one of the ‘head minsters’ of the diocese of Canterbury (Tatton-Brown 1988). The evidence supplied

by the Domesday Monachorum indicates that Lyminge exercised jurisdiction over an extensive parochial territory from which it rendered various ecclesiastical dues, including the right to collect and distribute the archbishop’s chrism (Brooks 1984, 203-5; Brooks and Kelly 2013, 35; Blair 2005, 433-40 for wider context). During the Late Saxon and early Norman periods, its ecclesiastical identity as a mother church was thus conjoined with a tenurial-cum-administrative identity as a demesne manor of the archbishops, a later echo of which is embodied in a smattering of thirteenth-century references to sporadic visitations to a curia and the upkeep and eventual decommissioning of archiepiscopal residence (Du Boulay 1966, 21-6, 239).

This documented afterlife accords with recent research investigating the long-term ‘material biographies’ of places of Christian sacred heritage. Such work has placed emphasis on the commemorative role played by architectural and other material practices in invoking, rechannelling, and in some cases in actively forgetting, the monastic past as a source of power and contestation (Gilchrist and Green 2015; Everson and Stocker 2011). Lyminge provides interesting complementary perspectives on these issues because, unlike the paradigmatic sites of Glastonbury and its Lincolnshire counterpart, Barlings Abbey, it did not experience subsequent phases of monastic renewal, but emerged as a secularised ex-minster under archiepiscopal control.

Its trajectory therefore opens rather different

In the Shadow of Saints: the long durée of Lyminge, Kent, as a sacred Christian landscape perspectives on processes of commemoration

and transformation than those observed in more enduring monastic settings. While somewhat subtler and harder to read in archaeological terms, Lyminge's trajectory is arguably more germane to the majority of pre-Viking monastic communities, which re-emerged not as reformed monasteries, but as secular minsters, the essential driving force behind the crystallisation of the parish system (Blair 1985; 2005, 368-85, 452-63).

This perspective brings a duality to the fore: first, the interplay between the metropolitan See of Canterbury and outlying archiepiscopal estates as ‘interacting orbits of sanctity’; and second, the interplay between the parochial function of ex-minsters and their continued sacral potency as a symbolic arena for assertion of archiepiscopal authority. The playing out and eventual outcomes of these tensions has invariably been studied through historical accounts of the translocation of relics as elaborate and highly theatrical performances (eg Rollason 1982). Yet, with delicate teasing, the material testimony of churches and the wider monumental landscapes of which they were part, can also be brought to bear on these processes. Freshly gleaned archaeological evidence from Lyminge suggests that, contrary to received architectural wisdom, little emphasis was placed on physically perpetuating its saintly associations through the fabric of the early Norman church,

a discovery that advances understanding of the commemorative process by which memory of

the church faded from collective consciousness (Connerton 1989; Williams 2006; Jones 2007), later echoes of which (again newly attested here) are discerned in the medieval evolution of the churchyard. This can be set against the results

of a re-evaluation of Lyminge’s later medieval archiepiscopal residence, the siting of which, close up against the Norman church on alignment with its pre-Viking precursor, might suggest that there was an attempt to consciously revive the ancient sacral associations of the site in the assertion of archiepiscopal authority.

A question with a more specific historical resonance also has relevance: the extent to which the Viking onslaught of Kent was a factor in the demise of monastic life at Lyminge and its subsequent secularisation. Several commentators — starting with Canon Jenkins — have sought to attribute the earliest fabric of the building to Archbishop Dunstan (960-78), influenced by hagiographical references that he had a hand in rebuilding the church following its desecration by Viking raids (Jenkins 18892; Gilbert 1964; Taylor 1978). Given that the standard motif of eleventh-century clerical writing used the Vikings as a convenient foil for valorising the heroic

deeds of reforming bishops, such reading should

be treated with extreme caution (cf Pestell 2004, 72-6). This view is fully vindicated by the results of scientific dating of mortar from the earliest fabric of the building, which demonstrates that

the church is unequivocally early Norman in

origin (see Bailiff and Andrieux, supplementary materials). While the church itself and its immediate environs may have survived as a relative island of continuity throughout the period of Viking incursions and their immediate aftermath, archaeological interventions in the wider landscape demonstrate that the settlement attached to the church was reconfigured around a new focus. We bring scientific dating evidence to bear on this relocation and conclude that it may plausibly (if not definitively) be linked to intensified Viking activity in East Kent in the final third of the ninth century.

Reading the stones: the architectural legacy of early Kentish monasticism

Kent has been prominent in architectural studies of the pre-Conquest church on account of holding esteemed survivals from the earliest generation

of church building in Anglo-Saxon England that provide tangible witness to its pioneering role in the establishment of English Christianity (Peers 1901; Clapham 1930, 17-33; Taylor 1969; Fernie 1983, 32-9). While this region unquestionably provides rich scope for the interdisciplinary exploration of pre-Conquest architecture, it also highlights pitfalls that emerge when interpretation is built on insecure historical foundations. We need look no further than Lyminge’s treatment in H M Taylor’s Anglo-Saxon Architecture for ample illustration of this problem. In the third volume of his masterwork (1978, 735-42), Taylor sets

out a framework for the dating of Anglo-Saxon fabric based on ‘first principles’. Within this schema, Lyminge is accorded especial importance as one of only four sites nationally to present combined historical and archaeological evidence for Anglo-Saxon workmanship. While presented as unambiguous fact, the historical associations invoked to provide construction dates for Lyminge’s two churches — Queen Ethelburga for the earlier ruined church and St Dunstan its extant successor — are, as we have seen, exiguous to say the least.

Insecure historical dating of this type pervades the historiography of pre-Conquest architecture in Kent and deserves critical scrutiny, not least because it has been influential in shaping and

In the Shadow of Saints: the long durée of Lyminge, Kent, as a sacred Christian landscape reinforcing misconceptions in the wider public realm. Here we trace the broad elements of

this historiography to foreground the methods, approaches and perspectives applied in the current study.

The pre-Viking churches of Kent have traditionally been recognised as a cohesive regional group based on similarities in construction and plan-form that stand apart from building practices seen in other regions of Anglo-Saxon England (Peers 1901; Clapham 1930, 17-33). Early studies emphasised documenting these shared stylistic tendencies and sourcing their Continental origins.

This set the pattern for most of the studies that followed in the second half of the twentieth century, albeit with significant refinements in analysis, interpretation and Continental contextualisation (Taylor 1969; Fernie 1983, 32-9; Gem 1997).

The safe familiarity of this approach was finally shattered in a seminal paper by Eric Cambridge (1999) published in a collection of essays celebrating the 1,400th anniversary of the landing of St Augustine's mission in Kent. With impressive critical analysis, Cambridge demonstrated that the apparent cohesiveness of the so-called *Kentish Group' churches belies considerable diversity that has important implications for understanding

how church building in Kent evolved over the course of the seventh century in relation to the changing composition of the Augustinian mission and its Continental connections. Within his argument, Cambridge draws particular attention

to the tendency of earlier studies to project a sense of uniformity by forcing the sometimes highly fragmentary remains associated with such churches into the mould of more fully understood examples, most notably St Mary, Reculver. Cambridge's contribution laid a marker for future studies

to interpret the available evidence on a more rigorous and critically informed basis, wherever possible taking opportunities to re-examine poorly understood sites to document both conformities and idiosyncrasies. This study is very much offered in this vein.

East Kent has been a rich laboratory for exploring themes pertaining to the use, construction and symbolism of pre-Conquest churches. The region has featured prominently in examinations of church liturgy and the architectural setting of relics in Anglo-Saxon England (eg Biddle 1986; Crook 2000; Gittos 2013, 149-60) and also in work exploring the reuse of Roman buildings and building materials (spolia) as a dominant feature of pre-Conquest building practice (Eaton 2000, 12-15, 28-30, 130-2; Bell 1998). This latter strand has recently been invigorated by the scientific application of Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating introducing more subtlety into generalised readings of reuse by addressing issues such as logistics, supply and selectivity (Bailiff et al 2010).

Important work has also been conducted on the fabric of churches in Kent. Geological analysis

of the sculptural and architectural fragments

from St Mary, Reculver and other members of

the ‘Kentish Group’, has demonstrated the use of Continental stone sources, specifically Marquise oolite from Boulonnais and limestone from the Paris Basin, during this period of church building (Blagg 1981; Worssam and Tatton-Brown 1990; Tweddle et al 1991, 32-3, 136, 162-3). At the other end of the Anglo-Saxon period, Tatton-Brown's work on Quarr stone (19802; 1990) has yielded a chronological marker for distinguishing the earliest generation of Norman construction in the region, applicable both to the metropolitan context of Canterbury and rural diocesan churches, Lyminge included.

Notwithstanding these varied contributions, the interpretive potential of Kent's pre-Conquest churches remains a long way from full realisation.

With notable exceptions (Tatton-Brown 1980b; North 2001), few published studies have applied detailed stone-by-stone recording as a tool for dating constructional phases and understanding the supply and structural deployment of building materials. Moreover, given the extent that pre- Viking Kentish churches have been regarded as a closely related regional group, there has been a surprising lack of comparative analysis of these structures beyond their plan-form and stylistic characteristics — apses, pilasters, chancel crossings etc. The constraints imposed by the Kentish evidence must certainly be acknowledged. The level of survival with regards to upstanding remains is highly variable, and the fabric characterising Kentish churches, involving a high constituent of reused Roman brick with flint, is less conducive to structural analysis and fabric provenancing than for broadly contemporary churches in other regions of England. Yet there is still considerable scope for reading these buildings and the nuances of their construction in new ways. For example, very little consideration, analytical or otherwise, has been given to the sequence of technical operations involved in the creation of mortared foundations, opus signinum flooring, plastered walls and other elements that enabled these buildings to radiate Romanitas — precisely the kind of perspectives that can be obtained through the scientific and compositional analysis of buried foundations of the type re-examined at Lyminge. These issues have more than simply practical relevance, for they help us to perceive churches as an outcome of distinct

In the Shadow of Saints: the long durée of Lyminge, Kent, as a sacred Christian landscape socio-technical practices embedded in and shaped by dialogues between people, places, and materials (Dobres 2000; Conneller 2011; Ingold 2013).

Studies of the built heritage of early Christianity remain firmly entrenched in art-historical and stylistic approaches. Future research along the lines suggested will enable this heritage to speak more directly to wider interdisciplinary agendas situating human agency and power relations at the heart of understanding of how places, monuments and material culture more generally functioned within early medieval society (eg Turner et al 2013; Sánchez-Pardo and Shapland 2015; Rollason 2016; Blair 2018; Carroll et al 2019).

Part 2: Reviving Sanctity: A Review Of Canon

JENKINS' WORK AND LEGACY

Canon Robert Jenkins, cleric and scholar, by Robert Baldwin and Gabor Thomas

Viewing Lyminge from a sacred heritage perspective invites close consideration of the

role of historiography in shaping prevailing interpretations and paradigms. Building upon

her work at Glastonbury Abbey, Gilchrist has explored the complicity of antiquarians and archaeologists in perpetuating myths attached to places of sacred heritage as a consequence of their personal beliefs and convictions (Gilchrist 2019, 176-218). This brings us inexorably back to the figure of Canon Jenkins and the extent that his theological outlook as a practising cleric informed his antiquarian activities. While there has been much critical engagement with Jenkins’ published interpretations, this has been devoid of such a historiographical enquiry. Here we bring this neglected context to the fore as a prerequisite for understanding the motivations behind Jenkins’ antiquarian work and how these shaped his interpretations.

The Reverend Robert Charles Jenkins, MA, Rector of Lyminge from 1854 to 1896, and Honorary Canon of Canterbury, was a Victorian polymath who corresponded with several leading intellectual figures of his day and whose published works cover topics as diverse as ecclesiastical history, theology, and medieval heraldry (fig 3). Jenkins began his ministry in the brandnew Christ Church, Turnham Green, one of the flourishing suburbs on the edge of London in the 1840s. This was a large church, built to seat

Fig 3. Portrait of Canon Robert Charles Jenkins 1815-96.

From the collection of the Parochial Church Council of St Mary and St Ethelburga, Lyminge. Photograph: © Robert Baldwin.

a congregation of more than 900, and was some of the earliest work of George Gilbert Scott who played such a great role in promoting the Gothic revival. Jenkins’ church embodied the ideals of the Tractarian Movement, begun just a decade before, and was actively promoting alignment between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church (for context, see Gerrard 2002, 30-55 and for comparative insights Jasper and Smith 2019).

He was thus working in a setting that was at the cutting edge of the new architectural style and it is reasonable to believe that he was immersed in the intellectual and theological ferment that it represented.

It is hard to imagine a greater contrast than between the church at Turnham Green and that at Lyminge, where Jenkins’ brother bought him the living late in 1853. This suggests that Jenkins wished to turn his back on his previous ministry, and he desired to take a completely new direction exploiting his new living to immerse himself in the history and archaeology of Lyminge and the surrounding parishes. He was a founding member of the Kent Archaeological Society in 1858 and was a regular contributor to its journal Archaeologia Cantiana in the 1860s to 1890s. The series of extended reports and reflections emanating from his own antiquarian researches in Lyminge, reveals Jenkins as a serious scholar with a dexterous

In the Shadow of Saints: the long durée of Lyminge, Kent, as a sacred Christian landscape

Fig 4. Lyminge Church interior c 1890 (Braund, Folkestone). Originally photographed by Thomas Matthews Braund. Photograph: from the collection of and O Robert Baldwin.

command of pre-Conquest and later medieval documentary sources, many then still unpublished, and a keen familiarity with the latest scholarly work in the burgeoning field of ecclesiology.

Given the prevailing intellectual and theological currents of his day, and his earlier experience at Turnham Green, it is tempting to ascribe Jenkins’ antiquarian endeavours to the Catholic revival movement, but this connection does not stand up to scrutiny (Gerrard 2002, 30-55). From pure observation, the austere style that Jenkins adopted for the interior of the church at Lyminge does not suggest that he subscribed to Tractarian ideals of church decoration. The church interior is captured in photographs taken towards the end of his life in the late 1880s or 1890s (fig 4). The simple pared back aesthetic visible in these images was achieved through extensive work overseen by Jenkins earlier in his tenure, which principally involved stripping the plaster from the interior of the walls and removing the west gallery across the tower arch.