Of the sanctity and dignity of the church of Glastonbury.
This church, then, of all I know in England is the most ancient: hence its name.[1] The place is crowded with the bodies of saints. Under the pavement, above and beneath the altars, relics are everywhere. Rightly is it called the heavenly sanctuary on earth and the depository of saints.[2] Happy are they who dwell there! Who shall fail of heaven, with patrons such as these to plead their cause? So sacrosanct is the place that none dare profane it, none swear falsely by it. The truth of this finds its support in testimonies of every age.[3]
This rhetorical section is the same in both our documents, save for slight displacements. In what follows we go on to p. 28 of G. R.3
Of St Paulinus the Bishop.
To return to my subject, St Patrick's birth in A.D. 361 preceded St Augustine's coming by 236 years. Paulinus the companion of the latter, when bishop of Rochester after having been archbishop of York, is said to have covered the wattled church with wooden planks and roofed it with lead.
Of the Translation of St Indract and his companions.
Some years afterwards K. Ina translated the bodies of St Indract and his companions from the place of their martyrdom to the church of Glastonbury.
Of the Relics brought to Glastonbury from the land of the Northumbrians.
Still later, when the Danes were ravaging Northumbria, a certain abbot Tica took refuge at Glastonbury, and was made abbot there in A.D. 754. He brought with him relics of St Aidan, and the bodies of Ceolfrid, Benedict [Biscop] and other abbots of Wearmouth; also of Bede the Presbyter and Abbess Hilda. He himself was buried in the right-hand corner of the greater church, near the entrance to the Old Church.
The section on Paulinus is in G. R.3, but without the date, and with no mention of the roofing with lead. The next section corresponds to a portion of the second insertion in G. R.3, under the reign of K. Ina (p. 36).
The section on the Northumbrian saints is not found in G. R.3 William of Malmesbury's opinion wavered on this matter. In the Gesta Pontificum (p. 198), writing about Glastonbury, he says that K. Edmund, when on his northern expedition, sent these relics—namely, Hilda and Ceolfrid and part of the bones of Aidan. But in the first edition of his Gesta Regum (p. 56) he speaks of the destruction
- ↑ Instead of 'antiquissima' G. R.3 reads 'vetustissima', which explains the words, 'hence its name ', sc. ecclesia vetusta.
- ↑ This sentence comes on p. 25 of G. R.3, and the next two on p. 29: what follows is on p. 24 f.
- ↑ The text has 'testimonio'; but the MSS show that this is a misprint for 'testimonia'.
