Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

1831.]

M. de Marlés on the eighty years, he might have hoped to close his days in tranquillity, but the chill of age had not extinguished am

bition in his breast. He sought 175. to recover the kingdom of his father, and lost that which fortune had given him in exchange. Eucratides, King of Bactria, joined in a league against him with Mithridates, King of Parthia, and the too powerless Demetrius fell under the united efforts of these two Princes, who shared his territories between them. Mithridates had the country situated between the Hydaspes and the Sind; Eucratides took the rest, and in the excitement of prosperity assumed the pompous title of The Great King.*

This was the most brilliant period of the Greek kingdom of Bactria. Eucratides having repulsed the 160. Scythians, who had long in

sulted his frontiers, devoted his whole application to the home administration of his dominions. He was respected by his neighbours; he wished his people to be happy and prosperous; he erected public buildings, and encouraged commerce: a town which Strabo calls Eucratidia, eclipsed the ancient Bactra. But at length, broken with age and infirmities, he transferred the burden of government to a son of the same name. His son envied him the little breath that remained; and this monster, in his impatience to reign, imbued his guilty hands in the blood of the venerable old king.

But Heaven did not permit this crime to remain unpunished. After

145.

about twelve years of misfortunes, the assassin was hurled from his throne, and the kingdom of Bactria ceased to exist. Mithridates did not lose this favourable opportunity of extending his territory and his power; as he did not entertain towards the son those friendly feelings which had so long attached him to the father, he stripped him of all the Indian provinces, which he transmitted with Parthia to his descendants; in whose possession they remained till the period when the Artacidæ, being conquered and proscribed, were supplanted by the Sassanides, about three centuries after.

The parricide Eucratides had not only Mithridates to contend with; for

Βασιλευς μεγάλος. Perhaps Maha Rajah, which is the Hindu expression. C.)

[blocks in formation]

130.

barbarian hordes, issuing from Caucasus and the banks of the Oxus, invaded the Bactrian provinces. He perished miserably, after a lost battle, while attempting to rally the fugitives. Among the Scythian tribes that then inundated the west and south of Asia, Strabo particularly mentions the Pasians, the Tochari, and the Sacæ. These Pasians, whom the Persians called Aksaïs, (inhabitants of the banks of the Oxus), came from the country lying between that river and the Jaxartes; the Tochari, who have given their name to the mo

rn Tocharestan, were neighbours to the first; the Sacæ formed a powerful and numerous people beyond the Jaxartes; the ancient Persians called them Oriental Scythians. This migration of Scythian or Tartar tribes about that period is fully confirmed by the Chinese annals, which describe them as issuing from the provinces bordering on the western frontier of China, about the year 126 B. c.

Father Du Halde, and other writers, consider this migration of Tartars from east to west to have been caused by the victories obtained over them by the emperor Vou-Ti, who reigned over China at the close of the second century before Christ. These victories, in urging them toward the west and south, forced them to fall back on the neighbouring tribes, who, being obliged to give place, pushed onwards the more distant ones in their turn. VouTi came, it is said, as far as the Ganges in pursuit of them, and overran Bengal; but he took no measures to preserve his conquests, and this momentary invasion scarcely left any traces.

Phraates, son and successor of Mithridates, had demanded succours from the Tartars, to resist the attacks of Antiochus Sidetes, King of Syria. The Tartars replied with eagerness to this imprudent invitation; but the Parthians having secretly conspired against the Syrians, their conquerors, who, being dispersed in winter quarters throughout the towns, could not assist each other, massacred them all in a day. The assistance of the Parthians was thus rendered useless, and Phraates dismissed them without payment, as if he owed them nothing for services not received; the irritated Tartars ravaged his dominions. He then had recourse to such of the Greeks as had survived the disaster of

100.

414

Greek Kingdom of Bactria.

Bactria, and whom he kept prisoners in his states. They appeared to accept with joy the invitation to assist in delivering the country; but the recollection of the persecutions they had experienced was fresh in their hearts; and no sooner were they armed, and found themselves assembled, than, instead of marching against the Scythians, they took the road to their own land, leaving dreadful marks of their passage everywhere.*

The Scythians, whom Justin calls Thogarians, were rendered more audacious by this event. Phraates vainly endeavoured to oppose their progress,

and died in the midst of the de

80. vastation of his country. Artabanus, his uncle and successor, was killed in battle. So many disasters induced Pacorus, the new Sovereign, to implore the aid of the Romans, whose arms were beginning to penetrate into Asia. Sylla was then in Cappadocia; he received an embassy from Pacorus, and while he promised assistance, meditated the conquest of his dominions. The long and cruel war which soon broke out between the Romans and the Parthians, together with the forced consent of the Indians to the occupation of IndoScythia by the Tartars, gave India time to breathe, and the people applied themselves eagerly to commerce, which was never more flourishing than at this period.

Such is the portion which M. de Marlés has devoted of his History of India to Bactrian matters. The following extracts from Justin will show that nearly all the particulars of this Greek kingdom are gathered from his epitome. The loss of the larger work of Trogus Pompeius is chiefly to be lamented on account of these chapters. For the history of Greece and Rome we can refer to better authorities, but the oriental monarchies have no other chronicler whatever.

B. 12, c. 5. In Bactriana and Sogdiana, Alexander built twelve cities; such of the soldiery as had shewn themselves mutinous being distributed among them.

* But they seem rather to have been Syrian than Bactrian Greeks, from Justin, b. 42, c. 1. C.

[May,

B. 13, c. 4. (After the death of Alexander), in nether Bactria and the Indian territories, the former governors were retained. Taxiles had the country between the Hydaspes and the Indus; Pithon, son of Agevor, was sent to the colonies founded in India. ... Amynthas obtained the Bactrians, Scythæus the Sogdians, Nicanor the Parthians.

B. 36, c. 1. Demetrius (brother of Antiochus Epiphanes), with the assistance of the Persians, Elymæans, and Bactrians, defeated the Parthians in several battles.

B. 41, c. 4. At the same time (as the revolt of the Parthians from the Seleucida), Theodotus, who was set over a thousand cities of Bactria, revolted, and caused himself to be called King; which example all the nations of the east followed, and threw off the Macedonian yoke. . . . Arsaces (of Parthia) raised a great army, through fear of Seleucus (Callinicus), and Theodotus King of the Bactrians. But being soon delivered from his apprehensions by the death of Theodotus, he made a truce and an alliance with his son of the same name.

Ibid. c. 6. Contemporary with Mithridates of Parthia was Eucratides of Bactria, both of them renowned. But the more prosperous fortune of the Parthians carried them to the highest point of superiority under this King; while the Bactrians, harassed by various wars, lost not only their dominion, but even their liberty; for after exhausting themselves in contests with the Sogdians, Drangians, and Indians, they fell an easy prey to the weaker Parthians. Yet Eucratides distinguished himself in warfare; for when reduced, and besieged by Demetrius King of India, he defeated a force of sixty thousand enemies with 300 soldiers, in continual sallies. Being at large after a siege of five months, he brought India into subjection; at his return from whence he was murdered on his way by a son, whom he had associated with himself in the kingdom; and who, without concealing this act of parricide, after he had slain him, not as a father, but as an enemy, drove his chariot through his parent's blood, and ordered the body to be cast

aside unburied.

Yours, &c.

CYDWELI.

1831.]

AN ACCOUNT OF

Account of Stow Church, co. Lincoln.

THE CHURCH OF
STOW, CO. LINCOLN.

Mr. URBAN, Grimsby, Jan. 14. THIS building is a fine specimen of the admixture of Saxon and Norman architecture; and there are reasons for believing that it was commenced by the former people, and finished by their conquerors. The Saxon churches were generally in the form of a parallelogram, and divided into nave and chancel by a wall pierced with a circular arch for a medium of communication between them.* The outer walls were of great thickness, with no external buttresses; while in the Norman period, buttresses were introduced; but they were broad, flat, and without ornament, which exactly answers the description of those that are found to support some of the walls of Stow Church. The edifice is in the form of a cross, in imitation of the Church of the Apostles, built by Constantine at Constantinople. Bishop Gibson hazards an opinion that the building was wholly re-edified by Re

415

migius; but it should rather appear that he merely finished what his Saxon predecessor Eadnoth had left undone.§

About the year 970 transepts came into general use, with a central tower for the bells. The tower of this church, however, is of much later date, though it occupies the same situation, at the intersection of the nave, chancel, and transept; but it is evident that at the erection of Stow church no tower was contemplated, because the original circular arches were too slight, and were subsequently found incompetent to bear the superincumbent weight of such a structure. Hence four pointed arches, supported on polygonal columns, of a later age and style, were run up to confer the requisite additional strength. The tower and west window are probably coeval; and may be attributed to the latter end of the third period, according to Miller's nomenclature ; i. e. about the conclusion of Edward the First's reign, or perhaps somewhat later.

The tower is not lofty, though it

It is said that these sacred edifices originally acquired this oblong form in imitation of a ship, because the first preachers of the Gospel were fishermen ; and the name which a part of the Church still retains is adduced as an authority for this conjecture. Thus vaus, navis, is a ship, and raos, templum, is a church; from whence the body of our churches was probably denominated the nave.

+Camb. col. 479.

The Abbey in Stow Park, which had been founded by Eadnoth as a church for secular priests, was re-edified by the liberal activity of Remigius, and converted into an establishment for Benedictine monks; but his successor in the see of Lincoln, Robert Bloet, converted it into an episcopal palace, and built or restored the monastery of Eynsham near Oxford, for the reception of the canons of Stow.

At the compilation of Domesday, Remigius, bishop of Lincoln, had considerable estates belonging to the see in Stow and its extensive soke, comprising the villages and hamlets of Willingham, Covenby, Norton, Glentham, Owmby, Upton, Kexby, Normanby, and Brampton. St. Mary of Stow held the manor of Brampton, and had property in Knaith and Owmby, to which many privileges and immunities were attached. Stow church is mentioned in that record as being attended in its offices by the ministration of a priest; and in the parish were three smiths' forges. Earl Alan had half a carucate in Stow, sufficient for the employment of two sokemen and half a plough. Ilbert de Laci had the same quantity, in land and soke of the manor of Dunham. Ulf held four tofts under Gilbert de Gand with sac and soc, soke of the manor of Scampton. Gozelin the son of Lambert held one carucate here, soke of the manor of Willingham. Eddiva had three mansions with sac and soc, which were transferred to Ralph de Mortimer; she built and founded a nunnery at Stow, which, at the alienation of her property, was probably dissolved, as we hear no more of it after that event.

Previously to this period, Stow had become a considerable town. It was originally built by the Romans, and had four principal streets facing the cardinal points of the compass; and it is thought by Bishop Gibson and others, that this was the seat of the primitive bishopric of Sidnacester, founded by Egfrid, King of Northumberland, A.D. 678, and transferred to Lincoln immediately after the Norman conquest. In the year 1176, Stow suffered a conflagration, which destroyed considerable property; and William de Marton, the Sheriff of Lincolnshire, accounted with the King for twenty marks, and two marks of argenturn blancum, and seven pennyweights of gold, found at the burning of Stow. (Mag.

416

Account of Stow Church, co. Lincoln.

forms a good object in a distant view. The dead wall below the bell windows is relieved by two string courses, and a third is repeated above them. The windows are pointed, and have three lights; and the battlement is further enriched by four crocketed pinnacles at the angles, while the centres are furnished with four stone figures, which appear to have been intended to represent the component parts of that cherubic emblem of the deity, so minutely described by the prophet Ezekiel, and the evangelist St. John.*

This church contains some beautiful specimens of Saxon architecture; although in its present degraded, dirty, and dilapidated state, they do not strike the observer with all that power of sublimity, which, at the period of their execution, would confer on the edifice such a distinctive character as might display and perpetuate the peculiar taste of its founder, Eadnoth, Bishop of Sidnacester. The most obvious of these ornaments, at present visible, are in the west doorway, and the decorations of the chancel. The door consists of four retiring circular arches, richly adorned with chevron mouldings in the best style of the Saxon period, and springing from columns with sculptured shafts and capitals, which latter are, however, miserably dilapidated. It is accessible by seven broad steps, most of them broken in pieces, though their existence proclaims this to have been originally the principal entrance. On the north side of the door is a niche or recess with an octofoil head, inclosed within an ogee; and above the door is the spacious window already mentioned, which consists of four lights and a transom.

On the south side of the nave are three small plain circular-headed windows, and a wooden porch covered with lead; a specimen of the bad taste or parsimonious feeling of modern times, which obscures and degrades some of the richest work of

[May,

our Saxon forefathers. The west side of the south transept exhibits a very diminutive loophole window with a semicircular head, an evident specimen of Saxon manufacture; and at the end of the transept is a two-light window pointed, with a perfect quatrefoil in the recess, and a loophole window with semicircular dripstone, and returns ornamented. The east side of the same transept is lighted by a window of two bays, with a quatrefoil in the recess.

The two sides of the chancel have each three windows of a single light, with semicircular heads, decorated profusely with chevrons, and flanked by cylinders; and the east end has a window of three lights, acute pointed, with three noble quatrefoils for tracery. In this church there are no side aisles; and the buttresses, where any are found between the windows, are plain and flat, and project but a very small distance from the massive walls.

The north façade differs little from the south. The sides of the transept have each an acute pointed window of two lights, with surmounting quatrefoil, and the end is distinguished by a very narrow window with a square head. In the nave is a porch built of brick, which, like its opposite neighbour, enviously hides and obscures a fine circular arch with zigzag mouldings. This style of decoration is repeated in every part of the church. The Saxons used it profusely, as the most effective of all the enrichments with which they were acquainted; and it was doubtless suggested to them, in common with the trellis ornament, by the simple wattling of their primitive wicker churches. We have here two plain semicircularheaded windows, with a date (1724) over one of them, which applies probably to the latest repairs done to the edifice.

A minute description of the interior of this Church, I shall reserve for another number. GEO. OLIVER.

Rot. 2 Hen. II.) Shortly afterwards, Richard Brito, Archdeacon of Coventry, and Robert de Hardre, accounted to the King for 15l. 18s. for the fairs of Stow; and 30s. 4d. for lands held by knights of the province of Stow, belonging to the see of Lincoln, which were then in the king's hands.

* Ezek. i. 5-11, Rev. iv. 7, 8. A local tradition was repeated to me when I examined the Church, that two of these figures had a reference to the swineherd of Stow and his dog; a personage who is said to have contributed a measure of silver pennies towards the construction of Lincoln Cathedral.

1831.]

Mr. URBAN,

Family of Coket, in Suffolk.

Ampton, Suffolk,
April 12.

THE ready admission which you afforded to my former communications induces me to solicit your insertion of the following brief particulars respecting the ancient and highly respectable family of Coket, who were very early seated in this parish.

[ocr errors]

The first of whom I find any account, is John Coket, who married Alice, relict of James de Wrotham of Gatesthorp in the county of Norfolk, and inherited in her right the lordship of West-Hall,* or Wrotham's manor in that parish. James de Wrotham died about 1366.

A grant of lands was made by Walter, son and heir of William Škot of Ampton, to John Coket of the same place, and Walter Coket of the adjoining parish of Ingham, 8 Hen. V. and the following year Henry Colray or Corray made a similar grant to the same persons.

In the time of Edward IV. John Coket of Ampton, esq. purchased extensively in the county of Norfolk, as the lordship of East-Hall, in Great Pagrave, and Dunham Parva, in Launditch hundred; the latter he bought of Margaret, sister of Sir Robert Corbet, in the twelfth of that King; he also held the advowson, and presented in the eighteenth of the same reign. The manors of Appleton and Bukenham in West Newton were also the same year conveyed to him by fine from John Copledike and Margaret his wife, consisting of twenty messuages, one thousand acres of land, one hundred of meadow, two hundred of pasture, one hundred of wood, one thousand of furze and heath, and six pounds per annum rent, in Appleton, Newton, Sandringham, Flitcham, &c. He also held a manor in Necton, which took its name from him, and was probably a

In the custom roll of this manor the following singular usage is entered that every tenant who marries out of the homage, is obliged to pay to the lord, a bed, bolster, sheet, and pillow; this was constantly observed, and there are several entries in the rolls of such payments, but in Rich. II.'s time the bed was omitted, by the lord's kindness, but the rest were paid in Queen Elizabeth's reign, or a composition for them.-Blomefield's Norfolk, vol. 1. p. 253. GENT. MAG. May, 1831.

417

part of Sparham Hall manor, in that parish, as they were both held by the same lord.

He obtained a licence from the Crown to found a perpetual chantry of one priest to celebrate every day at the altar of the blessed Virgin, in a chapel annexed to the parish church of Ampton for the good estate of the King, and Elizabeth his Queen, Edward Prince of Wales, and Richard Duke of York, Earl Marshal, and of John Coket and Alice his wife and their heirs, and for their souls after their decease, and for the souls of their parents, benefactors, and of the faithful departed; the said chantry to be called John Coket's Chantry, and he endowed it with lands of the annual value of ten marks, and gave the officiating priest a dwelling house opposite the church of Ampton, with a garden adjoining. The Royal licence bears date the 12th of March, in the eighteenth of King Edward IV.

He married Alice, daughter and heiress of Richard le Bole, and Margaret his wife, from whom he inherited the patrimonial estate of the le Boles in this parish, on which their ancestors had resided since the time of Edward the First. By her he had issue an only son and heir, John, and two daughters, Agnes, who married John Abthorpe, and Alice, who married Hamon Claxton, Sheriff of Norwich in 1476, and in 1485 Mayor of that city.

John Coket, esq. died about the second of Richard the Third, leaving John, his son and heir, who married and had issue two sons, John, of whom hereafter, and Thomas, who inherited the lordship of Dunham Parva, and presented to that rectory in 1511, but sold the said manor and advowson soon after. He also possessed the property of Walter Coket, late of Ingham above mentioned, and in the ninth of Henry VII. resided there. John his father died about the tenth of that King.

John Coket, esq. his eldest son succeeded, and inherited all the foregoing estates, with the above exceptions; he married Margaret, second daughter and coheir of Sir Richard Walden of Erith, in Kent, and.... his wife, daughter of Sir Richard Whethall of Calais, by whom he had Edward Coket, esq. who married

« AnteriorContinuar »