Archaeologist Alan Ward discusses the Pre-Conquest Cathedral at Rochester. Featured in The Hidden Treasures, Fresh Expressions Project Archaeology Report, Keevill Heritage 2021.

Background

Archaeologically, knowledge of Anglo-Saxon Rochester is sketchy at best (Figure 15). The Anglo-Saxon cathedral (see below), a few pagan burials to the south of the town (Payne 1893, 121-4; 1895, lv; 1897, liv-lvii; 1900, liv; Williams and Payne 1979, 284-6), a 7th-century bronze worker’s die from a 12th -century pit (Hawkes 1979), a sceatta (coin) from a 1976 excavation at Prior’s Gate House, and seven sherds of pottery (before HTFE) represented the sum total of knowledge. Six of the pot sherds came from two pits within the cathedral crypt (Ward 1995 and 1998) and one from grave fill in the Chair Store excavation west of the North Transept (Ward and Anderson 1990). Sherds of Anglo-Saxon pottery may have been found in a 1961-2 High Street excavation, but the estimated total of 7000 sherds (of all dates) has never been looked at by a pottery specialist (Philp 2014, 114). Much the same can be said of an excavation that took place in 1986 adjacent to the Friends’ Meeting House (Daniels 1986, 2012), where nearly 9000 pottery sherds were found and have only been briefly reported. Both assemblages should be the subject of specialist analysis and reporting.

Historically, Rochester only appears occasionally in documents. Perhaps surprisingly most of our information comes from the earliest text, that of the Venerable Bede writing c 730. He uses the old Roman place-name, Durobrivae, as well as Hrofescaestir. We are told about the founding of the AngloSaxon cathedral in 604, and the sacking of the settlement in 676. We also learn that the cathedral church had a porticus (possibly two) in the 8th century. He also provides some notes on the early bishops.

Few other documents provide useful information in archaeological terms. Charters refer to a road on the inside of the Roman town wall on the site of the castle, and another road to the north of the High Street, perhaps continuing that line and leading to Liaba's Cottage (Figures 2 and 15). Three gates – the South, East (= Broad) and Great (= North Gate or Chelder Gate) are mentioned (Campbell 1973; Ward 1949, 37-47; Ward 2005, 311-322; 2011a, 142-154; 2017 plan). By 762 another ‘north gate’ led into the cathedral precinct and was probably on the site of the 15th -century Cemetery Gate (Brooks 2006, 11). Whether this structure was of timber or stone is not mentioned. There was presumably a boundary wall or fence attached and (presumably) a road leading into the cemetery area (Green Church Haw) to the south (Ward, forthcoming a). A church dedicated to St Mary, presumably of timber, existed outside the East Gate c 850, but was never heard of again (see below).

The sack of Rochester in 676 by the Mercians was followed by further attacks by King Caedwalla of Wessex (reigned 685-8) in 686 and 687. More were carried out by the Mercians again, probably, in 798, by the Vikings in 842, probably in 986 by AEthelred II (reigned 978 to 1014 and 1016) and by the Vikings again, probably, in 999. No archaeological trace of these events has been found so far. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Whitelock 1965: Garmonsway 1972) entry for the year 885 implies that the Roman walls were still in good enough condition to repel a Viking attack until help came. It hardly needs to be said that nothing is known of the fortification the Vikings built around themselves.

Hardly surprisingly we have more archaeological knowledge from the late 11th century onwards (Figure 16). Most is known about the cathedral, castle and the town defences, but very little about the development of the town itself or specific buildings within it. Only the 15th -century and later town can be studied in any detail, and that mainly its standing buildings (Bacchus 2010; Austin 1997; Ward 2004b, 2010a) rather than below ground archaeology. Indeed, no medieval house either inside or outside the town wall has yet seen any extensive excavation.

The Cathedral

The beginnings of the bishopric and cathedral of Rochester are well known, but there is little detail about either before the end of the 11th century. Very few documents survive, and only a small part of the Anglo-Saxon cathedral has been uncovered (Figures 10, 12-13).

There is little or no doubt that this structure was the (or at least a) cathedral church. In the 8th century Bede related that in 604 Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury (597-604), consecrated Justus as the first Bishop of Rochester (604-24; he became the Archbishop of Canterbury 624-31). Bede gave both the Roman and English names (see above) for what he described as a ‘city’. The term may have been used due to the presence (and to enhance the prestige) of the bishop, his entourage and church, rather than for any perceived or real urban attributes.

Bede states that King AEthelberht of Kent (reigned c 585/c 590 to 616/618), built a church dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle within the old Roman town (Bede Bk 2, Ch 3). Later, we are told that when Paulinus (third Bishop of Rochester 633-44) died he was buried in the secretarium (see below) of the church which King AEthelberht had built ‘from its foundations’ (Flight 1997, 193). Bishop Ithamar, his successor (c 644-655/664), was Rochester’s first native Anglo-Saxon prelate. The church is likely to have been damaged in AEthelred’s attack of 676 (see above). The bishopric was impoverished in the time of Cwichhelm (Bishop 676-8), presumably due to the Mercian pillaging. Nothing more is heard of the buildings until the time of Tobias (Bishop c 699-726). He was buried in the porticus of St Paul, ‘which he had built within the church of St Andrew as his own burial place’ (Bede, book 5, ch 23). After the Norman Conquest the church was described by William of Malmesbury as being ‘utterly forsaken, miserable and waste, from lack of all things within and without’ (McAleer 1999, 28). This may be Norman propaganda connected with the replacement of four or five secular clergy by the 22 monks brought in by Gundulf (Bishop 1076/7 to 1108) to start a new monastic establishment in c 1082. The east end of the Anglo-Saxon cathedral was uncovered by Livett in 1888, and a short length of the nave walls in 1998 (Figure 12. Ward 1999a; 1999b; 2002).

3D reconstruction of Bishop Justus’s Cathedral around the year 750, with annotations marking unknowns. Model by Jacob Scott under advisement from Alan Ward and Graham Keevill.

At least one structure, presumably of stone, adjoined the Anglo-Saxon church (Flight 1997, 173, note 9; Bosanquet 1964). Nothing else is known of any buildings associated with the pre-Conquest cathedral. The only point which may have some relevance is that the old Roman South Gate showed evidence of having been blocked. This blocking was presumably of late Roman date, but must have been removed in the Anglo-Saxon period when the gate is mentioned in a charter traditionally dated to 604, but more likely of post-Conquest date (Campbell 1973, xxii; Ward 1949; Ward 2001; 2002; 2005; 2011). This unblocking may have been connected with access either to any buildings to the south of the church or to the west door of the church itself.

Several writers have suggested that other Anglo-Saxon churches would have been built adjacent to (and perhaps in line with) the known one (Hope 1898, 214-5; McAleer 1999, 17; Radford 1969; TattonBrown 1984a, 1988; Ward 2015a). Examples existed at Canterbury, Glastonbury and Winchester. While the churches postulated by Hope and McAleer can be dismissed (Figure 10), that proposed by Radford cannot be so easily discounted (Figure 17).

Discussion

Hope's 'church' below the south wall of the nave can be easily dismissed. It was a Roman building. The idea of an earlier church either to north or south of the Norman east end, put forward by Philip McAleer has no supporting evidence (McAleer 1999, 17), which of course does make it difficult to disprove, but the onus is on the originator of the idea to put forward such evidence. The evidence, such as it is, in regard the transfer of the early bishops, as put forward by McAleer, can be looked at in different ways.

In regard the church put forward by Ralegh Radford in 1969 below the crossing of the Norman nave it cannot be dismissed so easily as it has been in the past. The present writer in a long and complicated article (Ward 2013, 2015f; the information and ideas therein are not repeated here) has attempted to put forward the evidence in an objective manner and certainly 'wants' such a structure to exist. However, the Ragstone wall found by Radford may represent a sleeper foundation, aligned north to south for the early Norman transept and east to west for the early Norman crossing. That the north face of the latter is not in line with the piers as they exist today does allow some hope of an AngloSaxon date. However, if looked at objectively these remains are more likely to be part of Gundulf's building and may even be part of the north-east pier of his crossing. Until the stone slab floor of the crossing and the western side of the north transept is taken up we will never be sure.

Overall, and very reluctantly, the present writer is coming around to the idea that there was only the one church of Anglo-Saxon date and not, as sometimes occurred (e.g at Canterbury, Winchester, Glastonbury) two or more churches. At the end of the day whilst archaeologists (including the present writer) may 'want' a second church to exist and whilst conjectural ideas for such can be put forward, there is not a shred of topographic, architectural or documentary, evidence for such an assertion. Taken by itself the archaeological evidence that we have at present is, at best, ambiguous.

For the Anglo-Saxon church found by Livett various short articles have been published from the time this undoubted pre-Norman structure was first found in 1888 up to the present day. For the most part they merely repeat (for the obvious reason that is all they can do) the description of the original excavator Canon Greville Livett (1889, Hope 1898, Palmer 1897; Flight 1997; McAleer 1999; Ward 1999a, 1999b, 2001, 2002, 2015a; anon. 2003).

In 1888 whilst underpinning the west front of the cathedral was in progress, Greville Livett recorded an earlier Norman west front. This building must represent Gundulf's cathedral of c.1088 and itself had cut through the apse of an earlier building. Stratigraphically this building has to be of Anglo-Saxon date, if for no other reason that a still earlier building (Roman), buried below some 0.60m of soil, is in turn cut through by the foundation of this structure. The lowest structure found cannot be a porticus belonging to the Anglo-Saxon church, it has to be Roman in date and is almost certainly part of the building found by Irvine below the south wall of the nave (Ward 2015a). Much of the apse and a small part of the nave of the Anglo-Saxon church were observed and recorded in 1888 (Livett 1889) and the present writer was lucky enough to uncover more of the foundation of the nave when College Yard was relaid in 1998 (Ward 2002). The burial ground to the west was probed and Livett tells us he found the north and south walls of the nave below the soil (Livett 1895, 18-19).

The size of the building found by Livett has been used to argue that this structure was too small to be a cathedral (Hope 1900, 21; McAleer 1999, 17). For two reasons this is a fallacy. First, the seventh century population of Rochester would have been very small, and some, at least down to the midseventh century, would probably have remained pagan. They built the church for the people who were there, not for those who might be there several hundred years later. It is worth pointing out at this point that it was not until the time of Whitred (King of Kent 691-725) that the Lord's Day had to be observed as a day of rest (Witney 1982, 167) and, by implication, attendance at a Sunday service became compulsory (presumably so that the Church could tax everyone!). Secondly, even in the late Anglo-Saxon period the population would have been in the middle to high hundreds rather than thousands, and we should remember they all would have stood during a church service, there were no seats. Also, we have no way of knowing how long it was before other churches existed. One church, St. Mary's, is mentioned outside the town wall c.850 and by the mid-eleventh century St. Clement's and St. Margaret's may have come into existence.

Another potentially incorrect claim is made visually on Hope's 1898 plan. On this drawing he shows two columns creating three arches between apse and nave. These columns were not seen at the time of Livett's observations and it seems likely that they were put in by Hope because it was already known that at St Mary's Church, Reculver and St Peter's Church, Bradwell, Essex such did exist. Indeed, such were also found by Hope himself at the Church of St. Pancras in the grounds of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury a few years later. Such a division may have existed at Rochester, but only at St. Pancras, Canterbury, St. Mary's, Reculver and probably at St. Mary's, Lyminge can a triple arcade arrangement now be assured. As with the porticus (see below) any remains of supporting columns have not been seen, Hope drew these onto his plan without there actually being evidence.

Porticus, Paulinus and Tobias

Of the church found by Greville Livett, way back in 1888, there is occasional mention of a porticus on the north side. To avoid a long philosophical and rather pointless debate, such a structure can be regarded as a 'side chapel' or 'side chamber. However, no such structure was found by Livett when he probed the area. This idea of a northern porticus was first put forward by Alfred Clapham in 1930 (Clapham 1964, 28), despite the latter stating earlier in his work, 'the circumstances attending the excavations were such as to leave it uncertain what adjuncts the church possessed to the north, south and west.' (ibid. 21). This idea was to be repeated by Eric Fletcher in 1965 (Fletcher 1965, 23). The present writer is pretty sure it was a mistake by Clapham who was perhaps thinking about the next church he wrote about, St. Mary's Church, Lyminge, which does have a northern porticus. Perhaps a mental 'cut and paste' error on his part occurred. Alternatively he was thinking about the burial place of the early archbishops of Canterbury who were buried in a northern porticus and he merely assumed that Tobias would have been as well. That northern porticus story, for which there is not a scrap of actual evidence, then occasionally gets repeated.

However, that a porticus did exist is mentioned in our only documentary source for the early church, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Church and People. In 726, Tobias, Bishop of Rochester (699 / 716 to 726) died and according to Bede,

'He was buried in the porch of St. Peter the Apostle, which he had built within the church of St. Andrew for his own burial place'.

(Bede: Book 5 Ch. 23).

(Sepultus vero est in porticu sancti Pauli apostoli quam intra ecclesiam sancti Andreae sibi ipse in locum sepulchri fecerat (Clapham 1965 page 28, note 3).)

Outwardly the use of the word 'porch' would imply just that, and indeed such an addition had been conjectured at some length by G.H. Palmer (1897, 4 and 5; derived from Hope 1886, 324 and 334, 1900, 19) of there being a west end apse as well as one at the east. Whilst this may have been true of Canterbury in a Rochester context such is pure fantasy.

However, three points. First, there was no sign of such an entrance when Boley Hill (more correctly Doddingherne Lane) was repaved, and about 0.30m of material removed, in 1998 (Ward 2002). The idea can almost certainly be discounted, for when deeper drain trenches were dug, in the early 1920s, no sign of foundations were seen (Duffield et. al. 1926, 42). Where the lengths in relation to width can be measured at St. Mary's, Reculver, St. Peter's, Bradwell and St. Pancras, Canterbury we see that the width of the nave is about a third less than its length. Based on Hope Plate II (here Fig. 18) that seems to be true for Rochester as well, which if correct then puts the west wall of the more or less directly below the west wall of the cemetery facing onto Doddingherne Lane. Finally, today it is usually accepted that when the word 'porch' is mentioned in early scripts, it is a porticus in our modern sense of the word (i.e. a 'side chapel') that is meant. A porch as an entrance could have existed, but if so it would have been still further out into Boley Hill and with the failure to find any foundations in c.1926 can be discounted.

It would be structurally impossible to build a porticus, as we know them, 'within' the Anglo-Saxon church found by Livett, such a room would take up too much space. Perhaps Bede meant a tomb placed within an existing structure or that a porticus was added to the church. Colin Flight put forward the same point in 1997 (page 173, note 8). With our knowledge in regard the structural development of the Kentish Style seventh century churches either could be accepted. We can see that such rooms were added to the Church of St. Pancras at Canterbury and St. Mary's Church, Reculver. We can perhaps go further, for these rooms nearly always appear in pairs, either side of the nave and / or chancel. If we follow this conjecture to its logical conclusion there should be a porticus to north and south of the nave at Rochester. One being the burial place of Tobias, the other it is tempting to think was the burial place of St. Paulinus and perhaps St. Ithamar. We can, with a bit of thought. expand on that. Again, Bede gives us some information, his Book 3, Chapter 14 tells us that on his death, in 644, Bishop Paulinus,

'.... was buried in the sacristy of the church of the blessed Apostle Andrew, which had been founded and built in Rochester by King Ethelberht'.

'.... seplteusque est in secrtario beati apostoli Andreae, quad rex Aedilberet a fundamentis in eadem Hrofi ciuitate consteuxit ...'

Those who know Latin, tell us that the word here used, sacristy, for his burial place is derived either from secretarium or in secretario. However, the latter is also stated as meaning the sanctuary by Palmer (1897, 3), Flight (1997, 58), McAleer (1999, 10). Very noticeably Hope, whilst he enters most of the relevant passage from Bede misses out, 'was buried in the sacristy', (1898, 195). One is tempted to say that Hope was not sure which word, sacristy or sanctuary should be used.

What was actually meant by this word produces a potential problem for It would appear that Latin dictionaries tell us that the word can be used in either context. We have two words, sacristy and sanctuary which represent two completely different areas of a church, either of which can be represented by the single word Latin word secretario / secretarium. Words can of course have more than one meaning and in such cases we have to look at the overall context to understand what the specific meaning may be. The sanctuary and the sacristy form different functions. The former (Latin: sanctuarium) is the holiest place within the church, that part of the chancel containing the high altar. Whereas, the latter is a room in which the vestments and sacred vessels are kept and where the priest can prepare for the service (Latin: sacristia). Outwardly the sanctuary appears to be the most obvious place for the burial of a bishop and we should remember that Paulinus was after all also the first Archbishop of York (625-633; although admittedly not yet called that). However, another problem then arises, for none of the early Roman founders of the seventh century Kentish church were buried in the sanctuary. At Canterbury in the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, Augustine (597-604), Laurentius (604-619), Mellitus (619-624), Justus (624-630), Honorious (630-653) and Deusdedit (655-664) were all buried in the porticus of St. Gregory on the north side of the abbey church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Canterbury. Three of the brick tombs of the early archbishops can still be seen. AEthelberht, King of Kent (c.585/590 to 616/618), his Frankish wife Bertha and her bishop, Liuthard were buried in the porticus of St. Martin on the south. A porticus was considered the normal place for burial of a bishop in the seventh century Kentish style churches.

In the Syrian church (i.e. the area of the earliest Christian churches) what are known as the diaconicon and the prothesis, on south and north respectively, were built as apsed side chambers. The former was used for storage of the vestments and books and the latter for the utensils used in worship. Eric Fletcher in a 1965 article pointed out that the Anglo-Saxon churches at Reculver and Bradwell (and one is now tempted to say the Church of St. Pancras, Canterbury as well; Ward, forthcoming b) had rectangular porticus to south and north of the nave and or chancel in much the same position as chambers, of different design, in the Syrian and Greek churches. Fletcher suggested these chambers were now used for liturgical purposes rather than for burial as in the early seventh century AngloSaxon churches. Of course, St. Andrew's, Rochester was one of those early churches. The questions then become, did St. Andrew's actually have a porticus for burials and does the word secretario tells us that one was present? Does it mean sacristy or does it mean a sanctuary? The sacristy served the same function as the diaconicon and the latter was situated on the south side of the church. For a Kentish Style apsed church of the this date not to have porticus would be unusual. In addition with the advent of Syrian and Greek influence in the western church from the mid-seventh century onwards, culminating in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms with the appointment of Theodore of Tarsus as Archbishop of Canterbury (668 to 690), and with just a little adaption of word meaning, by the time Bede was writing c.730 all such structures on the south side of a church may have been regarded as a diaconicon, even if not called such. If we put it into Latin we have a sacristia, which can be described as such with the word secretario.

Whereas at Canterbury we have good evidence, both archaeological and documentary, for the early archbishops being buried in a porticus none were buried in the area of the sanctuary. One does like to think that the same could be true of Rochester, in which case we could then hazard a guess that Paulinus was buried in such a structure. It is here suggested that is exactly what Bede is telling us; Paulinus was buried in a sacristy, in other words a diaconicon, a porticus, on the south side of the church. One is attempted to say that Ithamar was also buried in the same place.

If the word sacristy is here applicable and as such a room was on the south side of the church, then Bishop Tobias may well have been buried in its twin on the north almost a century later. There is only one way to find out whether these conjectures are correct.

It is probable that the walls and floors of any such porticus have long since been destroyed by the graves dug within the area in front of the standing west front. The grave diggers would 'only' have had to dig across c.1m wide north to south aligned foundation and they probably only (perhaps) survive as upturned mortar wedges between graves. However, the east to west aligned walls of the church itself may, as the present writer in 1998 and Greville Livett in 1888 found, survive from the top of the foundation downwards. They survive because it is far harder to dig a 2m long grave along solid mortared rubble than it is to dig across a 1m width of the same. Grave-diggers, once masonry was known to be present would therefore try to avoid any east to west aligned wall. If that surmise is correct then there is a good chance that the external face of the south and north nave walls will preserve the stumps or scars of the porticus walls. All of this is of course purely conjectural, but again there is a way to find out, we dig some holes. Such trenches along the outside of the nave walls would probably only have to be about 0.75m deep and (in theory) would not reach the level of any human burials.

We can, I think, even go a bit further with the meagre information that we have. Wherever they were buried in the old cathedral, the remains of Paulinus were not transferred to the new Norman church until c.1088, whilst Lanfranc (d.1089) was still alive (Flight 1997, 59, 61). This is telling us several things:

a. That the church in which he was buried was the Anglo-Saxon cathedral and that any other churches, whether real or imagined, can be relegated to a lesser role.

It then follows that:

b. The earlier cathedral was the building destroyed by the Norman west front. Any church or churches to the east would have already been destroyed during the building of the nave and

c. The whereabouts of the burial place of St. Paulinus (or at least remains which were thought to be those of Paulinus), whether in a porticus or the sanctuary of that building was known.

d. The earlier cathedral was not finally demolished until that date. It could have been completely demolished after that date, but that its building materials would be need would suggest not that much later and certainly not as late as the bishopric of John. Perhaps the material was used for the new west front.

e. One would like to be able to say that the transfer of the body of Paulinus to the Norman church also gives us a date for the completion of that church. Unfortunately it does not, it does however, tells us that east end of the Norman church had been completed and was ready for such a transfer. Where the remains of Paulinus were reburied is not known for certain, but ideas have been put forward.

Alan Ward
Keevill Heritage LTD

Extracts from Hidden Treasures, Fresh Expressions; Archaeological Surveys, Excavations and Watching Briefs at Rochester Cathedral 2011-2017

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