Archaeological Essays Part 1

Archaeological Essays.

by James Y. Simpson.

PREFACE.

The late Sir James Simpson, in the midst of his anxious professional labours, was wont to seek for refreshment in the pursuit of subjects of a historical and archaeological character, and to publish the results in the Transactions of different Societies and in scientific journals.

Some of these papers are now scarce, and difficult of access; and a desire having been expressed in various quarters for their appearance in a collected and permanent form, I was consulted on the subject by Sir Walter Simpson, who put into my hands copies of the various essays, with notes on some of them by his father, which seemed to indicate that he himself had contemplated their republication.

Having for a long time been acquainted with their merits, I did not hesitate to express a strong opinion in favour of their publication; and I accepted with pleasure the duty of editing them, which Sir Walter requested me to perform.

The papers in question were the fruit of inquiries begun indeed as a relief from weightier cares; but as it was not in their author's nature to rest satisfied with desultory and superficial results in his treatment of any subject, so his archaeological papers more resemble the exhaustive treatises of a leisurely student, than the occasional efforts of one overwhelmed in professional occupations.

In the present work will be found all the more important archaeological papers of Sir James Simpson, collected from the various sources indicated in the Table of Contents.

The subjects to the antiquities of which Sir James first directed his attention were connected with his own profession; but, as time went on, his interest in historical pursuits deepened and expanded, and the questions discussed by him became more varied.

It has been thought best to arrange the papers of a general historical scope in the first volume, and those connected with professional antiquities in the second; but readers, who may wish to trace the order in which they were written by the author, will find their various dates in the Table.

The first paper, ent.i.tled "Archaeology, its Past and its Future Work,"

was prepared as a lecture to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

This was done with a care and elaboration which are not always a.s.sociated with such efforts; and, whether in indicating the object and end of the archaeological student's pursuits,--sketching the past progress of the study,--and specifying the lines of research from which Scottish inductive archaeology may be expected to derive additional data and facts,--nothing more thoroughly practical could be desired; while in his resume of the difficulties and enigmas peculiar to Scottish antiquities, he may be said to have left none of them untouched, his pa.s.sing allusions being, in many instances, suggestive of their solution.

The paper on "An old Stone-roofed Cell or Oratory in the Island of Inchcolm" affords an instance of the author's careful observation, and his fertility of ill.u.s.tration. The humble structure in question, which, at the time when it first attracted Sir James Simpson's notice, was used as a pig-stye, had few external features to suggest the necessity of farther inquiry; but after his eye had become accustomed to the architecture of the early monastic cells in Ireland, its real character flashed upon him, and he found that his conclusions coincided with the facts of the early history of the island.

These he gleaned from many sources, but in grouping them into a picture he enriched his narrative with various instructive notes; as on the "Mos Scottic.u.m" of our early buildings; a comparison of the ruin with the Irish oratories; notices of other Island Retreats of Saints, and of the Saints themselves. In one of these he gives an instructive reference to a pa.s.sage in the original Latin text of Boece about the round tower of Brechin, which had been overlooked by his translator b.e.l.l.e.n.den, and so was now quoted for the first time.

A copy of this paper on Inchcolm having been sent to his friend Dr.

Petrie of Dublin, author of the well-known essay on the "Early Ecclesiastical Architecture and Round Towers of Ireland," it was returned after a time, enriched with many notes and ill.u.s.trations. In now reprinting the paper these have been added, and are distinguished from the author's notes by having the letter P annexed to them. The subject of the Inchcolm oratory was one about which this great man felt much interest, and on which he could speak from the abundance of his knowledge and experience. The notes are therefore of special value, as furnis.h.i.+ng the latest views of the author on mooted points of Celtic Ecclesiology, while they are conspicuous for the modesty and candour which were combined with Dr. Petrie's vast learning on the subject.

Thus, in his work on the Round Towers, Dr. Petrie a.s.signed "about the year 1020" as the date of the round tower of Brechin, but in one of the notes he corrects himself, and explains the origin of his mistake:--"The recollection of the error which I made, by a carelessness not in such matters usual with me, in a.s.signing this date 1020, instead of between the years 971 and 994, as I ought to have done, has long given me annoyance, and a lesson never to trust to memory in dates; for it was thus I fell into the mistake. I had the year 1020 on my mind, which is the year a.s.signed by Pinkerton for the writing of the _Chron. Pictorum_, and, without stopping to remember or to refer, I took it for granted that it was the year of Kenneth's death, or rather of his gift."

In writing of the Early Churches or Oratories of Ireland, Dr. Petrie stated in his Essay--"they had a single doorway always placed in the centre of the west wall." In one of his notes, now printed, he thus qualifies the statement:--"I should perhaps have written _almost_ always. The very few exceptions did not at the moment occur to me."

Again, Sir James Simpson having quoted a pa.s.sage from Dr. Petrie's work, in which the writer ascribes the old small stone-roofed church at Killaloe to the seventh century, Dr. Petrie, in his relative note, adds--"but now considers as of the tenth, or perhaps eleventh."

To the paper on "Leprosy and Leper Hospitals in Scotland and England" is now added a series of additional "Historical Notices," prepared by Dr.

Joseph Robertson, with the accuracy and research for which, as is well known, my early friend was conspicuous.

The origin of the tract on "Medical Officers in the Roman Army" is explained in the following note, prefixed to the first edition:--"A few years ago my late colleague, Sir George Ballingall, asked me--'Was the Roman Army provided with Medical Officers?' He was interested in the subject as Professor of Military Surgery, and told me that he had made, quite unsuccessfully, inquiries on the matter in various quarters, and at various persons. I drew up for him a few remarks, which were privately printed and circulated among his cla.s.s at the time. The present essay consists of an extension of these remarks."

The essay on the monument called "THE CATSTANE" suggested an explanation, which naturally elicited divergent criticisms. Some of these appear to have occasionally engaged Sir James Simpson's attention; and from some unfinished notes among his papers, it seems plain that he meant to notice them in an additional communication to the Society of Antiquaries.

In these notes, after recapitulating at the outset the facts adduced in his first paper, Sir James proceeds:--"These points of evidence, I ventured to conclude, '_tend at least to render it probable_' that the Catstane is a monument to Vetta, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa.

But I did not consider the question as a settled question. I began and ended my paper by discussing this early Saxon origin of the monument as problematical and probable, but not fixed. At the same time, I may perhaps take the liberty of remarking, that both in archaeology and history we look upon some questions as sufficiently fixed and settled, regarding which we have less inferential and direct proof than we have respecting this solution of the enigma respecting the Catstane. The idea, however, that it was possible for a monument to a historic Saxon leader to be found in Scotland of a date antecedent to the advent of Hengist and Horsa to the sh.o.r.es of Kent, was a notion so repugnant to many minds, that, very naturally, various arguments have been adduced against it, while some high authorities have declared in favour of it.

In this communication I propose to notice briefly some of the leading arguments that have been latterly brought forward both against and for the belief that the Catstane commemorates the ancestor of the Saxon conquerors of Kent.

"1. One anonymous writer has maintained, that if the Catstane was a monument to the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, the inscription upon it should not have read 'In hoc tumulo jacet Vetta f(ilius) Victi,' but, on the contrary, 'Victus filius Vettae.' In other words, he holds that the inscription reverses the order of paternity as given by Bede, Nennius, etc.[1] But all this is simply and altogether a mistake on the part of the writer. All the ancient genealogies describe Hengist and Horsa as the sons of Victgils, Victgils as the son of Vetta, and Vetta as the son of Victus. The Catstane inscriptions give Vetta and Victus in exactly the same order. When I pointed out to the writer the mistake into which he had, perhaps inadvertently, fallen, he turned round, and argued that in such names the vowels _e_ and _i_ were more trustworthy as permanent elements than the consonants _c_ and _t_.[2] He argued, in other words, that Vecta as a proper name would not be found spelled with an _i_. If it were never so spelled with an _i_, that circ.u.mstance was no argument in favour of the strange error of criticism into which the writer had fallen; but the fact is, that in the famous chapter of Bede's history, in which the names Hengist and Horsa, and their genealogies, first occur, there is an instance given, showing that, contrary to the opinion of this writer, a proper name having, like _Vetta_, the letter _e_ as a component, _may_ change it to _i_. For Bede, in telling us that the men of Kent and of the Isle of Wight (Cantuarii et Victuarii) were sprung from the Jutes, spells the Isle of Wight (Vecta) with an _e_, and the inhabitants of it (Victuarii) with an _i_.

"The same writer states it as his opinion that the lettering in the Catstane inscription is not so old as I should wish to make it. 'It is,'

says he, 'in our opinion, of later date even than Hengist himself, both in the formula of the inscription and in the character of the writing.'

Perhaps the writer's opinion upon such a point is not worth alluding to, as it is maintained by no proof. But Edward Lhuyd--one of the very best judges in such questions in former days--stated the lettering to be of the fourth or fifth century, without having any hypothesis to support or subvert by this opinion. And the best palaeographer of our own times--Professor Westwood--is quite of the same idea as to the mere age of the inscription, as drawn from its palaeography and formula, an idea in which he is joined by an antiquary who has worked much with ancient lettering--viz. Professor Stephens of Copenhagen."

Although it is to be regretted that the contemplated remarks were not completed, it may be doubted if the question admitted of much further ill.u.s.tration; and, however unlikely the conclusion may be that the inscription on the Catstane, VETTA F[ILIUS] VICTI, is a contemporary commemoration of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, it may not be easy to suggest a solution of the question free from difficulties as puzzling. At all events the palaeographic features of the inscription seem plainly to a.s.sociate it with a cla.s.s of rude post-Roman monuments, of which we have a good many examples in different parts of the kingdom; and it may be remarked that Mr. Skene, who has made this period of our history a special study, after investigating, with his usual ac.u.men, the evidence which exists to show that the Frisians had formed settlements in Scotland at a period anterior to that usually a.s.signed for the arrival of the Saxons in England, has established the fact of the early settlement on our northern coasts of a people called by the general name of Saxons, but in reality an offshoot from the Frisians, whose princ.i.p.al seat was on the sh.o.r.es of the Firth of Forth, and on the whole thinks it not impossible that the Catstane may be the tomb of their first leader Vitta, son of Vecta, the traditionary grandfather of Hengist and Horsa.[3]

Besides the papers now printed, Sir James Simpson contributed many shorter essays and reviews of books to magazines and newspapers. He also prepared a memorandum, printed in the second volume of the "Sculptured Stones of Scotland," of a reading of the inscription on a sculptured cross at St. Vigeans in Forfars.h.i.+re.[4] At the time of the final adjustment of this paper Sir James was an invalid, and confined to his bed, and I well remember the extreme, almost fastidious, care bestowed by him on the proof-sheet, in the course of my frequent visits to his bedroom.

It sometimes happened also that a subject originally treated in a paper by Sir James Simpson required a volume to exhaust it. Thus, in the spring of 1864, he read to a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland a "Notice of the Sculpturing of Cups and Concentric Rings on Stones and Rocks in various parts of Scotland;" but materials afterwards so grew on his hands that his original Notice came to be expanded into a volume of nearly 200 pages, with 36 ill.u.s.trative plates. His treatment of this curious subject furnishes a model for such investigations.[5]

Setting out with a description of the princ.i.p.al types of the sculptures, he investigates the chief deviations which occur. He next cla.s.sifies the various monuments on which the sculptures have been observed, as standing-stones, cromlechs, stones in chambered tumuli, and stones in sepulchral cists. Another chapter describes their occurrence on stones connected with archaic habitations, as weems, fortified buildings, in and near ancient towns and camps, and on isolated rocks and stones.

After a description of a.n.a.logous sculptures in other countries, there is a concluding chapter of general inferences founded on the facts acc.u.mulated in the previous part of the volume.

On the occasion of a rapid journey to Liverpool, Sir James Simpson visited a stone circle at Calder, near that city, and detected the true character of the sculptures on the stones, a very imperfect note of which I had recently brought under his notice. An account of this monument, which he prepared for the Historic Society of Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re, is printed in the Transactions of that body for 1865, and the following pa.s.sages are quoted from it:--"Many suggestions, I may observe, have been offered in regard to the intent and import of such lapidary cup and ring cuttings as exist on the Calder Stones; but none of the theories proposed solve, as it seems to me, the hieroglyphic mystery in which these sculpturings are still involved. They are old enigmatical 'handwritings on the wall,' which no modern reader has yet deciphered. In our present state of knowledge with regard to them, let us be content with merely collecting and recording the facts in regard to their appearances, relations, localities, etc.; for all early theorising will, in all probability, end only in error. It is surely better frankly to own that we know not what these markings mean (and possibly may never know it), rather than wander off into that vague mystification and conjecture which in former days often brought discredit on the whole study of archaeology.

"But in regard to their probable era let me add one suggestion. These cup and ring cuttings have now been traced along the whole length of the British Isles, from Dorsets.h.i.+re to Orkney, and across their whole breadth from Yorks.h.i.+re in England to Kerry in Ireland; and in many of the inland counties in the three kingdoms. They are evidently dictated by some common thought belonging to some common race of men. But how very long is it since a common race--or successive waves even of a common race--inhabited such distant districts as I have just named, and spread over Great Britain and Ireland, from the English Channel to the Pentland Firth, and from the sh.o.r.es of the German Ocean to those of the Atlantic?"

The special value of the inductive treatment of the subject adopted by Sir James Simpson is here conspicuous; and although no decided conclusion was come to on the age and meaning of the sculptures, or the people by whom they were made, yet a reader feels that the utmost has been made of existing materials; and that, while nothing has been left untouched which could throw light on the question, a broad and sure foundation has been laid on which all subsequent research must rest.

One of the Appendices to this volume contains an account of some ancient sculptures on the walls of certain caves in Fife. The essay originally appeared as a communication to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in January 1866, and was also soon afterwards printed separately--"Inscribed to James Drummond, Esq., R.S.A., as a small token of the Author's very sincere friends.h.i.+p and esteem."

The discovery of these cave sculptures affords an instance of the thoroughness which Sir James carried into all his investigations. While engaged in the preparation of his original paper for the Society of Antiquaries on the Sculpturing of Cups and Rings, he wished to ascertain all the localities and conditions of their occurrence. After describing the sculptured circles and cups which had been found on the stones of weems and "Picts' Houses," he referred to the caves on the coast of Fife, which he suggested might be considered as natural weems or habitations. These he had visited in the hope of discovering cup-markings; and in one near the village of Easter Wemyss he discovered faded appearances of some depressions or cups, with small single circles cut on the wall, adding to his description--"Probably a more minute and extensive search in these caves would discover many more such carvings."

This was written in 1864; and when the paper then prepared had been expanded into the volume of 1867, the pa.s.sage just quoted was accompanied by the following note:--"I leave this sentence as it was written above two years ago. Shortly after that period, I revisited Wemyss, to inspect the other caves of the district, and make more minute observations than I could do in my first hurried visit, and discovered on the walls of some of them many carvings of animals, 'spectacle ornaments,' and other symbols exactly resembling in type and character the similar figures represented on the ancient so-called sculptured stones of Scotland, and, like them, probably about a thousand years old."[6]

In like manner, after Sir Gardner Wilkinson had detected a concentric circle of four rings sculptured on the pillar called "Long Meg," at the great stone circle of Salkeld, in c.u.mberland, Sir James Simpson paid a visit to the monument, when his scrutiny was rewarded by the discovery on this pillar of several additional groups of sculptures.[7]

In his lecture on Archaeology, Sir James Simpson has indicated two lines of research, from which additional data and facts for the elucidation of past times might be expected--viz. researches beneath the surface of the earth, and researches among older works and ma.n.u.scripts. By the former he meant the careful and systematised examinations in which the spade and pickaxe are so important, and have done such service in late years, and from which Sir James expected much more; and by the latter the exploring and turning to account the many stores of written records of early times yet untouched.

Being impressed with the value of the charters of our old religious houses for historical purposes, he, shortly before his death, had a transcript made of the Chartulary of the Monastery of Inchcolm, with a design to edit it as one of a series of volumes of monastic records for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

But the services of Sir James Simpson to the cause of archaeological research are not to be measured by his written contributions, remarkable as these are. Perhaps it may be said that his influence was most pregnant in kindling a love of research in others, by opening their eyes to see how much yet lay undiscovered, and how much each person could do by judicious effort in his own neighbourhood. With this view he on various occasions delivered lectures on special subjects of antiquity, and among his papers I found very full notes of lectures on Roman antiquities, one of which, on the "Romans in Britain," he delivered at Falkirk in the winter of 1862.

For many years the house of Sir James Simpson was the rendezvous of archaeological students; and it was one of his great pleasures to bring together at his table men from different districts and countries, but united by the brotherhood of a common pursuit, for the discussion of facts and the exchange of thought.

The friends who were accustomed to these easy reunions will not soon forget the radiant geniality of the host, and his success in stimulating the discussions most likely to draw out the special stores of his guests. Others also, who were a.s.sociated with Sir James in the visits to historical sites which he frequently planned, in the retrospect of the pleasant hours thus spent will feel how vain it is to hope for another leader with the attractions which were combined in him.

In the course of his numerous professional journeys he acquired a wonderfully accurate knowledge of the early remains of different districts; and so contagious was his enthusiasm for their elucidation, that both the professional brethren with whom he acted, and his patients, were speedily found among his correspondents and allies.

His presence at the meetings of Archaeological Societies was ever regarded as a pleasure and benefit. Besides the stated meetings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, which he attended with comparative frequency, and where he ever took a share in the discussions, he was present on various occasions at Congresses of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute, the Cambrian a.s.sociation, and other kindred bodies, by means of which he was enabled to maintain an intercourse with contemporary fellow-labourers in the archaeological field, and to attain that familiarity with different cla.s.ses of antiquities which he turned to such account in the discussion and cla.s.sification of the early remains of Scotland.

I must not speak of the wonderful combination of qualities which were conspicuous in Sir James Simpson, alongside of those which I have mentioned. This may safely be left to the more competent hand of Professor Duns, from whose memoir of his early friend so much may be expected, and where a more general estimate of his character will naturally be found. Yet, in bringing together this series of Sir James Simpson's Archaeological Essays, it seemed not unsuitable for me to express something of my admiration of the earnest truth-seeking spirit with which they were undertaken, as well as of the genius and research with which they were executed.

JOHN STUART.

FOOTNOTES: