The Henson Journals

[55]

Thursday, December 2nd, 1920.

"Boldon Buke derives its name from the village of Boldon, near Sunderland, in the County of Durham. The services & returns of many of the Bishop's manors were the same, & the compilers after enumerating those services & returns under Boldon, when the same occurred elsewhere, during the progress of the Inquisition, were satisfied to describe them as the same with those of Boldon. The name of Boldon, therefore, repeatedly occurring, the record itself became popularly spoken of as the Buke of Boldon. The survey was compiled, as we are told in is opening paragraph, at the feast of St Cuthbert, in Lent, in the year 1183, by order of Hugh Pudsey, then Bishop of Durham ……The same paragraph gives us a concise account of the document: it is a description of the revenues of the Bishoprick, & an enumeration of the settled rents & customs renderable to the Bishop, as they stood fixed at the time of its compilation."

Wm Greenwell.

I had the fire lighted in my study, & entered into possession of it, though, save for the book–shelves being filled by the labours of William & myself during the last three days, the room is far from equipped. However, getting into his room by a student, is like getting out of his bed by an invalid, a distinct & important stage reached in the evolution of life. What shall I make of this room?

[56]

This was Westcott's study, chosen perhaps for its southern aspect. Its windows, eastwards & southwards, command views of the Park. Its height is too great for its size, & it has three doors. Add, that the lighting arrangement is very bad, & its disadvantages are apparent. Nevertheless, it is more comfortable than the cell in which St Jerome worked, and it is hardly less quiet.

["The Crusade of 1383 known as that of the Bishop of Norwich" by George. M. Wrong, B.A. James Parker & Co. 1892. Henry Dispenser Bp. of Norwich, was the least spiritual of pastors, a soldier in habit & temperament, and aristocrat and persecutor: yet on his tomb in Norwich Cathedral it was stated that his morning meditation as his thoughts arose heavenward was 'The Earth is the Lord's'. "Spirat ad astra boni Pastoris mens matutinis dicendo "Domini est Terra'. "p.13]

I went with Ella to Gateshead, and, after dining with the Rector, attended a meeting in the Town Hall, designed to give me a welcome to the borough. The Mayor presided, and there was an attendance of about 300 people. Addresses were delivered by the Mayor, the Secretaries lay & clerical of the Ruri–decanal Conference, the rector, a very vulgar & facetious Presbyterian Minister, & the Salvationist major. I received an impression of unreality which was as novel as it was unpleasant. My own speech was discursive, dull, and rather irrelevant to the occasion. We returned to Auckland afterwards.

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