A plain rectangular
A cross appears at the start of the
Earl Odda ordered this royal chapel to be built and dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity for the soul of his brother Ælfric which was taken up from this place. And Ealdred was the bishop who dedicated the same church on the 12th April and in the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward, King of the English.
The reading of the text is not always clear because of the application of modern paint, but this edition suggests the following improvements to standard editions: that there is a small A at the end of line 1 in HANC; that the name AELFRICI has an A in ligature at the start of the word; that the abbreviation QVE should be expanded as QVAE, agreeing with ANIMA; that the abbreviation for APRILIBVS has a ligatured I added to the top of the letter L.
This inscription was long believed to be the foundation stone of the Saxon parish church of St Mary at Deerhurst (Butterworth 1876: pp.98-99;Butterworth 1885 and 1886-87), which had originally been part of a monastery and in fact dates back at least to the early ninth century (Williams 1997: p.12), but a further chapel to be identified as the Saxon church founded by Odda was identified in 1885 as having lain hidden for centuries, incorporated within a farmhouse following the Reformation and only revealed during efforts to repair the structure (Butterworth 1885; Middleton 1885 and 1887). The identity of this as the chapel of Odda’s foundation stone was confirmed by the further discovery of another Latin inscription, found re-cut and built into a sixteenth-century chimneystack, also possibly mentioning a dedication in honour of the Holy Trinity (Okasha 1971: p.65, no.29; Higgitt 2004: p.3).
Odda (fl.1014-1056: Williams 1997 and 2004) was of royal descent, related to Edward the Confessor (the king mentioned at the end of this inscription), an influential nobleman who owned extensive tracts of land around Deerhurst and elsewhere in the Midlands and southwest England. The chapel was built originally as part of Odda’s home at Deerhurst, as a location where prayers might be said for Odda’s brother Ælfric, who died at Deerhurst in 1053. Its description as regia aula – literally a ‘royal hall’ – is perhaps intended to serve as a synonym for basilica, a word commonly used for a church building (Higgitt 2004: p.5). In fact, the adjective ‘royal’ might be interpreted as referring to God’s kingly status rather than implying any connection to secular kingship, and might in turn reflect the influence of the revival of interest in classical Greek in the Carolingian world (Parsons 2000, who suggests that the word ‘royal’ itself would be best omitted from translating the inscription). Alternatively, this term may have been designed to reflect its role as an estate-church, built on the property of Odda, who was related to royalty (Williams 1997: p.13).
What is rather unexpected is the sophistication of this Latin inscription in terms of both language and lettering. The layout of the inscription thus places the name of the deceased brother Ælfric, for whose benefit the chapel was being built, literally at the centre of the stone, whilst both the beginning and end of the text are framed by references to the secular authority of earl and king (Higgitt 2004: p.6). It has been suggested that this was not so much a reflection of Odda’s own interests, as of those of its dedicator, Ealdred, at this time bishop of Worcester, described as ‘one of the most cosmopolitan figures of late Anglo-Saxon England’ (Blair 2010: p.143), who had travelled widely beyond England, including as far as Rome in 1050 on behalf of the king (Lawson 2004). A similarly sophisticated inscription, which appears to be influenced by formulae found in Latin rebuilding inscriptions, is found a few years later in Kirkdale, Yorkshire, which may well also be linked to the person or circle of Ealdred, after he had been promoted to act as Archbishop of York (1061-69) (Blair 2010: esp. pp.143-44). Inclusion of the exact date of dedication may have been intended to allow this date to be commemorated each year as an anniversary (Higgitt 2001: p.90).
Prideaux (1676) p.309-10 no.6; Gibson (1695) p.246; Maittaire (1732) p.506; Chandler (1763) Part 3 Tab. IV.cxxxv, with drawing; Pegge (1787) p.17; Gough (1806) vol.1, p.390; Okasha (1971) pp.63-64 no.28; Backhouse, Turner, Webster (1984) pp.131-32 no.138; Parsons (2000); Higgitt (2004)