It is deeply and painfully interesting to dig up in our British soil decided traces of this gross idolatry.[129]
_HEXHAM_ is generally admitted by antiquaries to have been a Roman town, though the proof of it is not absolutely decisive. St. Wilfrid built a church and monastery here about the year 673, after the Roman manner, which was considered the wonder of the age. We are told by the historians of that period that ‘secret cells and subterranean oratories were laid with wondrous industry beneath’ the building. Some vaults [Illustration: Crypt of Hexham Abbey Church] still remaining probably formed the crypt of this ancient structure. The stones which compose this under-ground building are all Roman; the peculiar mode in which they are chiselled is exhibited in the annexed wood cut, representing one of its chambers. The walls exhibit several Roman mouldings and cornices, besides inscriptions.[130] It is not likely that these stones would be brought from Corbridge (the nearest Roman station, if Hexham be not one), which is on the other side of the river, and three miles distant; especially as there is abundance [Illustration: Slab to Severus at Hexham] of stone in the immediate neighbourhood. The most important of the inscribed slabs which are walled up in the crypt, is here exhibited; it is one[Sidenote: INSCRIPTION TO SEVERUS.] of the inscriptions bearing the names of the emperor Septimius Severus (who added to his own name that of his predecessor, Pertinax), of his eldest son, Caracalla, who styled himself Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius, and of Geta, his younger son, whose name and title have obviously been erased from the tablet, an operation which we find has been studiously performed on many similar inscriptions, doubtless after his murder by his unnatural brother Caracalla. The date of this inscription is marked by the union of Severus and his two sons in the imperial title. Its object does not appear from what remains of the stone, further than that it recorded some act done by a vexillation of some portion of the Roman forces.
The mediæval antiquities of Hexham are highly interesting. The gateways and embattled towers will repay examination; but the gem of this fine old town, which in the Saxon era was an episcopal see, is the Abbey-church. The choir and transepts alone remain; they exhibit much beauty of detail, and their several parts blend most harmoniously together. The church formerly possessed the right of sanctuary. The frid-stool is still in its place. The cross which marked the eastern boundary of the privileged territory is nearly entire, and is kept near its original site, in the yard of the poor-house. The _disjecta membra_ of that which marked the northern boundary of the sanctuary lie by the side of the road going over Cross-bank, a hill between two and three miles north of Hexham, and from which the traveller approaching the town from the north first obtains a view of the venerable abbey-church, and surrounding town. The prospect is now, to the peaceful antiquary, guiltless of his neighbour’s blood, singularly interesting—what must it have been when descried in ancient times by panting fugitives, pressed by an avenging hand, and fleeing to the sanctuary! This cross remains a monument of the disordered state of society in the middle ages, and leads the reflecting passenger to contrast his present tranquility with the insecurity of former times. No favoured spot is now necessary to shield the innocent from the rage of a stronger assailant, or will be allowed to stay the course of justice upon the guilty.