For three centuries Aquæ Solis seems to have been what it became again later on, a town of luxury and pleasure, a little British Baiæ. Judging (as we must do, in default of documentary evidences) from the remains of every kind, fragments of statues, coins, pedestals, altars, bas-reliefs and inscriptions, the colony must have been comparatively rich and populous. It is supposed that the sites of several public buildings and of a temple of Minerva1 have been discovered; Roman villas sprang up in the surrounding country; the baths, though they have not been completely excavated, and it is not possible to estimate their exact extent," must have occupied from six to seven acres, and included all the requirements to be found in the grand baths of ancient Rome." "2

There is no doubt that the abandonment of Great Britain by the Roman legions in 411 considerably diminished the prosperity and importance of Aqua Solis. Deserted by a portion of its population, the town further suffered from the general confusion that followed the departure of the Romans, the incursions of the Picts and Scots, and finally, the Saxon conquest. Under the new name of Akemanceaster, soon replaced by that of

1 Or rather of Sul Minerva. Sul was no doubt a native divinity, whose cult was confounded with that of the Roman Minerva. The antiquities of Bath have been dealt with in works too numerous to mention here. We will only mention "The Antiquities of Bath," by the Rev. R. Warner, and “Aquæ Solis, or Notices of Roman Bath," by the Rev. H. M. Scarth. The first description is to be found in Leland. C. E. Davis, "The Baths, Ancient and Modern," in the "Handbook to Bath," p. 150.

The Battle of Deorham (577) which gave the West of England to the Saxons, was fought in the neighbourhood. It is possible that the destruction of the Roman buildings dates from this period. The fine fragment of Anglo-Saxon poetry generally known as "The Ruin," which describes a devastated city (in Grein, "Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie," vol. i. p. 238), seems to refer to Bath. (See an article by Mr. Earle in the "Proceedings of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Club," 1872, pp. 259-270).

The Anglo-Saxon termination ceaster (city, from the Latin castra) is the same we find in Chester, Manchester, Winchester, &c. As to the first part of the word, Mr. Earle sees in it a British word, Akeman made up of a transcription of the Latin aquæ and of the Celtic root

Bath,1it formed part of the district of Hwiccia, afterwards incorporated in the Kingdom of Mercia.

66

Two centuries passed before the foundation of a monastery by King Offa (775) somewhat restored the fortunes of the ruined city. It now became a religious centre; the monastery was enlarged and enriched by various sovereigns, and in 973 King Edgar was crowned in the Abbey; 3 the memory of this ceremony was perpetuated at Bath by a custom, vestiges of which still lingered in the seventeenth century, the annual election of a king" by the citizens. Devastated afresh by civil war a few years after the Norman conquest 5 the town was restored to prosperity by Jean de la Villette of Tours (Joannes de Villula), chaplain and physician to William Rufus, who, when in 1088 he was appointed Bishop of Somerset, transferred the episcopal seat from Wells to Bath, rebuilt the Abbey, and restored the baths. During the four centuries that followed, Bath owed nearly all its importance to this Benedictine Abbey ; the cloth industry introduced by the monks also made a certain amount of progress. The municipal system developed as in other

man= place, which still exists in Welsh ("Bath Ancient and Modern," chap. iv. p. 42).

1 See the history of this new name in the "New English Dictionary," article "Bath," sb2. Some Anglo-Saxon coins of the eleventh century are inscribed Bathan (Earle, "Bath Ancient and Modern," p. 68).

2 A convent had been founded in 676 (cf. Leland, “Itinerary,” ii. fol. 38). Leland, ibid. fol. 39.

"And at Whitsunday-tide, at the whych time men say that Eadgar there was crownid, there is a king elected at Bath every year of the Townesmen in the joyful remembraunce of King Eadgar and the Privileges given to the toun by hym. This King is festid, and his Adherents by the richest Menne of the Toun." Leland, ibid.

5 By Geoffrey of Coutances, the partisan of Robert Curthose in the rising in favour of the latter in 1087.

• See Leland, vol. ii. fol. 38. Chaucer indicates the reputation of Bath in this connection:

A good wife was ther of bisyde Bath

Of clooth-making she hadde swich an haunt

She passed hem of Ypres and Gaunt.

"Canterbury Tales," Prologue, 445, 447–449.

The monks introduced a shuttle in the arms of their monastery. This

English towns; 1 Bath was represented in Parliament as early as the reign of Edward I., but the population does not seem to have exceeded from one to two thousand persons. In 1499 Bishop King undertook the reconstruction of the Abbey, a task which was interrupted shortly afterwards by the Reformation, and by the consequent suppression of the monasteries in 1539. The restoration of the church was not resumed till the reign of James I.

Throughout this period we find but little trace of the thermal waters which had been the origin of Bath, and were to revive her fortunes. They were, however, neither forgotten, nor entirely abandoned. In the twelfth century a canon of St. Alban's praised them in Latin verse,2 and a little hospital was built in 1138 for the lepers they attracted. In the fifteenth century we find the ecclesiastical authorities intervening to restore order and decency at the baths. But it was not until the middle of the sixteenth century that these natural riches once more commanded a certain attention and favour. This revival is noted by Leland, who in 1542 speaks of the baths as very much frequented, and by Doctor Turner, physician to Edward VI., who, comparing the English baths to those of other countries, deplores the shamefully neglected state of the former (1562). Ten years later Dr. Jones wrote

industry was still very flourishing at the close of the seventeenth century : "The Clouthing Trade flourished so exceedingly that in the Parish of St. Michael without the North Gate, there were no less than sixty broad Looms at the Time of the Restoration." (Wood, "Description of Bath," i. p. 217.)

1 See King and Watts, "Municipal Records of Bath."

288.

2 Neckam, "De laudibus divinæ sapientiæ, Distinctio tertia," 11. 271Bishop Bekyngton, in 1449. "This Bath [the Cross Bath; the others are enumerated afterwards] is much frequented of People diseased with Lepre, Pokkes, Scabbes and great Aches, and is temperate and pleasant, having 11 or 12 Arches of Stone in the Sides for men to stonde under yn time of Reyne. Many be holp by this Bath for Scabbes and Aches." ("Itinerary," vol. ii. fol. 36.)

5 "We... would be ashamed that any straunger, whych had sene the bathes in foren landes should looke upon our bathes . . . because we do so lightly regard so hygh and excellente giftes of Allmighty God