(Val. Eccl.) names with Sompting the chapel, now destroyed, of Cokham, the date of the erection of which is unknown, but according to (Cartwright), was early. (D.B.) mentions "Cocheham."
233. Southease.—This small church at present comprises chancel, nave, and western tower, but formerly had an addition on both the northern and the southern sides of the chancel; which must have rendered the shape somewhat peculiar, the east end being then greatly broader than the body of the building. The tower is round, the only entrance being apparently broken through the flint masonry into the church, and never neatly finished, for the sides are merely plastered, and the sill consists of the rough remains of the wall. In the south wall of the nave is a small round-headed window, and in the north wall appears the frame of another filled up, whence we may pronounce that portion to be Norm. The font is a square stone, hollowed out, with a leaden basin within. The lower part is simply the stone reduced, the angles being rounded into the appearance of shafts, the workmanship very rude.
Southease was claimed to have been given by K. Edgar, A.D. 966, to the abbey of St. Peter, afterwards Hide Abbey, near Winchester, by the name of Suesse, as appears by the following extract from a charter in that monarch's name, written in letters of gold,[1] preserved in the Cotton Library of the British Museum:—
"Quapropter ego, Eadgar totius Britannie Basileus, quasdam villas ut nominentur Dunketone, habens quinque hidas terre; et ecclesiam Suesse cum viginti octo hidis terre, et ecclesiam Titelescumbe cum decem hidis terre, et quandam ruris" (portionem?) "duos videlicet cassatos terre, loco qui celebri Winterburna nuncupatur vocabulo, do et concedo in puram et perpetuam elemosinam, novo Wintoniensi ecclesie, beato Petro apostolorum principi dicate, &c."
Of this an exact translation is impossible, but the meaning appears to be thus; "Wherefore I, Edgar king of all Britain, give and grant in pure and perpetual alms to the new church at Winchester, dedicated to St. Peter, the chief of the apostles, certain villes called Dunketone, containing five hides of land, and the church of Suesse with twenty-eight hides of land, and the church of Titelescumbe with ten hides of land, and a certain quantity of the country, namely two vassal's
- ↑ With respect to documents of this description an opinion has been expressed, that the (professed) Anglo-Saxon charters "finely illuminated, and written with golden characters, have been fabricated after the conquest." (Thorpe's Lappenberg, II, 340.)
