attached, at most, accommodation for the itinerant priests who circulated through the district. Monasteries, as we now understand the term, were not erected in England till the reign of Edgar, in the tenth century, when Dunstan introduced monachism as a system, and erected the first monastery at Glastonhury.
The original building at Chertsey, was probably, a simple structure after the type adopted by the monks of Iona, under whose instruction Northumbria had been Christianized, and from whom Diuma, first prelate of Mercia, received consecration. The Cathedral of Northumbria, built in the Island of Landisfarn, was a wooden structure covered with reeds, and Chertsey was probably the same. This supposition will not be weakened by the reflection that, like his northern predecessors, Erkenwall chose an island for his site, somewhat in imitation of their original seat, the island of Iona.
The Abbey seems to have received the bounty of several of the Saxon kings, not excepting Alfred.
During the incursions of the Danes in the ninth century, Chertsey suffered in common with similar establishments; from which, we may safely conclude, that at this comparatively early period of its existence, it already had the reputation of having accumulated considerable property of a portable character, as plunder was the main object of these marauders; or else we may suppose that the monastery, had become the asylum for the persons, or the property of the people around. At this time the monks, to the number of ninety, were slaughtered, and the buildings burnt,—no difficult matter, if constructed of the materials indicated.
In 964 the monastery was rebuilt by Edgar, and by him assigned to the Benedictines, under the influence of
