But this Clovesho = Clofeshoum = or Clobesham[28] had necessarily retained its hold upon the public memory of the ages from the eighth to the sixteenth centuries, from the importance to the Church of the great acts of councils, both royal and pontifical, there held; and the memory or tradition of the National Church, was, of all others, the most vivid and tenacious of any, during that long period--perhaps the only one which may be said to have bridged it, unbroken by interruptions, such as dynastic revolutions. When the tradition of the actual whereabouts of this famous place comes first into our view, we find it attached to the “Hoo” of Kent above described, and to the place called “Cliffe” there situated. The name now current is “Cliffe-at-Hoo,” and this appears to have been the form in which it came to Camden’s knowledge: at any rate, in the earlier editions of Britannia (1587), he mentions this place as “Cliues at Ho Bedæ dictum.”
There is, however, extant a still earlier record, that the tradition had not yet been doubted by the learned. The Rev. Prebendary Earle, Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, has most judiciously preserved some marginal notes of the 16th century, that he found in that MS. of the Saxon Chronicle,[29] which he distinguishes as “C.;” which notes he considers to be “written in an Elizabethan hand:” but as will be presently seen they must have been of the reign of Henry VIII. One of these is written in the margin against one of the occurrences of the name “Clofes hoo” in the Chronicle, and reads “doctor Hethe’s benyffyce;” and Mr. Earle asks, “where may Dr. Hethe’s benefice have been?”[30] To this question of the Professor’s, two more may be added: Who was Dr. Hethe? And who was--evidently his intimate acquaintance--the writer of the marginal notes to the Chronicle?
The answers to these three questions will shew what sort of men these were whom we find in possession of this historical tradition concerning the actual place of those famous synods; and who, long before any question about it had been raised, by the incipient critical scepticism of the 17th century, out of fancied probabilities, are here seen treating it as an undoubted fact. These answers will also shew what advantages, of time and local associations, they had for judgment of the fact.