rned England in the time of Edwy the Fair, was a
skilled blacksmith and metallurgist. He is said to have had a forge
even in his bedroom, and it was there that his reputed encounter with
Satan occurred, in which of course the saint came off the victor.

There was another monk of St. Alban's, called Anketil, who flourished
in the twelfth century, so famous for his skill as a worker in iron,
silver, gold, jewelry, and gilding, that he was invited by the king of
Denmark to be his goldsmith and banker. A pair of gold and silver
candlesticks of his manufacture, presented by the abbot of St. Alban's
to Pope Adrian IV., were so much esteemed for their exquisite
workmanship that they were consecrated to St. Peter, and were the
means of obtaining high ecclesiastical distinction for the abbey.

We also find that the abbots of monasteries situated in the iron
districts, among their other labours, devoted themselves to the
manufacture of iron from the ore. The extensive beds of cinders still
found in the immediate neighbourhood of Rievaulx and Hackness, in
Yorkshire, show that the monks were well acquainted with the art of
forging, and early turned to account the riches of the Cleveland
ironstone. In the Forest of Dean also, the abbot of Flaxley was
possessed of one stationary and one itinerant forge, by grant from
Henry II, and he was allowed two oaks weekly for fuel,--a privilege
afterwards commuted, in 1258, for Abbot's Wood of 872 acres, which was
held by the abbey until its dissolution in the reign of Henry VIII. At
the same time the Earl of Warwick had forges at work in his woods at
Lydney; and in 1282, as many as 72 forges were leased from the Crown by
various iron-smelters in the same Forest of Dean.

There are numerous indications of iron-smelting having been conducted
on a considerable scale at some remote period in the neighbourhood of
Leeds, in Yorkshire. In digging out the foundations of houses in
Briggate, the principal street of that town, many "bell pits" have been
brought to light, from which ironstone has been removed. The new
cemetery at Burmandtofts, in the same town, was in like manner found
pitted over with these ancient holes. The miner seems to have dug a
well about 6 feet in diameter, and so soon as he reached the mineral,
he worked it away all round, leaving the bell-shaped cavities in
question. He did not attempt any gallery excavations, but when the pit
was exhausted, a fresh one was sunk.