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204 THE SUSSEX COAST
the theory would imply. Professor Vinogradoff, himself a Slav, points out that the custom savours rather of the mobility of early conditions with their opportunities for new settlements in the wilds and of the greater importance of movable property represented by cattle and sheep than of land. In countries just opened up at the present day the stock and equipment of a farm may easily be more valuable than the land.
The church is dedicated to St. Margaret, not the wife of Malcolm Canmore, whose shrine was at Dunfermline, but the half-mythical virgin of Antioch who refused to marry a heathen king and got put into prison for her pains. She was swallowed whole by a dragon, but greediness was punished, as it so often is—a cross in the hands of the saint acted as a sword; the vile beast was slain and the virtuous virgin was delivered, but not for long was she to be deprived of the martyr's crown. It is an interesting Norman building entirely reconstructed in the Early English period. Three steps lead up from the nave to the tower, three more to the chancel, and yet three others to the altar—a striking arrangement, which is facilitated by the slope of the ground. The tower has three lancets, one over the other, in both north and south walls. The three eastern lancets, with detached shafts, have stained glass with figures of the three archangels, Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel, by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, who also designed other windows in the church, including a figure of St. Margaret. They are magnificent pieces of work both as to drawing and colour ; but Kempe's glass, though it is hardly up to that of Burne-Jones from the point of view of pure art, is certainly much more suited to be placed in ancient buildings from |
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