man ap

Policy of Lotharingian appointments.

CHAP. VII. result of Eadward's connexion with King Henry. Or we might even have looked on it in a worse light, as a sign that Eadward preferred foreigners of any kind to his own countrymen. But several considerations may lead us to The Ger- look on the matter in another way. These German appointments pointments are clearly parts of a system; the system is probably continued after the death of Henry the Third, when the favoured by Godwine. close connexion between Germany and England ends; Harold himself, in the height of his power, appears as a special promoter of German churchmen. We can therefore hardly fail to see in these appointments, as I have already hinted, an attempt of Godwine and the patriotic party to counterbalance the merely French tendencies of Eadward himself. We must observe that most of these Prelates were natives of Lotharingia, a term which, in the geography of that age, includes— and indeed most commonly means-the Southern Netherlands. That is to say, they came from the border-land of Germany and France, where the languages of both kingdoms were already familiar to every educated man.1 We can well understand that, in those cases in which the patriots found it impossible to procure the King's consent to the appointment of an Englishman, they might well be content to accept the appointment of a German of Lotharingia as a compromise. One whose blood, speech, and manners had not wholly lost the traces of ancient brotherhood would be more acceptable to Godwine and to England than a mere Frenchman. And one to whom the beloved speech of Gaul was as familiar as his mothertongue would be more acceptable to the denationalized Eadward than one of his own subjects. This policy was probably as sound as any that could be hit upon in such a wretched state of things. But its results were not

THE LOTHARINGIAN PRELATES.

81

wholly satisfactory. I know of no reason to believe that CHAP. VII. any of these Lotharingian Prelates proved actual traitors to England; but they certainly did not, as a class, offer the same steady resistance to French influences as the men who had been born in the land. And, if they were not Normannizers, they were at least Romanizers. They brought with them habits of constant reference to the Papal See, and a variety of scruples on points of small canonical regularity, to which Englishmen had hitherto been strangers. Still something was gained, when, on the death of Brihtwold, a Lotharingian, instead of a French, successor was procured, in the person of Hermann, one of the King's Chaplains.1 A slight counterpoise was thus gained to the influence of the Norman Bishop of London. But at the next great ecclesiastical vacancy the patriotic party were more successful. In the Death of Bishop course of the next year England lost one of her truest Lyfing. worthies; the great Earl lost one who had been his right hand man in so many crises of his life, in so many labours for the welfare of his country. Lyfing, the His career patriot Bishop of Worcester, died in March in the follow- and chaing year. Originally a monk of Winchester, he was first raised to the Abbacy of Tavistock. While still holding that office, he had been the companion of Cnut in his Roman pilgrimage, and had been the bearer of the great King's famous letter to his English subjects.2 The consummate prudence which he had displayed in that and in other commissions 3 had procured his appointment to the Bishoprick of Crediton or Devonshire. With that see the Bishoprick of Cornwall had been finally united during

1 See Appendix I. and L.

2 Fl. Wig. 1031; Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 145 b.

3 44 Vir prudentissimus Livingus,” says Florence (1031); “Omnibus quæ injuncta fuerant, sapienter et mirifice ante adventum Regis consummatis," says William.

March 23,

1046.

racter.

1027.

CHAP. VII. his episcopate.1 With that double see he had held, ac1038. cording to a vicious use not uncommon at the time, the Bishoprick of Worcester in plurality. In this high position he had steadily adhered to the cause of the great Earl through all the storms of the days of Harold and Harthacnut, and he had had a share second only to that of Godwine himself in the work of placing Eadward upon the throne.3 Either his plurality of benefices had given, as it reasonably might, offence to strict assertors of ecclesiastical rule, or, what is at least as likely, the patriotic career of Lyfing had made him, like Godwine himself, a mark for Norman slander alike in life and death. His end, we are told, was accompanied by strange portents, which were however quite as capable of a favourable as of an unfavourable interpretation.5 But his memory was loved and cherished in the places where he was best known. Long after the Norman Conquest, the name of the Prelate whose body rested in their minster still lived in the hearts and on the mouths of the monks of Tavistock. And the simple entry of a Chronicler who had doubtless heard him with his own ears bears witness to

1 Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 145 b. Cf. Gest. Regg. iii. 300.

2 See vol. i. p. 501. There is a curious notice of Lyfing's plurality of Bishopricks in a deed in Cod. Dipl. vi. 195. It is a conveyance of lands to Sherborne Minster made in a Scirgemót of Devonshire under the presidency of Earl Godwine. Lyfing is one of the witnesses, and he is described as "Lyfing bisceop be nordan," as if a Devonshire man's ideas of Worcester were not very clear. Worcester was clearly the see which Lyfing loved best. 3 See above, p. 7.

4 Will. Malms. u. s. "Ambitiosus et protervus ecclesiasticarum legum tyrannus, ut fertur, invictus, qui nihil pensi haberet, quominus omni voluntati suæ assisteret."

5 Will. Malms. u. s. "A majoribus accepimus, quum ille spiritum efflaret, tum horrisonum crepitum per totam Angliam auditum, ut ruina et finis totius putaretur orbis." The loss of men like Lyfing is indeed the ruin of nations.

* Will. Malms. (u. s.), who speaks of his gifts to the monastery, and of the services still said for him, "ut hodieque xv. graduum psalmos continuatâ per successores consuetudine pro ejus decantent quiete."