DEATH OF MAGNUS.

336

93

Their embassies to

refused to

again proposed Swegen, Leofric again concluded

and peace

he never wholly lost his hold upon the country. The CHAP. VII. first act of both the new Kings was to send embassies to England. Harold offered peace and friendship; Swegen England. again asked for armed help against Harold. The debate of the year before was again reopened. Godwine again Help again supported the request of his nephew, and that fifty ships should be sent to his help. opposed the motion, and the people again with one voice with Hasupported Leofric. Help was refused to Swegen and 1048. peace was concluded with Harold.2 Swegen, despairing of English aid, seems to have sought for protection in another quarter, and to have acknowledged himself a vassal of the Empire.3

rold.

phæno

1048.

These two years seem to have been marked by several Physical physical phænomena. In the former we hear of the un- mena. usual severity of the winter, accompanied by an extra- 1046-7. ordinary fall of snow.1 In the latter several of the May 1, midland shires were visited by an earthquake. We read also of epidemics among both men and beasts, and of the appearance called wild fire. A few ecclesiastical ap- Death of pointments are also recorded; but one only calls for notice. WinchesElfwine, Bishop of Winchester, died, and his Bishoprick ter, Aug. fell neither to Frenchman nor to Lotharingian. Stigand Stigand rose another step in the ladder of promotion by his trans- succeeds.

1 Flor. Wig. 1048. I insert this story with a certain amount of fear and trembling, as it reads so like a mere repetition of what happened the year before. Still the authority of Florence is high, and it is not unlikely that Swegen, in his new circumstances, might make a second application.

2 Ib. "Haroldus . . . nuntios ad Regem Eadwardum misit et pacem amicitiamque illi obtulit et recepit."

3 See below, p. 97.

1 Chron. Ab. 1046; Fl. Wig. 1047; Chron. Wig. 1048. It was after Candlemas, i. e. of 1047.

5 Chronn. Ab. 1048; Wig. 1049; Fl. Wig. 1048.

Chron. Wig. 1049. "þæt wilde fyr on Deorbyscire micel yfel dide." Florence (1048) calls it "ignis aërius, vulgo dictus silvaticus."

Elfwine of

29, 1047.

CHAP. VII. lation from the humbler see of Elmham to the Bishoprick of the Imperial city.1

Lothen

1048.

Ravages of As far as we can make out through the confused and Yrling, chronology of these years, it was in the year of the peace with Norway that England underwent, what we have not now heard of for many years, an incursion of Scandinavian pirates. Two chiefs, named Lothen and Yrling, came with twenty-five ships, and harried various parts of the coast. This event must have been in some way connected with the course of the war between Harold and Swegen. Probably some enterprising Wikings in the service of one or other of those princes found a moment of idleness just as the two Kings were taking possession of their crowns, and thought the opportunity a good one for an attack on England. Such an attack was doubtless unexpected, especially as such good care had been taken to keep on good terms with both the contending Kings. But possibly the more daring policy of Godwine would really have been the safer.3 Had fifty English ships, whatever their errand, been afloat in the Northern seas, Lothen and Yrling could hardly have come to plunder the shores of England. Anyhow the story shows us the sort of spirit which still reigned in the North. There were still plenty of men ready to seek their fortunes in any part of the world as soon as a moment of unwelcome 1 Chronn. Ab. 1047; Wig. 1048; Petrib. 1045; Cant. 1046; Fl. Wig. 1047. By some extraordinary confusion Florence places here the death of Eadmund, Bishop of Durham, and the succession of Eadred, which happened in 1041. See vol. i. pp. 522, 523.

2 Chron. Ab. 1048; Chron. Petrib. 1046. These clearly refer to the same event. I hardly understand Mr. Thorpe's note to his Translation of the Chronicles, p. 137. "This predatory expedition, assigned here to the year 1046, is of a much earlier date "-one seemingly before the year 1000. This is because a Lothen and an Yrling occur in the story of Olaf Tryggwesson. But the Chronicler could hardly be mistaken on such a point. Lappenberg (499. Thorpe, ii. 239) seems to have no doubt on the matter. 3 "Godwines Rath wurde bald als der richtige erkannt." Lappenberg,

RAVAGES OF LOTHEN AND YRLING.

95

4

quiet appeared at home. Harold and Swegen at least CHAP. VII. did the world some service by finding employment for such men in warfare with one another. The Wikings harried far and wide. From Sandwich they carried off a vast booty in men, gold, and silver.1 In the Isle of Wight they must have met with more resistance, as many of the best men of the island are said to have been slain.2 In Thanet too the landfolk withstood them manfully, refused them landing and water, and drove them altogether away.3 Thence they sailed to Essex, where they plundered at their pleasure. By this time the King and the Earls had got together some ships. The Earls were doubtless Godwine Eadward and Harold, on whose governments the attack had been Earls purmade, and the words of our authorities seem to imply that sue the Eadward was really present in person. They sailed after they esthe pirates, but they were too late. The enemy had already Flanders. made his way to the common refuge alike of banished Englishmen and of foes of England. The Wikings were now safe in the havens of Flanders-of Baldwines land; there they found a ready market for the spoils of England, and thence they sailed back to their own country."

and the

pirates, but

cape to

We here seem to be reading over again the history of Analogy the events which led to the first hostile relations between relations

1 I make up the details by joining the narratives of the two Chronicles. Both mention Sandwich; but the Peterborough Chronicle alone speaks of the vast booty.

2 Chron. Ab. 1048. "Man gehergode Sandwic and Wiht, and ofslohan þa betsta men be þa wæron."

3 Chron. Petrib. 1046. "And wendon pa onbuton Tenet, and woldon þær þet ilce don; ac bet landfolc hardlice wiðstodon, and forwerndon heom æg er ge upganges ge wæteres, and aflymdon hi þanon mid ealle." The refusal of water is remarkable. Probably in other cases the landfolk had to provide provisions out of sheer fear.

4 Chron. Petrib. u. s.

5 Chron. Ab. 1048. "And Eadward cining and þa eorlas foran æfter þain út mid heore scypun." Eadward had been on board the fleet once before (see p. 74), but that time he saw no service.

• Chron. Petrib. 1046.

with the

with Normandy in 991 and

1000.

Alliance

with the Emperor Henry.

The Ger

man Popes.

CHAP. VII. England and Normandy.1 The Northmen are again plundering England, and a continental power again gives them so much of help and comfort as is implied in letting them sell their plunder in his havens. This time the offending power was not Normandy but Flanders, and Eadward, unlike his father, had no lack of powerful friends on the continent. The great prince who had, a year before,2 been raised to the throne of the world was, as we have seen,3 on the most intimate terms with his English brother, and it is plain that close alliance with the Empire formed part of the policy of the patriotic party. The illustrious Cæsar had filled the Papal chair with a Pontiff like-minded with himself. A series of German Popes of Imperial nomination had followed one another in a quick succession of short reigns, but they had had time to show forth in their virtues a marked contrast to the utter degradation of the Italian Pontiffs who had gone immediately before them. The throne of Peter was now filled, at the Imperial 1048-1054. bidding, by Bruno, Bishop of Toul, a native of Elsass and a kinsman of the Emperor, who had taken the name of Leo the Ninth.4 He was now in his second year of office, having been appointed in the year of the peace between England and Norway. It was perhaps only a later legend which told how, on his way to Rome, he fell in with the famous Hildebrand, then in exile, how he listened to his rebukes for the crime of accepting a spiritual office from an earthly lord, how he entered Rome as a pilgrim, and did not venture to ascend the Pontifical throne till he was again more regularly chosen thereto by the voice of the Roman clergy and people. But, in any

Leo the
Ninth.

1 See vol. i. pp. 283, 300, 632.

3 See above, p. 17.

2 Lamb. Herz. 1047.

See the Life of Leo by the contemporary Archdeacon Wibert, in Muratori, iii. 282.

The intervention of Hildebrand, as told by Otto of Freisingen in his Annals, lib. vi. c. 33, seems apocryphal, as Muratori remarks in his note

ALLIANCE WITH THE EMPIRE.

the Em

1047.

97

case, this concession to ecclesiastical rule or prejudice had CHAP. VII. abated nothing of Leo's loyalty to his Teutonic sovereign, nothing of his zeal for the welfare, both spiritual and temporal, of lands which the Italian Pontiffs so seldom visited. The Pope was now at Aachen, ready with his spiritual weapons to help the Emperor against a league Rebellion of his rebellious vassals. They had waged war against and Baldof Godfrey their suzerain; they had burned the city and church of win against Verdun; they had destroyed the noble palace of the peror. Emperor at Nimwegen. Foremost among the offenders were Theodoric of Holland, Baldwin of Flanders, and Godfrey of Lotharingia. Godfrey was specially guilty. After a former rebellion he had been imprisoned and released, and now he was foremost in the new insurrection, especially in the deed of sacrilege at Verdun.1 The Pope therefore did not hesitate to issue his excommunication Leo excommuniagainst him. Godfrey yielded; the ban of the Father of cates GodChristendom bent his soul; he submitted to scourging, frey. he redeemed his hair at a great sum, he contributed largely to the rebuilding of the cathedral which he had burned, and himself laboured at the work like a common mason. But Baldwin of Flanders, possibly trusting to his Continued ambiguous position as a vassal both of the Empire and of ravages of the French Crown, was more obstinate, and still continued his ravages. The Emperor accordingly called on his vassals and allies for help against a prince whose power might well seem dangerous even to Kings and Cæsars. King Swegen of Denmark-so low had Denmark fallen Swegen since the days of Cnut obeyed the summons as a vassal. Eadward

iii. 292. But the germ of the story is to be found in Wibert; Leo entered Rome barefoot, and though he announced his appointment by the Emperor, be demanded the assent of the clergy and people before he entered on his office.

1 On this war see Appendix O.

2

* Florence (1049) seems pointedly to distinguish the relations in which Swegen and Eadward stood to the Emperor. "Suanus . . . ut Imperator

1049.

Baldwin.

and