CHAP. X. local relic became a centre of national reverence; that the object of Harold's devotion became the badge and rallyingpoint of English national life; that the "Holy Rood"the Holy Rood of Waltham-became the battle-cry of England, the shout which urged her sons to victory at Stamfordbridge, and which still rose to heaven, as long as an English arm had life, in that last battle where England and her King were overthrown. The church conse crated, May 3, 1060, by Cyne bishop of sige, Arch York. At what time the foundation of Waltham was begun is not recorded, but the church was finished and consecrated in the year 1060, the ceremony being performed on the appropriate day of the Invention of the Cross. The minster was hallowed in the presence of King Eadward and the Lady Eadgyth, and of most of the chief men of the land, clerical and lay. But the chief actor in that day's rite was neither the Bishop of the diocese nor the Metropolitan of the province. As Wulfstan had been brought from York to consecrate Cnut's minster on Assandun, so this time also a Northern Primate came to consecrate Harold's minster at Waltham. Stigand was now again in all orthodox eyes an usurper and a schismatic.2 Either this feeling had extended itself to the mind of Harold himself, or else he found it prudent to yield to the prejudices of others. Stigand was not called upon to officiate at the hallowing of his friend's great creation. It is not likely that William, the Bishop of the diocese, was excluded on account of his Norman birth, as we find no traces of any such jealousy of him at other times. The occasion was doubtless looked on as one of such dignity as to call for the ministrations of a Prelate of the highest rank. The new minster of Waltham, with its pillars fresh from the mason's hand, and its altars 1 See vol. i. p. 423. 2 The Waltham writer (De Inv. c. 16) goes so far as to say that Cynesige officiated "quia tunc vacabat sedes Cantuariæ." See Appendix CC. CONSECRATION OF WALTHAM MINSTER. 445 blazing with the gorgeous gifts of its founder, was hallowed CHAP. X. in all due form by Cynesige, Archbishop of York. firmation The church was thus completed and consecrated; but The ConHarold seems to have taken two years longer fully to Charter. arrange the details of his foundation, and to settle the 1062. exact extent of the lands which were to form its endowment. At the end of that time the royal charter which has been already quoted confirmed all the gifts and arrangements of the founder. Arch Cynesige. The Prelate who had played the most important part Death of in the great ceremony at Waltham did not long survive bishop that event. Shortly before the close of the Archyear bishop Cynesige died at York, and was buried at Peter- 1060. borough. We read that his successor was appointed on Christmas-day. Now the appointment would regularly be made in the Witenagemót, and the Witenagemót would, according to the custom of this reign, be holding its Christmas sitting at Gloucester. Such speed would have been impossible if the Witan had not been actually in session when the vacancy occurred. The absence of Cynesige is of course explained by his mortal illness. But his successor was on the spot, and he was no doubt on the alert to take care of his own interests. Ealdred, the Bishop Ealdred of the diocese in which the Assembly was held, was raised to the metropolitan see which had been so often held Dec. 25, together with that of Worcester. Indeed, Ealdred himself, who had not scrupled to hold three Bishopricks at once, for a while followed the vicious example of his predecessors and retained the two sees in plurality. His successor in the see of Worcester was not appointed till two years later. 1 Chronn. Wig. and Petrib. 1060; Flor. Wig. 1060; Hugo Candidus (Sparke, 45). This last writer is loud in Cynesige's praise, and records his gifts to Peterborough, which the Lady Eadgyth took away. 2 Fl. Wig. 1060. See Appendix I. succeeds him. гобо. CHAP. X. But the church of Hereford, which Ealdred had administered for the last four years, now received a pastor of its Walter, own. That Bishoprick was given to Walter, a LotharinBishop of Hereford. gian by birth, and a Chaplain of the Lady Eadgyth.1 1060-1079. Either in this year or very early in the next 2 died Duduc, Gisa, Dispute between Gisa. 1061-1066. the Saxon Bishop of Somersetshire, who had sat at Wells ever since the days of Cnut. His see was given to another Lotharingian, Gisa, a Chaplain of the King. And we may possibly see a third Lotharingian Prelate in Baldwin, Abbot of Saint Eadmund's, who seems to have been a special personal favourite of the King.3 These appointments, taken in connexion with Harold's own appointment of Adelhard in his College at Waltham, must be carefully noticed. The influence of Harold, and with it the close connexion between England and Northern Germany, is now at its height. From one however of the Prelates now appointed the great Earl hardly met with the gratitude which he deserved. The story is one of the best illustrations of the way in which stories grow. Duduc, the late Bishop of the Harold and Sumorsætas, had received from King Cnut certain estates as his private property, among which, strangely enough, we find reckoned the Abbey of Gloucester. Duduc is said to have made over these estates to his own church, and it is further said that the grant was made with the assent of King Eadward. Besides the lands, he had various moveable treasures which also he bequeathed to his church on his death-bed. But on the death of Duduc, Earl Harold took possession of all. The new Bishop, looking on this as a wrong done to his see, rebuked the Earl both privately and 1 See Appendix L. 2 In 1060, according to the Worcester Chronicle and Florence; in 1061, according to the Peterborough Chronicle. 3 See Appendix L. On the dispute between Harold and Gisa, see Appendix QQ. THE DISPUTE BETWEEN HAROLD AND GISA. 447 statement openly, and even meditated a sentence of excommunication CHAP. X. against him. He never however ventured on this final step, and Harold, on his election to the Crown, promised both to restore the lands in question and to give others as well. The fulfilment of this promise was hindered by Harold's death, which of course the Bishop represents as a divine judgement. This is Gisa's story, and we do not possess Gisa's own Harold's answer. But it is to be remarked that there is of the case. nothing in Gisa's version which at all touches any ancient possessions of the see. He speaks only of some private estates which Duduc gave, or wished to give, to his church. Gisa does not even charge Harold with seizing anything which had belonged to the see before Duduc's time; he simply hinders Duduc's gifts and bequests from taking effect. Gisa says nothing of any appeal to the King, but simply of an appeal made by himself to the private conscience of Harold. The natural inference is that Harold, as Earl of the country, asserted a legal claim to the lands and other property, that he disputed Duduc's right to dispose of them, and maintained that they fell to the King, or to the Earl as his representative.' As Duduc was a foreigner, dying doubtless without heirs, it is highly probable that such would really be the law of the case. At all events, as we have no statement from the defendant and a very moderate one from the plaintiff, it is only fair to stop and think whether there may not have been something to say on the side of the Earl as well as on that of the Bishop. In any case, the simple statement of Gisa differs Exaggerawidely from the exaggerations of later writers. In their later 1 This custom, if not universal, certainly prevailed in particular places. Among the customs of the town of Oxford (Domesday, 154 6) we read, "Si quis extraneus in Oxeneford manere deligens et domum habens sine parentibus ibi vitam finierat, Rex habebat quidquid reliquerit." "Extraneus is not unlikely to mean a "foreigner," in the sense of a nonburgher, but, if he were a non-Englishman, the case would be stronger still. Compare the French droit d'aubaine. tions of writers. CHAP. X. stories we hear how Harold, instead of simply hindering a new acquisition by the Church of Wells, plundered it of its old established possessions. While Earl, he drives the Canons away and reduces them to beggary. As King, he seizes all the estates of the see and drives the Bishop into banishment. All this, I need not say, is utterly inconsistent with Gisa's own narrative and with our other corroborative evidence. The story is an instructive one. By the colouring given to it by Gisa himself, and by the exaggerations which it received in later times, we may learn to look with a good deal of suspicion on all stories of the kind. The principle is that the Church is in all cases to gain and never to lose; a regular and legal opposition to ecclesiastical claims is looked on as hardly less criminal than one which is altogether fraudulent or violent. Later career of Gisa. Both our Lotharingian Bishops survived the Conquest; Walter and Gisa survived the Conqueror himself. There is nothing to convict either of them of treason to England; but Gisa at least does not seem very warm in his patriotism for his adopted country. He is quite ready to forgive William for the Conquest of England in consideration of the help which he gave him in his reformation of the Church of Wells.1 Walter, on the other hand, is represented, in some accounts, as taking a prominent part in resistance to the Conqueror.2 The tale rests on no good authority, but it could hardly have been told of one whose conduct was known to have been of a directly opposite kind. On the other hand, as both Walter and Gisa kept their sees till death, they must at least have shown a discreet amount of submission to the new state of things. Walter came, so we are told, to a sad and shameful end,3 but an end in which questions of Norman, English, and Lotharingian nationality were in no 1 See his language in pp. 18, 19 of his narrative. |