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SYNOD OF RHEIMS.

Rheims.

111

Rheims, to hallow the newly-built church of his monas- CHAP. VII. tery. He then held a synod, which sat for six days, Synod of and passed several canons of the usual sort, against the marriage of priests and against their bearing arms.2 The days of Otto the Great seemed to have returned, when the Pope and the Emperor,3 seemingly without reference to the Parisian King, held a Council on French ground, attended by a vast multitude of Prelates, clergy, and laity from the Imperial Kingdoms and from other parts of Europe. There, besides the Metropolitan of the city in which the synod was held, was the Archbishop of Burgundy, as our Chronicles call him, that is, the Archbishop of the great see of Lyons, Primate of all the Gauls, but no subject or vassal of the upstart dynasty of Paris. There were the Archbishops of Trier and Besançon; and from England came Duduc, the Saxon Bishop of the Sumorsætas, and the Abbots Wulfric of Saint Augustine's and Ælfwine of Ramsey, whom King Eadward had sent to bring him word of all that should be done for the good of Christendom. It does not appear that any English Prelates were Synod of present at the synod which Leo held soon after at Mainz; "

4

6

1 "þæt micele mynster æt Rémys,” says the Worcester Chronicle, which might seem to mean the Metropolitan church; but Florence makes it plain that the Abbey is meant; "Rogatu eximiæ religionis Abbatis Herimari ... sancti Remigii Francorum apostoli monasterium, Remis constitutum, maximo cum honore dedicavit." Cf. Will. Gem. vii. 15.

2 Ord. Vit. 575 A.

3 The presence of the Emperor is asserted by the Worcester Chronicle; "þær was se Papa Leo and se Casere." Florence does not speak of the Emperor, but says that Leo took with him "præfectum et digniores quosdam Romuleæ urbis."

* Chron. Petrib. 1046. "þær was on Leo se Papa and se arcebiscop of Burgundia and se arcebiscop of Bysincun and se arcebiscop of Treviris, and se arcebiscop of Remis, and manig mann þærto ge hadode ge læwede."

...

5 Ib. “Eadward cyng sende þider Dudoce [the Abbots only and not Dudoc are mentioned by the Worcester Chronicle, 1050] . . . þæt hi sceolden þam cynge cydan hwæt þær to Christendome gecoren wære." • Lambert, 1050 (see Appendix 0); Herm. Contr. 1050.

Mainz.

and Abbots.

Siward dies, and Eadsige

resumes

CHAP. VII. but the two Italian synods which were held soon after were, as we shall see, connected in a singular manner Deaths of with English affairs. There seems to have been about Bishops this time a kind of mortality among the English Prelates. Among those who died was the Abbot of Westminster or Thorney, the humbler foundation which was soon to give way to the great creation of the reigning King. He bore the name of Wulfnoth, a name which suggests the likelihood of kindred with the house of Godwine. Another was Oswiu, the Abbot of the other Thorney in the fen land, the neighbour of Peterborough and Crowland. This year too died Siward the Coadjutor - Archbishop, and Eadsige again resumed his functions for the short rePrimacy. mainder of his life. Eadnoth too, the good Bishop of 2 Dorchester, the builder of Stow-in-Lindesey, died this Dorchester year, and his death offered a magnificent bait to Norman ambition and greediness. The great Bishoprick stretching from the Thames to the Humber, was conferred by the King on one of his Norman chaplains, who however bore the Scandinavian name of Ulf. As to the utter unfitness of this man for such an office there is an universal consent among our authorities. The King, even the holy Eadward, did evil in appointing him; the new Prelate did nought bishoplike; it were shame to tell more of his deeds.3

the

1049.

Eadnoth of

dies; Ulf succeeds. 1049.

The year which followed was one of great note in ecclesiastical history. In England the first event recorded is the usual meeting of the Witan in London at Midlent.

1 See above, p. 68.

2 Chron. Ab. 1049. "Forðferde Eadnoð se goda biscop on Oxnafordscire." The same words seem to have dropped out of the Worcester Chronicle.

3 Chron. Ab. 1049. "Eadwerd cing geaf Ulfe his preoste pat biscoprice, and hit yfele beteah." Chron. Wig. 1050. "Ac he was sy ddan of adryfon, forban be he ne gefremede naht biscoplices paron, swa þæt us sceamað hit nu mare to tellanne." Flor. Wig. "Regis capellanus Ulfus genere Nortmannus."

REDUCTION OF THE FLEET.

113

gemót of

Midlent,

1050.

of the

The proceedings of this Gemót, like those of many others CHAP. VII. about this time, give us a glimpse of that real, though Witenavery imperfect, parliamentary life which was then growing London. up in England, and which the Norman Conquest threw back for many generations. Then, as now, there were eco- Reduction nomists who pressed for the reduction of the public expen- Fleet. diture, and what we should now call the Navy Estimates were chosen as being no doubt a popular subject for attack. The narrative of the naval events of the last year shows that, on special occasions, naval contingents were called for, according to the old law,1 from various parts of the Kingdom, but that the King still kept a small naval force in constant pay. This force had, under Cnut and Harold, consisted of sixteen ships; it seems now to have consisted only of fourteen. The experience of the last year showed that England was still open to attack from the West; but the great fear, fear of invasion from the North, had now quite passed away. It seemed therefore to be a favourable moment for further reductions. By the authority of this Gemót nine ships were accordingly paid off, the crews receiving a year's pay, and the standing force was cut down to five. It was in this same assembly that Swegen Swegen inwas inlawed, that is, his outlawry was reversed, by the intercession of Bishop Ealdred. That Prelate, as we have seen, seems to have gone over to Flanders, and to have brought Swegen back with him,5

lawed.

Ealdred

But Ealdred had soon to set forth on a longer journey. Mission of He and the Lotharingian Bishop Hermann were now and Her2 See vol. i. p. 507.

1 See vol. i. p. 337.

Chron. Petrib. 1047. "Her on bisum geare was mycel gemot on Lundene to midfestene, and man sette ut ix. litsmanna scipa, and fif belifan wið æftan." The Abingdon Chronicle, 1049, to much the same account as that just quoted, adds the words, "and se cyng heom behet xii, monað gyld."

⚫ Chron. Ab. 1050 (the chronology of this Chronicle is utterly confused); " and man geinlagode Swegen Eorl."

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mann to Rome.

Rome.

CHAP. VII. sent to Rome on the King's errand.1 What that errand was we learn only from legendary writers and doubtful charters, but, as their accounts completely fit in with the authentic history, we need not scruple to accept the general The King's outline of their story.2 The King had in his youth vowed vow of pilgrimage to a pilgrimage to Rome, and the non-fulfilment of this vow lay heavy on his conscience. It probably lay heavier still when he saw so many of his subjects of all ranks, led by the fashionable enthusiasm of the time, making both the pilgrimage to Rome and also the more distant pilgrimage to Jerusalem.3 A broken vow' was a crime; still Eadward had enough of political sense and right feeling left to see that his absence from his Kingdom at such a time as the present would be a criminal forsaking of his kingly duty. The Great Cnut might venture on such a journey; his eye could see and his hand could act from Rome or Norway or any other part of the world. But the personal presence of Eadward was the only check by which peace could be for a moment preserved between the true sons of the soil and the strangers who were eating into its vitals. The King laid his case before his Witan; the unanimous voice of the Assembly forbade him to forsake his post; the legend adds that the Witan further counselled him to satisfy his conscience by

Eadward sends the Bishops to obtain a dispensation.

1050.

1 Chron. Ab. 1049. "On þæs cinges ærende."

2 See the charter in Cod. Dipl. iv. 173, and the accounts in Ethelred of Rievaux, 379; Estorie de S. Edward, 65 et seqq.

3 Besides the many exalted persons who followed the example of Cnut, some of whose pilgrimages are of historical importance, the prevalence of the fashion is shown by its incidental mention in more than one charter. Thus in Cod. Dipl. iv. 140 we find the mention of the Roman pilgrimage of a Lincolnshire Thegn whose name of Anskill or Anscytel witnesses to his Danish origin. The signature of "Wulfwinus Lincolniensis episcopus" need not throw any doubt on the genuineness of the document, as such descriptions, sometimes, as in this case, involving an anachronism, were often added at a later time to a simple signature of the name. At p. 141 also we find " 'Leofgyva femina Lundonica" (a holder of property in Lincolnshire) dying on her way to Jerusalem.

EADWARD'S MESSAGE TO ROME.

115

of Rome.

LANFRANC.

obtaining a Papal dispensation from his vow. This was CHAP. VII. the King's errand on which Ealdred and Hermann were sent to attend the great synod1 which was held this year at Rome. They made good speed with their journey; starting at Midlent, they reached the Holy City on Easter Eve.2 In that synod they stood face to face with The Synod a man then known only as a profound scholar and theologian, the bulwark of orthodoxy and the pattern of every monastic virtue, but who was, in years to come, to hold a higher place in the English hierarchy, and to leave behind him a far greater name in English history, than either of the English Prelates whose blessing he may now have humbly craved. In that synod of Rome the doctrines of Berengar of Tours were debated by the assembled Fathers, and the foremost champion of the faith to which Rome still cleaves was Lanfranc of Pavia. Suspected of complicity with the heretic, he produced the famous letter in which Berengar had maintained the Eucharist to be a mere figure of the Body of Christ.3 How far Ealdred or Hermann took part in these theological debates we know not; but they are said to have successfully accomplished their own errand. The King's Vow of pilgrimage was dispensed with on condition of the rebuilding and endowment on a grander scale of that renowned West Minster whose name was to be inseparably bound together with that of the sainted King: Before the year was out the unwearied Leo held

1 Chron. Petrib. 1047. "On þysum ilcan geare was se myccla sinoð on Rome"-like our own "mycel gemot" just before.

2 Ib. "Hi comon þyder on Easter æfen."

3 Vita Lanfr. c. 10, ap. Giles, i. 288; Will. Malms. iii. 284; Sig. Gemb. 1051. See Milman, Latin Christianity, iii. 24.

Æthel. Riev. ap. X Scriptt. 381. If the letter there given be genuine, the dispensation was granted by the authority of the Synod as well as of the Pope. Eadward was either to build a new or restore an old monastery of Saint Peter; "aut novum construas aut vetustum augeas et emendes." Cf. the French Life, 1601 et seqq., where the Bishops are

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