EALDRED'S PILGRIMAGE TO JERUSALEM. 437 doubtless opened to English imaginations, and at last CHAP. X. reached the holy goal of his pilgrimage. He went, we are told, with such worship as none had ever gone before him; his devotion was edifying and his gifts were splendid. A chalice of gold, of five marks weight, and of wondrous workmanship, was the offering of the renowned English Prelate at the most sacred spot on earth.1 of events tion of The next year is one singularly barren of English events. Barrenness The Chronicles literally record nothing of greater im- in the year portance than the fact that the steeple of Peterborough 1059. minster was hallowed.2 The zeal and bounty of Abbot Leofric3 was busily at work. And from other sources all that is to be learned is the appointment of a new Abbot of Evesham. That appointment however was in some respects a remarkable one. Abbot Mannig, the architect, Resignapainter, and general proficient in the arts, had been Abbot smitten by paralysis, and had resigned his office. He lived Mannig however in honour for seven years longer, and died, so it ham. was said, on the same day and hour as King Eadward. [His death. His successor was Ethelwig, the monk who acted for Ealdred when absent from his diocese, and who was now Provost of the monastery of Evesham.5 As in the case of Wulfstan at Gloucester, we hear nothing distinctly of any capitular election. The retiring Abbot seems to nominate his successor. Pleading his sickness as an excuse for not 1 Chron. Wig. "And hine sylfne þær Gode betæhte, and wurðlic lac eac geoffrode to ures Drihtenes byrgene, þæt was an gylden calic, on fif marcon swide wundorlices geworces." The chronicler, just as at the time of the mission to Köln, clearly rejoices in the splendour and bounty of his own Bishop. 2 Oddly enough, it is the Worcester and not the Peterborough Chronicler who records this purely local fact; on pisan gere was se stypel gehalgad æt Burh on xvi. kal. Novemb." 3 See above, p. 348. See Appendix 00. 5 Chron. Mon. Evesham. p. 87. "Nunc sub eo jure præpositi totius abbatiæ hujus curam agebat." of Eves 1059. Jan. 5, 1066.] CHAP. X. coming personally, he sends certain monks and laymen to Æthelwig the King, recommending Æthelwig for the Abbacy. The King approves, and, by his order, Ealdred gives the abbatial benediction to Ethelwig at Gloucester in the Easter Gemót holden in that city. Of the new Prelate Abbot. 1059. Deposition of Pope its effect on the position of Stigand. 1059. we shall hear again more than once. This year however was by no means an unimportant one Benedict; in English history. It was now that, as all our Chronicles so carefully note, the intruding Benedict was deposed, and Nicolas succeeded to the Papacy. The revolution at Rome was followed by a revolution of feeling in England. The recognition of Stigand lasted no longer than the temporary recognition of Benedict. When the Pontiff from whom he had received his pallium sank to the position of an Antipope and schismatic, the English Primate sank again to the anomalous position in which he had before stood. His ministrations were again avoided, even in the quarter which one would have least expected to find affected by such scruples. Earl Harold himself, when he needed the 'performance of a great ecclesiastical ceremony, now shrank from having it performed by the hands of the Primate who in all political matters was his friend and fellow-worker. Harold's minster at conse crated. May 3, 1060. For we have now reached the date of an event which Waltham closely binds together the ecclesiastical and the secular history of the time. It was in the year following the expulsion of Benedict that Earl Harold brought to perfection the minster which he had doubtless for some time been engaged in rearing on his East-Saxon lordship of Waltham. Whether any portion of the fabric still existing is the work of its great founder is a matter of antiquarian controversy on which I will not here enlarge. But whether the existing nave, or any part of it, be Harold's work or not, the historic interest of that memorable spot remains. in either case the same. As we go on we shall see HAROLD'S FOUNDATION AT WALTHAM. stood. 439 Waltham win for itself an abiding fame as the last resting- CHAP. X. place of its great founder; at present we have to look to the foundation itself as a most remarkable witness to that founder's wisdom as well as his bounty. The importance Nature and importance of the foundation of Waltham in forming an estimate, both of the founof Harold's personal character and of the ecclesiastical dation generally position of England at the time, has been altogether misunderslurred over through inattention to the real character of the foundation. Every writer of English history, as far as I know, has wholly misrepresented its nature. It is constantly spoken of as an Abbey, and its inhabitants as monks.2 Waltham and its founder thus get mixed up with the vulgar crowd of monastic foundations, the creation in many cases of a real and enlightened piety, but in many cases also of mere superstition or mere fashion. The great ecclesiastical foundation of Earl Harold was something widely different. Harold did not found an Abbey; Change of Waltham did not become a religious house till Henry the by Henry Second, liberal of another man's purse, destroyed Harold's the Second. foundation by way of doing honour to the new Martyr of Canterbury. Harold founded a Dean and secular Canons; these King Henry drove out, and put in an Abbot and Austin Canons in their place. Harold's foundation, in short, was an enlargement of the original small foundation. of Tofig the Proud.3 Tofig had built a church for the reception of the miraculous crucifix which had been found at Lutegarsbury, and had made an endowment for two priests only. The Holy Rood of Waltham became an object of popular worship and pilgrimage, and probably the small settlement originally founded by Tofig in the middle of the forest was already growing into a considerable town. The estate of Tofig at Waltham had been lost by his son 1 See above, p. 41. 2 On the foundation of Waltham see Appendix PP. 3 See vol. i. p. 524. foundation 1177-1184. son of Tofig and his son Esegar. I have CHAP. X. Æthelstan,' and was confiscated to the Crown. Athelstan already suggested that Ethelstan, the son of a Danish father, may not improbably have been one of the party which opposed the election of Eadward, and most of whose members suffered more or less on that account.2 But the royal disfavour which fell on Ethelstan did not extend to his son Esegar, who held the office of Staller from a very early period of Eadward's reign till the Norman invasion.3 Acquisition But the lordship of Waltham was granted by the King to of Waltham his brother-in-law Earl Harold, with whom it evidently by Harold. became a favourite dwelling-place. The Earl now rebuilt Herebuilds the small church of Tofig on a larger and more splendid scale, no doubt calling to his aid all the resources which were supplied by the great contemporary developement of architecture in Normandy. One who so diligently noted all that was going on in contemporary Gaul would doubtless keep his eye on such matters also. When the church was built, he enriched it with precious gifts and relics of all kinds, some of which he had himself brought personally He founds from Rome on his pilgrimage. Lastly, he increased the the College, number of clergy attached to the church from two to a the Church. Nature of his foundation. much larger number, a Dean and twelve Canons, besides several inferior officers. He richly endowed them with lands, and contemplated larger endowments still. This is something very different from the foundation of a monastery. Harold finds that a church on his estate has become the seat of a popular worship; he therefore rebuilds 1 De Inv. c. 14. There is something strange in the statement of the Waltham writer that Æthelstan did not succeed to all his father's estates, but only to those attached to the stallership. 2 See above, p. 63. 3 De Inv. c. 14. 66 Adelstanus, pater Esegari qui stalre inventus est in Angliæ conquisitione a Normannis." Esegar, the Ansgardus of Guy of Amiens, was Staller as early as 1044, and Sheriff of Middlesex. See vol. iii. p. 730. He signs many charters, among others the Waltham charter of 1062 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 159), with the title of "regiæ procurator aulæ,” equivalent, according to Professor Stubbs, to "dapifer." See his note to De Inv. c. 14. * See Appendix MM. NATURE OF THE COLLEGE AT WALTHAM. 441 the fabric and increases the number of its ministers. The CHAP. X. order of his proceedings is very clearly traced out in the royal charter by which the foundation was confirmed two years later. The founder of a monastery first got together his monks, and gave them some temporary dwelling; the church and the other buildings then grew up gradually. The church of a monastery exists for the sake of the monks, but in a secular foundation the canons or other clergy may be said to exist for the sake of the church. So at Waltham, Harold first rebuilt the church; he then secured to it the elder endowment of Tofig; he had it consecrated, and enriched it with relics and other gifts; last of all, after the consecration, he set about his plan for increasing the number of clergy attached to it. Tofig's two priests of course were still there to discharge the duties of the place in the meanwhile. And the clergy whom Harold placed in his newly founded minster were not monks, but secular priests, each man living on his own prebend, and some of them, it would seem, married. Education also occupied a prominent place in the mag- Harold's nificent and enlightened scheme of the great Earl. The education. Chancellor or Lecturer-for the word Schoolmaster con- Adelhard veys too humble an idea-filled a dignified place in the College, and the office was bestowed by the founder on a distinguished man from a foreign land. We have seen throughout that, stout English patriot as Harold was, he was never hindered by any narrow insular prejudice from seeking merit wherever he could find it. Harold had seen something of the world; he had visited both France and Italy; but it was not from any land of altogether foreign speech that he sought for coadjutors in his great work. As in the case of so many appointments of Prelates, so now, in appointing an important officer in his own College, Harold, when he looked beyond our own island, looked in 1 See Appendix PP. zeal for of Lüttich. |