from

Stigand. May 26, 1061.

CHAP. X. the day of the patron of his house. The ceremony was performed at Windsor, a royal seat of which this is one of our earliest notices. It would perhaps have been a strong measure for Ethelsige altogether to refuse the ministrations of one who was doubly his diocesan, alike as a monk of New Minster and as Abbot of Saint Augustine's. Moreover, the benediction of an Abbot was not a matter of the same spiritual importance as the consecration of a Bishop. It was an edifying ceremony, but it was not a sacramental rite. Still, when we remember that Earl Harold himself had chosen another Prelate for his ceremony at Waltham, it shows some independence on the part of Ethelsige thus openly to communicate with the schismatical Primate. His conduct at all events did not lose him the royal favour. At some date between this time and the death of Eadward, Abbot Elfwine of Ramsey, he who had been ambassador to the Pope and the Cæsar, resigned his office, and Abbot Ethelsige, without resigning his office at Canterbury, was entrusted with the administration of the great Huntingdonshire monastery.3

Journey to
Rome of

Ealdred,

1061.

2

It is not quite clear whether Gisa and Walter made their journey to Rome in company with some still more Tostig, and exalted personages who went on the same road in the Gyrth. course of the same year. The new Metropolitan of the North went to Rome after his pallium, and with him the Earl of the Northumbrians went as a pilgrim, accompanied by his wife, by his younger brother Gyrth, Earl of the East Angles, by several noble Thegns from Northhumberland, and by Burhhard, son of Earl Ælfgar, a com

1 On Windsor see Cod. Dipl. iv. 178, 209, 227, and Domesday, 56 b.

2 See above, pp. 111, 371.

3 Hist. Rams. c. 119.

4 Chron. Wig. 1061. pallium."

We shall hear of Æthelsige again.

"Her for Ealdred biscop to Rome after his

EALDRED, TOSTIG, AND GYRTH AT ROME.

453

panion, it would seem, of Ealdred rather than of Tostig.1 CHAP. X. Harold, on his pilgrimage, had chosen the route through Gaul, in order to ascertain the strength of the enemy. Tostig, probably starting from the court of his brotherin-law at Bruges, chose to make his journey wholly through those kindred lands with which England was now so closely connected. The Archbishop and the two Earls passed through Saxony and along the upper course of the Rhine, so that, till they reached the Alps, the whole of their course lay over Teutonic soil.2 They seem to have found Gisa and Walter already at Rome;3 but the three Prelates, besides the personal business which each had with the Pope, are said to have been charged in common with one errand from the King. This was to obtain the Papal confirmation for the privileges of his restored monastery at Westminster.+ A synod of some kind was sitting, in which the Earl of the Northumbrians was received by Pope Nicolas with marked honours." The

1 The Worcester Chronicle merely says, "And se Eorl Tostig and his wif eac foron to Rome." The Biographer (410, 411) adds Gyrth, Gospatric, and others, as their companions. On Burhhard, son of Elfgar, see Appendix II.

2 Vita Eadw. 410. "Transfretavit, et per Saxoniam et superiores Rheni fines Romam tetendit."

3 Ib. 411. "Venerant quoque ex præcepto Regis. . . Gyso et Walterius." Æthel. Riev. 386; Est. de Seint Edward, 2324 et seqq. But the fact rests on better authority. The Biographer (411) speaks of Ealdred as going to Rome-" ut ibi scilicet et regiæ legationis caussam peroraret, et usum pallii obtineret." So Gisa himself (Hist. Ep. Som. 16) says that he came back "privilegium apostolicæ auctoritatis mecum deferens."

5 Vita Eadw. 410. "Romæ ab Apostolico Nicolao, honore quo decebat susceptus, a latere ejus in ipsâ Romanâ synodo ab eo coactus sedit secundus." So Gisa (u. s.) says "post peractam ibi synodum." William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 154) calls it "synodus quam contra simoniacos coegerat [Nicolaus]." He also mentions the honours shown to Tostig. But this synod cannot have been, as Æthelred (387) makes it, the Second Lateran Council. That assembly, according to the Chronicle of Bernold of Constanz (Pertz, v. 427), was held in 1060, but the real date was April 13, 1059. See its Acts in Pertz, Legg. ii. Ap. 177; Milman, iii. 49. And cf. above, p. 449.

firmation

of the privileges of Westminster.

Ealdred

and de

prived of Prelate, of all his preferments.3

his see.

CHAP. X. illustrious visitors obtained the Pope's confirmation for the Papal con- privileges of the rising minster of Saint Peter, and they returned laden with letters from Nicolas to that effect.1 Walter and Gisa obtained without difficulty the consecration which they sought; but Ealdred was at first not refused the only refused the pallium which he asked for, but was pallium, deprived, so far as a Pope could deprive an English The ground for this severity was, according to one account, the charge of simony; according to another, it would seem to have been an objection to an uncanonical translation or to the holding of two Bishopricks at once. At any rate, Ealdred retired in confusion. The whole party now prepared to return to England, but not in one body. Judith and the greater part of the company were sent first, and they reached England without any special adventure. But the Earl, and seemingly all the three Bishops, stayed behind to prosecute the cause of Ealdred. At last, thinking the matter hopeless, they also set out to return home. On

1 See what profess to be the letters in Cod. Dipl. iv. 183.

2 Gisa himself (Hist. Ep. Som. 16) fixes the day to April 15th.

66

3 Vita Eadw. 411. Apostolicis et pontificalibus decretis examinantibus et omni synodo censente, a petitione suâ repulsus, non solum usum pallii non obtinuit, verum ab episcopatus gradu dejectus in hâc confusione recedere habuit."

Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 154. "Gisonem et Walterum voti compotes reddidit, qui essent non usquequaque contemnendæ scientiæ et nullius notati ignominiâ simoniæ. Aldredum suâpte responsione culpabilem utrobique repertum omni honore severus exspoliavit." But, in his Life of Wulfstan (Ang. Sac. ii. 250), he says, "Nam nec ille Wigornensi præsulatui renunciare, nec Papa nisi cederet Eboracensi eum pallio insignire volebat." The Biographer (411) is not very clear, but he seems rather to make the translation the objection; "Perscrutatus ergo qualiter ad sacros accessisset ordines, eo gratuitu confitente inventus est a primo ordinationis suæ episcopio [episcopo in the printed text] ad aliud commigrâsse contra canones."

5 Vita Eadw. 412. "Quum caussa Aldredi Episcopi Dux in Româ prehendinaret diutius, uxorem suam et omnem regiæ dignitatis suæ comitatum præmiserat cum suis majoris numeri hominibus, et hi processerant prospere."

NICOLAS YIELDS TO THE THREATS OF TOSTIG.

455

their way

home.

their way they were attacked by robbers, seemingly the CHAP. x. robber nobles of the country. The brigands seem to have Tostig and the Bishops been specially anxious to seize the person of the Earl of robbed on the Northumbrians. A noble youth named Gospatric 2 said that he was the Earl, and was carried off accordingly. But, after a while, the robbers, admiring his courage and appearance, not only set him free without ransom, but restored to him all that they had taken from him.3 The rest returned to the presence of the Pope, with nothing but the clothes on their backs.4 Tostig seems now to have mingled threats and entreaties. One account describes the Pope as touched with the desolate condition of the whole party, and as therefore yielding the more readily to Tostig's petition in favour of Ealdred. Another version makes the Earl take a higher tone. If the Pope The Pope yields to and his authority were so little cared for in his own the threats neighbourhood, who could be expected to care for excommunications in distant countries? He was fierce red reenough towards suppliants, but he seemed unable to do pallium. anything against his own rebels. Let him at once cause the property to be restored, which had most likely been seized with his own connivance. If Englishmen underwent such treatment almost under the walls of Rome, the

5

his

1 The Biographer, who first (411) calls them "latrones," afterwards (412) promotes them into "militares."

2 44

Adolescens Gaius Patricius nomine" (411). The same strange perversion of the name is made by Orderic (512 C). This may be the Gospatric mentioned there as taking a part in the resistance to William in Northumberland. It is to be hoped for Tostig's sake that it was.

3 "Suis propriis rebus donatus," says the Biographer, 412.

4 Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 154. "Ita differenti effectu quum regrederentur [he conceives Gisa and Walter to have been of the party], una pariter ærumna omnes involvit; nam prædonibus irruentibus, præter simplices vestes exspoliatis omnibus, ad nummum valens corporibus tamen illæsis Romam refugere."

5 Vita Eadw. 412. "Confuse ergo et miserabiliter reversis Romana pietas indoluit, veritusque Dominus Papa maxime clarissimi Ducis petitionem," &c.

and Eald

ceives the

CHAP. X. King of the English would certainly withdraw all tribute and payment of every kind from the Roman See. He, Earl Tostig, would take care that the King and his people should know the truth in all its fulness.1 This account carries more of the stamp of truth with it than the other more courtly version. At any rate, whether the voice of Tostig was the voice of entreaty or the voice of threatening, to his voice the Pope at last yielded. Ealdred was restored to his Archbishoprick and invested with the pallium, on the single condition of his resigning the see of Worcester. The losses which the Earl and the Bishops had undergone at the hands of the robbers were made good to them out of the Papal treasury, and they set forth again on their journey homeward. They must have come back through France, as Burhhard died on the way at Rheims. He was there buried in the churchyard of the lately hallowed Abbey of Saint Remigius, a house which his father Ælfgar enriched for his sake.5 Ealdred, Tostig, and the rest came back, honoured and rejoicing, to England.

Ill effects

3

But in this, as in so many other cases, we see the evil of the prac-effects which followed on this passion for pilgrimages, at pilgrimage. least among Kings and Earls and other rulers of men.

tice of

It

was with a true wisdom that the Witan of England had hindered the intended pilgrimage of Eadward. None but

1 Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 154. "Futurum ut hæc Rex Anglorum audiens tributum Sancti Petri merito Nicolao subtraheret, se non defuturum rerum veritati exaggerendæ. Hoc minarum fulmine Romani territi Papam flexerunt." This follows a good hearty English denunciation, of which I have given the substance in the text. To the same effect in the Life of Wulfstan, ii. 250.

2 Such is William of Malmesbury's account. The Biographer, in his rhetoric, leaves out the condition.

3 Vita Eadw. 412. "Ducem consolatus est caritativâ allocutione, allatis insuper magis xeniis ex beati Petri largitate.”

See above, p. 111. A large part of the church consecrated in 1049 still remains, and Burhhard's name is still remembered.

5 See Appendix II.

• See above, p. 114.