MALCOLM RAVAGES NORTHUMBERLAND.

457

Malcolm

berland

absence of

the great Cnut could leave his realm without danger and CHAP. X. could keep distant nations in subjection by the mere terror invades of his name. We have seen what evils were undoubtedly Northumbrought upon Normandy by the pilgrimage of Robert; we during the have seen what lesser evils were probably brought upon Tostig. England by the pilgrimage of Harold. So now the absence 1061. of her Earl, even on so pious a work, brought no good to Northumberland. No doubt the times must have seemed specially secure both at home and abroad, when two of the great Earls of England could venture to leave the Kingdom at the same time, and when Northumberland could be deprived of the care at once of her temporal and of her spiritual chief. Her only dangerous neighbour was bound to Tostig by the closest of artificial ties. But so tempting an opportunity for a raid overcame any scruples which either gratitude or the tie of sworn brotherhood might have suggested to the mind of Malcolm. The King of Scots entered Northumberland; he cruelly ravaged the country, and did not even show reverence to Saint Cuthberht by sparing his holy isle of Lindisfarn.1 We have no further details. Whether Tostig took any sort of vengeance for this seemingly quite unprovoked injury is by no means clear. A dark allusion of one writer may or may not imply that Tostig on his return revenged the raid of Malcolm and drove him to submit and give hostages. Otherwise we hear nothing more of Scottish affairs during the remaining years of the reign of Eadward.

2

It always marks a season of comparative quiet when our attention is chiefly occupied by ecclesiastical affairs. During four whole years Malcolm's raid into Northumber

1 Sim. Dun. Gest. Regg. 1061. "Interim Rex Scottorum Malcolmus sui conjuncti fratris, scilicet Comitis Tostii, comitatum ferociter depopulatus est, violatâ pace sancti Cuthberti in Lindisfarnensi insulâ."

2 See the passage of the Biographer quoted in Appendix EE.

the See of

Papal
Legates in

CHAP. X. land is the only political or military event which we have 1062. to record. We now enter on the last year of this time of Vacancy of quiet. In the year following the pilgrimage of Tostig, Worcester. Ealdred having at last resigned the see of Worcester, a successor had to be chosen. England was at that moment blessed or cursed with visitors of a kind who, to say the least, did not in those days often reach her shores, namely Legates from the Roman See. Pope Nicolas died soon England. after the visit of Ealdred and Tostig, and was succeeded by Lent, 1062. Alexander the Second, a name afterwards to become only too well known in English history. By commission from this Pontiff, Ermenfrid, Bishop of Sitten, with a nameless colleague, came to England early in the year. It is clear that their errand was in some way connected with the appointment to the see of Worcester, besides any other matters with which they may have been charged for the enlightenment of the King's private conscience or for the forwarding of his foundation at Westminster.1 Possibly their personal presence was thought necessary in order to ensure the surrender by Ealdred of a Bishoprick to which he clave with special affection. At any rate it was Ealdred who received the Legates, who conducted them on their journey through a great part of England, and who at last quartered them at Worcester, under the care of Wulfstan, the holy Prior of that church. There they were to remain

1 Vita Wlst. 250. Ealdred is to resign Worcester, and a good successor is to be chosen; "Hujus igitur conditionis arbitros, et quædam alia ecclesiastica negotia in Angliâ expedituros, Cardinales adductos Archiepiscopus Regi exhibuit.” Florence (1062) calls them "legatos sedis apostolicæ ... Armenfredum scilicet, Sedunensem Episcopum, et alium, qui a Domino Papa Alexandro pro responsis ecclesiasticis ad Regem Anglorum Eadwardum missi... Wigorniæ. . . degebant." I quote the fuller Life by William of Malmesbury as "Vita Wlstani," and the shorter one by Heming by

name.

2 Vita Wlst. 250. "Adeo illum amor Wigornia devinxerat."

3 Florence mentions their sojourn at Worcester, and their admiration of Wulfstan; the Life makes them actually his guests.

VACANCY OF THE SEE OF WORCESTER.

459

doubtful

and

through Lent, waiting for the Easter Gemót, in which the CHAP. X. King and his Witan were to decide on all the matters which had brought them to England.1 With regard to Ealdred the succession to his see of Worcester, Ealdred was for a between while doubtful between two candidates. One was Æthel- Ethelwig wig, now Abbot of Evesham, who had so long acted as his Wulfstan. deputy in the administration of the Hwiccian diocese.2 This Prelate is described as a man of noble birth and of consummate prudence in all matters human, perhaps in matters divine also.3 One part at least of his character was not belied by his actions. We shall find that he lived in high favour equally under Eadward, Harold, and William, and died in full possession of his Abbey eleven years after the Conquest. He was not unnaturally anxious to succeed to the full possession of a see which he had so long administered, and with whose affairs he must have been thoroughly conversant.5 Ealdred himself doubted for a while whether the see would be more safely entrusted to the worldly wisdom of Ethelwig or to the simple piety of Wulfstan the Prior. Wulfstan, the friend of Harold, WULFSTAN [Prior and] was now about fifty years of age. He was the son of Bishop of Æthelstan, a Thegn of Warwickshire, and his wife Wulf- Worcester. gifu, and he must have been born among the horrors of 1062

1 Fl. Wig.

8

7

"Exspectantes responsum suæ legationis usque ad curiam

regalem proximi Pascha." So the Life, but less clearly.

2 See above, pp. 371, 437.

3 Vita Wlst. 251.

"Maximæ quantum ad sæculum prudentiæ, quantum ad religionem non minima." But the Evesham historian (p. 87) calls him "honestis moribus valde probatum, tam generis nobilitate quam divinâ lege ac sæculari prudentiâ plurimum valentem."

* Hist. Evesh. pp. 88, 89.

5 Vita Wlst. 251.

"Quamvis Ethelwius sollicite anniteretur partibus." 6 Ib. 66 Aldredus, pro pacto quod fecerat Apostolico, nonnullo tempore fluctaverat animo; utrum ad episcopatum eligeret Ethelwii perspicacem industriam in sæculo, an Wlstani simplicem religionem in Deo. Erant enim illi viri Wigornensis dioecesis diverso respectu præstantissimi."

7 Flor. Wig. 1062. "Anno ætatis suæ plus quinquagesimo." 8 Æthelstan in the Life, Eatstan according to Florence.

1077.

Sept. 8,

1095.

His life and

CHAP. X. the later years of Ethelred. Brought up, not as a monk, Jan. 18, but as a lay student, in the Abbey of Peterborough, he Born about made great proficiency in the learning of the time under IOI2. a master whose name Ervenius seems to imply a foreign character. origin.1 His parents, as they grew old, took monastic vows by mutual consent, but Wulfstan for some while lived as a layman, distinguished for his success in bodily exercises as well as for his virtuous and pious demeanour. His chastity especially was preserved unsullied under unusually severe trials. At last, when he still could not have been 1033-1038. above twenty-six years old, he received ordination as a presbyter at the hands of Brihtheah, Bishop of Worcester. This was somewhat against his own will, as he shrank from the responsibilities of the priesthood. The friendly Prelate vainly pressed on him a good secular living in the neighbourhood of the city. But the determination of Wulfstan was fixed, and Brihtheah had soon to admit him as a monk of the cathedral monastery, where, after a while, he was promoted by Ealdred to the rank of Prior.5 Here he distin

1 Vita Wlst. 244. Ervenius was a skilful illuminator, and wrote a Sacramentary for King Cnut and a Psalter for the Lady Emma. Cnut (249) gave both the books to the Emperor Conrad; his son Henry the Third gave them to Ealdred, who brought them back from Köln and gave them to Wulfstan. Emma had another Psalter whose adventures in Normandy we have already come across. See above, p. 231.

2 The story is given at length in the Life, p. 245.

3 Brihtheah was Bishop from 1033 to 1038 (Chronn. Wig. 1033, Ab. 1038). This fixes the date of Wulfstan's ordination and profession. Brihtheah was one of the embassy which took Gunhild to Germany (Heming, Cart. 267). He had a brother Ethelwig, who enlarged the presbytery of Saint Peter's Church in Worcester (Ib. 342).

4 Vita Wlst. 246. "Obtulit ei plusquam semel Antistes ecclesiam suburbanam, cujus opulenti reditus ad quotidianam stipem satis superque sufficerent."

5 Ib. 247. 66 Præpositus, ut tunc, Prior, ut nunc dicitur, monachorum constitutus." "Prior et pater congregationis," says Florence, adding “ab Aldredo episcopo ponitur." It will be remembered that in a cathedral monastery the Bishop was Abbot; the Prior therefore was the immediate head of the society.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF WULFSTAN.

461

CHAP. X.

guished himself by every monastic perfection; he was eminent as a preacher, and it is still more interesting to read of his habit of going through the country to baptize the children of the poor, to whom-so our monastic informants tell us the greedy secular clergy refused the first sacrament except on payment of a fee. The virtues. of Wulfstan attracted the notice of many of the great men of the realm. The famous Godgifu, the wife of Leofric, was his devoted admirer. But the same virtues gained him a still nobler and more powerful votary; he became, as we have seen, the special friend of Earl Harold.3 Ealdred now hesitated between Wulfstan and Ethelwig as his successor at Worcester. The King, we are told, was determined that the see should be filled by a canonical election, which however of course did not exclude the right of the Witan to confirm or to reject the choice of the ecclesiastical electors. The Papal Legates soon discerned the virtues of Wulfstan, and became eager on his behalf. They spent their Lent in successful efforts to secure his election, especially in exhortations to the clergy and people of Worcester. Presently the choice of the local body came Wulfstan before the Witan of the realm for confirmation. The Legates Bishop. appeared before the Gemót; the diplomacy of the time doubtless required that their business with the King should not be decided without the national approval. The succession to the see of Worcester came on among the other

1 Vita Wlst. 248. "Jam enim venalitas ex infernalibus umbris emerserat, ut nec illud gratis presbyteri præberent infantibus sacramentum, si non infarcirent parentes marsupium." Adam of Bremen (iv. 30) brings the same charge against the Norwegian and Danish clergy; but he allows it to be their only fault, and attributes it to the unwillingness of the "barbarians" to pay tithe.

2 Heming, Vita Wlst. Angl. Sacr. i. 541. "Venerabilis interea Comitissa Godgiva, famâ bonitatis ejus auditâ, totis illum cœpit diligere visceribus, et diversis hujus sæculi subvenire necessitatibus." See Appendix E. 3 Will. Malms. Vita Wlst. 248. See above, p. 41.

See Appendix I.

elected