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T.R.E..

hanc terram abstulit Goduinus Comes Sanctæ Mariæ Wiltunensi, et tunc eam recuperavit Ednodus."

These are, as far as I know, the only particular cases in which it is possible to test the value of the general remark made by the Abingdon Chronicler as to Godwine's occupations of Church property. In the case of Berkeley we can say absolutely nothing either way, except so far as Gytha's scruple may be held to tell against her husband. In the Kentish cases Godwine may well have had a perfectly good defence. In the Wiltshire case too it almost looks as if Eadnoth—seemingly a retainer of Godwine—had some claim on the land earlier than that of the Abbey.

The charges against Harold are more numerous. They rest mainly on certain entries in Domesday, which have been carefully collected by Sir Henry Ellis (i. 313). Harold is there said to have taken, or to have held unjustly, various pieces of ecclesiastical property, and in most cases it is carefully noted that William caused them to be restored by some legal process. Thus, in Sussex (21 b) we find a virgate of land at Apedroc which Harold "habuit et abstulit a Sancto Johanne." This seems not to have been restored; it had become a chief dwellingplace of William's half-brother Earl Robert ("ubi Comes habet aulam suam"), and Robert was to be as much preferred to Saint John as Saint John was to be preferred to Harold. At Allington, in Wiltshire (69), were four hides "quas injuste abstraxit Heraldus ab ecclesiâ Ambresberie testimonio tainorum sciræ." Three lordships in Dorset (75 b, 78 b) are said to have been taken by Harold ("abstulerat Heraldus Comes") from Shaftesbury Abbey, and to have been restored by William on the evidence of a charter of Eadward; 66 Willelmus Rex eam fecit resaisiri, quia in ipsâ ecclesiâ inventus est brevis cum sigillo Regis Edwardi præcipiens ut ecclesiæ restituerentur." So in Cornwall (121) an estate is in like manner restored to Saint Petroc's. One in Hertfordshire (132) helps us to a date; "Heraldus Comes abstulit inde, ut tota syra testatur, et apposuit in Hiz manerio suo, tribus annis ante mortem Regis Edwardi (1063)." Another entry, in nearly the same words, but without a date, follows in fol. 133. There are two others in which we see the agency of the reeves or other officers, the "Elnod" of these entries being probably the same as the "Ednod" mentioned before. In Dorset (80) we find that "Elnod tenuit T. R. E. per

Comitem Heraldum, qui eam abstulit cuidam clerico." So in Kent (2), "Alnod cild per violentiam Heraldi abstulit Sancto Martino Merclesham et Hauochesten, pro quibus dedit Canonicis iniquam commutationem." This last entry is important. The act, though called "violentia," was really an exchange, and the spirit of these entries in Domesday is so clear that we can hardly venture to say that it may not have been a fair and legal exchange. We may say the same as to the surrender of Folkestone by Eadsige to Godwine. And even Godwine's dealings with the two tenants of the see of Rochester, whether legal or not, were at least not an act of highhanded violence. We must remember also that in all these stories and entries the words "vis" and "violentia" really mean no more than "injuste" or "mid unlage," and do not imply force strictly so called.

There is also a whole string of entries in Herefordshire (181 b, 182), where it is said, "Hoc manerium tenuit Heraldus Comes injuste. Rex Willelmus reddidit Walterio Episcopo." These must be taken in connexion with two writs addressed by Eadward to Harold in Herefordshire. One (Cod. Dipl. iv. 218) is addressed to him jointly with Bishop Ealdred, and therefore belongs to the time (1058-1060) when Ealdred administered the see after the death of Leofgar (see above, p. 398). This writ confirms to the priests of Saint Ethelberht's minster all their ancient rights; it speaks of them as suffering poverty "for God's love and mine," and calls on all men to help them. The other (iv. 194), addressed to Harold together with Osbern (see above, p. 345), announces the appointment of Walter to the Bishoprick (in 1060), and requires the restoration of all property alienated from the see. The earlier description of the poverty of the Canons can hardly fail to refer to losses sustained through the ravages of Elfgar and Gruffydd in 1055; see above, pp. 387, 390.

There is also a will of Leofric, Bishop of Exeter (Cod. Dipl. iv. 274), in which that Prelate leaves to his church the land which Harold had lawlessly taken at Topsham ("Sæt land æt Toppeshamme, de ah de Harold hit mid unlage útnam"). The Bishop died in 1072, but the land had not then been recovered. Topsham appears in the Exon Domesday (p. 87) as a possession of the Crown formerly held by Harold, without any mention of the rights of the Church of Exeter.

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The reader must judge how far any of the qualifications with which I set out can be made to bear on any of these cases. What if the land at Topsham, afterwards the port of Exeter, was needed for the defence of the coast? The Bishop would very likely look on its appropriation for such a purpose, even if it were paid for, as a thing done" mid unlage."

There remains the great story of the alleged quarrel between Harold and Gisa Bishop of Wells. Of this we know the details, we can trace the growth of misrepresentation, and it may perhaps serve as a key to some of the other stories. Even here we have no statement on Harold's side, but the original charge against him, as contrasted with its later shapes, pretty well explains itself. The story however is a somewhat long one, and it may moreover fairly count as a part of the general history. I shall therefore make it the subject of a distinct note (see Note QQ). I will now add a few instances which illustrate the general subject by showing that Godwine and Harold by no means stand alone in bearing accusations of this sort. In the case of nearly every powerful man, including the most munificent benefactors to ecclesiastical bodies, we find the same story of the detention of Church property in some shape or other, or of transactions in which it is easy to see the possible groundwork of such a charge.

First, I have mentioned elsewhere (see vol. i. p. 622) that the very model of monastic benefactors, Ethelwine the Friend of God, laid claim to, and made good his claim to, certain lands possessed by the Abbey of Ely. As the Ely historian (Hist. El. i. 5) himself tells the story, the claim made by the Ealdorman seems to have been certainly legal and probably just. Yet the monastic writer clearly thinks that Æthelwine ought to have given way even to an unjust claim on the part of the Church, and he uses just the same language which Domesday applies to Harold; "postpositâ Sanctæ Ecclesiæ reverentiâ, eamdem terram invadentes sibi vindicârunt." Soon after (c. 8) we come to a story of the same kind about Ethelwine's son Elfwold. So Godwine of Lindesey, one of the heroes of Assandun, is spoken of as a pertinacious enemy of the Church of Evesham (see vol. i. p. 506). The story about Harold Harefoot I have mentioned more than once. The passage which I quoted from William of Malmesbury at the beginning of this note also shows

that Saint Eadward himself was by some people personally blamed for the destruction of monasteries in his reign. And it is, at any rate, clear that the estates of the dissolved houses of Leominster and Berkeley had become royal property-more legally folkland— just as they would have done in the time of Henry the Eighth. Eadgyth, the rose sprung from the thorn, enjoyed the revenues of Leominster, seemingly without any of the scruples which her mother felt in the case of Berkeley. We find her also (see above, p. 46) engaged in some other transactions about ecclesiastical property, which look at least as doubtful as anything attributed to her father and brother. Nay, one writer goes so far as to charge her sainted husband himself with complicity in her doings of this kind. Twice does the Peterborough historian (Hugo Candidus, Sparke, p. 42) say of possessions held or claimed by that monastery, "Rex et Regina Edgita illam villam vi auferre conati sunt." A most singular story is also told in the Shropshire Domesday (252 b), which seems at least to charge the sainted King with carelessness about these matters. A Canon of Saint Mary's at Shrewsbury had, for what cause is not explained, been outlawed. On this, as I understand the story, Eadward granted his prebend, just as Henry the Eighth or Edward the Sixth might have done, to his favourite Robert the son of Wymarc, who presently made it over to his son-in-law; "In hoc manerio T. R. E. erant xx hidæ, et totum habebant xii canonici ipsius ecclesiæ. Unus eorum, Spirtes nomine, tenebat solus x hidas, sed quum fuisset exsulatus ab Angliâ, dedit Rex E. has x hidas Roberto filio Wimarch, sicut canonico. Robertus vero dedit eamdem terram cuidam suo genero." On this the Canons complained to the King in the last year of his reign. Eadward ordered that the land should be restored to the Church, but he required them to wait for the final settlement till the Christmas Gemót, when he would find some other equivalent for Robert's son-in-law; "Quod quum canonici indicâssent Regi, confestim præcepit ad ecclesiam terram reverti, tantummodo induciavit donec ad curiam instantis Natalis Domini Roberto juberet ut genero suo terram aliam provideret." The King's death hindered the carrying out of this design, and at the time of the Survey the land belonged to Roger of Montgomery ; "Ipse autem Rex in ipsis festis diebus obiit, et ex eo usque nunc ecclesia terram perdidit." This story, whatever we make of it,

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is most remarkable. It is possible that by the banishment of the Canon, whatever might be his offence, his life-interest in his prebend was forfeited to the Crown and might be lawfully granted by the King to his favourite, and that the wrong lay only in the permanent alienation to Robert's son-in-law. Still there seems to be a recklessness of dealing with things of this kind which we may fancy that, in the case of Godwine or Harold, the Survey would have described in shorter terms.

To go on with our series, one of the charges brought against Tostig, the benefactor of the Church of Durham (see p. 382), was that he had "robbed God" (see p. 477). Siward also, the founder of Galmanho, and his son Waltheof, who, as a monastic hero, ranks by the side of Æthelwine, both stand charged with detaining lands belonging to the Abbey of Peterborough (see above, p. 374). Eadwine, the brother of Leofric, possessed lands claimed by the Church of Worcester, and the local writer Heming (p. 278) evidently looked on his death at Rhyd-y-Groes as the punishment; "Sed ipse diu hâc rapinâ gavisus non est. Nam ipse non multo post a Grifino Rege Brittonum ignominiosâ morte peremptus est." Nay, Leofric and Godgifu themselves, the models of all perfection, do not seem to have been quite clear on this score. Godgifu's reverence for Saint Wulfstan led her to suggest to her husband the restoration of certain lordships in his possession which had belonged to the Church of Worcester; "Terras quas antea Dani cæterique Dei adversarii vi abstulerant, et ab ipsâ Wigornensi ecclesiâ penitus alienaverant." (Heming in Ang. Sacr. i. 541.) Her son Ælfgar followed her example. There is also in Domesday (283 6) a most curious entry about certain lands at Alveston in Warwickshire. They are inserted among the estates of the Church of Worcester; but it is said of the sons of the former tenant Bricstuinus (Brihtstán?), "Hoc testantur filii ejus Lewinus [Leofwine], Edmar [Eadmer] et alii quatuor, sed nesciunt de quo, an de Ecclesiâ an de Comite Leuric [Leofric], cui serviebat, hanc terram tenuit. Dicunt tamen quod ipsi tenuerunt eam de L. Comite, et quo volebant cum terrâ poterant se vertere." Here we may discern a case of free commendation, whether to the Church or to the Earl, but we may also discern ample materials for a charge against Leofric of detaining the lands of the Church of Worcester. Lastly, I may mention cases in which Prelates like Bishop Ælfweard (p. 69) and Archbishop Ealdred