(see Note NN) stand charged with wrongfully transferring property from one church to another. These last cases, if they can be made out, seem to an impartial eye just as bad as the occupation of Church lands by laymen. The breach of law was equal, and when a Prelate, as Ealdred is said to have done, robbed the church which he was leaving in favour of the church of which he was taking possession, the personal greediness was equal. In fact, in all these cases the real crime lies in the breach of law which is implied in the violent or fraudulent occupation of anything, whether the party wronged be clerk or layman, individual or corporation. We must be on our guard alike against the exaggerated notions about the crime of sacrilege put forth by ecclesiastical writers, and also against the opposite prejudices of some moderns, who sometimes talk as if the robbing of a monastery were actually a praiseworthy deed. On the whole, considering all the instances, we shall perhaps see reason to think that all charges of this kind, charges in which we can very seldom hear both sides, must be taken with great doubt and qualification. On the other hand it is plain that the tenure of Church property, perhaps of all property, was in those rough days very uncertain. Men, we may well believe, often gave with one hand and took with the other. No one did this more systematically than the Great William himself. I will end this long note with the comments of his namesake of Malmesbury on William's doings in this respect, comments which seem to have been equally applicable to many others among the great men of his age; "Ita ejus tempore ultro citroque cœnobialis grex excrevit, monasteria surgebant, religione vetera, ædificiis recentia. Sed hic animadverto mussitationem dicentium, melius fuisse ut antiqua in suo statu conservarentur, quam, illis semimutilatis, de rapinâ nova construerentur" (iii. 278). NOTE F. p. 36. THE CHILDREN OF GODWINE. THE question of Godwine's marriage or marriages I examined in my first volume (p. 722), and I there came to the conclusion that there is no ground for attributing to him more than one wife, namely Gytha, the daughter of Thorgils Sprakaleg and sister of Ulf. THE CHILDREN OF GODWINE. 553 There is no doubt that Gytha was the mother of all those sons and daughters of Godwine who play such a memorable part in our history. The fullest lists of Godwine's sons are those given by William of Malmesbury (ii. 200) and Orderic (502 B). William's list runs thus, Harold, Swegen, Tostig, Wulfnoth, Gyrth, Leofwine. That of Orderic is, Swegen, Tostig, Harold, Gyrth, Elfgar, Leofwine, Wulfnoth. Saxo (196) speaks of Harold, Beorn, and Tostig as sons of Godwine; that is, he mistook Beorn the nephew of Gytha for her son. Snorro (Laing, iii. 75; Ant. Celt. Scand. 189) has a far more amazing genealogy. He seems to assume that Godwine must have been the father of every famous Englishman of his time, and he reckons up his sons thus-Tostig the eldest, Maurokari (Morkere), Waltheof, Swegen, and Harold. He pointedly adds that Harold was the youngest. And the list in the Knytlinga Saga, c. I I, is no less strange-Harold, Tostig, "Maurakaare," Waltheof, and Swegen. It must be on the same principle that Bromton (943) seems to make Godwine the father of Gruffydd of Wales. At least his list runs thus, Swegen, Wulfnoth, Leofwine, Harold, Tostig, and Griffin. So Walter of Hemingburgh (i. 4) gives Godwine a son Griffus, which may be a confusion between Gruffydd and Gyrth. Knighton (2334) gives the sons as Swegen, Harold, Tostig, Wulfnoth, Gyrth, and Leofric. But elsewhere, as Bromton had given Godwine a Gruffydd, Knighton in the same spirit helps him to a Llywelyn. At least he talks (2238) of the "malitia et superbia Haraldi et Lewlini filiorum Godwini." The Biographer gives no list, but he mentions four sons, Harold, Tostig, Gyrth, and Leofwine, whose name is inaccurately given as Leofric in the printed text. This is undoubt Of these sons, there is no doubt about six, namely Swegen, Harold, Tostig, Gyrth, Leofwine, Wulfnoth, who all figure in the history at different points. The only question is whether we ought, on the sole authority of Orderic, to add a seventh son named Elfgar. According to him, Elfgar lived and died a monk at Rheims, and Wulfnoth did the like at Salisbury. edly false as regards Wulfnoth; and the tale of a son of Godwine, otherwise unknown, spending his whole life in a French monastery has a somewhat apocryphal sound. Can it be that the tale has sprung out of some confusion with the benefactions of Earl Ælfgar to the Abbey of Rheims? (see p. 456). At any rate we may dismiss Elfgar, as a person of whose actions, if he ever existed, we have no knowledge, while of the other six brethren we know a good deal. Among the daughters of Godwine, there is no need to prove the existence of Eadgyth the Lady. Another daughter, Gunhild, rests on the sure evidence of the Exon Domesday (pp. 96, 99, “Gunnilla filia Comitis Godwini"). She also has a history, which will come in my fourth volume. The third daughter, Ælfgifu, also appears in Domesday (144 b), where land is held in Buckinghamshire by a "man" of hers, "homo Alvevæ soror Heraldi comitis." See Kelham, 153, and Ellis, i. 309, who both speak of her without any reference, and I have to thank Sir T. D. Hardy for pointing out the passage to me since the appearance of my second volume. This sister, though she is nowhere else directly spoken of, is of some historical importance. It is part of the story of Harold's oath (Sim. Dun. 1066 and elsewhere) that he promised to marry his sister to one of William's nobles. Obviously this cannot apply to Eadgyth, nor yet to Gunhild, who was devoted to a religious life. The sister intended must therefore have been Ælfgifu, and I shall, in my next volume, discuss the question whether she may not be the puzzling Ælfgyva of the Tapestry. See vol. iii. pp. 687, 690, 699. As to the order of the sons there is no doubt. Swegen ("filius primogenitus Swanus," Fl. Wig. 1051) was the eldest. Harold came next. That Harold was older than Tostig is plain from the Biographer ("major natu Haroldus," 409), and indeed from the whole history. So even Saxo (207) speaks of "minores Godovini filii [which at least includes Tostig] majorem perosi." Orderic's notion (492 D) that Harold was younger than Tostig is simply a bit of the Norman legend, devised in order to represent Harold as depriving his elder brother, sometimes of the Earldom, sometimes of the Kingdom. Snorro's idea that Harold was the youngest of all is wilder still. The order of the several brothers is very plainly marked in the dates of their promotion to Earldoms; their order is Swegen, Harold, Tostig, Gyrth, Leofwine. Wulfnoth, who never held an Earldom, was doubtless the youngest. The order in which the brothers sign charters is worth notice. Setting aside one impossible charter (Cod. Dipl. iv. 80-84), Swegen always signs before Harold, Harold always before Tostig, Tostig always before Gyrth and Leofwine. But Harold, Gyrth, and Leofwine do not observe so strict an order among themselves. May we THE GREAT EARLDOMS UNDER EADWARD. 555 not infer from the recorded disposition and actions of Swegen and Tostig that a certain attention to ceremony was needed in their cases, while the other three brothers, who lived and died firm friends, could afford to dispense with it? The order of the daughters among themselves must have been Eadgyth, Gunhild, Elfgifu. A daughter of Godwine and Gytha who was talked of as an intended wife for any one in 1066, must have been the very youngest of the family. The order of the sisters with regard to their brothers is more difficult to fix. It is hopeless to try to fix the place of Gunhild. But, as Ælfgifu must have been the youngest, there is some reason to believe that Eadgyth was the eldest of the family. The Biographer (p. 397) compares four children of Godwine, seemingly Eadgyth, Harold, Tostig, and Gyrth-he never mentions Swegen-to the four rivers of Paradise ; "Felix prole piâ Dux, stirpe beatus avitâ, His quatuor natis dans Anglia pignora pacis. Godwine and Gytha Harold therefore, younger than him This looks as if Eadgyth was the eldest of all. were married in 1019 (see vol. i. pp. 420, 723). the second son, could not, even if Eadgyth was self, have been born before 1021, perhaps not till 1022 or later. He therefore could not have been above twenty-four when he became Earl, nor above forty-five at his death-he may of course have been younger. But none of Godwine's sons who held Earldoms could have been so young as William of Malmesbury fancied Gyrth to be in 1066, when he calls him (iii. 239) "plus puero adultus et magnæ ultra ætatem virtutis et scientiæ." He had then been Earl of the East-Angles for nine years. NOTE G. p. 36. THE GREAT EARLDOMS DURING THE REIGN OF EADWARD. It is not always easy to trace the succession of the men who ruled the different Earldoms of England during the reign of Eadward. In several cases the Chronicles give us notices of the death, deposition, or translation of one Earl and of the appointment of his successor. But these entries taken alone would not enable us to put together a perfect series of the Earls. For instance, Eadwine (1065), Gyrth (1066), Leofwine (1066), Waltheof (1066), are all spoken of as Earls without any account of their appointment, and, in the last three cases, without any hint as to the districts over which they ruled. To make out anything like a perfect list, we must go to various incidental notices in the royal writs and elsewhere. By their help we shall be able to recover, not indeed an absolutely complete account, but one much fuller than appears on the face of the history, and one which reveals to us a great number of anomalies which we should not have expected. The way in which several Earls held isolated shires detached from the main body of their Earldoms, and the way in which shires were transferred from the jurisdiction of one Earl to that of another, are both of them very remarkable. For a complete view of these changes, indeed for any complete view of the general succession of the Earls, we must go back to the fourfold division of England by Cnut in 1017 (see vol. i. p. 404). Cnut then kept Wessex in his own hands, and appointed Eadric over Mercia, Thurkill over East-Anglia, Eric over Northumberland. In 1020 (see vol. i. p. 422), Wessex also became an Earldom under Godwine. Now in these four great governments we can trace the succession of Earls without difficulty, with the single exception of East-Anglia. We have no account of that Earldom from the banishment of Thurkill in 1021 (see vol. i. p. 425) to the appointment of Harold, seemingly in 1045 (see above, p. 37). As for Northumberland, I have already traced out the succession of its Earls (see vol. i. p. 520 et seqq.). There is no doubt that, at the accession of Eadward, Siward was in possession of both parts of the old Northern realm, and that he remained in possession of them till his death. The succession in Wessex is plainer still; Godwine was appointed in 1020, Harold succeeded him in 1053; there is no room for any question, except as to the disposal of the Earldom during the year of Godwine's banishment. And the mere succession in Mercia is equally plain. Leofwine succeeded Eadric in 1017; Leofrie succeeded Leofwine some time between 1024 and 1032 (see vol. i. p. 718); Ælfgar succeeded Leofric in 1057; Eadwine, there can be no reasonable doubt, succeeded Ælfgar on his death, at some time between 1062 and 1065. Our difficulties are of other kinds. There |
