46R5 
 
 Robinson 
 Saxon Bishops of Wells
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 SUPPLEMENTAL PAPERS 
 IV 
 
 The 
 Saxon Bishops of Wells 
 
 A Historical Study in 
 the Tenth Century 
 
 J. Armitage Robinson, D.D. 
 
 Fellow of the Academy 
 Dean of Wells 
 
 London 
 
 Published for the British Academy 
 
 By Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press 
 
 Amen Corner, E.C. 
 
 Price Five Shillings net
 
 THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 SUPPLEMENTAL PAPERS 
 IV 
 
 The 
 Saxon Bishops of Wells 
 
 A Historical Study in 
 the Tenth Century 
 
 By 
 
 J. Armitage Robinson, D.D. 
 
 Fellow of the Academy 
 Dean of Wells 
 
 London 
 
 Published for the British Academy 
 
 By Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press 
 
 Amen Corner, E.C.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. The First Bishop of Wells . 
 
 II. The Subdivision of the Wessex Dioceses 
 
 Note on the Winchester Charters of 909 
 
 III. The Plegmund Narrative ....... 
 
 Note on the Introduction of the Name of Formosus . 
 
 Note on the Letter of Archbishop Dunstan to King iEthelred 
 
 IV. The Coronation of King Athelstan by Archbishop Athelm, and the 
 
 Date of St. Dunstan's Birth ...... 
 
 V. The Successors of Bishop Athelm, 923-74 .... 
 VI. The Later Saxon Bishops, 974-1033 
 
 VII. Additional Notes : 
 
 A. The Early Endowment of the See of Wells 
 
 B. The Name ^Ethelhelm or Athelm 
 
 C. The Date of Athelm's Translation to Canterbury 
 
 D. The Tombs of Athelm, Wulfhelm and Lyfing at Canterbury 58 
 
 E. The Perils of the Road to Rome 59 
 
 F. Three Swiss Confraternity Books ..... 60 
 
 G. Archbishop Wulfhelm and the Laws of King Athelstan . 62 
 H. Bishop Brihthelm and his Namesakes . . ... 62 
 
 I. The First Abbots of Westminster 67 
 
 J. The Various Bishops Brih twine 68 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 16 
 
 18 
 
 24 
 
 27 
 
 28 
 40 
 45 
 
 52 
 55 
 
 56
 
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 A HISTORICAL STUDY IN THE TENTH CENTURY 
 
 I 
 The First Bishop of Wells 
 
 The bishopric of Wells was founded a thousand years ago, in the 
 reign of Edward the Elder; but a reasonable tradition takes back 
 the church of St. Andrew another two hundred years. King Ina had 
 carried the Saxon Conquest beyond the limits of Somerset, driving 
 the British before him as far as Exeter. The kingdom of Wessex 
 had become too large a diocese to be ruled by a single bishop with 
 his seat at Winchester ; so the western portion was now cut off and 
 placed under the supervision of a second bishop sitting at Sherborne. 
 This was in 705, and the new bishop was the learned Abbot of 
 Malmesbury, St. Aldhelm, who died in 709 in the little wooden 
 church of Doulting, in the course of one of his episcopal tours 
 among the villages of Somerset. Brief as was the period of his rule, 
 Aldhelm wrought great good for his people. Before he became 
 bishop his learning and his gentleness had done much to persuade 
 the British folk to join with their Saxon fellow Christians in keeping 
 Easter on the same day, and to abandon certain customs, trivial in 
 themselves, but mischievous when clung to as symbols of separation. 
 At the same time King Ina's generous legislation was treating the 
 conquered as almost on the level of their conquerors, and the two 
 races soon began to coalesce. Ina built a new church of stone for 
 the British monastery at Glastonbury, east of the wattled church of 
 immemorial antiquity ; and we may readily accept the tradition that 
 it was the same king who, under St. Aldhelm' s guidance, built the 
 first church by the Wells of St. Andrew. 
 
 The creation of a separate bishopric for the county of Somerset 
 was not an isolated act. It was part of a policy which, if not formu- 
 lated by King Alfred, was the natural outcome of the work which he 
 
 a2 

 
 4 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 did for England. When Alfred came to the throne in 871, the 
 Danish terror was at its height, and for the first seven years of his 
 reign practically the whole of England was at the mercy (if we may 
 so say) of these merciless invaders. A last stand was made at 
 Athelney, and on the hill that rises above Burrow Bridge. 1 It is the 
 proudest moment of the history of Somerset. Here was the rallying- 
 point of the heroic band which was to restore the fortunes of Wessex 
 and prepare the way for the new England of the tenth century. 
 Hence went the Somersets forth, to be joined by the Dorsets and the 
 Wilts, and to inflict such a defeat on the foe as should shatter for 
 the first time the legend of their invincibility. 
 
 These heathen Norsemen, who had long harried the land with 
 a cruel and widespread desolation, had shown no regard for sacred 
 places or persons, but had sacked and burned churches and monas- 
 teries, and had slain priest, monk and nun, such only escaping as 
 could pick up the bones of their patron saints and flee into desert 
 places. Religion and learning alike were threatened with extinction. 
 Alfred tells us that, when he came to the throne of Wessex, not 
 a scholar could he find south of the Thames ; few men south of the 
 Humber, and not many north of it, knew the English meaning of 
 their Latin service-books, or could translate a Latin letter. Such 
 was the plight of the Church which had sent out the learned Boniface 
 to convert the Germans, and had given Alcuin of York to the service 
 of the Emperor Charlemagne. 
 
 Alfred not only thrashed the Danes, but he also made Christians 
 of them, thus leading the way to a lasting peace with some at least 
 among them. Moreover he compelled them to withdraw from the 
 whole of Wessex and from the city of London, and confine their 
 settlements to the north of the Thames ; and he made a compact 
 with them, and propounded laws by which Englishmen and Danes 
 should live side by side in reasonable security. Thus he laid the 
 foundations of the new England, which his son Edward and his 
 grandsons Athelstan, Edmund, and Edred were to build up stage by 
 stage in the first half of the splendid tenth century. What more he 
 did for justice, learning, education and religion is of common know- 
 ledge. But one great reform he did not live to see, although he 
 paved the way for its arrival. 
 
 The whole of Wessex in his day had but two bishops ; one sat at 
 Winchester, the other at Sherborne ; and the Bishop of Sherborne 
 was responsible for all that lay west of him. It might seem as 
 
 1 Burrow Bridge, or Boroughbridge, so called from the burh rising above it on 
 the east bank of the Parret, a mile from Athelney itself.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 5 
 
 though some relief was contemplated when the king gave Exeter to 
 Bishop Asser, a learned man whom he had brought from St. Davids, 
 and whose knowledge of their language would help him to deal with 
 the folk of Devon and Cornwall — the West Welsh, as they were then 
 called. But Asser himself presently became Bishop of Sherborne, 
 so that matters remained as before. When, however, King Edward 
 the Elder had been seated on the throne for nine or ten years, there 
 had been time for a new generation to grow up, trained in the schools 
 which Alfred had founded. Archbishop Plegmund, one of Alfred's 
 men of learning, now determined, with King Edward's aid, to face 
 the problem boldly and as a whole. The diocese of Winchester was 
 divided, so as to give a bishop for Wilts., with his seat at Ramsbury ; 
 and the diocese of Sherborne was divided, giving new sees to Somerset 
 and Devon. These counties were already recognized territorial 
 divisions, and their aldermen had led the county hosts in the fights 
 against the Danes. The ecclesiastical was rightly made to coincide 
 with the civil division ; and thus Wells and Crediton got bishops of 
 their own. 1 
 
 If we are asked why remote little Wells was chosen for the seat of 
 the Somerset bishop, and not the famous city of Bath, with its abbey 
 some two centuries old, our answer is ready. First, Wells is central 
 to the county, whereas Bath is not ; secondly, the court was much 
 at Cheddar in those days, and Wells lay between royal Cheddar and 
 the i royal island' of Glastonbury, 2 that ancient home of religion, 
 the glories of which were soon to shine more brightly than ever; 
 thirdly, Bath had for two hundred years looked north and not south, 
 casting in its lot with Gloucestershire, and living under the rule of 
 the Mercian kings. The Mercian lands indeed were being gradually 
 united to the kingdom of the West Saxons, as they were regained 
 little by little from Danish rule. Alfred's daughter Ethelflaed was 
 married to Ethelred, the alderman of the Mercians, and after the 
 disappearance of the last Mercian king this warrior princess ruled 
 with her husband, and even after her husband's death, as the Lady 
 of the Mercians ; but when she died, in 918, Mercia came directly 
 under Edward's control, and a fresh step was taken towards the unity 
 of England. Somewhere about this time Bath returned to its own 
 county of Somerset ; but it must still have seemed a stranger-town, 
 and nearly two centuries were to run before the bishop's stool was 
 set up in its abbey church. 
 
 1 See the Note (A) on the Early Endowment of the See of Wells. 
 
 2 ' Regalis insula,' Memorials of St. Dunstan (Rolls Ser.), p. 6.
 
 6 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 The first Bishop of Wells was JEthelhelm, or Athelm, as he is 
 more commonly called. 1 He must have been among the earliest 
 fruits of Alfred's educational endeavours. He seems to have been 
 related to the royal house, as his nephew Dunstan undoubtedly was. 
 His brother Heorstan, Dunstan's father, had an estate bordering on 
 Glastonbury to the south-east ; and Athelm may have been born in 
 that neighbourhood. He appears to have been educated at Glaston- 
 bury, if indeed he was not a monk of the abbey. 2 His consecration 
 may be placed in 909 or 910. Of his work in the new diocese of 
 Somerset we know nothing at all ; but we may be sure that it was 
 strong and good ; for when the aged Plegmund died, in 923, Athelm 
 was chosen to succeed him in the archbishopric of Canterbury. 3 
 This was a remarkable choice ; for it had hardly ever happened that 
 an archbishop was appointed from the number of existing bishops ; 
 there were precedents indeed, but only three or four in the three 
 centuries since St. Augustine's death. When he was settled at 
 Canterbury, Athelm sent for his nephew Dunstan, a lad of about 
 fourteen, who had been brought up at Glastonbury. King Edward 
 died at the end of 924, and on September 4 in the following year 
 Athelm anointed and crowned King Athelstan. On January 8, 926, 
 he died ; but not before he had commended Dunstan to the new king 
 and secured him a place in the court. He could not know how great 
 was the service he thus rendered to the England of the coming days. 
 He was buried at Canterbury, where his obit was kept, 4 and his 
 name was invoked among saintly confessors. 5 
 
 Here we must needs break off our narrative in order to consider 
 the various historical problems which beset some of the statements 
 which have just been made. 
 
 1 See the Note (B) on the Name iEthelhelm or iEthelm. 
 
 2 Memorials of St. Dunstan, pp. 7, 10, 54 f . William of Malmesbury makes 
 Athelm a monk of Glastonbury : ibid., p. 258 ; Gesta Regum, i. 224 ; Antiq. of 
 Glaston. in Hearne's Adam of Domerhant, i. 92. The Canon of Wells, improving 
 on this, makes him abbot : Historia Maior, Wharton, A. S. i. 555. On the other 
 hand Brompton, in his Ghronicon, says : ' qui quidem Athelmus non fuit monachus, 
 sed omnes alii archiepiscopi Dorobornenses ante earn,' Tvvysden, Scriptt. Decern, 
 p. 838. The Glastonbury Obituary possibly included him as having been Bishop 
 of Wells, perhaps also as Dunstan's uncle ; and thus he may in time have been 
 thought of as a monk of the abbey. It is most reasonable to suppose that he had 
 his education there. 
 
 3 See the Note (C) on the Date of Athelm's Translation to Canterbury. 
 
 4 Cotton MS., Nero C. 9. 
 
 6 See the Note (D) on the Tombs of Athelm, Wulfhelm and Lyfing.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 7 
 
 II 
 
 The Subdivision of the Wessex Dioceses 
 
 The earliest historical record which tells us of the rearrangement 
 by which a new diocese was formed out of Winchester for Wiltshire, 
 and two new dioceses out of Sherborne for Wells and Crediton, is 
 the famous manuscript presented by King Athelstan to the guardians 
 of St. Cuthbert's shrine. This manuscript contains Bede's Life of 
 St. Cuthbert and a metrical narrative of the saint's miracles. Between 
 these two pieces come lists of bishops and genealogies of kings. 
 These and similar episcopal lists deserve a critical treatment which 
 they have not yet received. They occur, in conjunction with genea- 
 logical lists of the Anglo-Saxon royal houses, in a number of manu- 
 scripts which present them at various stages of completeness. The 
 most important codices are : 
 
 Cotton MS., Vespasian B. 6 (c. 805-11). 
 Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 183 (c. 935). 
 Cotton MS., Tiberius B. 5 (c. 990). 
 
 Our chief concern will be with the second of these manuscripts, 
 King Athelstan 's codex mentioned above. But, in order to interpret 
 its evidence aright, we must make a preliminary study of the list of 
 the West Saxon bishops given in Vespasian B. 6. 
 This is a composite volume containing 
 i. Beda de temporibus (ff. 1-102). 
 
 ii. Astronomical and other tables, and various items (ff. 103-7), 
 followed by lists of popes, &c, and of English bishops, and genealogies 
 of Mercian and Northumbrian kings (ff. 107 6-111). 
 
 iii. In a much later hand, William of Newburgb/s History (ff. 112 
 onwards). 
 
 It is not certain that i and ii originally formed part of the same 
 MS. : probably they did not. A note on f. 102 b seems to have been 
 written c. 840, and the copy of the tract of Bede was perhaps written 
 a little earlier. But ii may fairly be assigned to a yet earlier date. 
 The popes end with Leo III (795-816) probably, though the re- 
 inking of the MS. makes it hard to say with certainty that the next 
 two names, Stephen V (816-17) and Paschal I (817-24), were not 
 written by the original scribe. The point must really be decided by 
 the evidence of the English lists. 
 
 We begin by observing that the scribe would seem to have written 
 before July 27, 816, the date of the Council of Celcyth, at which
 
 fc THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 Winchester, Leicester and Lichfield were represented by Wigthegn, 
 Rethhun and Herewine : * for these names are added to his lists by 
 a second hand, which brings most of the dioceses down to c. 825. 
 
 Again, the last signatures of Werenberht of Leicester and Aldwulf 
 of Lichfield are in 814 (Harley Charter 83 A. 1 ; Birch, C. S. 343). 
 But in this charter Wigthegn already appears as Bishop of Winchester; 
 so that the Wessex lists must have been written before this. Indeed, 
 if with Bishop Stubbs we accept the date and signatures of the 
 spurious foundation charter of Winchelcombe (Birch, C. S. 338) as 
 derived from a genuine charter, 2 then Wigthegn (or Wignoth, as he 
 is there corruptly written) was already Bishop of Winchester in 811. 
 He may have succeeded earlier still, for the last appearance of 
 Alhmund, his predecessor, is on July 26, 805 (Birch, C. S. 322). 
 
 If now we date the episcopal lists between 805 and 811 (or 814) 
 we shall satisfy all demands, with two exceptions which if they stood 
 by themselves might suggest a yet earlier date. For Tidferth of 
 Hexham succeeded in 806, and Egbert of Lindisfarne in 803 ; and 
 both of these were added by the second hand. But for these remote 
 dioceses the original scribe may easily have been behindhand in his 
 information. As for the royal genealogies, the latest king to be 
 mentioned is Coenwulf of Mercia (796-821). No Wessex kings are 
 included in these lists. 
 
 Provisionally, therefore, we place the writing of these episcopal 
 lists between 805 and 811. Such a date is not excluded by palaeo- 
 graphical considerations. 3 
 
 If we are right in thinking that we have here got back to the 
 original compilation of these episcopal lists — and there seems to be 
 no evidence of an earlier stage — they were drawn up at a critical 
 period in the history of the Church and of the State. King OfiVs 
 scheme of a separate Mercian province with an archbishop at Lichfield 
 had been short-lived; it was finally disposed of by Archbishop 
 Ethelweard in 803. Although Wulfred, the next Archbishop of 
 Canterbury (805-832), had a prolonged struggle with Coenwulf, the 
 last great Mercian king, the unity of his province was no longer in 
 question, and Kent was soon to be released from the Mercian tyrany. 
 The power of Wessex was growing under Egbert (802-39), and was 
 soon to alter the face of England after the battle of Ellandune 
 in 825. 
 
 It is not without significance that at this moment of impending 
 
 1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, %c, iii. 579. 2 Ibid. iii. 674 n. 
 
 8 lam permitted to say this on the authority of Mr. J. P. Gilson, of the British 
 Museum, who has kindly allowed me to consult him.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 9 
 
 change, when a new unity was about to be given to the State, a 
 scholar should be moved to trace the episcopal successions of the 
 whole of England, and thus to display the antecedent unity of the 
 English Church. Alcuin had died in 804, and the land was soon to 
 be plunged in the darkness of that ignorance which two generations 
 later Alfred would have to deplore. We may regard the compilation 
 of these lists as one of the last efforts of Alcuin's school. 
 
 The following is the Wessex list of episcopal successions in 
 Vespasian B. 6. The names marked with an asterisk have been 
 added by the second hand, c. 825. 
 
 Nomina episcoporum occideutalium saxouum. 
 
 Primus occideutalium saxonum birinus fuit episcopus qui cum cousilio houorii 
 papae uenerat brittaniam. ii agilberbt iii uuine iiii leutherius v baedde Dein- 
 de iu duas parochias diuisus est altera uuentanaecium ecclesiae altera scira- 
 bur(neusis) ecclesiae. 
 
 In uenta(na) ciuita(te) In scira(burnensi) eccle(sia) 
 
 i danihel i aldhelm 
 
 ii bunfrrS ii forShere 
 
 iii cynheard iii hereuuald 
 
 iiii ae^elheard iv ae^elmod 
 
 v ecgbald v denefri£> 
 
 vi dudd vi uuigberht 
 
 vii cyneberht albstan* 
 
 viii alcbmund 
 wig^egn* 
 berefrrS* 
 
 The main source of the compiler's information for the earliest 
 period would naturally be the Historia Ecclesiastica of Bede. He 
 has, in fact, actually adopted Bede's words, taking them from two 
 widely separated passages of his work. 
 
 (1) Hist. Eccl. iii. 7 Eo tempore gens Occidentalium Saxonum, qui antiquitus 
 Gewissae vocabantur, regnante Cynigilso fidem Christi suscepit, praedicante 
 illis verbum Birino episcopo, qui cum consilio papae Honorii venerat Brittaniam. 
 
 The second passage explains the riddle of what appears to be the 
 ungrammatical divisus est. 
 
 (2) Hist. Eccl. v. 18 Quo (sc. Haedde) defuncto, episcopatus provinciae illius 
 in duas parrochias divisus est : uua data Daniheli, quam usque hodie regit ; altera 
 AldbelmOj cui annis iiii strenuissime praefuit, etc. 
 
 We are now ready to consider the evidence offered to us by the 
 Wessex lists in C. C. C. C. 183. It will be convenient to postpone for 
 the moment certain interesting questions as to the date of this MS., 
 and of the lists which it contains.
 
 10 
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 Nomina cpiscoporum 
 
 xxvi. parrochias 
 
 occidental! am saxonum 
 
 xxvii. diuisa est tempf 
 
 i. birinus fait epis qui cum 
 
 xxviii. Fripestaui . unam tenu 
 
 consilio bonorii pape ve 
 
 xxviiii. it Fripestan . et alteram 
 
 nerat brittauniam 
 
 xxx. iEpelstau . postea Oda. 
 
 ii. Agilberht 
 
 Scireburnensis ecclesie episcopi 
 
 iii. pine 
 
 i. Adhelm 
 
 iiii. leutherius 
 
 ii. ForShere 
 
 v. haedde 
 
 iii. Hereuuald 
 
 deinde in duas parrochi 
 
 iiii. iESelmod 
 
 as diuisus est. altera uuenta 
 
 v. Denefri^ 
 
 cenorum ecclesie altera scire 
 
 vi. pigbriht 
 
 burnensis ecclesie 
 
 vii. [Ejalhstan 
 
 uuentane ciuitatis episcopi 
 
 viii. heabmund 
 
 vi. Danibel 
 
 viiii. *pelheah 
 
 vii. HunfrrS 
 
 x. pulfsige 
 
 viii. Cynheard 
 
 xi. asser 
 
 viiii. iEpelheard 
 
 xii. a?¥elpeard 
 
 x. Ecgbald 
 
 (col. 2) 
 
 xi. dudd 
 
 deinde in tres parrocbias 
 
 xii. Cynebryht 
 
 diuisa est . pillensis ec- 
 
 xiii. Alhmund 
 
 clesie et cridiensi(s) 
 
 xiiii. pigpegn 
 
 ecclesie 
 
 xv. Herefei-^ 
 
 Scireburnensis ecclesie 
 
 xvi. Eadhun 
 
 xiii. J)a?rstan 
 
 xvii. Helmstan 
 
 xiiii. aepelbald 
 
 (f. 62 6, col. 1) 
 
 xv. Sigelm 
 
 xviii. SprShun 
 
 xvi. aelfred 
 
 xviiii. 
 
 Uuillensis ecclesie 
 
 xx. Denepulf 
 
 i. sepelmus 
 
 xxi. Fripestan 
 
 ii. uulfhelmus 
 
 xxii. iElfheah 
 
 iii. aelfheah 
 
 xxiii. 
 
 Cridiensis ceeclesie 
 
 xxiiii. Deinde uuintoni 
 
 i. Eaduulf 
 
 xxv. ens ecclil in duas 
 
 (ii.) aepelgar 
 
 It is at once evident that we have here a continuation of the lists 
 of which we have found the earliest stage in Vesp. B. 6. The con- 
 tinuator is plainly no trained scholar, and he has indicated the fresh 
 subdivision of the Winchester diocese in a very awkward manner. 
 He has omitted even to tell us that the new diocese then formed was 
 the diocese of Wiltshire, which had its seat at Ramsbury. He con- 
 tinues the Winchester list to his own day without any suggestion 
 that the area of the diocese has undergone a second limitation. He 
 has left a gap after the name of St. Swithhun ; we find it filled some 
 fifty years later in Tiberius B. 5 by the name of Ealferth. His last 
 three bishops are Denewulf (879-908), Frithestan (909-31) and 
 zElfheah * the Bald ' (934 onwards). Strangely enough, he has left
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 11 
 
 out the saintly Beornstan, who came in on Frithestan's retirement 
 and sat for two years and a half, if not longer. This omission, again, 
 is supplied in Tiberius B. 5. 
 
 Having brought his Winchester list down to his own time, he finds 
 it necessary to explain that part of the Winchester diocese has for 
 some time been separated off and ruled by a bishop of its own. He 
 looks back to the note, which he has already copied, recording the first 
 subdivision of the see of Winchester, and he appends a somewhat 
 belated note of a similar character: f Then (deinde) the church of 
 Winchester was divided into two dioceses, in the time of Frithestan : 
 one Frithestan held, the other /Ethelstan, and afterwards Oda/ We 
 know that Oda came in at some time between 925 and 927, and went 
 to Canterbury in 942. Athelstan, who preceded him at Ramsbury, 
 came in, it would seem, when the new see was founded, e in the time 
 of Frithestan ' : but this is a somewhat vague indication of date. 
 
 Let us now see how he deals with the subdivision of Sherborne. 
 He carries down his Sherborne list past Asser, who died in 909, to 
 iEthelweard. Then he inserts a note, the meaning of which is fairly 
 clear, though its construction is faulty : l Then (deinde) it was divided 
 into three dioceses — of the church of Wells, and of the church of 
 Crediton/ After this we have three separate lists — for the reduced 
 diocese of Sherborne, for Wells, and for Crediton. 
 
 When did this subdivision actually take place ? Was it on Asser's 
 death, or in the time of ^thelweard, or immediately after his time ? 
 Was it contemporaneous with the subdivision of Winchester, and 
 part of a complete scheme for the reconstitution of the Wessex 
 dioceses ? All that we can say here is that the evidence of this MS. 
 does not afford us clear answers to these questions. The writer has 
 got himself into a curious tangle, from which he must have been 
 thankful to emerge and to go forward with the straight lines of his 
 separate lists. We shall be unwise if we press his language with 
 a rigidly logical interpretation. 
 
 He left an awkward problem for his successors when they came to 
 carry on the Winchester list. The note as to the subdivision i in the 
 time of Frithestan 3 was already out of its proper place : what should 
 they do with it ? The scribe of Tiberius B. 5 continues the Winchester 
 list without a break, adding the names of JElfsige, ^Ethelwold and 
 yElfheah the second (the future archbishop and martyr). He then adds a 
 note in which he attempts to combine the two notes of his predecessor : 
 
 Uuentania ecclesia in duas parrochias divisa est . tempore fri^estau . unara 
 
 es 
 tenuit frrSestan . et alteram ae^elstan . postea . oda . Deinde in .iii. parrochias 
 divisa est . wiltunensis . et willensis . et cridiensis . aecclesiae.
 
 12 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 After this he gives the Sherborne list from the time of Aldhelm 
 down to his own day. We observe that he has given us i Wiltunensis ' 
 as the name of the diocese which had before been left without a name : 
 but he gives it in the wrong place, and makes confusion worse 
 confounded. 
 
 We have now to consider the date and provenance of the two 
 manuscripts of which we have last spoken. 
 
 (1) C.C.C.C. 183. Simeon of Durham (Hist. Dunelm. ii. 18: I, 
 p. 75, Rolls Ser.) says that in 925 Tilred, Bishop of Chester-le-Street, 
 died, and was succeeded by Wigred, in whose tenth year Athelstan, 
 on his way into Scotland, made great offerings at St. Cuthbert's 
 shrine. This brings us to 934. 'In the fourth year after this, 
 i. e. 937/ he says, was the battle at f Weondune, otherwise called 
 Etbrunnanwerc or Brunnanbyrig \ Thus it is quite plain that 
 Simeon of Durham dates the gifts of Athelstan to St. Cuthbert in 
 934, the year of his first expedition to Scotland. 
 
 He does not describe the gifts in detail, but refers us to a cartula, 
 which he has already (p. 72) spoken of as ' ecclesiae cartula quae 
 antiquam regum et quorumque religiosorum munificentiam erga 
 ipsum sanctum continet\ This is the Historia de S. Cuthberto, 
 printed in the same volume of the Rolls Series. Here we read 
 (§ 26, p. 211) that when Athelstan was making a great expedition 
 into Scotland he visited the shrine of St. Cuthbert and made royal 
 gifts, c et inde subscriptum testamentum composuit et ad caput sancti 
 Cuthberti posuit : In nomine domini nostri Iesu Christ. Ego Ethel- 
 stan rex do sancto Cuthberto hunc textum Evangeliorum, . . .' (many 
 gifts follow) '. . . et unam sancti Cuthberti vitam, metrice et prosaice 
 scriptum . . / Evidently this deed of gift was written on a leaf of 
 the Gospels thus presented (hunc textum). 1 
 
 The cartula proceeds to tell us that Athelstan charged his brother 
 Edmund to bring his body to St. Cuthbert if he should fall in the 
 
 1 It is believed that this Book of the Gospels was the Cotton MS., Otho B. 9, of 
 which only charred fragments of thirteen leaves now remain. It was described 
 by Wanley (Hickes's Thesaurus, ii. 238), who gives Athelstan's English dedica- 
 tion of the book to St. Cuthbert. This was followed by ' Nota Sax. de donis 
 quae contulit idem rex iEthelstanus'. The Latin ' testamentum', given in the 
 Historia de S. Cuthberto, seems to be a combination of these entries. Mr. Hodgson 
 Hinde (Sym. Dun., i. 149, Surtees Soc.) says : ' There is a copy of tins charter- 
 will in MS. Cotton, Claudius D. iv. 21-2, a MS. of the fifteenth century. It 
 occurs also at p. 93 b of the same MS., and is said to be taken " Ex libro Prioris ; 
 et concordat cum libro magni altaris ". The passage relating to Edmund is said 
 to be " Ex libro magni altaris". Neither it, nor the will of Athelstan, is in the 
 Liber Vitae, and some other book is no doubt meant.' The Claudius MS. was 
 referred to by Wanley, but is not mentioned by Birch, ft S. 685.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 13 
 
 expedition. There is nothing here to give a definite date : but, as 
 Edmund was only twelve or thirteen years old in 934, we seem rather 
 to be pointed to 937, when we know that Edmund took part in the 
 expedition. The allocation of the gifts to 934 may be regarded as 
 a mere conjecture. 1 
 
 It is generally agreed that the MS. C.C.C.C. 183, which contains 
 the Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert in prose and in verse, and has 
 at the beginning the picture of a king offering a book to a saint, is the 
 actual volume presented by King Athelstan to St. Cuthbert. Now, 
 when we examine the episcopal lists contained in this MS., we find 
 that the latest name is that of ^Elfheah the Bald, who succeeded 
 Beornstan at Winchester in 934 (or possibly 935) ; and we note 
 that no successor is given to yElfheah of Wells, who died in 937 or 
 938. We may be confident, therefore, that the MS. was written 
 before 938, but we cannot be sure that it was completed before 935. 
 
 Thus again we are pointed to 937 rather than 984 as the date of 
 the donation. It is possible that the book was promised on the 
 former occasion, and was written and brought up from the south at 
 the later date. This is in itself a natural supposition : for the codex 
 was evidently written specially for the occasion, as we may judge 
 both from its subject and from the picture at the beginning ; and it 
 would take some time to make so beautiful a book. 
 
 It is not easy to conjecture where this MS. was written. W r e 
 naturally think first of Winchester ; but against this is the fact that 
 the Winchester list of bishops, as we have noted above, has two 
 gaps — a space is left after St. Swithhun, and the name of St. Beorn- 
 stan, who had died quite recently, is omitted without even a break in 
 the numbering. 
 
 1 The allocation of Athelstau's gifts to 934 occurs also in the first section of the 
 Historia Begum (Sym. Dun., R. S., II. 93) ; here again it is clear that Athelstan's 
 deed of gift is the ultimate source of information. This first section is a highly 
 composite document : from 734 to 802 it embodies the very important North- 
 umbrian Annals (cf. Stubbs, Preface to Hoveden, It. S., I. xxviiiff.) ; but after 
 this the compiler is at a loss till Asser's Life of Alfred supplies him with abundant 
 materials ; after that source has failed him, he uses a form of the Saxon Chronicle 
 intimately related to the ancestor of E (the Peterborough Chronicle) : but, 
 though he supplies us with some unique notices of northern affairs at a few 
 points between 888 and 978, we must be careful not to estimate their value by 
 the fact that they occur in the same compilation as the North umbrian Annals of 
 the earlier period. Symeon's own hand is probably to be traced in certain parts 
 of this first section, and the mention of Athelstan's gifts under 934 may be due to 
 him : in any case this notice (repeated in a shorter form in the second section, 
 ibid. II. 124) and that which occurs in the Hist. Vunelm, are not likely to be 
 independent of each other.
 
 14 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 Yet we may be fairly confident that the book comes from Wessex : 
 for, apart from the list of the archbishops of Canterbury, only the 
 Wessex bishops are brought down to the writer's own day. All the 
 other episcopal lists come to an end before c. 840. 1 If the writer 
 had been at Canterbury he might have done more for these other 
 dioceses. We must look for him in Wessex ; and after Winchester 
 the most likely place would seem to be Glastonbury. This was 
 a royal monastery, and the court was frequently in Somerset ; 
 Dunstan was trained at Glastonbury, and became abbot there a few 
 years after this. St. Cuthbert was said to have appeared to King 
 Alfred when he was hard pressed in the Somerset marshes, and the 
 parish church of Wells proves by its unusual dedication that the 
 saint was in high honour in the neighbourhood in very early days. 
 A copy of his Life and of his Miracles may have been already at 
 Glastonbury, or may have been brought from the north for the 
 writing of this book. This is no more than a guess ; but it fits in 
 with the fact that the next evidence for these episcopal lists is found 
 in a MS. which undoubtedly has a Glastonbury connexion. 
 
 (2) Of this MS. (Tiberius B. 5) something must now be said. It 
 appears to be of the second half of the eleventh century, but its 
 episcopal lists end c. 990. The royal genealogies are the same as in 
 Vesp. B. 6, save that that codex had entirely omitted the West Saxon 
 kings. This defect is remedied in two ways : before the genealogies 
 of Vesp., Tiberius inserts a list of kings from Cerdic to /Ethelred ; 
 and after the genealogies of Vesp., it adds (a) a genealogy of Ine 
 (which is found as the last of the genealogies in C.C.C.C. 183), and 
 (b) a genealogy of the iEthelings, Eadward, Eadmund and ^Ethelred, 
 sons of Edgar, tracing them up to Ingeld the brother of Ine. Then 
 it says : 
 
 Ingeld waesines brcrSor westseaxna cyninges . 7 he heold rice .vii. 7 xxx 
 wintra . 7 lie getimbrade beet beorbte mynster set glaestinga byrig . 7 aefter bam 
 ferde to see petres . 7 pser his feorh asealde . 7 ousibbe gerest . 7 hi begen 
 bro¥ra wseron cenredes suna. 2 
 
 This genealogy is continued through Cerdic and Woden to Scef, 
 
 1 The list of popes comes down to Adrian III (884-5) : the entries from e. 840 
 to this date may have been inserted by an earlier owner in the MS. from which 
 our scribe was copying. 
 
 2 Notes which appear to be derived from this Glastonbury form of the genealogy 
 are added to A of tbe Saxon Chronicle by a very early hand : see Plummer, i. 40 
 (under 688 j and 42 (under 728). The genealogy is that of A.-S. Chron. s.a. 855, 
 where, however, the Glastonbury reference is not found. The reference does 
 appear in the copy of the genealogy found in the Textus Roffensis. 

 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 15 
 
 Noah's son j who was born in the ark ; and so on up to ' Adam, 
 primus homo. Et pater omnium qui est Christus ' (f. 23 a). 
 
 There are other indications which point to Glastonbury as the 
 source of the archetype of this MS. For on f. 23 b we have a list of 
 names without any heading at all, beginning with Hemgils and ending 
 with ^Elfward. These are, in fact, the abbots of Glastonbury ; and 
 yElfward was the successor of Abbot Sigegar, who became Bishop of 
 Wells in 975. 
 
 On the same page comes a list of tenth-century popes ; and then 
 follows an account of Archbishop Sigeric's visit to Rome (printed by 
 Stubbs, Memorials of Dunstan, 391 if.). The date of this visit was 
 990. Sigeric had been Abbot of Glastonbury from 980 to 985. 
 
 We are justified, therefore, in connecting much of the matter 
 contained in Tiberius B. 5 with Glastonbury. But it is probable 
 that the MS., which is to be dated about a century later, was written 
 for or at Winchester : for the name of St. Swithhun, and no other, 
 is entirely in capital letters. 
 
 We have already quoted from Tiberius B. 5 the composite note 
 which describes the subdivision of the Wessex dioceses, and have 
 mentioned its additions to the Winchester list. To the Sherborne 
 list are added (after Alfred) Wulfsige, Alfwold and Athelsige. We 
 may now give in full the lists for Wiltshire, Wells and Crediton. 
 
 Nomina episcoporum mnttunensis 
 i. iE^elstan 
 ii. Oda Hi. iElrici 
 iii. Osolf 
 iiii. iElfstan 
 v. Wulfgar 
 vi. Sigericus . dei 
 vii. amicus 
 Nomina uvilnensis ecclesig 
 i. Aftelm 
 ii. Wulfhelm 
 iii. iElfheah ii 
 iiii. Wulfhelm 
 v. Brihthelm 
 vi. Kynewerd 
 vii. Sigegar 
 Nomina episcoporum cridiensis ecclesig 
 i. Eadulf 
 ii. iE^elgar 
 iii. iElfwold 
 iiii. Sideman 
 v. ^Elfric 
 vi. Alfwold
 
 16 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 What conclusions can we draw from the study of these episcopal 
 lists as to the date of the subdivision of the Wessex dioceses under 
 Edward the Elder ? The creation of a new diocese out of Winchester 
 took place ' in the time of Frithestan \ This vague manner of speaking 
 may be due to the misplacement of the note, which perhaps ought to 
 have followed the name of Denewulf. In any case our first inquiry 
 must be as to the year of Denewulfs death and the year of Frithestan's 
 accession. 
 
 The Parker MS. (A) of the Chronicle, which was written at Win- 
 chester, has the following entries : 
 
 908. Her gefor Denulf, se waes on Winteceastre biscop. 
 
 909. Her feng Frithestan to biscopdome on Wiuteceastre, 7 Asser biscop gefor 
 
 aefter ^aem, se wa?s at Scireburnan biscop. 
 
 The same entries are found in MSS. B, C, and D, but under the 
 years 909, 910. It is to be noted that the original numbers in A 
 have been increased by one for all the years from 892 to 928 : so that 
 A now appears as giving our two annals as 909 and 910. 1 But the 
 original numbering of A has the support of the Annals of St. Neots, 
 where we read : 
 
 Anno nccccix. A(s)ser episcopus Sciraburneusis obiit, et Frithestanus 
 suscepit episcopatum Uuintoniae. 
 
 A yet earlier date (908) is assigned for Asser's death in the Annates 
 Cambriae, and Mr. W. H. Stevenson declares (Asser, p. lxv) that e it 
 is difficult to say which is the correct year \ 
 
 If we accept the year 909 for the accession of Frithestan and for 
 the subsequent death of Asser, Ave may not unreasonably suppose 
 that the whole scheme for the Wessex dioceses came into operation 
 at the end of that year. 2 
 
 Note on the Winchester Charters of 909. 
 There is a group of charters, concerned with Winchester properties and dated 
 in 909, which speak of the division of Winchester into two dioceses by King Edward 
 the Elder, and the request of Bishop Frithestan that certain ancient grants may 
 
 1 I cannot follow Dr. Plumraer in regarding the original numeration of A from 
 892 to 928 as mistaken. It is a serious misfortune that, following Thorpe's 
 example, he has given the altered figures only in his text : for the evidence of A is 
 in consequence perpetually misquoted. 
 
 2 If it be objected that Asser's successor is given in the lists as iEthehveard, 
 and that the note which describes the subdivision of Sherborne follows after his 
 name, it may be replied (1) that the year of Asser's death remains uncertain, 
 and (2) that iEthelweard may have died soon after his consecration. We know 
 nothing of him apart from these lists : the charters in which his name occurs 
 cannot be relied on.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 17 
 
 be confirmed to him. These ' mellifluous donations ' — if we may be allowed to 
 use the phrase of Archbishop Plegmund' s attesting clause— all come from the 
 Winchester Register (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 15,350), a most untrustworthy 
 source. One of them, however, has also a separate existence as Harley 
 Charter 43. C. 1 : it is beautifully written, but the hand is undoubtedly of later 
 date than 909. As the evidence of these charters has been so often quoted, it is 
 necessary that this charter at any rate should be subjected to examination. 1 
 
 (a) ' Ego Eaduueardus divina largiente dementia Angulsaxonum rex, tempore 
 quo diucesim Uuentanae ecclesiae in duas divisi parrochias, obnixae rogatus fui 
 a Fridestano quern tunc praedictae ecclesiae episcopum constitueram, ut novarum 
 astipulatione litterarum sanctae ecclesiae testamenta, uti olim ab antecessoribus 
 meis Cynegislo atque Cynepalho multisque eorum successoribus devote tradita 
 atque restaurata fuerant, confirmans renovarem . . .' 
 
 The phrase e tempore quo diucesim Uuentanae ecclesiae in duas divisi parrochias' 
 recalls the episcopal lists in C.C.C.C. 183, where we read : ' Deinde Wintoniensis 
 ecclesiae in duas parrochias divisa est tempore Fri))estani.' But the use ot 
 diocesis in this connexion may possibly raise our suspicion. 2 
 
 (b) ' terram quae undique adiacet civitati quae in exordio Christianae religionis, 
 Birino venerabili episcopo praedicante, beato Petro ei usque coapostolo Paulo 
 concessa fuerat.' 
 
 The writer here and elsewhere in the charter has doubtless drawn his informa- 
 tion from Bede : but this particular statement is unfortunate ; for Birinus sat at 
 Dorchester, where a church was provided for him ; and not until Cenwalh's reign 
 did a bishop sit at Winchester. 
 
 (c) ' nulli secularium militum ' looks like a later phrase. 
 
 (d) ' beati Petri apostolorum principis auctoritate praecipimus ' does not seem 
 language that the king would have used, even though he joins Plegmund and his 
 ' suffraganei ' with him. The phrase is repeated and enlarged lower down. 
 
 (e) The reference to Archbishop Theodore and his forbidding the alienation of 
 church property by bishops (Council of Hertford , Bede, H, E. iv. 5) seems as little 
 likely to be genuine as the reference to Bishop Denewulf, Frithestan's predecessor, 
 who was only just dead, as having specially offended in this matter c ad animae 
 suae periculum'. 
 
 (/) ' Ego Plegmund archiepiscopus mellifluam donationem praefati regis 
 subscripsi cum signaculo sanctae cruris.' 
 
 Elaborate attestations of this kind do not seem to come in genuine charters 
 till about half a century later. 
 
 I had noted these points as casting more or less of suspicion upon this charter 
 before 1 came across Mr. W. H. Stevenson's condemnatory judgement {Asser, 
 322 n.), which J here reproduce : ' These texts, with the exception of the first 
 [i. e. Birch, Cart. Sax. ii. 283, no. 620], are derived from the Winchester 
 chartulary, and they are all of a very suspicious nature. Bishop Stubbs, who 
 accepts their evidence as fixing the division of the bishoprics in this year, states 
 that the charter at p. 283 exists in an " original tenth-century charter " (preface 
 to Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, ii, p. lvi, note 3). It is reproduced in the Brit. 
 
 1 It is printed in Birch, Cartul. Saxon., no. 620. The others are to be read 
 ibid., nos. 623, 625, 627, 628, 629. 
 
 2 It is, however, so used in the decrees of the Council of Celchyth (816). 
 
 B
 
 18 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 Mus. Facs. iv, pi. 10, and is written in what must be a very late tenth-century 
 hand, but is more probably an early eleventh-century one. It is one of the long 
 series of forgeries intended to establish the reduction of the hidage of Chilcomb 
 from a hundred hides to one. We have no indications that such reductions ot 
 nidation were known before the introduction of Danegeld, and no evidence 
 beyond the Winchester charters that such reductions were made by royal 
 charters.' 
 
 Whether Mr. Stevenson may not have unduly depressed the date of the hand- 
 writing is a question for the experts in palaeography. But we may accept with- 
 out any hesitation his judgement that the whole series of these charters is an 
 elaborate Winchester forgery ; and we must content ourselves with noting that 
 at Winchester, when these documents were composed, the division of the diocese 
 into two parts was held to have taken place not later than 909. Such a conclusion 
 might easily have been drawn from the episcopal lists in conjunction with the 
 Winchester copy of the Chronicle, which, as we have seen, originally gave 909 
 as the date of Frithestan's accession. 
 
 Ill 
 The Plegmund Narrative 
 
 The story of the fivefold division of the Wessex dioceses at the 
 instigation of Pope Formosus, and of the consecration by Archbishop 
 Plegmund of seven bishops on one day, has long been discredited. 
 But, fictitious though the narrative is, it rests on a basis of fact, and 
 it is closely connected with ' one of the most vexed incidents of 
 Anglo-Saxon History V The story in brief is this. In 905 Formosus, 
 Pope of Rome, wrote to Edward, King of the English, and complained 
 that the West Saxons had been left for seven years without a bishop : 
 if this were not amended, he would lay a curse on the English instead 
 of the blessing which the holy Pope Gregory had sent them. So the 
 king held a council, and decided, with consent of the archbishop, 
 to make five sees where before there were but two. Then the arch- 
 bishop went to Rome, and the pope was pleased to remit his anger 
 and to accept the new scheme. When Plegmund returned he conse- 
 crated in one day seven bishops, namely, for Winchester and Sherborne, 
 for the new sees of Ramsbury, Wells and Crediton, and for two 
 other sees which happened to be vacant. To the Bishop of Crediton 
 three properties in Cornwall were assigned — Polltun, Caellincg and 
 Landuuithan — to the intent that he should visit the Cornish folk 
 each year, to convert them from their errors ; for before this, so far 
 
 1 Stubbs, pref. to W. of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, I. 140 u. ; see also II. liv ff., 
 where the matter is discussed at length.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 19 
 
 as they could, they resisted the truth, and were not obedient to the 
 apostolical decrees. Now all this the pope decreed in the Synods of 
 the Church of St. Peter, that he who should change this sound 
 counsel might for ever be damned. 
 
 It is unfortunate for the story that Formosus died in 896, nine 
 years before the date of his letter ; his acts were twice cancelled by 
 his successors, and bishops consecrated by him were required to be 
 consecrated afresh. Moreover, the episcopal lists which we have 
 already considered refute the notion that the West Saxons were left 
 for seven years without a bishop. But, grotesque as the story is, it 
 is yet worth while to inquire, When does the document first appear, 
 and with what motive is it likely to have been composed ? 
 
 The earliest copy has hitherto been held to be that which is found 
 in the Leofric Missal. 1 It is one of two entries at the beginning 
 which Mr. Warren, the editor, would ascribe to e quite the latter part 
 of the eleventh century'. Bishop Stubbs accordingly opined that the 
 story e acquired its present form soon after the middle of the eleventh 
 century '. 
 
 In 1895, however, the publication of the Crawford Charters proved 
 that at all events the substance of it, as the cautious editors remarked, 
 must go back to an earlier period. 2 For a letter which is regarded 
 as having been addressed by Archbishop Dunstan to King ^Ethelred 
 (c. 985) contains all its main points, including the worst of its chrono- 
 logical errors. This letter, which is one of a group of documents 
 connected with Crediton, declares that King Ecgbriht, having sub- 
 dued the West Welsh, gave to Sherborne three Cornish estates — 
 Polltun, Caellwic and Landwithan. In after times, when the admo- 
 nition of Pope Formosus led to the creation of new dioceses (and 
 here the story is given in outline), these estates were assigned to 
 Eadulf, the new Bishop of Crediton, ' to be under the authority of 
 the people of Devon, because they (the people of Cornwall) had 
 formerly been disobedient, without awe of the West Saxons \ 3 
 Eadulf's successor, iEthelgar, retained them, notwithstanding that 
 King Athelstan had given the bishopric of Cornwall to Conan. But 
 when Daniel succeeded Conan, King Edred gave the Cornish estates 
 
 1 Oxford, Bodl. MS. 579, ed. Warren (1883), p. 1 f. The Leofric Missal was 
 written somewhere on the borderland of Lorraine and France, the Arras-Cambray 
 district, about 925 : it came to England in the second half, and was at Glaston- 
 bury at the close, of the tenth century. 
 
 2 Crawford Charters, ed. Napier and Stevenson (Artecdota Oxoniensia, 1895), 
 ch. vii. 
 
 3 The reason given in the Plegmund narrative — the ecclesiastical irregularities 
 of the British Christians— had perhaps by this time ceased to be understood. 
 
 b2
 
 20 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 to him. And in like manner King Edgar gave them to Wulfsige. 
 Wherefore the archbishop declares that they ought to be held by the 
 Bishop of Cornwall now. 
 
 With the help of this interesting letter we can place the original 
 story in its historical setting. For its composition is most easily 
 explained as the assertion of the right of a Bishop of Crediton to 
 hold estates which might not unreasonably be claimed for the newly- 
 erected bishopric of Cornwall. Now the death of ^Ethelgar, Bishop 
 of Crediton, took place c. 953, and the consecration of Daniel to the 
 see of Cornwall was certainly not later than 955. Just at this time — 
 probably when new bishops were entering upon both sees — the transfer 
 of the Cornish estates was effected. The document which sets out 
 the claim of Crediton, and gives it papal sanction, may reasonably be 
 referred to the episcopate of .Ethelgar (934-53), or at latest to the 
 period immediately after his death, when the transfer was about to 
 take place. 
 
 This conclusion is borne out by the existence of a copy of the 
 document which seems to have escaped the notice of historians. 
 When I began to investigate the early successions of the Bishops of 
 Wells, my friend the late Mr. Edmund Bishop kindly referred me 
 to Addit. MS. 7138 in the British Museum, which, as he had noted 
 many years ago, was said to contain the Pleginund story. He could 
 not remember to have looked at it himself, but as it was attributed 
 to the eleventh century he thought it might possibly be the earliest 
 copy that we possess. His anticipation has been more than justi- 
 fied. The manuscript in question contains a strip of parchment, 
 16 inches by 6 inches, offering a text of the Plegmund story which 
 closely agrees with that in the Leofric Missal. This document was 
 presented to the British Museum in 1828 by Sir John Trevelyan, of 
 Nettlecombe, co. Somerset, among whose family records it had been 
 preserved. I am permitted to say that the authorities of the Museum 
 now attribute it with certainty to the tenth century. I am not 
 authorized to be more precise, but I have reason to think that if we 
 place it about the middle of that century — that is to say, within the 
 episcopate of iEthelgar of Crediton — our decision will not be seriously 
 challenged. If, therefore, this is not the original document itself, it 
 is probably one of a set of copies circulated at the time of its 
 composition . 
 
 One copy doubtless found a home at Winchester, and was tran- 
 scribed in course of time into the twelfth-century Register (Addit. 
 MS. 15,350), from which Birch has printed his text (Cart. Sax. 614). 
 This copy, or another at Canterbury, might have been in Dunstan's
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 21 
 
 hands when he wrote his letter to King ^Ethelred. The Nettlecombe 
 MS. itself may well be that which was transcribed into the Leofric 
 Missal at the end of the eleventh century : it is certainly an inter- 
 esting fact that it has come to light in modern times almost on the 
 border of Devon. 1 
 
 It was perhaps the Winchester copy which played a curious part 
 in the great struggle for precedence between Canterbury and York. 
 When Lanfranc came to Canterbury, in 1070, he found his metro- 
 politan church in ruins; and the most valuable records of his see 
 were said to have perished in the flames. When the controversy 
 with York was at its height, two years later, some of his monks (if 
 not the archbishop himself) thought it necessary to reconstruct their 
 ancient privilegia, as weapons for a contest which doubtless was 
 really decided on grounds of policy even more than of tradition. 
 Among the ten papal privileges which were ultimately produced in 
 evidence was a letter of Pope Formosus. It is exceedingly improbable 
 that this pope's name would ever have been invoked but for the 
 existence of the Plegmund narrative, which offered an irresistible 
 temptation to the ingenious constructor of papal documents. As it 
 is, the ninth of the privileges takes the form of a letter in which 
 Pope Formosus begins by retracting his former threats — ' mucronem 
 devotationis retrahentes . . . benedictionem vobis mittimus ' — and 
 proceeds, after various injunctions as to regularity in the appointment 
 of bishops, to confirm the supremacy of Canterbury over the whole 
 of the English Church. The Plegmund narrative tells us that the 
 pope, when he wrote his letter, was i motus cum magna iracundia et 
 
 1 Since writing the above I have found that the document was printed in 1857 
 among the Trevelyan Papers edited for the Camden Society by J. Payne Collier. 
 The first piece there given is a charter of ^Ethelstan (though dated 670, Ind. 11), 
 granting a manse at Munecatun to God and St. Mary and also St. Peter, 'ad 
 monasterium quod ab incolis nominatur Exanceaster ' [given more fully, with 
 names of witnesses, by Birch, Curt. Scljc. 726, from B.M. Addit. Chai-ter 19,516]. 
 On this the editor notes : ' It seems likely that the document was obtained from 
 Exeter Cathedral, together with the missing leaf of the Domesday Book of Exeter, 
 and, possibly, with the fragment relating to the Seven Bishops. An Edward 
 Willoughby was Dean of Exeter from 1496 to 1508 ; and about a century and 
 a half subsequently a Trevelyan married the heiress of Willoughby (of Leahill, 
 in the parish of Payhembury, Devonshire), and thereby became possessed of the 
 documents in question. They were found at Nettlecombe by Sir W. C. Trevelyan, 
 who presented the leaf of the Exeter Domesday Book to the Dean and Chapter 
 of Exeter, to be inserted in its proper place.' The same writer states that the 
 Plegmund document was presented to the British Museum by Sir John Trevelyan 
 in the spring of 1828. It had been in Mr. Petrie's hands at the end of the 
 previous year.
 
 22 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 devotatione V and threatened to send maledictionem instead of bene- 
 dictionem ; so we may be sure that our document was in the forger's 
 hands. Indeed its preservation in the Canterbury Registers is solely 
 due to the fact that the monks thought that it would lend verisimili- 
 tude to what followed, if they included this ancient document in the 
 record of their privilegia, though it had no bearing at all on the 
 question in dispute. Accordingly it stands just before the ninth 
 privilege under the title Memorabile factum. 2 It occupies the same 
 place, and bears the same title, in Eadmer's second edition of his 
 Historia Novorum (Rolls Series, pp. 261-76). William of Malmes- 
 bury gives the privilegia in his Gesta Pontificum (p. 59), including 
 the letter of Formosus, but not the Plegmund narrative. This he 
 reserves for his Gesta Reguin (I, p. 140), where he introduces it with 
 the words ' iocundum puto memoratu*. Thus the memorable fiction 
 found its way into the orthodox history of the English Church. 
 The following is the text of the document from Addit. MS. 7138 : 
 
 + Anno illo quo transacti sunt a natiuitate dhi nri ihu xpi . nccccv . Misit 
 formosus pontifex apostolicus roman§ .ecclesiae in terrain Anglorum ad regem 
 eadueardum . motus cum magna iracundia ac deuotatione . Et mandauit ei cum 
 suis omnibus maledictionem contra benedictionem . quam beatus papa gregorius 
 per scm uirum agustinum genti anglorum antea misit . Nisi cum episcopis 
 instituisset destitutas parrochias aepiscoporum . Secundum antiquam traditionem . 
 qua? tradita est genti anglorum a sede sci petri . Nam . per -vii- annos plene 
 destituta est regio ieuuissorum ab omni §piscopo . Quo facto congregauit eaduueard 
 rex synodum senatorum gentis anglorum . In quo presidebat plegmundus arcbiaeps . 
 regi recitans et disputans districta uerba aplicae legationis . quam misit beatus papa 
 formosus . Tunc sibi rex cum suis et plegmundus arcbiaeps . salubre consilium 
 inueneruut . assumentes sibi dominicam sententiam . messis quidem multa est . 
 nperarii uero pauci . Singulis tribus ieuuissorii singulos constituerunt aepiseopos . 
 et singulis aepiscopia constituerunt . Et quod dudum duo liabuerunt in quinque 
 diuiserunt . Acto illo consilio . cum honorificis muneribus plegmundus arcbiaeps 
 romam rediit . aplicum formosum cum magna humilitate placauit . regis de- 
 creta et seniorum regionis enuntiauit . quod et aplico maxime placuit . Rediens 
 
 teni tem 
 
 ad patriam in urbe dorobernia -vii- episcopos -vii- aecclesiis in uno die ordinauit . 
 
 Frythestanum ad aecclam vventaniensem . ^Ethilstanum ad aecclam Coruinensem . 
 Vuaerstanum ad a?cclesiam sciraburnensem . JEthilhelmum ad aecclam fonta- 
 niensem . Eaduulfum ad aecclam Cridienensem . Insup addiderunt illi tres uillas in 
 Cornubia quorum nomina polltun . casllincg . landuuitban . ut hide singulis 
 annis uisitaret gentem cornubiense ad exprimendos eorum errores . Nam antea in 
 
 1 Birch, printing from Addit. MS. 15,3o0, gives devotione, instead ot 
 devotatione , against all the other authorities. 
 
 2 So in two Canterbury MSS. of the beginning of the twelfth century : 
 Faustina B. 6 + Claudius A. 3 (parts of the same codex), and Cleopatra E. 1. 
 See the full discussion in H. Boehmer, Die FSlschungen Erzbischof Lanf ranks von 
 Canterbury, 11)02.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 23 
 
 quantum potuerunt ueritati resistebant . et non decretis apostolicis oboediebant . 
 Sed et aliis prouinciis constituit duos . australibus saxonibus . uirum idoneum 
 beorneh ordinauit . et mercionibus coenuulfum ad ciuitatem quae dicitur dorce- 
 ceaster . Hoc autem totum . sic papa apostolicus in synodis aecclesiae sci petri 
 conclusit . ut dampnaretur in perpetuum . qui boc salubre mutaret consilium ; 
 In dorso. Septa contines diuisiones Epatuum p ppm formosum. 
 
 If our view of the matter is correct, the Plegmund narrative was 
 a fighting document. It was not composed with the intention of 
 placing on record the division of the Wessex dioceses, but as a state- 
 ment of the claim of the Bishop of Crediton to three estates in 
 Cornwall. The imprecatory clause with which the pope is made to 
 give a perpetual sanction to the whole scheme bears out this idea of 
 a claim to property : it would hardly be natural as the sanction or 
 safeguard of a rearrangement of dioceses. 
 
 The writer's knowledge of the history of the papacy in the period 
 when the division took place was curiously deficient ; but he was 
 probably right in his statement as to the appropriation of the Cornish 
 estates to the new see of Crediton at the time of its foundation. 
 The three properties returned to Crediton when Cornwall was again 
 merged in the Devon see under Bishop Lyfing (1027-46), whose 
 successor Leofric moved to Exeter in the days of Edward the Con- 
 fessor. In the Domesday Book one of the three, if the identification 
 with Caluuitona be correct, was in the hands of the king ; but the 
 other two, Pautona and Languitetona, were held by the Bishop of 
 Exeter. The last of these, now Lawhitton, is still held on behalf of 
 the Church by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. 1 
 
 What other facts can be gathered from his narrative ? It is plain 
 from our examination of the episcopal lists that the year 905 cannot 
 be accepted as the date of the division of the dioceses ; and that the 
 papal complaint that Wessex had been seven years without a bishop 
 is pure fiction. On the other hand, the assertion that the creation of 
 five Wessex sees in place of two was a single act of policy is highly 
 probable, and we have found nothing hitherto that cannot be brought 
 into harmony with it. Either of the years 909 or 910 will sufficiently 
 meet the general requirements of the case. That the new dioceses 
 corresponded with tribal divisions is a point of interest which the 
 writer has quite properly noticed. Moreover, the names of the 
 bishops whom Plegmund is said to have consecrated offer no difficulty, 
 if we allow but a very brief episcopate to -^Ethelweard of Sherborne. 
 Nor is there any inherent improbability in the statement that, such 
 being the circumstances, seven bishops were consecrated at Canter- 
 
 1 See Crawford Charters, p. 107.
 
 24 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 bury on one day. This is the kind of event that would make an 
 impression at the time, and would be remembered in the next genera- 
 tion. If, therefore, we eliminate from the document all reference to 
 the intervention of Pope Formosus, and judge it simply by its state- 
 ments as to what took place in England, we shall find little reason to 
 quarrel with its historical statements. 
 
 Note on the Introduction of the Name of Formosm. 
 
 The most surprising feature of the document which we have been discussing is 
 the name of the pope who was called in to give perpetual sanction to the arrange- 
 ment. We have seen the reason for calling in a pope : but why should it have 
 been the unfortunate Pope Formosus ? ' It might be suggested that the writer 
 had access to a manuscript containing lists of popes and bishops. One such had 
 been written some ten years before, possibly at Glastonbury, for King Athelstan to 
 present to St. C'uthbert's shrine. The papal list would give names only and no 
 dates, and a wrong name might easily be selected. It is, however, a curious 
 circumstance in this connexion that the list in the MS. just referred to (C.C.C.C. 
 183) has no pope later than Hadrian III (884-5) ; and it is still more curious 
 that the list in Tiberius B. 5, compiled c. 990 and also connected with Glaston- 
 bury, stops with the same pope, although its numeration is continued to allow of 
 the addition of eleven more names ; that is, about the number which, judging 
 from the previous century, would be required to bring the list down to the 
 writer's own time. This shows an extraordinary lack of interest in the papal 
 successions, and the difficulty which might attend an inquiry concerning them 
 in the west of England. We seem compelled, therefore, to suppose that some 
 tradition connected the name of Formosus with the primacy of Plegmund. 
 
 Let us turn, then, to the story of Pope Formosus, and seek for a possible point 
 of contact between him and our archbishop. 2 Born, probably at Rome, about 
 the year 816, he was made Bishop of Porto in 864 by the great Pope Nicholas 1. 
 Strange as it would have appeared to the men of two generations later, this very 
 preferment disqualified him in the eyes of his contemporaries for the papal chair, 
 since a bishop, unless expelled by violence, was no I, permitted to pass from one 
 see to another. In 863 Formosus with another bishop went as papal envoy to 
 the court of Bogoris (renamed Michael), the newly converted king of the 
 Bulgarians : for, though his people had been evangelized by Greek missionaries, 
 he was now seeking further instruction from Rome. Hie king wished to retain 
 Formosus, whose labours had been most successful, and to make him his 
 archbishop ; but Pope Nicholas refused this, on the ground already mentioned, 
 
 1 It is curious to find the name of Pope Formosus again in the Anonymous 
 Chronicler of the archbishops of York, writing after the death of Thurstan (1140). 
 He informs us that St. Oswald received the pall in 972 from Pope Stephen — 
 though Symeon of Durham, whose words he is actually copying at this point, 
 had said ' from Pope Benedict '. Then he adds that by a concession of Pope 
 Formosus, Stephen's successor, he retained the see of Worcester along with the 
 archbishopric (Raine, Hist, of York, ii. 341). Stephen VI was succeeded by 
 Formosus in 891. 
 
 2 For what here follows see Di'immler, Auxilius und Vulgarius (1866).
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 25 
 
 that a bishop must not leave one see for another. Formosus was a valued agent 
 of the next pope, Hadrian II, who in 869 made him his envoy to Lothaire II. 
 The death of that king prevented this mission from taking effect, but three years 
 later he went on an embassy to Louis the German. 
 
 After this his fortune suddenly turned. At Christmas 875 John VIII crowned 
 Charles the Bald as emperor. Soon afterwards, at a synod held on April 19, he 
 threatened Formosus and certain persons of the first rank in Rome with ex- 
 communication, giving them till May 9 to make submission. Formosus himself 
 was accused of conspiring against the emperor and plotting to dethrone the pope 
 and take his place. Yet his character stood high, and such a man as Hincmar 
 of Rheims was at this time seeking the friendship of ' the Apostle of the 
 Bulgarians'. He fled to France and found refuge with Hugh, the powerful 
 Abbot of Tours. It seems probable that the pope was moved by personal 
 animosity : the strange charge of complicity with the Saracens, who were then 
 threatening Rome, may have arisen out of the story that the fleeing party had 
 left the city gate open behind them. In July the deposition of Formosus was 
 confirmed, and a protege of the pope became Bishop of Porto. In 878 the pope 
 visited France, and renewed his ban at a council held at Troyes. Formosus 
 appeared and submitted ; but he was only received into lay communion, and 
 that after taking an oath never to enter Rome again or to seek restoration to 
 his office. When Pope John died, in 882, he was still in exile and resident 
 at Sens. 
 
 The next pope was Marinus, who had succeeded in explaining away the 
 objection that at one time he had been bishop of an obscure Italian see. He 
 restored Formosus to his bishopric of Porto, absolving him from the oath which 
 he had taken under compulsion. As Bishop of Porto, Formosus consecrated 
 Pope Stephen VI in 885. He had then recovered lost ground ; but political 
 strife complicated ecclesiastical affairs in Rome, and he had bitter enemies who 
 were forced as yet to bide their time. In September 891 he became pope ; but 
 his freedom of action was hampered, and just as his predecessor had been 
 obliged to crown Guido of Spoleto, so Formosus had to admit Lambert his son as 
 joint emperor. In February 896, however, the rival Arnulf was crowned at 
 last ; but on April 4 Formosus died. In his short pontificate he had a high 
 repute for moral vigour, and he restored St. Peter's. The two counts against 
 him — his former bishopric and his oath of renunciation— were forgotten for the 
 time : he was never challenged while he occupied the papal throne, but received 
 universal recognition. 
 
 His successor lived but fifteen days, and was followed by Stephen VII, a fierce 
 opponent of Formosus, by whom, however, he had been consecrated Bishop of 
 Anagni five years before. Arnulf was now known to be dying, and in the new 
 year (897) Lambert re-entered Rome in triumph. In February a synod was 
 called, at which the disinterred Formosus was vested in papal robes, tried, con- 
 demned, unfrocked, his benediction fingers cut off, his body buried with contumely 
 and presently unearthed again and flung into the Tiber. His papal acts were 
 cancelled, and his ordinations were declared to be invalid. 
 
 Then came a reaction, and Stephen was thrown into prison. Of the next pope, 
 Romanus, there is nothing to tell. But Theodore II, who followed him at the 
 close of this eventful year, though he reigned but twenty days, began the re- 
 instatement of the outraged Formosus, whose body, miraculously as it seemed, 
 had been thrown up by the river. In 898 John IX became pope, after Sergius,
 
 26 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 an old enemy of Formosus, had for a few months established himself by violence 
 in the papal chair. John, who had been ordained by Formosus, completed the 
 work which Theodore had begun. First at a synod in Rome, and then at a great 
 council in Ravenna, he condemned the gross wickedness of the mock trial. All 
 the acts of Formosus were now reinstated with the sole exception of the crowning 
 of Arnulf, Lambert himself being present at the council. Sergius and his party 
 were condemned afresh, and it as enacted that the emperor's representatives 
 must always be present at the consecration of a pope. 
 
 In June 900 Benedict IV succeeded ; and it is to be noted that on August 31 
 he confirmed to Bishop Angrin of Langres the use of the pall which had been 
 granted him by Formosus. In 903 Leo V, after thirty days of rule, was im- 
 prisoned by Christopher, who in turn was imprisoned by Sergius, victorious at 
 last by the aid of the shameless Marozia, whose paramour he was reputed to be. 
 Sergius III ruled from January 904 until his death in 911. With threats of 
 violence he forced the clergy of Rome to a synod which renewed the condemna- 
 tion which Stephen VII had passed upon Formosus. John IX, who had reinstated 
 him, was held to be a mere usurper whose acts had no validity. The clergy 
 ordained by Formosus were not only degraded, as by Stephen, but actually 
 forced to reordination. 
 
 We have now to ask whether, and if so to what extent, the English Church 
 was affected by this strange series of events. AVas there anything at all to 
 connect Plegmund with Pope Formosus and the vicissitudes of his fate? 
 
 The date of l'legmund's accession is not certain. The A.-S. Chron. places the 
 death of Archbishop iEthered in 888, and makes no mention of his successor. 
 But a later hand has inserted under 890 the election of Plegmund to the arch- 
 bishopric. A like entry appears in E, the Peterborough edition of the Chronicle ; 
 but it is written in Latin. There can be no doubt that in both instances a 
 Canterbury addition is in question ; and, as we shall hereafter have reason to 
 think, this evidence is of little value. Florence of Woi-cester puts the death of 
 iEthelred and the accession of Plegmund in one and the same year, namely, in 
 889. As the obit of iEthelred was celebrated at Canterbury on June 30, it is 
 probable that his successor was appointed before the end of the year, whether 
 the year be 888 or 889. 
 
 Now a Canterbury tradition says that Plegmund receivedhis pall from Formosus ; 
 but this may merely have been a conjecture based on the belief (for which we 
 have only late Canterbury evidence) that Plegmund was consecrated in 890. As 
 Formosus only became pope Sept. 19, 891, we cannot assert with any confidence 
 that it was he who bestowed the pall on Plegmund. 1 
 
 Nevertheless it is right to consider a suggestion put forward by Bishop Stubbs 
 as a possible explanation of the problem. We learn from the historian Ethelweard 
 that in 908 Plegmund went to Rome, carrying alms for the people and for 
 Edward their king. If his pall had been given him by Formosus, this visit to 
 Sergius III might have been prompted by the desire to secure his position before he 
 proceeded to consecrate bishops or to rearrange dioceses. The advantage of this 
 suggestion is that it offers a possible reason for the connexion of the name of 
 
 1 By the time of Gervase (c. 1205) the story had grown into his consecration 
 by Pope Formosus : ' Hie Romam profectus a Formoso papa sacratus est, palli- 
 umque suscepit et metropolitani plenitudinein potestatis' (Gerv. , R. S., ii. 350).
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 27 
 
 Formosus with the action of Plegmund. A visit to Rome, due to anxiety as to 
 the value of a pall given seventeen years before by Formosus, might be trans- 
 formed through sheer ignorance into a visit to Formosus himself. It must at 
 any rate be allowed that no other solution of the problem is forthcoming. For 
 the statement commonly made that Formosus had already shown an interest in 
 the affairs of the English Church rests wholly on the evidence of the forged 
 letter which forms one of the spurious privilegia of Lanfranc's time. 
 
 Note on the Letter of Archbishop Dunstan to King JEthelred. 
 
 The editors accept this document as a genuine letter of Dunstan — not indeed 
 as the original, but as a copy written at the end of the tenth or the beginning of 
 the eleventh century. 1 shall not be so rash as to question their verdict, 
 although a case might be made out for the view that the letter was composed by 
 a Cornish ecclesiastic to counter the claim of a papal sanction for the assignment 
 of the properties to the see of Crediton. It might be urged that the earlier 
 history of the lauds in Egbert's time would be a conjecture founded on the 
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle anno 813, when that king is said to have overrun Cornwall 
 from east to west ; that the tithing of the land would come from iEthelwulf's 
 Donation, and the decay of learning in England from Alfred's well-known 
 Prefaces. After this all comes, plainly enough, from the Plegmund narrative. 
 Then the history from Daniel onwards would probably be well within the 
 writer's own knowledge, and might in general be trusted. 
 
 But though I do not propose to dispute its genuineness, I think it can be made 
 clear that the document has been tampered with ; and, if this be so, it would 
 seem to follow that it was still considered useful, even at the end of the tenth or 
 the beginning of the eleventh century : in other words, that the controversy was 
 reopened again and again, probably because Crediton could always claim a papal 
 sanction in its favour. To make my points clear I must take the liberty of 
 printing in full the translation of the letter, italicizing the words which the 
 editors inform us are written by another, though as they believe a contemporary, 
 hand {Crawford Charters, p. 106). 
 
 'This writing the archbishop sends to his lord, ^Ethelred, the king. It 
 happened that the West Welsh (the inhabitants of Cornwall) rose against King 
 Ecgbriht. The king then went thither and subdued them, and gave a tenth 
 part of the land [to God], and disposed of it as it seemed fit to him. He gave to 
 Sherborne three estates, Polltun, Caellwic, Landwi[>an. And that remained so 
 for many years until heathen hordes overran this country and occupied it. Then 
 there came another time after that, when the teachers fell away and departed 
 from England on account of the unbelief that had then assailed it ; and all the 
 kingdom of the West Saxons stood for seven years without a bishop. Then 
 Formosus, the pope, sent from Rome, and admonished King Edward and Arch- 
 bishop Plegmund to amend this. And they did so ; with the consent of the pope 
 and all the witan of the English nation they appointed five bishops where there 
 were formerly two : one at Winchester, that was Frybestan, a second at Ramsbury, 
 that was iEbelstan, a third at Sherborne, that was Wa*rstan, a fourth at Wells, 
 that was sEpelm, a fifth at Crediton, that was Eadulf : and to him (Eadulf) were 
 assigned the three estates in Wales (Cornwall), to be under the authority of the 
 people of Devon, because they (the people of Cornwall) had formerly been
 
 28 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 disobedient, without awe of the West Saxons. And Bishop Eadulf enjoyed these 
 lands during his life, Bishop ^Ebelgar after him in like manner. Then it happened 
 that King JEfielstan gave to Cunun the bishopric as far as the Tamar flowed. Then 
 it happened that King Eadred commended Daniel to be consecrated, and gave 
 the estates, as the witan advised him, to the bishop-stool at St. Germans. 
 Afterwards, when King Edgar bade me consecrate Wulfsige, he and all our 
 bishops said that they did not know who could possess the estates with greater 
 right than the bishop of the diocese, seeing that he was loyal and preached the 
 belief of God aright and loved his lord (the king). If then this bishop does so 
 now, I know not why he should not be worthy of the estates, if God and our lord 
 (the king) grant them to him. For it does not seem to us that any man can possess 
 them more rightfully than he, and if any (other) man take them to himself, may he 
 have them without God's blessing or ours.' 
 
 It will be convenient to take these three additions in reverse order. In the 
 last of them the editors have noted the change from the first person singular of 
 the letter to the first person plural, and suggest that Dunstan here speaks on 
 behalf of his suffragans as well as himself. They think that the hand is con- 
 temporary with the original writer. Whether that be so or not, it is to be 
 observed that he writes ( for ban ', while the former writes ' forbam ' (p. 19, 1. 16) ; 
 ' rihtlicor ' for ' rihtlucur ' ; ' gif ' for ' gyf ' (11. 25, 26) ; and s hi ' (three times) 
 unaccented, as against ' hi ' (five times) with the accent. 
 
 The second insertion is by the same hand. Room has been made for the first 
 portion of it (' Then it happened that King iEthelstan ') by erasing what stood 
 there before : the remainder is inserted above the line. We note, as the editors 
 have noted, that the king's name is here spelt ' a^bestan', whereas in 1. 13, just 
 above, the Bishop of Ramsbury's name had been given as ' a?belstan '. We also find 
 the spelling ' cing ' as against ' cyng ' (six times). As the next sentence begins 
 f Then it happened that', the editors have suggested that the scribe's eye passed 
 on, and so the words in question were left out. But this would hardly account 
 for the erasure of ' Then it happened that ' and its being written in again. 
 Moreover, whereas the original writer says ' ba gelamp baet', the correcting 
 hand writes e ba gelamp hit^ '. What is specially interesting is that the italicized 
 words, however valuable historically, are not necessary to the argument : for 
 Conan is not supposed to have held these lands at all. What may have been 
 erased to make room for the new piece of information we cannot tell. 
 
 Lastly, the words ' that was iEbelm ' are added over the line by the same 
 corrector. We may note that he writes ' wges' for ' wa?s', which is always un- 
 accented in the original document. The omission was doubtless merely a scribal 
 error on the part of the composer or a copyist. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Coronation of King Athelstan by Archbishop Athelm, 
 and the Date of Dunstan's Birth 
 
 The limits of the episcopate of Athelm at Wells cannot be deter- 
 mined with absolute certainty. We have fixed his accession with 
 probability in 909. In 923, as it would seem, he was translated to
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 29 
 
 Canterbury. 1 No charter is extant which bears his attestation as 
 Bishop of Wells ; but this is due to the exceptional lack of genuine 
 charters of the reign of King Edward the Elder. 
 
 It is of more importance to decide the year of Athelm's death and 
 of Wulfhelm's accession to Canterbury. For here we are concerned 
 with the coronation of King Athelstan and, incidentally, with the date 
 of St. Dunstan's birth. Bishop Stubbs discussed these problems 
 and reached conclusions which have been accepted by subsequent 
 historians : namely, (1) that King Athelstan was crowned in 9.25, not 
 by Athelm, but by Wulfhelm ; and (2) that in this same year 
 Dunstan was born. The judgement of so great a master can seldom 
 be set aside, unless indeed new evidence has come to light which was 
 not before him when he wrote. The charter which we shall presently 
 examine is not contained in Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus, upon 
 which Bishop Stubbs depended when his Preface to the Lives of 
 St. Dunstan was written, in 1874. It was printed by Birch in the 
 Cartularium Saxonicum (ii. 317, no. 641) in 1887. It gives us, 
 I believe, the true date of King Athelstan's coronation, September 4, 
 925, and its first witness is Archbishop Athelm. If Bishop Stubbs 
 had known of this charter and had felt able to accept it as genuine, 
 it is probable that his doubt as to the trustworthiness of the testimony 
 of Adelard, the second biographer of St. Dunstan, would have been 
 removed, and that in consequence he would have reconsidered the 
 question of the birth-year of the saint. 
 
 Before we examine the charter we must look at the statement of 
 Adelard to which reference has just been made. We have two 
 historical authorities for the early period of St. Dunstan's life, and 
 two only. One is the anonymous Saxon priest, who is known to us 
 merely by his initial B. His work was dedicated to JElfric, who 
 became Archbishop of Canterbury in 996 ; and a copy of it was sent 
 abroad by Wulfric, the Abbot of St. Augustine's, to Abbo of Fleury 
 in the hope that he might turn it into verse. Abbo died in 1004 ; 
 and accordingly Bishop Stubbs thinks that the year 1000 may fairly 
 be assigned as the date of this work. Its writer was personally 
 acquainted with St. Dunstan, who had died in 988, that is, twelve 
 years before. The other authority is but a few years later in date. 
 Adelard, a monk of Blandinium, that is, of St. Peter's in Ghent, 
 where St. Dunstan had received hospitality during his brief banish- 
 ment, addresses his book to Alphege, who was Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury from 1006 until 1012, when he was murdered by the Danes. 
 Adelard had the earlier life in his hands, but it was not his only 
 1 See the Note (C) on the Date of Athelm's Translation to Canterbury.
 
 30 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 source of information. His purpose was not strictly biographical, 
 but rather to compose chapters of narrative to be read as the lessons 
 at Matins on St. Dunstan's feast. 
 
 Adelard makes no statement at all as to the date of Dunstan's 
 birth, but he tells us that he received his first education at Glaston- 
 bury. Then he proceeds : ' When now the flower of his youth was 
 growing in years, he departed from Glastonbury, and joined himself 
 to Athelm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, his uncle on the father's 
 side ; and he began to reside with him. The archbishop, admiring 
 the grace of God that was in him, and perceiving the tokens of future 
 greatness, introduced him into the royal palace, and affectionately 
 commended him to King Athelstan, whom he had anointed with the 
 sacred unction ; and there from day to day he increased in all virtue, 
 and became great in the sight of the king and his princes.' l 
 
 This is a straightforward statement, and if it be true it doubtless 
 came from the old archbishop himself, when he talked, as we know 
 that he did, with the younger folk about his early days. A corona- 
 tion would make an ineffaceable impression on a boy's mind, especially 
 if his uncle had crowned the king. If it is not true, what could be 
 the motive of its insertion ? We know that Dunstan was closely 
 connected with the royal house : it was not necessary to invent such 
 a story to explain how Dunstan came to court; and it was quite 
 superfluous to take him to Canterbury, when the court was so often 
 at Cheddar. But the story was without corroboration, and it seemed 
 to conflict with the chronological evidence. What that evidence was, 
 we must consider presently : meanwhile we turn to the charter of 
 which we have spoken above. 
 
 This is contained in the great Register of St. Augustine's, Canter- 
 bury, now in the British Museum (Claudius D. 10), written about 
 the end of the fourteenth century. The document is entitled e King 
 Athelstan's donation of a certain land in Thanet '. 2 It is not strictly 
 speaking a charter, but a very full memorandum based on a charter, 
 which may have been too indistinct from age to be entirely legible ; 
 at any rate the monk who wrote the Register found great difficulty 
 in reading the Saxon names which occurred in it. Here we find the 
 statement that c in the year of our Lord 925 (Indiction 13), in the 
 first year of the reign of King Athelstan, on the day of his coronation, 
 being the day before the nones of September', certain alienated 
 property was restored by the king to the monastery, with the consent 
 of certain persons named. 
 
 1 Memorials of St. Dunstan, p. 55. 
 
 2 Claud. D. 10, f. 185 : Birch, Cart. Saxon., no. 641.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 31 
 
 The document occurs in the Register under the heading De Menstre ; 
 f. 185 begins with a donation by King Cnut of the manor of Menstre 
 ' cum corpore beate uirginis Midrede \ Next is a confirmation by 
 King Edward the Confessor. Then comes the donation of King 
 Athelstan, as follows : 
 
 Item donatio Regis Athelstani de quadam terra in Taneto (rubr.) 
 
 Anno ab incarnacione domini -DCCO XXV- indictione -XIII- primo anno 
 regni regis Adalstani, die consecracionis eius, pridie nonas Septembris, rex 
 Saxonum et Anglorum Adalstan terram quatuordecim aratrorum dedit sco 
 Augustino, que terra in insula Thanet babetur, nomine Werburginland, pro 
 remedio aie sue, que eciam rapta fuerat iniuste a sco Augustino per multos annos, 
 sed deo annuente rex Adalstanus restauravit iterum illam terram sco Augustino, 
 cum consensu eporum octo et principum duorum quorum nomina bee sunt. 
 Adlem arcbieps . Alia eps . Siglem eps . Wlflem eps . Wlbred eps . Berneth eps . 
 Eatolp eps . Winsigeps . Ordgar princeps . Aelwald princeps . et Odda minister 
 regis . et Cened abbas . et Alfetb sacerdos . et alius Alfetb sacerdos et monacbus. 
 
 We note the following points in favour of the trustworthiness of 
 this document : 
 
 (1) The Indiction is correctly given. 
 
 (2) In 925 September 4 was a Sunday, an appropriate day in those 
 times for a coronation. 
 
 (3) The date falls within the first year of the king's reign. A 
 considerable number of charters of King Athelstan are forthcoming, 
 which give the day, month, and year of our era, and the regnal year 
 of the king. They cannot all be trusted, but an examination of 
 them leads with fair certainty to the result that Athelstan's accession 
 took place after December 24, 924, and before January 1, 925. He 
 would, therefore, be said to have come to the throne in 924 or in 925, 
 according as the year was reckoned from January 1 or from Christmas 
 Day. In either case September 4, 925, would be, as our document 
 says, in the first year of his reign. If it be thought strange that his 
 coronation should be so long delayed, we have but to point to the 
 precedent of King Edward, his father, who was not crowned until 
 Whit-Sunday, though King Alfred had died on October 26 in the 
 preceding year. 
 
 (4) The witnesses whose names are recorded present no chrono- 
 logical difficulty, if only we allow that Archbishop Athelm was still 
 living at the time in question. Their names are curiously misspelt, 
 but the fault must be attributed to the scribe of the Register : pos- 
 sibly he wrote them down from dictation. The Anglo-Saxon (5 (for 
 th) has been written as d; and elm appears constantly as lem: so
 
 32 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 that Athelm has become Adlem. Again, Alfeth is twice written for 
 Alfheah (Alphege) : perhaps the scribe meant it to be read as Alfech, 
 as c and t are hardly distinguishable in his writing : so too Berneth 
 (or Bernech) is written for Beornege. We may now, with the help 
 of Bishop Stubbs's Registrum, identify the episcopal witnesses : 
 
 Alia Ella (or Elf win), Lichfield : 909 x 926-35 (?). 
 
 Siglem Sigelm, Sherborne : 918 x 926-33. 
 
 Wlflem Wulfhelm, Wells : 914 [923 ?]— transln. to Canterbury. 
 
 Wlbred Wilferth, Worcester : 922-28. 
 
 Berneth Beornege, Selsey : 909-31. 
 
 Eatolp Eadulf, Crediton : 909-34. 
 
 Winsig Winsige, Dorchester : 909 x 926-34 (?). 
 
 It is plain that no difficulty is presented by the attestation of all 
 these bishops at the time of the king's coronation in 925. As to 
 the other witnesses: ' Ordgar dux ' and ( ^Elfwald dux ' attest a chai'ter 
 of 926 (Birch, C. S. 659) ; x and Odda attests as ' minister ' or < thegn ' 
 between 925 and 941 (C. S. 649, &c). 'Cened abbas' is the same 
 as ' Cynaht abbas', who attests in 925 (C. S. 642), and appears again 
 as * Kenod abbas ' among the English names inscribed for prayer in 
 the monastery of St. Gall on the occasion of Bishop Kynewold's visit 
 in 929. 2 
 
 The two /Elfheahs present points of peculiar interest. A little 
 later in King Athelstan's reign we shall find two yElfheahs attesting 
 the same charters as bishops. One will be Archbishop Wulfhelm's 
 successor at Wells ; the other, .Elfheah the Bald, the Bishop of 
 Winchester, who persuaded Dunstan, his kinsman, to adopt the 
 monastic life, and ordained him to the priesthood. 
 
 Our document speaks of c Alfeth sacerdos et alius Alfeth sacerdos 
 et monachus'. In a copy of the Gospels in the British Museum 
 (Reg. I. B. 7, f. 15 b) there is a Saxon manumission of Eadelm and 
 his children, granted by King Athelstan ' immediately after he became 
 king'. 3 zElfheah, mass-priest and Byrnstan, mass-priest, were 
 witnesses to the act. 
 
 It would seem, as is likely enough in itself, that these three priests, 
 
 1 This is Ordgar's last appearance. 
 
 2 Piper, C'onfraternitates (Mori. Hist. Germ., 1884), pp. 100, 130 : see the Note 
 (F) on Three Swiss Confraternity Books. 
 
 3 This is unfortunately mistranslated hy Birch (C.S. G39) as ' before he became 
 king'. The document is printed and translated in Harmer's English Historical 
 Documents (no. xix). It begins thus : JFvSelstan cyng gefreode Eadelm forra¥e 
 ))ies ^e he aeraest cyng wa>s ; ^a-s waes on gewitnesse jElfheah maessepreost 7 se 
 hired 7 iElfric se gerefa 7 \Vufno¥ Hwita 7 Eanstan prafost 7 Byrnstan 
 maessepreost.'
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 33 
 
 who were in the king's employ at the very beginning of his reign, 
 all became bishops. 
 
 1. The ^Elfheah who stands first in both documents goes to Wells, 
 c. 926. The earliest attestation of f iElf heah bishop ' is in 929. 
 
 2. Byrnstan goes to Winchester in 931. 
 
 3. The ^Elfheah who is both priest and monk succeeds Byrnstan 
 at Winchester, c. 934. Rudborne (Anglia Sacra, i. 213) says that 
 after Byrnstan's death 'Elphegus ex monacho Glastoniae eligitur 
 Wentanae ecclesiae \ This ^Elfheah would seem to have been the 
 younger of the two ; and that may be the reason why he was given 
 a surname ('the Bald') to distinguish him from his senior, the 
 Bishop of Wells. In our document the distinction is drawn by 
 noting that he was a monk as well as a priest. 
 
 Before leaving our document we may note with interest the 
 Somerset connexion of the witnesses whose names we have chiefly 
 been considering. Here is Archbishop Athelm, lately at Wells, the 
 uncle of Dunstan, who, if we may trust Adelard, had recently come 
 to him from Glastonbury. And here is the younger iElfheah, the 
 future Bishop of Winchester, another kinsman of Dunstan, and him- 
 self a Glastonbury monk. Again, it is a curious coincidence that we 
 find together here the first, second, and third bishops of the newly- 
 created see of Wells, in the persons of Athelm, Wulfhelm, and the 
 elder of the two ./Elfheahs. Perhaps it is not mere coincidence that 
 Somerset and its bishops are so prominent in connexion with the 
 Wessex court. For Dunstan was certainly related to the royal house, 
 whether more or less closely than his kinsmen Athelm and ^Elfheah 
 the Bald we cannot tell. And Glastonbury is described by the 
 biographer B as regalis insula. The Lady yEthelfleda, a niece 
 of King Athelstan, and a kinswoman of Dunstan, had built herself 
 a house west of the church, and used to entertain the royal family 
 there. There, too, a little later, King Edmund was buried, and after 
 him King Edgar, who indeed was born close by. Nor had the con- 
 nexion of the court with Somerset begun with King Athelstan's 
 reign. 
 
 I cannot feel the least hesitation in accepting the statement of our 
 document, and the corresponding statement of Adelard to which it 
 brings such striking confirmation. But it is necessary to examine 
 the evidence which has been adduced on the other side, and to 
 endeavour to test its validity. 
 
 First, we must consider the record of a purchase of properties 
 by Archbishop Wulfhelm which bears the date 923. It comes from 
 the Register of Evidences of Christ Church, Canterbury. Birch has
 
 34 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 printed it (C. S. 637) from two MSS., Lambeth 1212 and Bodl. 
 Tanner 223, as follows : 
 
 Ealdenstrete . Wadland . Wlfredigland. 
 
 [>J« A]nno dominice Incarnationis . DCCCCXXIII . Wlfelmls archiepiscopus 
 comparavit undecim agros . mille . denariis puri argenti iuxta stratam quae dicitur 
 Ealdanstrate in occidente . Hseuuiningland in aquilone cingesdic. 
 
 Item comparavit quosdam agros . qui ab incolis nominantur Wadland 7 
 Wlfrethingland iuxta locum qui nominatur ryther ceap . Hiis terminis 
 circumdatur praenominata terra in oriente publica strata . in australi parte terra 
 Brithulfi . In occidente civitas Doroberniae . in aquilone . Burbuuare boc aceras. 
 
 This in its present shape is not a charter, but a bare memorandum. 
 No Indiction is given, and no names of witnesses by which we might test 
 the date. The first trustworthy attestations of Archbishop Wulfhelm 
 appear to occur in 926 (Birch, C. S. 658, 659) ; and this, as we have 
 seen, is the probable year of his translation from Wells to Canterbury. 
 
 It is on the ground of this memorandum that the particular year 
 923 has been chosen as the date of Wulfhelm's accession, and con- 
 sequently of Athelm's death. But this cannot be regarded as evidence 
 of the same value as that of the document which we have been 
 studying. It is impossible to verify the date, and we must explain 
 it as the result of a copyist's carelessness. 
 
 Indeed the same MS. (Lamb. 1212) contains on the next page 
 a charter by which the eleven fields are made over to Archbishop 
 Wulfhelm in 939 (B. C. S. 733) : 
 
 [^ A]nno dominice incarnationis , DCCCCXXXIX . indictione . XIIII . anno 
 iESelstani regis . Ego Wuhelmus concedo Wlfelmo archiepiscopo aliquam partem 
 terre iuris mei . id est undecim agros a meridie Doroberniae circumdata his 
 terminis . ab oriente Adredesland . a meridie publica strata . ab occidente 
 Brihtelmesland . ab aquilone Cingesland. 
 
 Hanc donacionem ego Athelstanus rex cum sigillo crucis confirmavi. 
 
 tfa Ego Wlfelmus confirmavi. 
 
 ►!« Ego Teodredus Lundoniensis episcopus subscripsi. 
 
 ►J< Ego Alfegus Wintoniensis subscripsi. 
 
 *£t Ego Odo Scirburnensis subscripsi. 
 
 >$* Ego Cenuualdus episcopus subscripsi. 
 
 The bishops are contemporary, though the signatures have perhaps 
 been modified in form by the copyist. 
 
 We have now to face a far more serious task — the examination of 
 the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which places the accession 
 of Wulfhelm in 925, and assigns to the same year the birth of 
 Dunstan. 1 If this evidence is to be accepted, it is obvious that the 
 
 1 In what follows I am indebted to a paper on f The Accepted Year of 
 St. Dunstan's Birth ' by Mr. Toke, which embodies tlie results of Mr. Edmund 

 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 35 
 
 statement of Adelard that Archbishop Athelm introduced Dunstan to 
 the court of King Athelstan is an absurd mistake ; nor will Athelm's 
 coronation of the king remain at all probable, since that archbishop's 
 death was commemorated at Canterbury on January 8. We shall 
 begin our examination by presenting the evidence in brief. 
 
 (1) A (the Parker Chronicle), as it at present stands, says that in 
 923 Archbishop Plegmund died ; and that in 925 King Edward died 
 and Athelstan succeeded, St. Dunstan was born, and Wulfhelm 
 became archbishop. 
 
 (2) F has under 925 the same events as A in the same order, 
 except that St. Dunstan's birth stands last. 
 
 (3) E at first recorded the death of King Edward and the accession 
 of Athelstan under 924 : then this was cancelled, and under 925 was 
 entered, 'Then Bishop Wulfelm was hallowed, and the same year 
 K. Eadward died\ 
 
 (4) B, C, and D place King Edward's death and Athelstan's 
 election as King of the Mercians and his coronation at Kingston 
 under the year 924. 
 
 1. The most important authority is the Parker Chronicle, which 
 was written at Winchester. Its first hand writes as far as 891 : then 
 it is continued by a succession of hands until 1001. At some date 
 after this it left Winchester, and for a long time no further entries 
 were made in it. 
 
 In course of time the book came to Canterbury, probably not 
 before 1070. Between the years 1002 and 1070 there are but ten 
 entries, and then follow the Latin Acts of Lanfranc. Mr. Plummer, 
 whose account of the MS. I have followed, 1 has distinguished fourteen 
 hands in the writing of the Chronicle. Of these the following belong 
 to this later Canterbury period : 2 
 
 No. 11. From 1002 to 1066 (except the sentence about the 
 comet, and the charter at 1031). Mr. Warner, of the British 
 Museum, dates this hand as late as 1075. 
 
 No. 12. The last sentence of 1066 and the first portion of 1070. 
 
 No. 13. The remainder of 1070 and the charter at 1031. 
 
 No. 14. The Latin Acts of Lanfranc and some of the episcopal 
 lists. This is the hand of the writer of F, and belongs to the end of 
 cent, xi or the beginning of cent. xii. It is possible that Nos. 13 
 and 14 may be identical. 
 
 Bishop's investigations, and is printed in The Bosworth Psalter (Gasquet and 
 Bishop, 1908), pp. 133 if. : but I have approached the whole question from 
 a different standpoint. 
 
 1 Two Saxon Chronicles, II. xcv. 2 Ibid. II. xxv. 
 
 c 2
 
 (11) 
 
 923. 1 
 
 (12) 
 
 925. J 
 
 (14) 
 
 
 (14) 
 
 941. 
 
 (11) 
 
 942. 
 
 (12) 
 
 943. 
 
 (12) 
 
 956. 
 
 (12) 
 
 959. 
 
 36 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 Now these same Canterbury hands can be traced as making inter- 
 polations into the original annals of the tenth century. The motive 
 plainly was to supply the defect of the Chronicle in respect of the 
 see of Canterbury ; for it contained no notices of bishops other than 
 those of Winchester until 994, when the death of Archbishop Sigeric 
 was recorded. It is worth while to set out these Canterbury interpo- 
 lations in full, prefixing to each the number of the hand to which it 
 is ascribed. 
 
 923. * Her for}>ferde Plegemund arcebisceop. 
 "] See Diuistan wearS akaenned. 
 
 "J Wulfelm feng to ban arcebiscop rice on Cantuare byri. 
 pa was Wulfelm arcebiscop on Cant. 
 . arcebisceop. 
 (Her Eadmund cing S. Dunstane Glaes) tingeberig betaehte 
 
 ^aer be sy^an aerest abbud wear£. 
 J aflaemde Sc"e Dunstan ut of lande. 
 
 Her he sae'n'te efter See Dunstane . ~) gaef him brice on 
 Wigracaestre . 3 ^aer aefter f brice on Lundene. 
 (12) 961. Her gewat Odo arceb . ~\ See Dunstan feng to arcebrice. 
 
 We may note first the entries of No. 11. Mr. Plummer supposes 
 that Plegmund' s death was entered in 923 by e a purely mechanical 
 mistake ', the interpolator having put it under DCCCCXXIII instead 
 of under DCCCCXIIII. Yet it is strange that he has omitted 
 Athelm altogether. Birchington {Anglia Sacra, i. 4) also misses out 
 Athelm, and makes Plegmund sit thirty-four years ; and the Register 
 of Prior Henry of Eastry (ibid. 83), after assigning thirty-four years 
 to Plegmund, gives ten to Athelm, and only thirteen to Wulfhelm. 
 Gervase had candidly admitted that he did not know how long these 
 archbishops sat. 2 
 
 The mutilated entry under 942 Plummer would complete with the 
 words ' (Her forSferde Wulfelm) ' on the ground that this was the year 
 of Wulfhelm's death ; but he notes that 942, which Mas originally 
 written, is now made into 941, and likewise the preceding 941 
 into 940. 
 
 No. 14 may be taken next. Wulfhelm's accession is entered at 
 925. Stubbs has assigned it to 923. But if it be true that Athelm 
 crowned Athelstan on September 4, 925, and died on January 8, we 
 
 1 The figures 923 and 925 (originally 922 and 924) were before these Canter- 
 bury glossators ; for the change had been made at least as early as the date 
 (c. 1025) of the burnt Cotton MS. edited by Wheloc (W). 
 
 2 See further in the Note (C) on the Date of Athelm's Translation to 
 Canterbury.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 37 
 
 cannot put it earlier than 926, when, as we have said, his name first 
 appears in charters. 
 
 The entry under 941 seems meaningless as it stands ; but perhaps 
 the scribe intended to have written gewat, ' departed ', instead of 
 was; compare the entry under 961. It may be that he was merely 
 transferring the entry of Wulfhelm's death from 942 to the previous 
 year. 
 
 To No. 12 (the scribe of F) the Dunstan entries are due. It is 
 certainly strange that the Chronicle, which until 1001 remained at 
 Winchester, should have had no mention at all of the name of 
 Dunstan ; and that it should have been left to a Canterbury scribe 
 after the Conquest to make up the deficiency as well as he could by 
 brief marginal annotations. 1 
 
 2. F (Domit. 8) is a bilingual MS., its entries being made first in 
 Saxon and then in Latin. It is a Canterbury book, written not 
 earlier than the end of the eleventh century. Its evidence at this 
 point is of value only as expressing the Canterbury view at that date. 2 
 But it is interesting to note in passing that under 927 its Latin entry 
 runs : ' Wulfelmus archiepiscopus porrexit Rome pro pallio : } its 
 Saxon entry (like that in E) has no words corresponding to f pro 
 pallio \ 
 
 3. E (Laud. Misc. 636), the Peterborough Chronicle, written 
 c. 1121, is founded on a Chronicle which till c. 1067 belonged to 
 St. Augustine's, Canterbury. From that Augustinian Chronicle F 
 was largely drawn. 3 This finds an illustration in the statement 
 which is now before us. For E has under 925 : ( Her Wulfelm 
 biscop wes gehalgod ; ' and F in its margin has : ' 7 Wulfelm wear]? 
 gehadod to arb to Cant.' 
 
 4. B (Tib. A. 6), C (Tib. B. 1), D (Tib. B. 4). This represents the 
 last entry from the e Mercian Register \ 
 
 1 The Latin entry of his death under 988 (' hoc anno obiit SCs Dunstanus 
 areps ') is said by Plummer (i. 125 11.) to be ' written in an ancient and very small 
 hand '. We may assume that it is by one of the Canterbury hands, even if it 
 cannot be assigned with certainty. 
 
 2 The disposition of the original passage and the marginal additions is well 
 indicated by a diagram in Bosworth Psalter, p. 139. But 1 do not feel able to 
 distinguish the hands as Mr. Toke there does. The Saxon entries about Wulfhelm 
 and Dunstan in the right-hand margin are now nearly illegible : possibly they may 
 be by a different hand : the writing is very small. But the Latin entry as to 
 Wulfhelm, which is preceded by an erased date, can hardly be said to be in the 
 lower margin. This, again, possibly may be by a different hand : at any rate, the 
 writing is a little larger. The Dunstan entry below this is in the lower margin, 
 and the hand is the same, so far as 1 can see, as that of the Latin entry as to 
 Wulfhelm. But the whole is huddled up and is an ugly bit of writing. 
 
 3 See Plummer, ut supra, II. xxxviii ff.
 
 38 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 Thus the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was at 
 first sight so imposing, is reduced on examination to a Canterbury 
 tradition of post-Conquest days. Some of the mistakes of this 
 tradition may perhaps be accounted for by the loss of documents in 
 the great fire. But the curious error as to Dunstan's birth deserves 
 to be followed up more closely. 
 
 First, we must consider an entry in the Paschal Tables found in 
 Calig. A. 15. The tables begin with the year 988. They run across 
 the pages (132b, 133a), and the right-hand half of the second page is* 
 left blank for the entry of brief annals. Now 988 is the first year of 
 an Indiction, and also the first year of the Lunar Cycle of nineteen 
 years. But it is also the year of St. Dunstan's death. That event 
 accordingly is entered as the first of the brief annals. 
 
 Then it seems to have occurred to the scribe who made this entry 
 that it was desirable to record St. Dunstan's birth as well, though it 
 did not fall within the period of the tables. Accordingly, in the top 
 margin of the two pages he entered the year 925, missing out the 
 Indiction, but giving the Epact and some other of the usual particulars 
 (part of which have been shorn away in binding). When he reached 
 the part of the margin over the space reserved for annals, he began 
 an entry which, owing to its length, he had to carry down the right- 
 hand margin as well. 1 It is to the following effect : i In this year 
 was St. Dunstan born, and he lived sixty-three years, and in the 
 sixty-fourth year he died, 13 Kal. Jun.' 
 
 Liebermann, who edited these annals in his Ungedruckte Anglo- 
 Normannische Geschichtsquellen (1879), ascribes the MS. to the end 
 of the eleventh century. It is a Christ Church, Canterbury, codex, 
 and the annals as far as 1076 are in one handwriting. They are in 
 part copied word for word from the Parker Chronicle. So that all 
 we have found is the same Canterbury tradition, which placed 
 Dunstan's birth in the year 925. 
 
 The assignment of St. Dunstan's birth to 925 has introduced 
 serious confusion into the chronology of his times, and has led recent 
 scholars to reject historical statements which would otherwise have 
 been accepted without hesitation. The error can now be seen to 
 have originated in the scriptorium of Christ Church at Canterbury. 
 The neglect of Dunstan challenged more than one of the monks of 
 Lanfranc's restored house. Osbern, the sub-prior and precentor, was 
 moved to write a new Life of the saint, and to add to it a book of 
 
 1 Here again Mr. Toke's diagram is helpful : but I caunot agree with him that 
 the handwriting of the margin is different from that of the first annal in the text : 
 see Bosworth Psalter, p. 141.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 39 
 
 his miracles ; but his younger contemporary Eaclmer found so much 
 historical inaccuracy in Osbern's work that he wrote yet another 
 Life, in what he conceived to be a style more suited to the simple 
 reader. Now, whether Osbern was himself responsible for the 
 erroneous entry in the Chronicle or not, his language enables us to 
 see plainly how the mistake arose. He had before him the two 
 authoritative narratives of St. Dunstan's life, the work of the anony- 
 mous author B, and the subsequent Life composed by Adelard, who 
 himself had made use of B. Osbern begins by saying : c Regnante 
 magnifico Anglorum rege xEthelstano, anno quidem imperii eius 
 primo . . . natus est puer dei Dunstanus Wessaxonicis Angliae parti- 
 bus.' * The words italicized are derived from Adelard : ' Natus ergo 
 puer dei sacro est lavacro intinctus.' 2 Adelard is silent as to the 
 date of birth, but he has before him the sentence of B, which is the 
 ultimate source of confusion. 
 
 For B, who rejoices in a flamboyant style, introduces Dunstan 
 thus : ' Huius [sc. ^Ethelstani] imperii temporibus oritur puer 
 strenuus in West-Saxonum finibus, cuius pater Heorstanus, mater 
 vero Cynethrydis vocitatur.' 3 Now, since i the times of the imperium ' 
 of Athelstan extend from 924 to 939, and since the writer is about 
 to tell us that King Edmund, his successor (939-46), called Dunstan 
 to him as one of his principal counsellors, and presently made him 
 Abbot of Glastonbury, it may fairly be questioned whether he is even 
 attempting to fix the date of Dunstan's birth in his somewhat vague 
 phrase ( huius imperii temporibus oritur puer strenuus in West- 
 Saxonum finibus '. For he could hardly have made Dunstan a royal 
 counsellor and an abbot before he was twenty-one, or indeed when he 
 was but eighteen, if we accept the year 943 for his promotion as abbot. 
 
 Adelard may indeed have been representing ' oritur puer strenuus ' 
 by his e natus ergo puer dei ' ; but, if so, he showed his discretion by 
 omitting the limitation to the reign of Athelstan. For he presently 
 goes on to tell us that Dunstan was residing with his uncle Athelm 
 at Canterbury about the time when Athelstan came to the throne, 
 and that Athelm commended him to the new king^s notice. Osbern, 
 however, accepting Adelard' s ( natus ergo puer dei ' as the equivalent 
 of ' oritur puer strenuus ', makes the best he can of ( huius imperii 
 temporibus \ He fixes on Athelstan's first year as the date of 
 Dunstan's birth ; and when he comes to the appointment to Glaston- 
 bury he mitigates the scandal by making it appear that, though 
 entrusted with the abbey of King Edmund, he only became abbot 
 after he had rebuilt the church and offices, and had gathered a band 
 
 1 Memorials of St. Dunstan, p. 71. 2 Ibid., p. 54. 3 Ibid., p. C.
 
 40 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 of worthy monks around him. He has to deal drastically with his 
 authority B in order to get this result; for he is forced to cancel 
 the story of Dunstan's installation by the king in the abbot's seat, 
 and to reduce the king's action to a grant of the possession of 
 the abbey. It is worth while to point out that Osbern's solution is 
 exactly that which No. 12 (the scribe of F) has introduced into the 
 margins of the Parker Chronicle : for, having entered Dunstan's 
 birth under 925, he says when he comes to 943 : ' Here K. Edmund 
 entrusted St. Dunstan with Glastonbury, where he afterwards 
 became the first abbot.' 
 
 Whether Osbern originated or only adopted this solution can be 
 but a matter of conjecture ; but the misplaced ingenuity of the 
 Canterbury scholar had a long run of mischievous success. Eadmer 
 escaped the trap by a judicious silence ; perhaps he knew something 
 of the exploits of No. 12. But William of Malmesbury, though 
 he too wrote as a critic of Osbern, was caught by it ; and so it 
 became history. Florence of Worcester, however, shows more 
 caution ; his date for Dunstan's promotion as abbot is 942, but under 
 924 he prudently inserts the ambiguous sentence e cuius temporibus 
 oritur puer strenuus Dunstanus in West-Saxoniae finibus '. He 
 must have recognized the absurdity of making him abbot at eighteen, 
 and have consulted the original authority on which the calculation 
 was based. It is indeed quite possible that the biographer B meant to 
 say no more than that in King Athelstan's day e there arose a mighty 
 youth in Wessex '. It is more likely, however, that his knowledge 
 of chronology did not suffice to fix the date of Athelstan's accession 
 within ten or fifteen years. Whichever it be, he wrote vaguely, and 
 has had the misfortune to be interpreted precisely. 
 
 The Successors of Bishop Athelm, 923-74 
 
 When Athelm was translated to Canterbury, in 923, his successor 
 at Wells was Wulfhelm ; and on Athelm's death (January 8, 926) 
 Wulfhelm was his successor again at Canterbury. If we may trust 
 the eleventh-century Canterbury tradition, Wulfhelm undertook in 
 927 the dangerous journey to Rome, and received his pall from 
 John X, who perished the next year. 1 It is possible, therefore, that 
 the see of Wells remained vacant until he could consecrate a new 
 
 1 See above, p. 37 : see also the Note (E) on the Perils of the Road to Rome.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 41 
 
 bishop with full authority on his return. In 929 we find Archbishop 
 Wulfhelm' s name entered in the Confraternity Book of the monastery 
 of St. Gall. King Athelstan was a splendid prince who cultivated 
 foreign friendships, and five of his sisters were married on the Con- 
 tinent. Two of these ladies were sent to the Saxon king, Henry the 
 Fowler, that he might choose one of them for his son, who was after- 
 wards to become famous as Otto the Great. It may have been in 
 some connexion with this marriage that in 929 Kynewald, the Bishop 
 of Worcester, went a tour among the German monasteries, bearing 
 rich gifts from the English king. 1 In October he came to St. Gall, 
 and found the monks keeping the festival of their patron saint. To 
 the royal generosity they responded by an alliance of prayer, which 
 included the names of King Athelstan, Archbishop Wulfhelm, and 
 seven English bishops, besides abbots and nobles. Last on the list 
 is the name of a lady, Keondrud, who would seem to be rightly 
 identified by Bishop Stubbs with Kynedritha, the mother of St. 
 Dunstan. Thus Somerset found a place in the prayer of the Swiss 
 monks nearly a thousand years ago. King Athelstan and Wulfhelm 
 also occur in the Confraternity Book of Reichenau, which may perhaps 
 have been visited on the same journey. 2 
 
 The activities of Archbishop Wulfhelm in connexion with royal 
 councils and legislation are attested by several references to him in 
 the Laws of King Athelstan. 3 Of his work at Wells no record is 
 preserved ; but to the Abbey of Glastonbury he is said to have given 
 twenty hides at Deverel, co. Wilts. 4 The fortunes of Glastonbury 
 were beginning to revive towards the end of Athelstan's reign. The 
 abbey was apparently in the king's hands, and was ruled by thegns 
 
 1 The marriage seems to have taken place in the autumn of 929 : see Diimmler, 
 Otto der Grosse, p. 10, n. 1. We may therefore reasonably suppose that Bishop 
 Kynewald's primary mission was to conduct the two princesses to the German 
 court. 
 
 2 See the Note (F) on Three Swiss Confraternity Books. 
 
 3 See the Note (G) on Archbishop Wulfhelm and the Laws of King- Athelstan. 
 * A thirteenth-century list of the charters which were contained in the very 
 
 ancient 'Liber Terrarum' of Glastonbury is printed (from the Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, MS., no. 724) by Hearne in his John of Glastonbury, ii. 870 If. Here 
 we have the two titles : ' Ethelstanus de Deverel dat. Wlfhemo, quam et ipse 
 G. [ftc. dedit Glastoniae]. I dem de Vuerdeverel dat. Osfritho, quam ipse G.' 
 These charters were before W. of Malmesbury when he wrote (Antiq. Glaston. 
 ap. Hearne, Ad. de Domerham, i. 70) : ' Wlhelm archiepiscopus dedit Deverel 
 xx hidas, assensu eiusdem regis \sc. Ethelstani]. Osfricus dedit Werdeverel, 
 hoc est, Munecatone x hidas' (cf. ibid. 99). Osferth, or Osfrith, is first of the 
 duces in 930 (Crawford Ch. iv, cf. B. C. S. 669) : he appears to have been of 
 the royal house (B. C. S. 553, 611). There is a cluster of Deverills on the
 
 42 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 who were abbots only in name. 1 But Dunstan was there, setting an 
 example of true monastic life ; and to this may be due the consider- 
 able number of benefactions to which the charters of the period bear 
 witness. William of Malmesbury, who claims Athelm as a monk of 
 Glastonbury, makes no such claim in the case of Wulfhelm ; but it 
 is not improbable that Wulfhelm too received his education there. 
 He died on February 12, 942, 2 and was buried, like his predecessor, 
 at Canterbury. 3 
 
 /Elfheah became Bishop of Wells after Wulf helm's translation to 
 Canterbury in 926. He had been one of King Athelstan's mass- 
 priests, serving, it would seem, in what would later have been called 
 his chancery. 4 He appears to have died in 938. 5 
 
 His successor was a second Wulfhelm, whose name occurs in 
 charters from 938 to 955. There is a curious reference to him in 
 the will of King Ed red, who died at Frome, co. Somerset, 
 November 23, 955. The king leaves his lands to Queen Edgiva 
 (Eadgifu), his mother, with the exception of some estates which he 
 gives to the monasteries at Winchester. But his most noteworthy 
 bequest for his soul's release is a gift of sixteen hundred pounds, that 
 his people ' may be able to purchase for themselves relief from want 
 and from the heathen army, if they need [so to do] '. The money 
 was to be deposited on trust as follows : the archbishop was to receive 
 four hundred pounds for the men of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Berk- 
 shire ; and, ' if aught betide him ', then the money is to go to the 
 Christ Church monastery under the supervision of the chief men of 
 the shires. Bishop i'Elfsige was to receive four hundred at the 
 
 stream which bears that name south of Warminster in Wilts : Longbridge 
 Deverill, Hill D., Brixton D., Monk ton D., and Kingston D. The last of these 
 names again points to the royal house. Can it be that Wulfhelm, like his 
 predecessor Athelm, was connected witli the royal family? 
 
 1 The list of abbots in Tiberius B. 5 places Cuthred and Ecgwulf immediately 
 before Dunstan. Neither of these persons occurs with the title of abbot in 
 charters ; but the name ' Cudret ' comes directly after two abbots in the St. Gall 
 Confraternity Book on the occasion of Bishop Kynewald's visit in 929 : see the 
 Note (F) on Three Swiss Confraternity Books. Both are found attesting charters 
 as thegns. 
 
 2 Wulfhelm's first attestation is in 92G (B. C. S. 658), his last in 941 ; and 
 Oda, his successor, attests in 942. For the confused interpolation in the 
 Chronicle see above, p. 37. The day is from the Canterbury Obituary 
 (Nero C. 9). 
 
 3 See the Note (D) on the Tombs of Athelm, Wulfhelm and Lyfing. 
 
 4 See above, p. 32. 
 
 6 JElfheah's first secure attestation as bishop is in 928 (B. C. S. 663, 664) ; for 
 B, C. S. 660 (a. d. 927) is questionable. His last appearance is in 937, and his 
 successor attests in the next year ; but the charters are of doubtful value.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 43 
 
 bishop-stool of Winchester — two hundred for Hampshire, one for 
 Wilts, and one for Dorset — with the like provision in case of his 
 death. i Item, Abbot Dunstan is to receive two hundred pounds, 
 and to keep it at Glastonbury, for the people of Somerset and Devon ; 
 and, if anything happen to him, arrangements similar to those above 
 shall be made.' Also Bishop yElfsige is to have two hundred pounds 
 at Winchester to give to whichever shire shall need it. Lastly, 
 Bishop Oseytel (then at Dorchester, afterwards at York) is to have 
 the remaining four hundred for the Mercians. Then follows the 
 enigmatic sentence : i Now Bishop Wulfhelm has that sum of four 
 hundred pounds/ x 
 
 We know from the biographer B that King Edred relied chiefly 
 on Dunstan in his administration of the kingdom, and that he com- 
 mitted his charters and treasures to his keeping in the monastery of 
 Glastonbury. In his last illness the king desired to dispose of his 
 property, and sent Dunstan to bring the treasure from Glastonbury, 
 but he died while the abbot was on his return journey. 2 We can 
 understand, therefore, that to Dunstan, and not to either of the two 
 bishops, was the legacy entrusted for the counties of Somerset and 
 Devon. But how Bishop Wulfhelm of Wells came to be in pos- 
 session of four hundred pounds of the king's money remains 
 unexplained. 3 
 
 Wulfhelm II was succeeded in 956 by Brihthelm. In order to 
 understand the story which has been connected with his name, it is 
 necessary to recapitulate briefly the political events of the period. 
 
 King Edmund had come to the throne in 939, at the age of eighteen 
 years. 4 Dunstan, the monk of Glastonbury, being then about thirty, 
 became one of his principal counsellors. The court was at Cheddar, 
 and Dunstan's rivals contrived to bring him into disgrace with the 
 king, who summarily dismissed him from his service. But imme- 
 diately after this King Edmund nearly lost his life while hunting 
 a stag that dashed over the Cheddar cliffs. Being saved as by 
 a miracle, he at once sought reconciliation with Dunstan, and made 
 him Abbot of Glastonbury. After this Dunstan had great influence 
 
 1 The document is printed by Birch, ft S. 912. I give the translation from 
 Harmer's English Historical Documents , no. xxi. The Old English and Latin 
 versions printed by Birch grossly misrepresent the whole transaction. Before 
 the name Wulf helm stands p in the manuscript : no reasonable explanation of 
 tins is offered ; the sentence is : ' pamne hsefp p pulfhelm biscop ¥aet feoper 
 bund punda.' 
 
 2 Memorials of St. Dunstan, pp. 29, 31. 
 
 3 It may be that both he and Archbishop Wulfhelm were of the royal house. 
 
 4 For this I accept Mr. Beaven's argument, E. U. R. xxxii. 517 ff. (1917).
 
 44 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 both with King Edmund and with his brother Edred, who reigned 
 from 946 to 955. 
 
 King Edred's early death was the signal of disaster. The boy 
 Edwy, Edmund^s elder son, came to the throne at the age of fifteen. 
 He was under the influence of a court party which resented the 
 power wielded during the last two reigns by Abbot Dunstan and 
 Edgiva the queen-mother. The estates of the latter were confiscated, 
 and Dunstan was driven into exile ; he took refuge in Flanders, and 
 was for a time the guest of the reformed abbey of St. Peter, at Ghent. 
 Meanwhile the country was misgoverned, and presently the Mercians 
 revolted, choosing Edgar, the king's younger brother, as their king. 
 Thus the work of three generations seemed destined to be overthrown, 
 and the unity of England broken up once more. Edgar at once 
 recalled Dunstan, and by the advice of his Witan made him a bishop. 
 He was consecrated by Archbishop Oda, who seems now to have 
 withdrawn from King Edwy's court. He was given the see of 
 Worcester, and to this was soon added the oversight of London. 
 
 Meantime the see of Wells had fallen vacant by the death of 
 Wulfhelm II in 956, shortly after Edwy had come to the throne. 
 The new bishop was Brihthelm, who is thought to have been a kins- 
 man of the king : in any case he must have been the nominee of the 
 party then in power. Two years later the archbishopric of Canterbury 
 fell vacant. An unworthy successor to Oda the Good was found in 
 ^Elfsige, the Bishop of Winchester. But ^Elfsige perished of cold 
 in the Alps, on the way to Rome to fetch his pall. Then, it would 
 seem, Brihthelm of Wells was chosen for Canterbury ; l but he had 
 hardly got there when King Edwy died, October 1, 959. Edgar was 
 at once accepted as king of the reunited realm : Brihthelm was sent 
 back to Wells, and Dunstan became Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 A new and a peaceful era had begun. Edgar, indeed, was only 
 sixteen ; but Dunstan was again the chief minister of the kingdom, 
 and his rule in Church and State crowned the work of Alfred and his 
 great successors, with the result that English unity was finally and 
 for ever achieved. 
 
 Brihthelm's episcopate covers practically the whole of King Edgar's 
 reign. He died in 974, and was buried at Wells. 2 His obit was 
 kept at Glastonbury on May 15, as we learn from William of 
 Malmesbury, who indeed claims him as a monk of the abbey. 3 
 
 1 See the Note (H) on Bishop Brihthelm and his Namesakes. 
 
 2 Cf. the entry inserted in Flor. Wigorn., .sub anno 973: ' Sumertunensi 
 episcopus Brihthelmus obiit, et in Wyllnm humatus est ; cui successit Middel- 
 tunensis abbas Cinewardus ' ; but for the year see below, p. 47, n. 2. 
 
 3 Antiq. Glaston. ap. Hearne, Ad. de Domerham, i. 94 ' Idus Maii obiit 
 Brihtelmus episcopus Wellensis, monachus Glastoniae '. 

 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 45 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Later Saxon Bishops, 974-1033 
 
 As we review the names of the first five bishops of Wells — Athelm, 
 909-23; Wulfhelm, 923-6; .Elfheah, 926-38; Wulfhelm II, 
 938-56 ; Brihthelm, 956-74 — we may observe that several of them, 
 indeed quite possibly all of them, were Somerset men, and more or 
 less closely connected with the royal family. Two of them went 
 from Wells to Canterbury ; and a third seems to have travelled the 
 same way, though political complications turned him back. Two of 
 them, Athelm and Brihthelm, are said to have been Glastonbury 
 monks ; one of them, Archbishop Wulfhelm, gave an estate to the 
 abbey ; and it is quite likely that all of them received their education 
 in that royal house. These considerations are worthy of the attention 
 of the historian of the tenth century, who may recall the further 
 facts that Edgar was born at Edgarley, a hamlet of Glastonbury, 
 and that both he and his father Edmund were buried in the abbey. 
 c The little kingdom of Wessex ' — to use Liebermann's words 1 — 
 6 formed the starting-point for a dominion over England, over the 
 British Isles, and over half the earth to-day.' And it should not be 
 forgotten that from Alfred to Edgar, in the first great period of the 
 Making of England, the power of Wessex radiated from Somerset. 
 It is in harmony with this fact that the great movement of monastic 
 reform under Edmund, Edred, and Edgar had likewise a Somerset 
 origin. Of this reform it is necessary now to give a brief account, 
 as it affected the Wells episcopate for the next two generations. 
 
 The ravages of the Danes had almost obliterated the monastic life 
 of England. The properties of many of the abbeys had reverted to 
 the king's hands for lack of owners, and their churches were served 
 by a few clerks whose reputation was painfully low. We must, 
 indeed, allow for some exaggeration on the part of those who presently 
 took their places, but we cannot doubt that there was great need of 
 reform. When we look for the first inspiration of the new movement, 
 we find it in the saintly personality of yElfheah the Bald, who became 
 Bishop of Winchester about the year 934. He first appears in history 
 as a mass-priest of King Athelstan, designated as ' priest and monk ' 
 to distinguish him from his contemporary ^Elfheah the priest, who 
 became the third Bishop of Wells. 2 .Elfheah the Bald was a kinsman 
 
 1 Cngedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen (1879), introd. to § ix. 
 
 2 See above, p. 32.
 
 46 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 of Dunstan, and like him was related to the royal house ; it is probable, 
 therefore, that he was a Somerset man and a monk of Glastonbury. 
 It was he who persuaded Dunstan to take the monastic vow, and he 
 ordained to the priesthood on the same day Dunstan and his friend 
 Ethelwold, who presently followed Dunstan to Glastonbury. There 
 for ten or, it may be, fifteen years Dunstan worked quietly on, re- 
 building the abbey and training young monks in the faithful observance 
 of St. Benedict's Rule. Up to this point the movement was wholly 
 English in character, and was not affected in any way, so far as we 
 can tell, by influences from abroad. 
 
 The corresponding movement on the Continent had begun a genera- 
 tion earlier. Cluny had been founded in 909, just about the time of 
 Dunstan's birth and the accession of his uncle Athelm to the new see 
 of Wells. Fleury was reformed in 930 by an abbot of Cluny, but it 
 retained its independence and did not, like so many other abbeys, 
 become subject to Cluniac rule. About the same time Gerard of 
 Brogue was busy with similar reforms, and the abbey of St. Peter at 
 Ghent, where Dunstan was afterwards received during his exile, was 
 revived by him. The connexion of England and the Continent was 
 so close during the reigns of Athelstan and Edmund that the English 
 churchmen must have been well aware of the reforms in France and 
 Flanders. 1 Indeed, the fame of Fleury is said to have led Oda the 
 Good to seek the monastic habit from that abbey when he was pro- 
 moted to the see of Canterbury. Oda was of Danish descent, as was 
 Oskytel his kinsman, the Archbishop of York ; and we may note, in 
 passing, the extraordinary fact that seventy years after Alfred's Peace 
 of Wedmore both the archbishops of England were of Danish origin. 
 What immediately concerns us here is that Oda's brilliant young 
 nephew Oswald, disgusted with the laxity of the clerks over whom 
 he had been set to preside in a monastery at Winchester, desired to 
 go abroad and become a monk. Had he been a Somerset man, he 
 would have joined Dunstan and Ethelwold at Glastonbury, the one 
 English house where he could then have found the strict observance 
 that he sought. As it was, he went, by his uncle's advice, to Fleury. 
 He was at length recalled by the aged Oda, but before he could reach 
 Canterbury his uncle was dead, and he went on to Oskytel at York. 
 Then Dunstan found him out, and commended him to King Edgar 
 to fill the see of Worcester, which he had just vacated. Whilst 
 Oswald was still at Fleury, Ethelwold conceived the wish to go there 
 
 1 Some of the monks of St. Bertin, who had refused to accept the reform of 
 Gerard of Brogne in 944, set sail for England, and were placed by the king in 
 the abbey of Bath (Folcuin, Gesta abbatum S. Bertini, Pertz, M.G.SS. xiii. 629).
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 47 
 
 also ; but the queen-mother warned Ed red of the danger of losing 
 him, and he was sent off with companions from Glastonbury to 
 restore the ancient monastery of Abingdon. Thus it came about 
 that Dunstan himself was the first link between the revived English 
 monasticism and the great continental reforms ; and it was to a 
 Lotharingian house, reformed not from Cluny but by Gerard of 
 Brogue, that the providence of his exile brought him. 
 
 In 963 Ethelwold was made Bishop of Winchester, and thereafter, 
 with Oswald at Worcester and Dunstan at Canterbury, the monastic 
 movement went forward apace. It is unnecessary to follow it farther 
 here. What has been said so far is, however, directly to our purpose. 
 For now all the more eager spirits among the young English church- 
 men sought their training in the monasteries, which once again had 
 become living homes of devotion and learning. The result is plainly 
 seen at Wells, where for the next sixty years the bishops, six of them 
 in succession, were all chosen from among the abbots of the recon- 
 stituted monasteries. 
 
 The first of these was Cyneward, Abbot of Middleton, or Milton 
 Abbas, in Dorset. This house had been founded by King Athelstan, 
 who placed there relics of St. Samson of Dol and St. Bradwalader, 
 given him by the Breton refugees who crossed the Channel when the 
 Danes were ravaging their country. 1 It was one of the first four 
 minsters reformed under King Edgar, and the first reforming abbot 
 was Cyneward, who had been trained by Dunstan at Glastonbury. 
 We read in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 964 : * K. 
 Edgar drave out the priests at Winchester from the Old Minster 
 and from the New Minster, and from Chertsey and from Middelton, 
 and settled them with monks : and he placed Abbot ^Ethelgar at the 
 New Minster as abbot, and Ordbriht at Chertsey and Cyneweard at 
 Middelton/ 
 
 Cyneward became Bishop of Wells in 974, 2 and ruled but one 
 
 1 Liebermanu, Die Heiligen Englands, p. 19 : ' (S) ponne rested sanctus Bran- 
 walatrus se bisceop on J)am mynstre set Middeltune '. ( (C) ponne is on Middetune 
 sancte Brangwalateris heafod biscopes, and sancte Samsones earm, biscopes, and 
 bis crice.' Among the relics described in Monast. ii. 350 we find : ' Brachium et 
 plura ossa sancti Sampsonis archipraesulis,' and l brachium sancti Branwaladri 
 episcopi'. On the introduction of Breton cults see Bosworth Psalter, pp. 53 if., 
 and McClure, British Place-names, pp. 160 if. 
 # 2 Cyneward attests as bishop in 974 (B. C. S. 1303). Birch prints a charter 
 (B. C. S. 1302) from Addit. MS. 15,350, in which Brihthelm attests as bishop and 
 Cyneward as abbot : it is misdated 984, probably for 974. A Wilton charter of 
 974 (B. C. S. 1304) also has both names. Kemble passes the former, but rejects 
 the latter. As the only authority for the year 973 is the inserted entry in 
 Florence of Worcester, we shall be more prudent if we accept 974 as the date.
 
 48 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 short year ; he died on June 28, 975, ten days before King Edgar. 1 
 So it was that Cyneward was buried at Wells just before the king 
 was buried hard by at Glastonbury, and their names are linked 
 together in the poem on King Edgar's death which is preserved in 
 
 the Chronicle: 
 
 A glorious man 
 
 Ten nights before 
 
 From Britain went, 
 
 The bishop good 
 
 By native force, 
 
 Whose name was Cyneweard. 
 
 The next bishop came from Glastonbury. Sigegar, or Sigar, 
 stands next but one in the list of abbots to St. Dunstan himself. 2 
 He ruled at Wells from 975 to 997. 3 Glastonbury showed his tomb, 
 near to that of St. Benignus ; 4 but Wells claims to have his bones 
 beneath his effigy, and with them is a leaden tablet inscribed SIGARVS 
 EPC WELLENSIS. 
 
 Though we know but little about him, it is certain that Bishop 
 Sigar made a great impression in Wells. No bishop had sat for so 
 long a time — twenty-two years. In after days he was regarded as 
 the earliest bishop of the see whose name was certainly known. He 
 heads the list of bishops in a Wells document of c. 1175, and in 
 another Wells document two hundred years later. He heads a much 
 earlier list in a Bath manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, written 
 c. 1090; and, what is more surprising still, he holds the same place 
 in a Winchester book of c. 1030— that is to say, a generation after 
 his death. In some of these lists he is placed before the two bishops 
 who certainly preceded him, Brihthelm and Cyneward. All this goes 
 to show that he was a man who left a mark on his times. He 
 
 1 The entry inserted into Flor. AV r igorn. is ten years too late : ' 985. . . . 
 Kynewardo Wellensi episcopo defuncto successit Sigarus abbas.' Cf. W. of 
 Malmesb. Antiq. Glaston. ap. Hearne, Ad. deDomerham, i. 94 ' Quarto Kalend. 
 Iulii obiit Keneualdus episcopus, monachus Glaston.' As this day (June 28) is 
 indicated by the notice in the A.-S. Chronicle, we conclude that Cyneward is 
 meant, and not Cynewald Bishop of Woi'cester. 
 
 2 Tiberius B. 5 : Dunstan, iElfric, Sigegar, JElfward. This list was drawn up 
 in Bishop Sigar's lifetime : see above, p. 14. W. of Malmesb., ut supra, p. 85, 
 quotes from a charter : ' Anno dcccclxv . Ego Edgarus Sigaro abbati', &c. The 
 date may be correct, but Sigar's earliest attestation as abbot seems to occur in 
 974 (B. C. S. 1303). 
 
 3 These are probably the correct dates. His first attestation as bishop is in 
 979 (Kemble, Cod. Dipt. 621), his last in 995 (K. C. D. 691). 
 
 4 W. of Malmesb. , ut supra, p. 93 ' Quarto Kal. Iulii obiit Sigegarus 
 Wellensis episcopus, abbas Glastoniae. Hie iacere fertur sub sancto Benigno.' 
 There is a happy uncertainty about fertur.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 49 
 
 entered into confraternity with the Old Minster (i.e. the cathedral 
 church) at Winchester, and he was also prayed for in the New 
 Minster, afterwards the abbey of Hyde. There can be no doubt 
 that, when the figures of the Saxon bishops were carved for their 
 monuments in the church at Wells at the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century, Bishop Sigar was regarded as the oldest of all who were 
 buried there. 1 
 
 The next Bishop of Wells was also an abbot — but this time from 
 Westminster. St. Dunstan was regarded as a second founder at 
 Westminster, where he is said to have settled twelve monks brought 
 from his own abbey of Glastonbury. Westminster, like Glastonbury, 
 soon began to send out its abbots as bishops. The most famous was 
 St. Wulsin, who went to Sherborne in 992 ; and he would appear to 
 have been succeeded as abbot by Alfwy (or ^Elfwin), who in his turn 
 went to Wells in 997. 2 It is probable that it was a Somerset man 
 who thus came back from Westminster to Wells. 
 
 There is a strange statement about Bishop ^lfwin in a Wells 
 document written about 1175, to the effect that he supplanted Sigar 
 in the bishopric, and that after Sigar's death he lived as bishop 
 thirteen days and then expired. 3 It has been suggested that Bishop 
 Sigar in his old age may have had ^Elfwin as his coadjutor; and we 
 can well understand that he might wish to have one of his former 
 monks to take his place. It is, however, possible that there has been 
 some confusion with the story of a later Bishop yElwin, to whom we 
 shall come presently. 
 
 The obit of Bishop ^Elfwin would seem to have been kept on 
 August 29. In the calendar of the Leofric Missal there is an entry 
 by a later hand on this day : ' Obitus iElfwini episcopi/ But it is 
 possible that some other bishop is referred to. 
 
 In charters of 997 and 998 we find the signature of Bishop ^Elfwin 
 and also of an abbot named Lyfing. 4 This Lyfing was the Abbot of 
 Chertsey, co. Surrey, which had been founded in the days of King Ina 
 (c. 690), together with the abbey of Barking, co. Essex, by St. Ercon- 
 wald, Bishop of London. This we have on the authority of Bede 
 
 1 For the details of this paragraph I may be allowed to refer to a paper 
 entitled Effigies of Saxon Bishops at Wells, in Archaeologia , vol. Ixv, pp. 95-112 
 (1913-14). 
 
 2 Flete, Hist, of Westminster, p. 78 ' Alfwyus abbas, postea episcopus 
 Funtanensis.' See the Note (I) on the First Abbots of Westminster. 
 
 3 Historiola, &c. , in f Ecclesiastical Documents ' edited by Hunter for the Camden 
 Society (1840), p. 14 ' Alwynus, qui subplantavit Sigarum ab episcopatu 
 (MS. fepo) ; post cuius obitum cum xiij oim diebus vixisset episcopus exspiravit.' 
 
 4 K. C. D. 698, 700. 
 
 D
 
 50 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 (H. E. iv. 6). The A.-S. Chronicle tells us that Chertsey was reformed 
 in 964, at the same time as the minsters at Winchester and at 
 Middleton. Ordbriht was then appointed abbot ; Lyfing may have 
 been his immediate successor. Lyfing attests as Bishop of Wells in 
 999. 1 William of Malmesbury tells us that he was also named 
 Ethelstan or Elstan. 2 
 
 In 1013 he was translated to Canterbury. 3 St. Elphege had been 
 murdered by the Danes on April 19 in the previous year, and the 
 primacy had since stood vacant. Archbishop Lyfing probably took 
 a prominent part in the making of King Ethelred's Laws in 1014. 
 It was his strange fortune to crown Edmund Ironside in 1016, and 
 Cnut in the following year. He died in 1020, according to two 
 manuscripts (E, F) of the Chronicle. The only manuscript (D) 
 which places his death in 1019 describes him thus: 'Then departed 
 .Elfstan the archbishop. He was named Lifing ; and he was a man 
 exceeding prudent (rced-fast) alike before God and before the world.' 
 He was ready in counsel, as Ethelred his master was Unready (rced- 
 leas).^ 
 
 On Lyfing's promotion to Canterbury in 1013 the see of Wells 
 was filled by /Ethelwine, the Abbot of Evesham. His attestation as 
 abbot occurs in a charter of July 1012 (K. C. D. 1307), and the 
 Evesham records place him between Brihtmaer and zElfward, the 
 latter of whom is said to have been appointed in 1014. 5 ^Ethelwine 
 attests as bishop from 1018 to 1022, always in company with Briht- 
 wine bishop and (except in 1018) with Brihtwig abbot. This Brihtwine 
 is probably the Bishop of Sherborne : he is mentioned in the A.-S. 
 Chronicle (E) as present when King Cnut translated St. Elphege to 
 Canterbury in 1023. Brihtwig is the Abbot of Glastonbury, who 
 was to succeed ./Ethel wine at Wells in 1024. 
 
 William of Malmesbury is responsible for the statement that 
 iEthelwine was ejected from his see by Brihtwine, that Brihtwine 
 was then ejected, and that yEthelwine returned, only to be ejected 
 by Brihtwine for the second time. It is possible that the story has 
 arisen from an attempt to interpret the confusions of the ancient 
 episcopal lists of Wells and of Sherborne for this period. 6 
 
 1 K. C. D. 703. 
 
 2 Gest. Pont., pp. 33, 194 ; so A.-S. Chron. (E), quoted below. 
 
 3 A.-S. Chron. (E). 
 
 4 For his tomb at Canterbury see the Note (D) on the Tombs of Athelm, 
 VVulfhelm and Lyfing. 
 
 5 Monasticon, ii. 26, from the MS. of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (now Harl. MS. 229) ; 
 cf. Hist. o/Evesh. (Rolls Ser.), p. 81. 
 
 See the Note (J) on the Various Bishops Brihtwine.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 51 
 
 Brihtwig (Beorhtwig, or Brihtwy) was consecrated in 1024, or 
 possibly at the end of 1023. 1 He was also called Merewit. 2 He was 
 much honoured at Glastonbury, where he had become abbot, according 
 to William of Malmesbury, in 1017, and where he had caused a cross 
 to be made, and also an altar-front decorated with gold and silver 
 and ivory. 3 He was buried in the northern apse, at the altar of 
 St. John Baptist. In the fourteenth century a wax candle was kept 
 burning before his tomb, and his anniversary was observed with much 
 solemnity. 4 He died April 12, 1033. This we learn from a valuable 
 document written by Bishop Giso, his next successor but one : 5 the 
 year is confirmed by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 6 Brihtwig was at 
 once the last bishop of the English race and the last of the long series 
 of abbots who had come out of the reformed monasteries. We may 
 bring the period to a close by recapitulating their names : 
 
 Cyneward from Middleton, 974-5 ; 
 
 Sigar from Glastonbury, 975-97 ; 
 
 iElfwin from Westminster, 997-9 ; 
 
 Lyfing from Chertsey, 999-1013 ; 
 
 1 iEthelwine's last signature is in 1022 (K. C. D. 734). Brihtwig still attests 
 as abbot in 1023, and only in 1024 as bishop (K. CD. 737, 739, 741). The date 
 1027, given by Stubbs, is based on W. of Malmesbury (cited below). 
 
 2 Gest. Pont., p. 194, Bath Gospels (C. C. C. C. 140) ; Merehwit, A.-S. Chron. 
 (E) 1033 ; Cott. ch. xii. (K. C. D. 742) ; Merechyyt, Historiola, p. 15. 
 
 3 Antiq. Glaston. (Hearne), p. 87 : f Anno MXVI Brithwius abbas constitutus 
 fecit tabulam ante altare, auro et argento et ebore polimitam, et crncem . Hie 
 post decern annos suscepti regiminis in episcopum Wellensem est electus ; ' p. 94 : 
 ' Anno incarnacionis MXXXIV obiit Brihwius episcopus VVellensis, abbas 
 Glastoniae . . . Hie iacet in aquilonari porticu ad sanctum Iohannem Baptistam.' 
 
 4 Hearne, John of Glaston. ii. 363 (from Trin. Coll., Cant., no. 724) c Haec 
 sunt anniversaria in quibus accendi debent .ii°. processionales et .iiii. cerei maioris 
 formae remocius . Jnae regis, Brithwoldi et Brjthwi episcoporum, Roberti abbatis 
 senioris, VVillelmi abbatis. ... IT Sciendum eciam quod multi de praenominatis 
 qui in ecclesia Glastoniensi requiescunt singulos cereos habent ante locum suae 
 sepulturae, videlicet Edgarus, Brithwold et Brithwi, Robertus in meridie, 
 Willelmus in aquilone, abbates in capitulo . Edmundus senior in aquilone, et 
 Edmundus iunior [Edmund Ironside] in meridie, ante maius altare.' 
 
 5 Historiola, p. 15 ' Anno dominicae incarnationis m°.xxx°. Cnuth rege 
 Danorum et Norweynensium optinente etiam principatum totius Brittanniae, 
 Brytheri episcopus Welliae ecclesiae, Merechyyt cognominatus, ii. idus Aprilis 
 obiit, et in Glasstingensi coenobio, in quo ante episcopatum abbas fuit, est 
 sepultus.' Internal evidence shows that the year was originally written 
 m°.xxxiii°. W. of Malmesb., ut supra, p. 94, gives the year as mxxxiv. The 
 Abingdon Martyrology (C. C. C. C. 57) has the entry (by a later hand) ( brihtpig ep.' 
 on 3 Id. Apr. (James's Catalogue, I, p. 116). 
 
 r ' A.-S. Chron. (E) 1033: e Her on bisum geare forSferde Merehwit b on 
 Sumersreton . } he is bebyrged on Glaestingabyrig. 
 
 D2
 
 52 
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 iEthelwine from Evesham, 1013-24 ; 
 Brihtwig from Glastonbury, 1024-33. 1 
 
 The abbots had had their daj\ Once again, as under Edward the 
 Elder and Athelstan, the king's mass-priests — the chaplains who 
 formed his chancery — became under Cnut and Edward the Confessor 
 the usual source from which bishoprics were filled. And these last- 
 mentioned kings — the one a Dane, the other English by his father, 
 but Norman by his mother, and Norman also by his education and 
 in his sympathies — chose foreign priests for the work of their 
 chancery, and then rewarded them by appointment to English sees. 
 
 Wells was typical in this respect. Dudoc, the Old Saxon, was 
 followed by Giso the Lotharingian. Both may have been good men : 
 the second certainly stands high in the roll of meritorious achieve- 
 ment. But the change from abbots to royal chaplains, though 
 perhaps necessitated by the decline of the monastic revival, marks 
 a period of general retrogression, in which ambitious and worldly 
 clerks attained to the highest places in the Church, and sometimes 
 held sees in plurality as the reward of continued political services. 
 
 Better days were coming, but the interval was very dark. Wells 
 was perhaps more happy than many other dioceses, partly from the 
 fact that Bishop Dudoc had a longer episcopate than any of his 
 predecessors, and so the see was saved from the chances of unworthy 
 and even simoniacal appointments ; partly because, when a change 
 came at last, it obtained a good bishop in Giso of Lorraine, who, 
 being neither English nor Norman, could mediate the better between 
 conquerors and conquered, and who ruled yet longer than any before 
 him — from the last years of the Confessor through the whole of 
 William's reign into the days of his son Rufus. Then, indeed, 
 calamity befell the Church of Wells, from which it did not recover for 
 more than a generation. Only when, after the lapse of a full century, 
 a monk again sat in the bishop's seat, came the dawn of a brighter 
 day. 
 
 VII 
 
 Additional Notes 
 
 A. The Early Endowment of the See of Wells 
 
 It is a matter of some interest to inquire what provision was made 
 for the new Bishop of Wells, when the diocese was constituted c. 909. 
 
 1 The bishops who followed were : Dudoc, an Old Saxon (1033-60) ; Giso, 
 a Lotharingian (1001-88) ; John of Tours (1088-1122) ; Godfrey, a German 
 (1123-35) ; Robert, monk of Lewes (1136-66).
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 53 
 
 We have no direct evidence, but a partial answer is suggested by the 
 analogy of the neighbouring diocese of Crediton, which was consti- 
 tuted at the same time. Three properties in Cornwall which had 
 belonged to the see of Sherborne were transferred to the Bishop of 
 Crediton ; and then, after a period of protracted controversy, they 
 were finally settled upon the Cornish bishopric, which resulted from 
 a fresh subdivision. We might suppose, therefore, that lands in 
 Somerset which had belonged to the Bishop of Sherborne would form 
 the nucleus of the endowment of the see of Wells. Such a process 
 of transfer seems treasonable and just, though it must be noted that 
 the wealthy heritage which the Bishop of Winchester held in 
 Taunton and its neighbourhood had never accrued to the Bishop of 
 Sherborne. 
 
 Now Asser tells us in his Life of Alfred (c. 81) that the king gave 
 him as a Christmas gift the two minsters of Congresbury and Ban- 
 well, and at a later time Exeter with its whole diocese in Saxon land 
 and in Cornwall. This second gift is interpreted to mean that Asser 
 was made the bishop of the westernmost portion of the diocese of 
 Sherborne, and that this temporary diocese was again merged in 
 Sherborne when Asser became bishop of that see. 
 
 Two points of interest to the see of Wells arise out of this informa- 
 tion. In the first place we observe that Congresbury and Ban well, 
 after strange vicissitudes, 1 ultimately became secure possessions of the 
 Church of Wells. Secondly, the Church of Wells could show a charter 
 which recorded an exchange of properties between King Edward the 
 Elder and Asser, Bishop of Sherborne. Asser gave to the king the 
 minster of Plymentun, that is Plympton in Devon. This we may 
 suppose had come to him as a part of King Alfred's gifts, and had 
 remained with him when he became bishop of the larger diocese of 
 Sherborne. 2 The lands which the king gave to Asser in exchange 
 
 1 Both Congresbury and Banwell were given by King Cnut to Dudoc his mass- 
 priest, before he became Bishop of Wells, in 1033. Dudoc bequeathed them to 
 the see of Wells (tl060). But Earl Harold seized them, and Bishop Giso was 
 unable to recover them from him. Banwell he succeeded in obtaining from 
 King William ; but Congresbury remained with tbe Crown until it came at last 
 to the Church in the reign of King John. See Uistoriola, pp. 15ff., and Wells 
 Register, i. 110. For the history of Banwell see also the article by the Rev. C. S. 
 Taylor in Som. Archaeol. Soc. Proceedings, vol. li. (1905). 
 
 2 Plympton in the reign of King Henry I was a church of Regular Canons, 
 introduced (c. 1121) by William Warelwast, Bishop of Exeter, who transferred 
 the secular priests to the collegiate church of Bosham in Sussex. That the 
 church of Plympton had a history in Saxon times is shown by its claim to a gift 
 from King Edgar of the church of Landoho in Cornwall. See Monasticon, 
 vi. 51, 54.
 
 54 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 were in the county of Somerset, which was until after Asser's death 
 a portion of the Sherborne diocese. They are thus described in the 
 charter : * ' tres villas, id est peolingtun terrain de sex manentium, et 
 Bocland terram quinque manentium, atque Lidgeard terram .xii. 
 manentium/ Domesday Book shows that the Bishop of Wells held, 
 and had held T. R. E., both Wellington and Bishop's Lydeard ; and 
 we learn from another source that Buckland formed a portion of 
 Wellington. 2 
 
 We are therefore on fairly secure ground if we suppose that these 
 three estates — Wellington, Buckland, and Bishop's Lydeard, situated 
 just within the border of Somerset, and separated from Devon by the 
 Blackdown Hills, were a part of the original endowment of the 
 bishopric of Wells when it was created out of Sherborne in the be- 
 ginning of the tenth century. 
 
 To these distant properties we must add the large estate of Wells 
 itself, the immemorial heritage of the church of St. Andrew, where 
 the bishop's stool was now set. A charter of King William, which 
 claims to have been drafted by Bishop Giso himself (Wells Reg. 
 iii. 241), though probably spurious, is of interest as showing the 
 range of the Wells estate : f in the territory of Wells and the villages 
 thereto belonging are 50 mansus — Paulesham, Woky, Hentun, 
 Gyrdleg (Yardley), Bleddenhyth (Bladney), Eastun, Westbyrig, 
 Woky Hole, ^Ebbeuyrth, Burcotan, Middeltun and Other Middle- 
 tun, ^Et tham Prenne, Hornningdune and Other Hornningdune, 
 Hwite circe, Denrenn (Dinder), Dulticotan, Welsleg, Wuormestorr, 
 Celicotan (Chilcot), Begenhangra (Binegar), Wandestreow, and 
 Hlittun (Litton).' 
 
 We may now turn to the Domesday Survey and note those pro- 
 perties which belonged to the bishop in the time of King Edward the 
 Confessor. From these we must rule out such as we know to have 
 been added by Bishop Giso, namely, (a) Cumbe (Combe St. Nicholas), 
 which the bishop purchased 3 from Azor, son of Torold, who held it 
 T. R. E. ; (b) Banwelle, spoken of above; (c) Jatune (Yatton), held 
 T. R. E. by John the Dane ; (d) Wedmore, given by King Edward 
 the Confessor; 4 (e) Litune (Litton), bought by the bishop from 
 Alfred ; 5 (f) Milvertune, given by Queen Edith. 6 
 
 1 Birch, G. S. 610, from Wells Reg. iii. 290. 
 
 2 Wells Reg. (iii. 241) ; Kemble, C. D. 816. 
 
 3 Wells Reg. iii. 255 6. 4 Ibid., R. i. 176. 
 
 6 R. i. 14. This is the same Litton as is reckoned as part of the Wells 
 territory in the general charter of King William. 
 6 R. i. 18.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 55 
 
 The remainder of the properties recorded in Domesday Book would 
 appear to have belonged to the bishopric of Wells in the earlier days ; 
 but we cannot determine how many of them formed a part of its 
 original endowment. They are the following : 
 
 Chingesberie, Cerdre, and Litelande (' Littelaneia,' Exon. book) : 
 i. e. Kingsbury Episcopi, Chard, and a small estate probably to be 
 reckoned with Huish Episcopi. These make up 30 hides. 
 
 Wivelescombe : 15 hides. 
 
 Evrecriz (Evercreech) : 20 hides. 1 
 
 Winesham : 10 hides. This, though held T. R. E. by Elsi, was an 
 ancient property of the see, and was recovered by Bishop Giso. 2 
 
 Chieve : 30 hides. This is Chew Magna, and includes Dundry. 
 
 B. The name sEthelhelm or JEthelm. 
 
 The name is not uncommon in the ninth and tenth centuries : the 
 same person appears under both forms. In the A.-S. Chron. we find : 
 (1) 837 ^Ethelhelm (^Ethelm B) ealdorman of Dorset, slain in a fight 
 with the Danes at Portland ; (2) 887 iEthelhelm, ealdorman of Wilts., 
 takes Alfred's alms to Rome ; 894 (/Ethelm A) he defeats the Danes 
 at Buttington, together with /Ethered and ^Ethelnoth, ealdormen of 
 Devon and Somerset ; 898 (JEthelm A) he dies. (3) In King Alfred's 
 Will (Birch, C. S. 553) lands are granted to '^Ethelm, my brother's 
 son \ (4) In the Life of St. Oswald (Raine, Historians of York, i. 405) 
 a knight, ^Ethelhelm, is patron of the young Oda, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, and takes him to Rome; (5) /Ethelhelm, 
 ealdorman, was father of iElflaed, the second wife of King Edward 
 the Elder (Will, of Malm. Gesta Regum, i. 137) ; (6) < ^Ethelm abbas ' 
 attests a charter granted by King Edward and ^Ethelred of Mercia 
 in 903 (B. C. S. 603 from Stowe xxi). 3 (7) The Winchester MS. of 
 Bede (late tenth century) has a colophon recording the name of 
 a scribe iEdelelmus : it is followed by a note in very corrupt Irish. 
 It is possible that both colophon and note were copied from an 
 earlier MS. The mistake in the colophon, c pro anima iEdelelmo 
 (sic) ', seems to bear this out. It is thought that the MS. may have 
 a Glastonbury origin ; but it would be hazardous to assign its original 
 to our ^Ethelm ; see Plummer's Bede, I. ex f . 
 
 On the Continent also we meet with the name : as, for example, 
 in Flodoard's Annals (ed. Lauer, 1906): 921 Adelelmus (Alleaume, 
 
 1 Westberie, which comes next in order, is included in the territory of Wells 
 in King William's charter cited above : so also Wandestreu, which comes after 
 Wedmore. 
 
 2 Historiola, p. 17. 3 Possibly the future Bishop of Wells.
 
 56 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 Bishop of Laon, 921-30) ; 932 Adelelmes comes (Alleaume, Count 
 of Arras) ; 936 Adelelmus Silvanectensium praesul obiit (Alleaume, 
 Bishop of Senlis) ; 948 quidam clericus Laudunensis, nomine 
 Adelelmus. 
 
 C. The Date of At helm's Translation to Canterbury. 
 
 The Canterbury writers at the end of the eleventh century placed 
 Plegmund's death in 923, and assigned to him a primacy of thirty- 
 four years. As his obit was kept on August 2, the reckoning would 
 not be inconsistent with the Canterbury date of his accession, 
 viz. 890. 
 
 But recent historians are agreed in giving 914 as the year of 
 the death of Plegmund and the accession of Athelm. The sole 
 authority for this date is the statement found under that year in 
 Florence of Worcester : ' Athelmo Wyllensi episcopo, in archiepi- 
 scopatum Dorubernensem levato, successit Wlfhelmus.' This is 
 given by Petrie in the Mon. Hist. Brit, in a foot-note, as being one of 
 the numerous additions made in A (Corp. Chr. Oxon. 157) : it is not 
 found in the Lambeth codex. Unfortunately Thorpe printed it 
 without comment as a part of the text, though he rejected silently the 
 parallel addition of A under 924, which records Athelm's death and 
 Wulf helm's accession to Canterbury, followed by .Elfheah's accession 
 to Wells. 1 
 
 It is important, therefore, to discover the historical value of these 
 additions in A. Some of them are designated by Petrie as e A. add.' ; 
 such are the two just referred to: others as c A. alia manu'. But 
 they are of the same character, and often refer to the same sees. 
 Again and again they prove to be obviously wrong, sometimes by as 
 much as a hundred years. 2 This is what Petrie himself says about 
 them in a note to the year 543 : 
 
 Abhinc in cod. A occurrunt additamenta plurima tarn in textu quam in 
 margine, diversis licet antiquis manibus exarata. Ad episcoporum Anglorum 
 series ferme spectant, plerumque ex ' Gestis Pontificum ' Willielmi Malmes- 
 buriensis hausta. Quoad chronologiam, fere ad libitum posita videntur ; sed 
 cum ex boc vel simili codice in textum Florilegi sive Mathaei Westmonasteriensis 
 irrepserint, et inde, ut verisimile est, in aliorum Chronicis obtinuere locum, 
 haec etiam inter MSS. codicum varietates repraesentanda duximus. 
 
 Until I had examined the Lambeth MS. (L) with some care, I had 
 hoped that a distinction might be drawn between the entries of 
 episcopal successions which are found in A only and those which are 
 
 1 See the foot-note in M. H. B. under 924. 
 
 2 So Ealdbeorht and Esne under 872 and 885, a century too late.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 57 
 
 also found in L. But I now see that, at any rate for the period with 
 which we are here concerned, they are all equally untrustworthy. 
 They do not come from Florence himself, but are in many instances 
 quite certainly derived from W. of Malmesbmy's Gesta Pontificum. 
 But on what principles the years to which they are assigned are 
 chosen is for the most part quite obscure. 1 
 
 Cod. A is undoubtedly the most important authority for the text 
 of Florence of Worcester. But it is loaded with interpolations of 
 various dates. Some of them are in the margins, but for others 
 room has been made by erasure of portions of the text. Many of 
 these interpolations are not to be found in the Lambeth manuscript, 
 which is derived directly or indirectly from A, and was written about 
 a quarter of a century later for the monastery of Abingdon. The 
 entry with which we are here concerned is a good example of the 
 value of this manuscript (L) for controlling the text of A. 
 
 Under the year a. d. 914 we read in L (f. 118) after the word 
 construxit the short sentence, ' Hiemps nimis magna et dura ', with 
 which the annal closes. Now in A construxit ends a line ; a portion 
 of the next line was, we may assume, filled with the brief description 
 of the hard winter, which the interpolator thought might well be 
 spared. The erasure was most carefully made, and thus the whole 
 line was available for the entry as to Archbishop Athelm's accession 
 which has been quoted above. 
 
 This interpolator, who may have been at work in the last quarter 
 of the twelfth century, has added other entries as to the episcopal 
 successions at Wells. Thus at the end of the annal of 924 he adds 
 the following, the first two words finding place at the end of a line, 
 the rest running over into the margin : 
 
 Defuncto Athelmo archiepiscopo successit Wlhelmus, cui ad Wyllensem 
 ecclesiam successit iElfegus, illique Wlfhelmus, illique Brythelmus. 
 
 If Thorpe, who omitted these words altogether, had been equally 
 silent as to the former interpolation, it is unlikely that any historian 
 would ever have suggested the year 914 for Plegmund's death and 
 the translation of Athelm to Canterbury. 
 
 Accordingly we are thrown back on the Canterbury date of 923 for 
 the death of Plegmund and, by inference, for the accession of Athelm. 
 Its earliest authority is a note inserted into the Parker codex (A) of 
 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle by a Canterbury writer c. 1075. There 
 appears to be no reason for questioning its correctness : there certainly 
 
 1 See a further account and criticism of these entries by Mr. W. H. Stevenson 
 in his Asser, p. 108.
 
 58 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 is no charter evidence that can be pleaded either for or against it. 1 
 Now that we have placed Athelm's death in January 926, we can 
 still give him two full years and rather more at Canterbury. 
 
 If we ask how the interpolator of Florence could have been led to 
 choose 914 as the year of Athelm's accession, we may find a possible 
 answer on this wise. The MS. of the Gesta Pontificum, which is 
 believed to have been written by William of Malmesbury himself 
 (Magd. Oxford 173), and to represent his own alterations for the 
 second edition of his work, has in bk. i, cc. 13, 14 (p. 20, Rolls 
 Series), the number of years which each archbishop ruled inserted 
 over his name. Thus Plegmund sat thirty-four years, Athelm twelve, 
 Wulfhelm thirteen, Oda twenty. If we add these years together we 
 reach a total of seventy-nine. But Plegmund became archbishop in 
 889 or 890, and Oda died in 958 or 959. Between these two events 
 the interval is sixty-nine years, not seventy-nine. Here was a fruitful 
 source of confusion. If you worked forwards you might put Pleg- 
 mund's death in 923, in accordance with the Canterbury tradition. 
 If you worked backwards from 959, Athelm's accession would fall in 
 914. It is fair to mention that this will not explain the subsequent 
 entry which speaks of Athelm's death under 924 ; but this may have 
 been suggested by the immediately preceding notice of Athelm's 
 coronation of King Athelstan, which has also been antedated. 
 
 D. The Tombs of Athelm, Wulfhelm and Lyfing at Canterbury. 
 
 The bodies of Athelm and Wulfhelm rested at first in the church 
 or baptistery of St. John Baptist, which Archbishop Cuthbert had 
 built to the east of the great Saxon church. In Lanfranc's new 
 church they, with the other archbishops, were placed in the tribune 
 or gallery of the north transept, on the eastern side of which was an 
 apsidal chapel with an altar at which mass was celebrated daily. 2 
 After the attempt of a foreign monk in 1121 to carry off the body 
 of St. Bregwin, that saint and Archbishop Plegmund were placed 
 behind the altar of St. Gregory in the south choir-transept. 3 It 
 may be that Athelm and Wulfhelm were moved at the same 
 
 1 Birch, C. S. 638, is from Stowe charter xxiii (not xxii). This is a grant by 
 
 mi mi 
 
 Archbishop Plegmund which is dated DCCCCXX. But XX is written over an 
 erasure. The first five letters are original, and the date must be DCCCCV, 
 which corresponds with the Indiction (viii). 
 
 2 ' In aquilonali parte super voltum singuli sub singulis ligneis locellis, ubi 
 quotidie mysterium sacrificii salutaris celebratur, positi sunt/ Eadmer, Vita 
 Bregwini (Anglia Sacra, ii. 188). 
 
 3 Ibid. ; see also Gerv. i. 15.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 59 
 
 time from the gallery, and placed in the apsidal chapel beneath, 
 where Gervase tells us they were in his time — Athelm behind the 
 altar of St. Benedict to the right, and Wulfhelm before it to the left. 
 The gallery itself was pulled down, Gervase further informs us, 
 shortly after the murder of St. Thomas, in order to give a better view 
 of the newly erected altar in the Martyrdom. 1 In later days the 
 apse in which St. Benedict's altar stood was destroyed when Prior 
 Goldston (1449-68) extended this chapel to make his new Lady 
 Chapel, but this rebuilding would not necessarily have interfered 
 with the resting-places of our two archbishops. 
 
 Archbishop Lyfing, who went from Wells to Canterbury in 1013, 
 was removed in Lanfranc's time, like his predecessors, to the gallery 
 of the north transept, and then somewhat later to the left of the altar 
 of St. Martin in the northern of the two apses which projected from 
 the north choir-transept. In 1180, when the new choir was finished, 
 he was placed in a corresponding position ; and Gervase adds that 
 Queen Ediva, who before the fire of 1173 had reposed under a gilded 
 feretrum somewhere in the middle of the south transept, was now 
 deposited at the altar of St. Martin, under the feretrum of Lyfing. 2 
 
 In a manuscript of the middle of the fifteenth century there is an 
 ' Oratio ad omnes sanctos quorum corpora in Cantuariensi continentur 
 ecclesia '. Here we find mention of both Athelm and Wulfhelm in 
 the following prayer : 
 
 Oratio. Omnipotens sempiterne deus cuius ineffabili providentia gloriosi 
 martires [Thomas erased], Alphegus, Blasius, Salvius, confessoresque tui lucidi 
 Dunstanus, Odo, Wilfridus, Anselmus, Audoenus, Cuthbertus, Athelardus, 
 Bregwynus, Plegmundus, Alfricus, Athelgarus, Ciricus, Wulfredus, Aethelredus, 
 Wulfelmus, Celnothus, Fleogildus, Athelmus, Wulganius, celeberrimaque virgo 
 Syburgis, necnon et ceteri quorum reliquie in Cantuariensi continentur eccle- 
 sia, preclare vite meritis sanctorum tuorum collegio sunt ascripti : presta 
 quesumus, S;c. 3 
 
 E. The Perils of the Road to Rome. 
 
 The following illustrations are from Flodoard's Annals : 
 921. Anglorum Romam proficiscentium plurimi inter angustias 
 Alpium lapidibus a Sarracenis sunt obruti. 
 
 1 Gerv. i. 11. 
 
 2 Gerv. i. 24. Queen Edgiva, widow of King Edward the Elder and mother of 
 King Edmund : see above, p. 44. She had given to Christ Church Mepham, 
 Peckham, and other estates, Gerv. ii. 49. 
 
 3 Sloane MS., 1939: see Bosworth Psalter, p. 124 f., where it is said that 
 other lists include ' S. Lanfrancus ' and ' Ediva regina ' .
 
 60 
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 923. Multitudo Anglorum limina sancti Petri orationis gratia 
 petentium inter Alpes a Sarracenis trucidatur. 
 
 929. Viae Alpium a Sarracenis obsessae, a quibus multi Romam 
 proficisci volentes impediti revertuntur. 
 
 931. Graeci Sarracenos per mare insequentes usque in Fraxinidum 
 saltum, ubi erat refugium ipsorum et unde egredientes Italiam sedulis 
 praedabantur incursibus, Alpibus etiam occupatis, celeri, deo propitio, 
 internecione proterunt, quietam reddentes Alpibus Italiam . . . 
 Rotbertus episcopus Turonensis ecclesiae Roma remeans sub Alpibus 
 noctu infra tentoria cum comitantibus secum interimitur a latronibus. 
 
 933. Sarraceni meatus Alpium occupant, et vicina quaeque loca 
 depraedantur. 
 
 936. Sarraceni in Alemanniam praedatum pergunt, et revertentes 
 multos Romam petentes interimunt. 
 
 939. Collecta diversorum hominum, quae Romam petebat, a Sarra- 
 cenis pervasa et interempta est. 
 
 941. Collecta Transmarinorum, sed et Gallorum, quae Romam 
 petebat revertitur, occisis eorum nonnullis a Sarracenis ; nee potuit 
 Alpes transire propter Sarracenos, qui vicum monasterii sancti 
 Mauricii occupaverant. 
 
 942. Idem vero rex [Italiae] Hugo Sarracenos de Fraxinido eorum 
 munitione disperdere conatur. 
 
 951. Sarraceni meatum Alpium obsidentes a viatoribus Romam 
 petentibus tributum accipiunt, et sic eos transire permittunt. 
 See further Dummler, Otto der Grosse, pp. 113 f. 
 
 F. Three Siviss Confraternity Books. 
 
 In 1884 Paul Piper published in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica 
 the Confraternity Books of St. Gall, Reichenau, and Pfafers (near 
 Ragatz), under the title Libri Confraternitatum Sancti Galli Augiensis 
 Fabariensis. An interesting description of these books is given by 
 Bishop G. F. Browne in his ' Boniface of Crediton » (1910), pp. 343 ff. ; 
 but he is concerned only with the eighth-century entries. The 
 passages which here follow from the St. Gall Book were reprinted 
 by Bishop Stubbs in Memorials of St. Dunstan, pp. lxxv ff., from 
 Goldast's inferior text. I give, therefore, Piper's text in full, adding 
 passages of a like character from the other two books. 
 
 I. I. Cod. Sangall. 915, p. 5 (Piper, p. 136). 
 Anno ab incarnatione domini DCCCCXXVIIII indictione II Keonwald venera- 
 bilis episcopus profectus ab Anglis, omnibus monasteriis per totam Germaniam, 
 cum oblatione de argento non modica et in id ipsum a rege Ang[e]lorum eadem
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 61 
 
 sibi tradita, visitatis, in idibus Octob. venit ad monasterium sancti Galli ; quique 
 gratissime a fratribus susceptus (est erased) et eiusdem patroni nostri festivitatem 
 cum illis celebrando quatuor ibidem dies demoratus est. secundo autem postquam 
 monasterium ingressus est, hoc est in ipso depositionis sancti Galli die, basilicam 
 intravit et pecuniam copiosam secum attulit, de qua partem altario imposuit, 
 partem etiam utilitati fratrum donavit. post haec, eo in conventum nostrum 
 introducto, omnis congregatio concessit ei annonam unius fratris, et eandem 
 orationem quam pro quolibet de nostris, sive vivente sive vita decedente, facere 
 solemus pro illo facturam perpetualiter promisit. haec sunt autem nomina quae 
 conscribi rogavit : rex Ang[e]lorum Adalstean, Keonowald episcopus, Wighart, 
 Kenvun, Konrat, Keonolaf, Wundrud, Keondrud. 
 
 2. Cod. Sangall. Class. II Cist. 2^. a. 1 Area DD. 2 {Piper, p. 100, col. 332)} 
 
 Adalsten rex . Wolfhelmus archieps . Elwinus eps . Eotkarus eps . Wunisge 
 eps . Sigihelm eps . Oda eps . Fridosten eps . Cunifrid eps . Kenod abb . Albrich 
 abb . Cudret . Erdulf . Fridolef . Wulfun . Ortgar . Osfred . Elfsie . Adalvierd . 
 Elwin . Adalwin . Berectwin . Wlfilt . Wighart . Conrat . Kenuun . Wndrud . 
 Keonwad eps . Kenolaf . Keondrud . cum ceteris. 
 
 II. Augiensis {Piper, p. 238). z 
 
 Aethelstaenum 
 regem cum uulfelni 
 archiepTs et nostris 
 fidelissimis vivis 
 ac in pace quies 
 centibus vestro ser 
 vitio in christi nomine 
 commendamus 
 Wighart 3 
 
 III. Cod. Confrat. Fabariens. {now at St. Gall: Piper, p. 363). 
 
 (1). A group of four, crowded in among ( brethren of the city of Constance '. 
 Athalsten rex 
 Otmundus rex Odgiva * 
 Odo archiepiscopus 
 
 (2) In next column, a further series in the same hand. 
 Ricardus Odboldus Rege 
 noldus Alfere Heltrut 
 Rodleef Ealfere Othelo 
 Id Wlfric Warin Fol 
 
 1 These are supplementary leaves of the same codex. The names are all in 
 one column, one below the other, ending with ' cum ceteris ' as a separate line. 
 
 2 The names are written thus in what has come to be (by crowding) the 
 seventh column on the page. The original entries were brethren of Jumieges, 
 c. 800. 
 
 3 f Wighart forsitan scriptor fuit' (Piper). 
 
 4 The entry was probably made in King Edmund's lifetime. Edgiva is doubt- 
 less the widow of King Edward the Elder, mother of King Edmund.
 
 62 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 rad Bersten Odmar Ath 
 alger Kielelm Athalsi 
 Athalbold Liman Odmund 
 Athalsuit Wlric Wlflid 
 Bolo Gundwin Uro Wecin 
 Duva 1 
 
 G. Archbishop Wulfhelm and the Laws of King Athelstan. 
 
 Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, i. 146 : i mid gebehte 
 Wulfhelmes [mines] arcebiscopes/ So ibid. 148. This last synod 
 was at Greatley, cf. ibid. 166: f Ealle ftis waes gesetted on ?ara 
 miclan synob aet Greatanleage, on bam waes se sercebisceop Wulf- 
 helme mid eallum baem febelum mannum 7 wiotan, "Se ^Ebelstan 
 cyning gegadrian.' 
 
 Ibid. 170 [c. 928-38]. Letter of bishops and other wise men of 
 Kent, thanking the king for his legislation at Greatley, and now also 
 ( in concilio apud Fef resham J . 
 
 Ibid. 173 ff. [c. 930-40]. ' Decretum episcoporum et aliorum sapien- 
 tum London. ... in adiectione iudiciorum que apud Greateleiam et 
 Exoniam instituta sunt, et item apud punresfeldam. ... 10. Quod 
 sapientes omnes dederunt vadium suum insimul archiepiscopo apud 
 punresfeldam, quando -<Elfeach Stybb et Brihtnodus Odonis filius 
 venerunt ad concilium ex verbo regis . . . ' (first at Greatley, again at 
 Exeter, then at Feversham, and fourthly at Thundersfeld) ( coram 
 archiepiscopo et episcopis et sapientibus quos rex ipse nominavit. . . .' 
 f 12. quod rex dixit nunc iterum apud pitlanbyrig (Whittlebury ?) 
 sapientibus suis, et precepit ostendi archiepiscopo et ceteris episcopis 
 []?am arcibiscope be }>eodrede biscop].' 
 
 H. Bishop Brihthelm and his Namesakes. 
 
 Our last evidence for Wulfhelm II of Wells is in 955. In 956 we 
 find King Edwy making a grant of Kennington, co. Berks, e meo 
 fideli Byrhtelmo presbytero ' : Oda and Edgar attest (B. C. S. 971 ; 
 from Abingdon chartulary). This is followed (B. C. S. 972) by a 
 Saxon document recording the exchange of Kennington for Creedy 
 Bridge, co. Devon, with Abbot Ethelwold. .Elgifu the king's wife 
 and ^Ethelgif u her mother attest : so do Bishop Coenwald and 
 others ; but not Oda and Edgar. Brihthelm is now a bishop. This 
 is before Coenwald 's death in 957, but after King Edwy's marriage 
 and the retirement of Oda and Edgar from the court. 
 
 From this it would seem that Brihthelm the priest, who is in 
 
 1 Some of these seem to be English names misspelt.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 63 
 
 favour with the royal family, becomes a bishop, about the end of 956. 
 He no doubt is the new Bishop of Wells. If another Abingdon 
 charter is to be trusted, he was a relative of King Edwy. This 
 charter (C.C.C. Camb. Ill, f. 159) comes among the sixteenth-century 
 transcripts of Abingdon charters now bound up with the Bath 
 chartulary, but having no real connexion with it. It grants to the 
 newly appointed bishop land at Stowe. Edgar attests, and Coenwald, 
 but not Oda ; it is dated in 956. 1 
 
 In this same year, and until 959, we find two Brihthelms attesting 
 charters together. One of them is the Bishop of London, who has 
 been attesting since 953 : his limit is given by the appointment of 
 Dunstan to London in 959. 
 
 Now about 959, zElfsige having gone to Canterbury, a Brihthelm 
 succeeds him (apparently) at Winchester. And on the death of 
 ^Elfsige, on his way to Rome, a Brihthelm is appointed to Canter- 
 bury, but is soon sent back to make way for Dunstan. What 
 Brihthelms are these? Two attest together under Dunstan as 
 archbishop until 963, when ^Ethelwold becomes Bishop of Win- 
 chester. 
 
 The Winchester Brihthelm is called a kinsman of King Edgar 
 (B. C. S. 1074, 1076). We are therefore tempted to identify him 
 with the Wells Brihthelm, the kinsman of his brother Edwy. But 
 the appearance of the two as attesting together would seem to rule 
 this out. 
 
 The Brihthelm who goes to Canterbury and returns is called 
 Bishop of Dorset by Dunstan's biographer B., the only real authority 
 for the story. 
 
 On the other hand, the early episcopal lists in Tiberius B. 5 know 
 of no Brihthelm either at Winchester or at Sherborne. Yet there 
 must have been a gap of three or four years between ^Elfsige and 
 -<Ethelwold at Winchester. These lists recognize only Brihthelm of 
 London and Brihthelm of Wells. 
 
 From what has been said above it seems plain that there were two 
 Bishops Brihthelm, one at Wells and the other at Winchester, both 
 of whom were related to the royal family, and probably involved in 
 the political controversy of their time. One or other of them is 
 referred to in the great charter of Eynsham Abbey granted by King 
 Ethelred (Kemble, C. D. iii. 341, no. 714) as the kinsman of 
 uEthelweard the historian, who himself was of royal descent. 2 
 
 1 B. C. S. 986 ' cuidam meorum charorum propinquorum, qui per dei provi- 
 dentiam ad episcopalem gradum electus necnou praedestinatus consceudit'. 
 
 2 ' Dedit quoque Byrthtelmus quondam episcopus iEthelweardo propinquo suo,
 
 64 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 It is just possible that the Winchester Brihthelm may be the same 
 man as the Bishop of London (953-9), who may have had to leave 
 London for political reasons, and whose see was held for a time by 
 Dunstan, together with the see of Worcester. 1 It is also just possible 
 that, having thus followed ^Elfsige at Winchester, he was chosen to 
 follow him also at Canterbury, only to be displaced by Dunstan for 
 the second time. 
 
 On the other hand, it is commonly believed that the ' Dorset ' Briht- 
 helm who went to Canterbury was in fact Bishop Brihthelm of Wells. 
 Two explanations of the appellation i Dorset ' are offered : (1) that it 
 is a mistake for Somerset ; (2) that Sherborne was vacant, and that 
 the Dorset diocese was being temporarily ruled by the Bishop of 
 Wells. 
 
 It will be useful to collect here some of the passages which bear 
 upon the problem. 
 
 1. The Saxon priest B (Mem. of St. Dunstan, p. 38) : 
 
 'Post cuius [sc. ^Elfsini] consummationem elegere Byrhtelmum 
 Dorsaetensium praevisorem ad summum sanctae Dorobernensis aec- 
 clesiae sacerdotem : et erat vir iste mitis et modestus et humilis et 
 benignus, in tantum ut tumidos quosque vel rebelles sub correctionis 
 verbere non, ut debuisset, cohiberet. . . . Comperiens ergo rex quod 
 praedictus pontifex haec iura praescripta in commissa sibi plebe 
 mansuescendo minime adimpleret, iussit eum vias per quas veniebat 
 redire, et relictam dignitatem rursus recipere possidendam/ 
 
 Neither Osbern, Eadmer, nor William of Malmesbury, in rewriting 
 the Life, makes any change in the name of the see. 
 
 2. Florence of Worcester (Mon. Hist. Brit, compared with Thorpe's 
 edition) : 
 
 958. Alfsius 2 Dorsetensium episcopus obiit ; cui Brihthelmus, 3 vir 
 
 pius 4 et modestus, humilis et benignus, successit. . . . Huic 
 [sc. Odoni] successit Wentanus episcopus Alfsinus, et pro 
 ipso ad episcopatum Wintoniensis ecclesiae ordinatus est 
 Brihthelmus. 5 
 
 959. . . . Brihthelmus Dorsetensium 6 episcopus Cantuariae ad 
 
 patri videlicet iEthelmari, viginti mansiones ubi ab incolis et iEscaeron dicitur, 
 quas JEthelwerdus filio suo iEthelmaro longe ante mortem suam (t c. 998) 
 donavit, et ille supradictas mansiunculas ad monasterium dedit ' : Cartulary of 
 Eynshum, i. 22 ; Mr. W. H. Stevenson identifies tbe place as Esher, co. Surrey. 
 
 1 This supposition avoids the difficulty which would attend the consecration 
 of a new bishop for Winchester before iElfsige had received the pall. 
 
 2 Ulsi B ; ^Elsius Thorpe. s Byrhthelmus Th. 
 
 4 mitis AB Th. 5 + Wellensis episcopus V us A Th. 
 
 e Sumersetensium A.
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 65 
 
 patriarchatum sedis eligitur ; sed, quoniam x ad tantam rem 
 
 minus erat idoneus, iussus a rege Cantuaria discedit, atque 2 
 
 ad relictam nuper ecclesiam suam rediit 3 . . . 
 963. Sanctus ^Ethelwoldus venerabilis abbas 4 a B. Dunstano 
 
 educatus, mortuo Brihthelmo, episcopatum Wintoniensis 
 
 ecclesiae suscepit. . . . 
 973. . . . Sumertunensis episcopus Brihthelmus obiit, et in Willum 5 
 
 humatus est ; cui successit Middeltunensis abbas Kyne- 
 
 wardus. 6 
 
 The MSS. here referred to are the Corpus Christi, Oxford, codex (A), 
 and the Lambeth codex (B, alias L). For the entries under 958 
 and 959 the Lambeth codex is plainly the more trustworthy : for 
 Ulsi 7 corresponds to Wulfsige of the Sherborne list in Tiberius B. 5 ; 
 and the text of B, under 959, is much closer to Osbern's Life of 
 Dunstan (p. 107 f.), from which the entry is drawn. 
 
 An examination of Codex A shows that under 958 the words 
 i Wellensis episcopus V us ' are a later addition. Moreover, under 
 959, ' Byrthelmus ' is by the first hand, but ' Sumorsetensium . . . iudicio 
 omnium ' is written over an erasure and overflows into the margin : 
 it seems certain that originally the words were ' Dorsetensium . . . 
 discedit, atque ', as they are in B. Accordingly the identification of 
 the i Dorset ' Brihthelm with Bishop Brihthelm of Wells begins with 
 an interpolator of A, probably some time near the end of the twelfth 
 century. 
 
 3. There is a charter printed by Birch, C. S. 1045, from the Book 
 of Hyde, which professes to be a grant of King Edwy to Newminster, 
 dated 959, Ind. 2. This has the curious attestation : ' Ego Byrht- 
 helm Dorobernensis ecclesiae episcopus ' : the next to attest being 
 c Byrhthelm Wintoniensis ecclesiae episcopus \ 
 
 If this stood by itself, the evidence coming from so tainted a source 
 would be of little value ; and episcopus might be supposed to be a 
 scribe^s error for archiepiscopus. But the Athelney Chartulary, 
 published by the Somerset Record Society (vol. 14, p. 146), gives an 
 
 1 quia B. 2 iussus . . . atque] iudicio omnium A. 
 
 3 Thorpe has : ' Byrhthelmus Sumorsetensium episcopus ad archipraesulatum 
 Cantwariae sedis deligitur ; sed quia ad tantam rem minus erat idoneus iudicio 
 omnium, ad relictam ' &c. 
 
 4 4- Abbendonensis ecclesiae B. 
 
 5 Wyllum Th. 6 Cinewardus Th. 
 
 7 This in the Lambeth MS. is the result of an uncompleted correction. The 
 ' V ' of Vlsi ' has been partially washed out, and there is an erasure after the 
 final f i '.
 
 66 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 unexpected confirmation. The original chartulary is lost, and we 
 are only presented with an English translation : the names have been 
 oddly corrupted. 
 
 King Edwy grants land at Ham on the west bank of the Parret to 
 his old servant Ceolward. 'This gift was made a.d. 958, indict. 2.' 
 The Indiction enables us to restore the year 959, as in the Hyde 
 Charter. Then follows : 
 
 f I, Edwi, king of the English, have confirmed the said gift with the sign of 
 
 the Holy Cross »J«. 
 I, Birliterin, " Dorobernensis ecclesiae episcopus," have signed. 
 I, Birliterin, bishop of Winchester, have signed. 
 I, Osulf bishop, have impressed (my mark). 
 I, Alfwold bishop, have confirmed it. 
 1, Daniel bishop, have agreed. 
 I, Elfgar, the king's friend, have assented. 
 1, Osward, have signed. 
 I, Osulf his brother, have agreed. 
 I, Edmund " dux ", have confirmed it. 
 I, Alfer minister, was present. 
 I, Aired minister, have assented.' 
 
 A note is added : * This land of Hamme King Athelred afterwards 
 gave to the abbey of Athelney.' The next charter is King Ethelred's 
 gift. 
 
 I see no reason for doubting that the original from which this copy 
 has descended was a genuine charter of King Edwy, which was 
 transferred to the monks of Athelney when the property was given 
 to them by King Ethelred. The bishops are the same as in B. C. S. 
 1045 — Byrhthelm i Bishop ' of Canterbury, Byrhthelm of Winchester, 
 Osulf (Ramsbury), Alfwold (Sherborne or Crediton), Daniel 
 (Cornwall). 
 
 ^Elfgar, ' the king's friend ', is * ^Elfgar regis propinquus ', who 
 attests in 958 (B. C. S. 1035). He is the kinsman of King Edgar, 
 Edwy's brother, who is said in A.-S. Chron. (A) to have died in 
 Devon in 963, and to have been buried at Wilton. 
 
 Osweard minister and Oswulf minister follow one another in the 
 companion charter, B. C. S. 1045 : see also B. C. S. 1029, 1030. An 
 Osweard is called propinquus of King Edgar in B. C. S. 1314. 
 Eadmund dux signs from 937 to 963 (Crawford Charters, p. 84). 
 iElfhere minister and iElfred minister attest B. C. S. 1045 : and 
 in B. C. S. 1030 Eelfere minister is followed by Alfred minister. 
 t ^Elfhere . ex parentela regis . minister' attests in 955 (B. C. S. 917). 
 In 956 King Edwy made a grant of lands in Dorset f cuidam meorum
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 67 
 
 optimatum vocamine ^Elfredo ', for his humble and faithful obedience 
 (B. C. S. 958). 
 
 It is interesting to observe how many of the lay witnesses were 
 actually related to the king. 
 
 The extraordinaiy attestation of Brihthelm as episcopus, not archi- 
 episcopus, may point to the recognition of the uncertainty of his 
 position. If we accept the evidence of these two charters, as I think 
 we must, it is plain that it was not the Brihthelm of Winchester who 
 went to Canterbury, but in all probability the Brihthelm of Wells. 
 
 I. The First Abbots of Westminster. 
 
 The earliest history of Westminster may be said to begin with 
 Offa, king of the Mercians, towards the end of the eighth century. 
 The Westminster historian Sulcard, writing about 1080, says that 
 Offa had intended to place monks there, but his purpose was not 
 carried out. A charter of King Offa granting Aldenham to Ordbriht 
 the abbot is among the Abbey muniments : it was accepted by Wid- 
 more ; but it can hardly be genuine in its present form, though the 
 gift which it describes may quite well have been given by that king, 
 who is further said to have bestowed relics on the church. A small 
 minster served by a few priests no doubt existed when Dunstan was 
 administering the two bishoprics of Worcester and London. We 
 may accept the statement of William of Malmesbury that Dunstan 
 founded a small monastery for twelve monks and made Wulsin their 
 abbot. 1 It is likely enough, as a later writer adds, that he brought 
 the monks from his old abbey of Glastonbury. 
 
 Later tradition spoke of abbots before St. Dunstan' s time. Flete, 
 in his History of Westminster (p. 78), says that he had found evidence 
 of at least seven among the ancient muniments, and that three of 
 them had become bishops. These three are Ordbriht, in King Offa's 
 time, who became Bishop of Selsey, Alfwy, and Alfric, who were 
 Bishops of Wells and Crediton. Then he gives, as the first abbot 
 after Dunstan, Wulsin, who was made Bishop of Sherborne. 
 
 Now, if we accept the generally admitted dates, we find the 
 following names which correspond to his list : 
 Elfric, Bishop of Crediton, 977 ; 
 Ordbriht, Bishop of Selsey, 989 ; 
 Wulsin, Bishop of Sherborne, 992 ; 
 Aelfwin, Bishop of Wells, 997. 
 
 1 G. P., p. 178 ' instructo ad xii monachos coenobiolo.'
 
 68 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 
 
 It is possible that Flete got the names of the bishops and their sees 
 from the Westminster Martilogium. He has been misled as to the 
 dates by the mention of Ordbriht in the supposed charter of King 
 Offa. 
 
 We may note here an Abingdon charter (Kemble, C. D. 684*) of 
 993, which; though it cannot be regarded as genuine, has a list of 
 attestations of an exceptionally interesting character. Eighteen 
 abbots attest, each with the name of his abbey. 
 
 Among them is ' Wulf sige, Westm abbas '. Then after the dukes 
 and ministers comes ' Ego ^Elf wig Westm abbas ', followed by i Ego ' 
 twenty-three times without any names. Now among the bishops 
 ' Wulf sige Scirburnensis ecclesiae episcopus ' has already occurred : 
 so that jElfwig's name may have come in as a correction in an early 
 copy. At any rate we have here an independent witness to the 
 existence of such an abbot of Westminster in King Ethelred's days. 
 
 J. The Various Bishops Brihtwine. 
 
 If we rely on the evidence of charters only, it seems plain enough 
 that Lyfing was followed at Wells by ^Ethelwine in 1013; and 
 yEthelwine by Brihtwig, the Abbot of Glastonbury, in 1024. More- 
 over, we have a Bishop Brihtwine who attests from 1018 to 1045. 
 
 But William of Malmesbury gives the following successions for 
 Wells and Sherborne at this period : 
 
 Wells. G.P., p. 194. (After Lyfing) Ethelwinus abbas de Evesham, postea 
 eiectus : Brihtwinus, Elwinus iterum reversus et Brihtuuinus eiectus, itemque 
 Ethelwino eiecto Brihtuinus reversus ; Merewit qui et Brihtuui. . . . 
 
 Sherborne. G. P. , p. 179. (After St. Wulsin) successerunt Alfwoldus, 
 Ethelricus, Ethelsius [t c. 1017], Brihtwinus, Elmerus, Birhtuuinus, Alfvvoldus 
 frater eius. . . . 
 
 These statements seem to be related in some way to the lists 
 prefixed to the MSS. of Florence of Worcester, which run thus 
 (Thorpe, i. 237) : 
 
 Wells. Sherborne. 
 
 x. ^Ethelwinus. xx. ^Ethelsius. 
 
 Hie prius Eoveshamnensis xxi. Brihtwinus. 
 
 extitit abbas. xxii. ^Elmarus. 
 
 xi. Byrhtwinus. xxiii. Byrhtwinus. 
 xii. Byrhtwius. 
 
 Further, in the Wells Historiola we have : Brithuinus, Elwynus,
 
 THE SAXON BISHOPS OF WELLS 69 
 
 Brithwynus [= Merechyyt]. And in the Bath Anglo-Saxon Gospels 
 the text runs : 
 
 Brihtuuinus. 
 
 JEgeluuinus. 
 
 merewit (sic). 
 
 Brihtuums. 
 
 In spite of all this testimony it seems unlikely that there was more 
 than one Bishop Brihtwine at Sherborne (^Elmar is probably the 
 Bishop of Selsey of that period) ; nor can we feel any confidence as 
 to the existence of any Bishop Brihtwine (as distinct from Brrntwig) 
 at Wells.
 
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