Chapter XXXII: Appendix: NOTE A. p. 3 (4)

The complaint against Harold for neglect of historical study might surely be retorted on Eadward’s panegyrists and his own calumniators. But there is something very odd, something doubtless characteristic of the Sheriffs of the thirteenth century, in the picture of the King sitting “like a Sheriff” at the exchequer, counting over his money. This charge of avarice we shall come across again, and it perhaps contains a certain ground-work of truth. That is to say, the threatening aspect of the times, especially after Eadward’s lavish expenditure on ecclesiastical objects, called for a prudent economy, which was sure to be misunderstood. I do not understand what is meant by Harold’s contempt for arms and chivalry, which is repeated in an earlier and shorter revilement of him (vv. 4283–4310). It cannot mean contempt of the specially Norman chivalry, as the word is in this very passage applied to Harold’s own prowess. For the poet goes on to set forth Harold’s strength and courage in strong terms, though he adds that his frightful wickedness made his “chivalry” of no use to him.

I have already alluded to Knighton’s portrait of Harold’s kingly government; here it is in full (2339). Harold has just been crowned by Ealdred;

“Iste devenit nimis elatus et cupidus in collectione auri et argenti et thesaurorum, _nec aliquam uxorem ducere voluit_, sed vi oppressit filias baronum et procerum et militum de regno, quod ipsi ægrè ferebant. Et de forestis suis tantam ferocitatem et severitatem ergo adjacentes nobiliores exercuit, quod quamplures adnihilavit et multos depauperavit. Nec mirum, quamvis ex his et ex aliis nimis odiosus devenit populis suis.”

This charge of cruel enforcement of forest laws might almost seem to have been transferred from William to Harold. It reminds one of some of the doings of Charles the First in Essex. It is a charge which Sir Francis Palgrave (Hist. Ang. Sax. 346) has not scrupled to repeat, but, as Mr. C. H. Pearson (i. 362) truly says, there is not a shadow of evidence for it except the assertion of this writer of the fifteenth century. On the words in Italics I shall have to speak again. In those which follow Knighton might seem to have drawn his portrait from King John, and, to carry out the analogy, as Lewis was then, so William is now implored to come over to England as a deliverer.

“Et ideo pars Comitum et Baronum adinvicem conferebant, dicentes non ipsum esse fortunæ deditum, nec verum esse Regem sed per intrusionem erectum, et ideo infaustè regere populum suum. Et mandaverunt Willielmo Duci Normanniæ, qui Bastardus vocatus est, eo quod ante celebrationem matrimonii natus sit, ut in Angliam veniret eorum consilio et auxilio jus regni prosequuturus, feceruntque ei fidelem securitatem veniendi; et consensit.” Immediately after all this comes Florence’s panegyric, cut a little short, as an alternative picture.

After these general charges against Harold, it is only right to extract three entries from Domesday, all in the same shire and page (Hampshire, p. 38), in which Harold is described as seizing the lands of two persons after his accession to the Crown.

“Leman tenuit in paragio de Rege E. Heraldus abstulit ei quando regnum invasit, et misit in firmâ suâ, et adhuc ibi est.”

“Leman tenuit de Godwino Comite. Heraldus _quando regnabat_ abstulit ei, et in suâ firmâ misit, et adhuc est ibi. Ipse Leman non potuit recedere quo voluit.”

“Godwin tenuit de Rege E. in paragio, nec alicubi poterat recedere. Heraldus abstulit ei et in firmâ suâ misit. Adhuc est ibi.”

I do not remember to have ever seen these passages quoted in illustration of the charge of private spoliation which is brought among other charges against Harold in the French Life. It is clear that they might be so used by any one who felt inclined. It is equally clear that we do not know enough about the matter to justify us in condemning Harold for dealings with his own tenants which may have been perfectly legal and honest. The entry does not even venture to call the occupation “unjust,” as it does with regard to Harold’s occupations in Herefordshire, and also with regard to many cases where Normans had taken lands from Englishmen and from one another. At any rate, if any wrong was done by Harold, it was not redressed by his successor. At the time of the Survey the lands were held, not by Leman and Godwine or by their descendants, but by King William.

I can hardly think that these entries are enough to make us set aside the portrait of Harold’s government given us by Florence in favour of that given by the French Biographer and by Knighton. And I believe it is the only corroborative evidence for that portrait that can be found. On the use of the word “regnabat” as applied to Harold, an use unique in Domesday, I shall have to speak in another volume.

NOTE H. p. 54.

THE COINAGE OF HAROLD.

Too much must not be made of the appearance of the word PAX on the coins of Harold. The word in various spellings, PAX, PACX, PAXS, appears on the coins of various Kings from Cnut to Henry the First. Still it is remarkable that the coins of Harold are singularly common, considering the shortness of his reign, and that, if I rightly understand my numismatic authorities, all his coins bear this legend, while with the other Kings it is only occasional, and with some of them, as with Cnut, very rare. I may add that Harold seems to have been the only King who could always spell the word right. Ingenious men have puzzled themselves to find out some special allusion in the word, as, in the case of the coins of Cnut, to the agreement between Cnut and Eadmund for the division of the Kingdom, and, in the case of the coins of Eadward and Harold, to the agreements made at the restoration of Godwine. I do not think that the word in any case implies anything more than the obvious religious or moral sentiment which it expresses. But it is certainly striking to find that sentiment so constantly expressed on the coins of the King who, above all others, needed peace, and who, through the aggressions of others, so utterly failed to find it.

On the whole matter see Ruding’s Annals of the Coinage, i. 137–166 (3rd ed.), and vol. iii. pl. 26. I have also to thank Mr. Leicester Warren for some private information contained in a letter to him from Mr. John Evans.

I am afraid of getting out of my depth when talking of either coins or crowns, but I cannot help noticing the marked difference between the arched crown set with pearls which appears on the coins of Harold and the singular kind of cap which is the commonest among the many head-pieces affected by Eadward. (See Ruding, iii. pl. 25, and Selden, Titles of Honour, 133, 134.) Is it possible that the monastic saint preferred the helm of the warrior, while the hero, in the same spirit which dictated the legend on the coin, chose to appear in the garb of a peaceful ruler?

NOTE I. p. 58.

THE OPPOSITION OF NORTHUMBERLAND TO HAROLD’S ACCESSION.

This story is one of the best illustrations of the way in which one authority fills up gaps in another, and also of the way in which important facts sometimes lurk in authorities which are not of the first rank. The Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles both begin their account of the year 1066 with Harold’s coming from York to Westminster for the Easter Festival (“On þissum geare com Harold cyng of Eoforwic to Westmynstre to þam Eastran”). There is not a word about his going to York or about the cause that took him there. This we learn only from the account in William of Malmesbury’s Life of Wulfstan (Angl. Sacr. ii. 253), which we thus see that we can fully trust for the main outline of the story. The jealousy of the North against the South is admirably described; only the narrative is confused by a notion that Tostig had something to do with the matter. William of Malmesbury seems never to have fully made up his mind where Tostig was at the time of Harold’s accession. His account of the whole business runs thus;

“Quinto anno collati Wlstano Episcopatûs Rex Edwardus fato functus ingens seminarium discordiæ reliquit Angliæ; hinc Haroldo, inde Willelmo Comite Normanniæ, legitimo eam jure clamantibus. Et tunc quidem Haraldus, vel favore impetratâ vel vi extortâ coronâ, regnum paullò minus totum obtinuit. Soli Northamhumbri magnum et gentile tumentes interim parere distulere, Aquilonalem cervicositatem Australi, ut dictitabant, mollitiei subjugare non dignati. Animabat eos ad tyrannidem, et insolentiâ suâ ingentes eorum alebat spiritus, Tostinus ejusdem Regis frater, nec fortitudine degener, si ardens ingenium tranquillis studiis applicare maluisset. Qui postmodum in eâdem provinciâ cum Haraldo Rege Noreganorum, quem in suffragium adsciverat, cæsus pœnas inconsultæ animositatis pependit. Sed hæc posteriùs. Tunc verò Haraldus eo profecturus, ut contumaciam eorum lenioribus curaret remediis, quandoquidem ferro frangere consilium non erat, sanctum virum secum adduxit. Sic enim fama sanctitatis ejus etiam ad abditissimas penetraverat gentes, ut nullam non arrogantiam molliturus crederetur. Nec verò citra opinionem rei fuit eventus. Namque illi populi ferro indomabiles, semper quiddam magnum a proavis spirantes, pro reverentiâ in jura Haraldi facile concesserunt. Et profectò perseverâssent, nisi eos Tostinus, ut dixi, averteret.”

This piece of history is not only valuable in itself, but it also helps us to the origin of a misrepresentation. We have seen Orderic (see above, p. 603) asserting that part of the English nation never submitted to Harold at all, while the rest submitted only unwillingly. This misstatement is clearly an exaggeration of the fact that Northumberland did for a short time refuse to acknowledge him. This same fact may quite possibly be at the bottom of those other stories about Harold’s oppression and tyranny of which we have heard so many. Orderic goes on to tell us (492 C) that, though some powerful men (“potentiorum nonnulli”) refused obedience, yet Eadwine and Morkere were zealous partizans of their brother-in-law (“Eduuinus verò et Morcarus Comites, filii Algari præcipui Consulis, Heraldo familiaritate adhæserunt, eumque juvare toto conamine nisi sunt, eò quod ipse Edgivam sororem eorum uxorem habebat”). There is no evidence that they were openly concerned in the resistance of Northumberland, though one certainly is inclined to put their names for the name of Tostig in William of Malmesbury’s account; but we know how they acted before the year was out.

It is doubtless on the strength of this passage of Orderic that Sir Francis Palgrave ventured to write (Hist. Ang. Sax. 362); “Some portions of the Anglo-Saxon dominions never seem to have submitted to Harold. In others a sullen obedience was extorted from the people, merely because they had not power enough to raise any other king to the throne.” In the page before he had said, “If our authorities are correct, Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, but who had been suspended by the Pope, was the only prelate who acknowledged his authority.” Now, unless Sir Francis merely meant that Harold never received the homage of Malcolm, the only ground for saying that any part of “the Anglo-Saxon dominions” refused to acknowledge Harold is the story of the resistance of Northumberland given by William of Malmesbury. But it is an essential part of that story that the resistance of Northumberland was peaceably overcome by Harold with the help of Saint Wulfstan. That is to say, instead of all the Prelates except Stigand refusing to acknowledge Harold’s authority, the holiest Prelate of the time appears as Harold’s most zealous partizan. The two parts of the story hang inseparably together. If we believe that part of England for a while refused allegiance to Harold, we must also believe that the sainted Bishop of Worcester was his most loyal subject.

I should not have enlarged on any faults in a work of Sir Francis Palgrave, written thirty years before his death, and which certainly does not represent the latest lights of that great scholar, if the worst portions of his early work had not been so injudiciously reprinted as stop-gaps between the fragments of that later work of his which every student of these times ought to have beside him.

NOTE K. pp. 67, 540.

THE POLITICAL POSITION OF THE LADY EADGYTH.

I am not aware of any mention of Eadgyth in any English writer between the death of Eadward and her own death (Chronn. Wig. Petrib. 1076; Fl. Wig. 1074). The accounts of the latter event however show that Winchester was her dwelling-place, and that she was in high honour with William.

I am now more inclined than I was in vol. i. p. 334 to look on Winchester as the actual morning-gift, first of Emma and then (by reversion or by the despoiling of Emma) of Eadgyth. It is plain that the city was the usual dwelling-place of each of the widowed Ladies in her widowhood. That Winchester was the morning-gift of Eadgyth is distinctly asserted by Guy of Amiens (see above, p. 541).

There are several indications that Eadgyth was not thoroughly loyal towards England. The only direct statements to that effect are certainly to be found only in very suspicious sources, but, weighing one thing with another, they seem not to be wholly without probability. William of Poitiers, in the midst of his savage abuse of Harold (126), adds, “Germana quoque, _illi moribus absimillima_, quum armis non valeret, votis inpugnabat et consilio.... Voluit autem _virilis prudentiæ femina_, intelligens honesta quælibet et vitâ colens, Willelmum Anglis dominari.” So the Hyde writer (290) says distinctly, “Haroldus, defuncto Edwardo, mox regnum Anglorum, contradicente Edithâ Reginâ sorore suâ, usurpavit.” I do not quite understand what the writer of the French Life means when he says (4075) that Harold

“Pur la reine Edith sa suer
Fu cremuz e amez de cuer.”

When we remember Eadgyth’s preference for Tostig and her alleged complicity in one of his worst crimes, we may perhaps think it quite possible that she was no loyal subject of Harold. We may even be led to see a special meaning in the earnest request made by Eadward on his death-bed, that she should lose nothing of her rights and honours (see above, p. 15). And, when Tostig had fallen, it is even possible that she may have looked to William as being in some sort his avenger. She may also, at an earlier time, have fallen under the baneful fascination of her husband’s foreign favourites. And the Norman account, strange as it sounds, derives a certain corroboration from its very strangeness. It is the sort of thing which no one would have been likely to think of, if there had not been some real ground-work for it. And the honour shown to her by William, and the respect with which she is always treated by Norman writers, are in themselves suspicious. It was of course the obvious policy of William, representing himself as he did as the lawful successor of Eadward, to show every respect to the widow of his predecessor. But when we remember that that widow was also the sister of Harold, it is hardly honourable to her that William was able to carry out a policy of this kind. The other female members of her family found that England under William was no place for them. But while her mother, her sister, her nieces, were all in banishment, Eadgyth sat quietly at Winchester in all the honours of the Old Lady. In fact her character is a riddle from beginning to end, and her relations to her brothers are almost as mysterious as her relations to her husband.

NOTE L. p. 68.

THE AFFAIRS OF THE ABBEY OF ELY AT THE TIME OF HAROLD’S ACCESSION.

There are several points worth notice in the condition of the Abbey of Ely at the time of Harold’s election which it may be as well to speak of in the same place.

Abbot Wulfric, according to the Ely history (ii. 36), was appointed by Eadward in the year 1045, and he is described as being the King’s kinsman. “Rex Edwardus Wlfricum cognatum suum Abbatem ad jam dictum cœnobium apud Wintoniam assumpsit, ibique a Stigando Dorobernensi Archiepiscopo benedici fecit, tertio Regni sui anno, ab Incarnatione verò Domini millesimo quadragesimo quinto.” The writ then follows, which is also printed in Cod. Dipl. iv. 226, addressed, according to a common form, to the Bishops, Earls, Sheriffs, and Thegns generally of every shire where the Abbey had lands. The Abbotship is given by the King’s grant just like a Bishoprick (“Ic kýþe eów þæt ic habe geunnen Wlfríce þæt Abbotríce in Hely on eallen þingen” &c.).

This appointment made at Winchester would probably be made in the Easter Gemót of 1044, perhaps about the time when Abbot Siward was appointed Coadjutor-Archbishop to Eadsige (see vol. ii. p. 68). But there are one or two points of difficulty. That Stigand should be called Archbishop before his time by a writer living long after is not wonderful. But one does not see how he came to be performing an episcopal act over an Abbot whose church was not in either of his successive dioceses, and at a time (see vol. ii. p. 72) when it is not clear whether he was in possession of a diocese at all. There is also something puzzling in the description of Wulfric, as of several other persons, as King Eadward’s kinsman. We have seen Earl Odda so described (see vol. ii. p. 160), and Bishop Rudolf (see vol. ii. p. 120), and we also find the same name given to no less a person than Saint Eadmund of East Anglia himself. See Cod. Dipl. ii. 225, 226. Was Wulfric one of the house of Æthelwine, and was that house looked on as connected with Eadward through the first marriage of his grandmother Ælfthryth?

I infer that Wulfric died shortly before the death of Eadward from the words “mortuo nuper Wlfrico patre” in Hist. Elien. ii. 43. The historian gives two accounts of the appointment of Thurstan. In the second, in c. 43, he merely says that Harold “mox accepto regno Turstanum in Ely, mortuo nuper Wlfrico patre, ejusdem monasterii constituit Abbatem, virum probatæ virtutis et abstinentiæ, Anglicè et Latinè sufficienter a puero ipso in loco edoctum.” The earlier account in c. 41 runs thus; “Post decessum vero Abbatis Wlfrici, Stigandus Doroberniæ Archiepiscopus, Abbatiam de Ely, sed et episcopatus atque abbatias sibi assumpsit plurimas, et gratiâ utriusque Domini sui, Edwardi scilicet et Haroldi Regum, eas propriis pastoribus viduatas quamdiu voluit in suâ manu tenuit, et quibus voluit personis conferebat. Nam Wintoniensem, Glastoniensem, Sancti Albani, et Sancti Augustini, et Elyensem ante Turstanum Abbatem, abbatias in manu suâ receperat, et velut proprias possidebat. Ipso quoque suggerente, Haroldus, qui regni sceptra tenebat, ipsum Turstanum ab eodem Stigando benedici fecit.”

With this benediction of Thurstan by Stigand we may compare the benediction of Æthelsige by Stigand in 1061 (see vol. ii. p. 454). Compare also Æthelsige’s pluralities at Canterbury and Ramsey (see vol. ii. p. 455), and the strange story about Stigand himself holding the Abbey of Gloucester (see vol. ii. p. 638). Compare also the case of Ealdred at Winchcombe (see vol. ii. p. 362), and the vast pluralities of Abbot Leofric (see vol. ii. p. 349). Nevertheless I conceive that there is here a good deal of exaggeration as to Stigand’s pluralities. The Abbey of Winchester, meaning seemingly the New Minster, seems to be confounded with the bishoprick. We know the succession of Abbots of New Minster (see vol. ii. p. 644), among whom Stigand does not occur, and of Saint Swithun’s he was necessarily Abbot as Bishop of Winchester. And if Stigand ever held any of the other abbeys spoken of, it must have been for the shortest possible time. We have seen the regular succession of abbots at Glastonbury (see vol. ii. p. 361), and also at Saint Augustine’s in the person of Æthelsige, mentioned just above as blessed by Stigand himself. Neither do I find any mention of an incumbency of Stigand in the local history of Saint Alban’s.

The detention by Stigand of lands belonging to the Abbey is asserted in the local history, ii. 41; “Stigandus, quamvis substituto illic Abbate, caussas ecclesiæ agebat, sed quasdam illius optimas possessiones, sicut Liber Terrarum insinuat, ad maximum loci dispendium retinuit.” The reference to the “Liber Terrarum,” the local Domesday, should be noticed. I do not quite know what is meant by “caussas ecclesiæ agebat,” unless it be that Stigand, while robbing the house himself, defended it against other people.

The charge here brought against Stigand is the same as that which was also brought against Archbishop Ealdred and Bishop Ælfweard. See vol. ii. pp. 69, 467, 551. But there is an entry in Domesday which may perhaps suggest another view of his conduct. In fol. 40 _b_ we read of certain lands in Hampshire which “Abbatia de Ely tenuit de Stigando Archiepiscopo T. R. E.,” but which, at the time of the Survey, belonged to the see of Winchester. Is it not possible that these were the lands in question, and that Stigand’s appropriation of them was simply the resumption of a lease?

The Abbey of Ely had at this time a somewhat remarkable inmate. This was one Osmund, who had been a Bishop in Sweden, reminding one of Eadward’s kinsman Rudolf, who had been a Bishop in Norway, and whom Eadward quartered on the monks of Abingdon (see vol. ii. p. 160). The Ely historian (ii. 42) speaks of Osmund with great reverence, but Adam of Bremen (iii. 14) calls him “acephalus” and “girovagus,” and charges him with teaching false doctrine. He seems to have tried to set himself up as an independent Metropolitan of Sweden in opposition to the see of Hamburg. Refused consecration at Rome, he obtained it “a quodam Polaniæ Archiepiscopo,” that is, it would seem, from Stephen, Archbishop of Gnesen from 1038 to 1059. He came back to Sweden, professing to have been consecrated by the Pope as Archbishop of Sweden. When Papal Legates, members of the church of Bremen, came to complain, he wrought so upon King Emund and the Swedish people, that the Legates were sent away as not having proper credentials (“Solitis populum Regemque impulit dolis, ut legati repellerentur, quasi non habentes sigillum Apostolici”). At last (Adam, iii. 70) the famous Adalbert, Archbishop of Hamburg (1043–1072), the early guardian of Henry the Fourth, held a visitation of Scandinavia by authority of Pope Alexander the Second, and quietly removed (“dimisit hilaris”) several irregularly ordained Bishops, including Osmund. This must have been between 1061 and 1065. Osmund came to England and won great favour with Eadward and with all the great men of the land, but, charmed with the piety of the monks of Ely and their Abbot, he retired to their house, joined their brotherhood, and discharged episcopal functions among them—an early case, like that of Rudolf, of a Bishop _in partibus_. He died in Thurstan’s time, and was buried at Ely and afterwards translated.

NOTE M. p. 72.

THE COMET OF 1066.

This comet evidently made the deepest impression in every part of Europe. It is recorded in nearly every chronicle everywhere, and it is very generally, even by men who have no special connexion either with England or with Normandy, accepted as a presage of the Conquest of England. Our usual English and Norman authorities record it also; but I have preferred to collect a few of the more remarkable entries in the annals of more distant countries. I will give some specimens from the writers of Germany, of Southern Gaul, and of Italy.

The Chronicle of Saint Andrew at Cambray (Pertz, vii. 537) has a most remarkable entry;

“De bello in Angliâ facto. Anno autem Dei Christi 1066 ad occidentalem plagam unus ex cometis admodùm visu terribilis, crinitos radios velut flammigeras hastas emittens, vespere solem sequens per octodecim dies apparuit. Quod genus sideris quòd erunt bella aut famem aut pestilentiam portendere solet. Hoc regni etiam mutationem ipsâ suâ apparitione præsignavit. Nam Wilelmus Normannorum Comes, paratâ non parvâ classe, assumptâ magnâ militiâ, mare pertransiit.”

A short narrative of the Conquest of England follows. So the Chronicle of Ekkehard (vi. 199) also directly connects the comet with William’s expedition, of the results of which it gives a very exaggerated account;

“A.D. 1066. Cometes per totum orbem diu apparuit. Eodem anno Angliâ per Willihelmum Nortmannicum miserabiliter afflictâ tandemque subactâ, ipse Rex ejus effectus est. Qui mox omnes penè regni ejusdem præsules exsilio, nobiles verò morti, destinavit, mediocres autem suis militibus in servitutem, uxores indigenarum universorum advenis in matrimonium subjugavit.”

Abbot Hugh’s Chronicle of Verdun (Labbé, i. 194) says, “Millesimo quoque LXV. anno, Ind. iii. stella quæ cometes dicitur apparuit, et eodem anno Etuuardus Angi. Rex obiit.” (See the rest of the passage in p. 603.)

Still more distinct is the Chronicle of Saint James at Lüttich (Pertz, xvi. 639; Bouquet, xi. 294); “Cometes apparuit, quæ bellum Angliæ portendit, quam Guillelmus Normannorum Comes, ipsâ cum Rege suo Hero [sic] gravissimâ cæde mulctatâ, vi militari corripuit, regnumque victor obtinuit.”

Adam of Bremen we have almost learned to look on as a writer Scandinavian rather than German. He (iii. 50, 51) connects the comet with English affairs, but he does not give them the precedence. He first mentions the death of Godescalc (see vol. i. p. 650) and other events nearer home, and then adds,

“Et, nisi fallor, hæc mala nobis ventura significavit ille horribilis cometa qui isto apparuit anno circa dies paschæ. Eodem quoque tempore clades illa memorabilis in Angliâ facta est, cujus magnitudo, et quod Anglia Danis ex antiquo subjecta est, summam nos eventuum præterire non sinit.”

He then goes on with that short sketch of English affairs, from which I have several times had occasion to quote piecemeal.

Other German accounts which connect the comet with England will be found in the Annales Blandinienses (Pertz, v. 26), in the Annales Formoselenses (v. 36), in the Chronicle of Conrad of Ursperg (p. ccxxxiii.), and in Marianus (Pertz, v. 559), whose curious account of this year I have often had occasion to quote. See also Sigebert (vi. 361) and the Saxon Annalist (vi. 694), who oddly describes William as “filius illius Roberti quem Ricardus Comes Nortmannorum ex sorore Knut Regis Danorum genuerat.”

To these German writers I may add the Pole Dlugoss, the latest in time and also the most distant from England. He tells us (i. 260, ed. Leipzig, 1711); “Cometes stella in occidentem facem dirigens apparuit, plura mala quibus et Almaniæ et Britanniæ regiones afflictæ fuerunt designans. In Britanniâ, quæ nunc Anglia dicitur, Rex Eraldus occiditur, et in Almaniâ principes variis cædibus in se debacchantur.”

Of German writers who do not connect the comet with England I may mention Berthold (Pertz, v. 273) and Bernold (v. 428). But the most remarkable entry is that of Lambert (1066), who connects the comet with English affairs, but looks on it as presaging, not Senlac, but Stamfordbridge;

“In festis paschalibus per quatuordecim ferè noctes continuas cometa apparebat. Quo in tempore atrox et lacrimabile nimis prœlium factum est in partibus Aquilonis, in quo Rex Anglisaxonum tres Reges cum infinito eorum exercitu usque ad internecionem delevit.” (On these three Kings see Note CC.)

Turning to Southern Gaul, the Chronicle of Saint Maxentius (Labbé, ii. 211) not only connects the comet with England, but ventures to give a rash judgement in a matter of English constitutional Law. “1066. Stella cometes apparuit. Willermus Comes, filius Roberti supradicti Comitis Normanniæ, transiens mare conflixit cum Airaudo, _pseudo-Rege Anglorum_, quem devicit cum ipsâ gente, et terram eamdem in suam ditionem recepit.” Another Aquitanian Chronicler, William Godell, is less certain about the matter (Bouquet, xi. 284). “Hoc anno cometes apparuit in vigiliâ Sancti Marci, significans _fortasse_ abundantiam effusi Christiani sanguinis quam terra in regno Anglorum absorbuit.” See also the Chronicle of Saint Benignus at Dijon (Pertz, v. 42), and that of the Campanian Chalons (Labbé, i. 296). The Rheims Chronicle (Labbé, i. 360) throws its notice of the year into two hexameters, which appear in a great number of forms;

“Sexagenus erat sextus millesimus annus,
Quum pereunt Angli stellâ monstrante cometâ.”

Abbot Baldric, in his verses on William (Duchèsne, Rer. Franc, iv. 257), has quite a different couplet. William is one

“Indice qui cœlo, qui præsagante cometâ
Anglos innumeris stragibus obtinuit.”

Getting nearer our usual beat, the Breton Chronicle of Quimperlé on the one hand (Bouquet, xi. 372), and the Chronicle of Lambert of Saint Omer (Pertz, v. 65) on the other, both bring in the mention of English affairs, though the Breton writer mixes them up with things which to him were nearer home. Lastly, one of the Angevin Chronicles (Labbé, i. 288) looks on the comet as the sign of many woes to many nations. The Conquest of England comes first, but events which more immediately touched Anjou had also something to do with it. “In hoc anno apparuit cometa terribilis, multarum calamitatum in sequentibus annis subsequutarum, ut post patuit, portentrix. Nam in ipso anno Comes Normannorum Guillelmus Anglorum regnum magno periculo aggressus impugnare, bello publico magnâ et miserabili cæde cruento expugnavit, atque in Regem levatus coronari se fecit.” He then goes on to speak of Conan’s invasion of Anjou and his death, and of the wars between the brother Counts Geoffrey and Fulk.

Of the Italian chronicles I have already quoted one, the Annals of Beneventum (see p. 71). The Annales Cavenses (Pertz, iii. 180) connect the comet only with local affairs. But at Bari the Norman name was more familiar, and Lupus Protospatarius (Pertz, v. 59) recorded William’s victory, though he did not know his name. “1067. Et hoc anno apparuit stella cometes, et Comes Normannus Robertus fecit bellum cum Araldo Rege Anglorum, et vicit Robertus, qui et factus est Rex super gentem Anglorum.”

All our usual authorities record the appearance, and all, I think, in its proper chronological order, except William of Poitiers, who brings it in afterwards (139) at the end of his apostrophe against Harold.

The different statements as to the number of days during which the comet was visible are remarkable, and I must leave it to astronomers to reconcile them. But I cannot help thinking that the time of thirty days, spoken of in two chronicles only, one of which seems evidently to copy from the other, must be an exaggeration. The fourteen days of Wace (11462) and the fifteen of William of Jumièges (vii. 31) and Benoît (36778) doubtless mean the same thing, according to the usual French idiom. And, as the _seven_ days of the English Chronicles and Sigebert (vi. 301) would, according to the same idiom, be _eight_, I cannot but think that the _eighteen_ days of the Cambray annalist are owing to a confusion between the two accounts. If so, we have only two statements, one of a week, the other of a fortnight. The latter rests on the authority of Lambert and of William of Jumièges; the French metrical writers simply follow William.

Some notice of this comet will be found in Chambers’ Descriptive Astronomy, pp. 281–3, for sending me to which, and for some other hints, I have to thank Professor H. J. S. Smith. It seems to be that which is called Halley’s Comet, which has since appeared in 1145, 1223, 1301, 1378, 1456, 1531, 1682, 1759, and 1835. The appearance in 1145 is mentioned in the Angevin Chronicle in Labbé, i. 277, and in the Tewkesbury Annals for 1144 (Luard, Ann. Mon. i. 46), where it may possibly be connected with Stephen’s wars. The appearance of 1223 is mentioned in the Rouen Chronicle (Labbé, i. 374) under 1222; “Hoc anno visa est stella circum occasum solis Decembrilis, primæ magnitudinis, ardens velut facula, radios sursum erigens, et in acutum velut in conum colligens terræ vicina videbatur, quod aliquod prodigium portendere ferebatur. Hanc dicebant esse cometam.” It must also have appeared in 912 and 989, but I do not find those appearances mentioned in our Chronicles, though comets are mentioned in 905 or 906, 975, and 995.

Dr. Bruce (p. 86) quotes Mr. Hinde for the fact, which was also mentioned to me by Professor Smith, that the comet of 1066 is mentioned in the Chinese annals. Mr. Chambers tells us that they also mention its appearance in 1378—a year, by the way, quite memorable enough for any comet. “It was equal to the full moon in size, and its train, at first small, increased to a wonderful length.”

I have no doubt at all that the group in the Tapestry which immediately follows the representation of the comet itself represents Harold as hearing of its appearance and its interpretation. I cannot think with Mr. Planché (p. 147) and Dr. Bruce (p. 87) that Harold is receiving the news of the landing of Tostig or of anything else. There is no mention of Tostig or his invasion throughout the Tapestry, with whose subject they had indeed only an indirect connexion. It is most unlikely that an incidental and most obscure reference to Tostig’s invasion should lurk in a part of the Tapestry so completely inappropriate both as to time and subject. Nor can the figure speaking to the King represent William’s ambassador or any one directly connected with William. The story of William’s expedition begins from the very beginning in the next compartment, where the ship takes the news of Harold’s accession to Normandy. The present group ends the story of Eadward’s death and Harold’s accession. It follows immediately on the Comet, and it seems connected with it. The speaker is surely the interpreter of the sign, and that interpreter a μάντις κακῶν, a Kalchas or a Micaiah. It is quite possible that what Dr. Bruce calls “the dreamy-like flotilla” in the border may be meant darkly to set forth the nature of his interpretation, and so to act as a connecting link between this compartment and that which comes next after it.

NOTE N. p. 80.

THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA.

That William’s marriage with Matilda was forbidden by Papal authority, and that the Papal dispensation for the marriage did not issue till some years after the marriage had been celebrated, are facts which have long been known. But the remarkable paper communicated by Mr. Stapleton in 1846 to the Archæological Journal (iii. 1) threw a new light on the whole matter. The essay, like all Mr. Stapleton’s writings, is brimful of curious learning, but, as usual, his power of arranging and making use of his facts is by no means equal to his diligence and acuteness in bringing them together.

Mr. Stapleton’s propositions, as far as I can disentangle them, are three;

First, That Matilda, before her marriage with William, was mother of two children, Gerbod and Gundrada, whose father was Gerbod, known as the Advocate of Saint Bertin.

Secondly, That the ecclesiastical opposition to the marriage of William and Matilda was not owing—at least not wholly owing—to any consanguinity or affinity between them, but to the fact that Matilda, at the time of William’s courtship, had a husband still living.

Thirdly, That the delay in the celebration of the marriage was caused by the necessity of obtaining a divorce.

Of these three propositions Mr. Stapleton has, I think, convincingly made out the first; the second and third I cannot accept.

That Gundrada, the wife of Earl William of Warren, was the daughter of Matilda, but not the daughter of King William, is manifest from the language employed by Earl William in his grant to the Priory of Lewes (Stapleton, Arch. Journ. iii. 21; Monasticon, v. 12). He makes his gifts

“Pro salute animæ meæ et animæ Gundradæ uxoris meæ et pro animâ domini mei Willelmi Regis, qui me in Angliam terram adduxit, et per cujus licentiam monachos venire feci, et qui meam priorem donationem confirmavit, et pro salute _dominæ meæ Matildis Reginæ, matris uxoris meæ_, et pro salute domini mei Willelmi Regis, filii sui, post cujus adventum in Anglicam hanc cartam feci, et qui me Comitem Surreiæ fecit.”

It is utterly inconceivable that Earl William would have used this language, if King William had been the father of his wife. In such a case he would have described his wife as the daughter of King William. He would never have drawn the pointed distinction which he does draw between Matilda his lady, the mother of his wife, and William his lord, who has done for him such and such favours. On the other hand there is the earlier charter of King William himself to the same Priory, which is granted, according to the text in the Monasticon (v. 13),

“Pro animâ domini et antecessoris mei Regis Eduuardi, et pro animâ patris mei Comitis Rotberti, et pro meâ ipsius animâ et uxoris meæ Matildis Reginæ, et filiorum atque successorum nostrorum, et pro animâ Guillelmi de Warrennâ et uxoris suæ Gondradæ _filiæ meæ_ et heredum suorum.”

Here William, according to the received text, certainly calls Gundrada his daughter. But the manuscript is said to be nearly illegible, and the reading to be very doubtful. Mr. Stapleton (p. 2) for the words after “Gondradæ” silently reads “pro me et heredibus meis.” Mrs. Green (i. 72) mentions that the words “filiæ meæ” are clearly in a different and later hand. This is admitted by Mr. Blaauw, in an article in the Archæologia (xxxii. p. 108), written expressly in answer to Mr. Stapleton, but he argues that the insertion represents the true reading, and objects to Mr. Stapleton’s reading on other grounds. But it strikes me that Mr. Blaauw’s text, if genuine, does not upset Mr. Stapleton’s position. The words “filiæ meæ,” taken by themselves, would of course prove the person spoken of to be William’s own daughter. But they must be taken in connexion with the other charter of William of Warren. It is far more likely that a man should use the words “filia mea” of his wife’s daughter—his own daughter for many purposes of law—than that a man should speak of his wife’s parents in the extraordinary way which we must attribute to William of Warren, if Gundrada really was William’s daughter.

Another Lewes charter (Monasticon, v. 14), in which Matilda is spoken of as the mother of Gundrada—“Mathildis Regina, mater Henrici Regis et Gundradæ Comitissæ”—is of course evidence for Matilda being the mother of Gundrada as well as of Henry, but it does not prove them to have been children of the same father. It is plain why those two only among Matilda’s children are spoken of. Henry was the reigning King, Gundrada was the local benefactress.

The documentary evidence then seems distinctly to show that Gundrada was the daughter of Matilda, but not the daughter of William. One charter plainly implies that she was so; the others do not imply the contrary. But this is not all. There are two passages of Orderic, both quoted by Mr. Stapleton, which imply that Gundrada had a brother Gerbod, and that neither of them was son or daughter of William. Mr. Blaauw answers that Orderic’s authority is weak on this point, as he stumbles, if he does not contradict himself, in his whole account of William’s daughters. Now certainly, if Orderic simply left out Gundrada in a list of William’s daughters, the omission would prove nothing whatever against the least direct proof that she was his daughter. But it proves much more, when Orderic speaks of her incidentally in a way in which it is quite impossible that he should have spoken of a daughter of William, and when he gives her a brother whom no man ever for a moment fancied to be William’s son. In one of these two places (522 C) Orderic tells us that William the Conqueror gave the Earldom of Surrey “Guillelmo de Guarennâ, qui Gundredam sororem Gherbodi conjugem habuit.” In the other place (522 A; cf. 598 A) Orderic recounts the adventures of “Gherbodus Flandrensis,” his investiture with the Earldom of Chester, his return to his own country, and his misfortunes there. It is clear that Orderic did not look on Gundrada as a daughter of William; she was in his eyes simply the sister of Gerbod. Gundrada and Gerbod were therefore, beyond all doubt, children of Matilda, but they were not children of William. But I do not understand Mr. Stapleton when (pp. 20, 25) he gives them another brother, and Matilda another son, named Frederick. He must have been thinking of the Frederick whose existence he had himself established in p. 3. But this Frederick, as appears from Domesday, 196 _b_, was brother, not of Gundrada, but of her husband William of Warren.

Matilda then was the mother of Gerbod and Gundrada, but who was their father? There does not seem to be any distinct proof, but the Flemish charters collected by Mr. Stapleton (pp. 17–19) show that there was a whole succession of Gerbods, holding the office of Advocate (_Advocatus_, _Avoué_) of the Abbey of Saint Bertin at Saint Omer, and who are often simply described as Gerbod the Advocate. These Gerbods range over nearly the whole of the eleventh century, from 1026 to the reign of Robert the Frisian, that is between 1071 and 1093. There is, for instance (p. 17), a charter of Baldwin the Fourth in 1026, and among the signatures is “Signum Gerbodonis Advocati.” The same signature is added to charters of Baldwin the father of Matilda in 1056 (Cartulary of Saint Bertin, p. 181) and 1067. In the later charters up to 1087 we find mention of Gerbod and his wife Ada (p. 201), and of Gerbod and his brother Arnulf. Mr. Stapleton supposes—he seems to have no evidence but that of the charters themselves—that Gerbod the husband of Ada is the Earl of Chester and son of Matilda, and that Gerbod and Arnulf were their sons. This is in every way probable, but I cannot follow him when he assumes that the signatures of 1026, 1056, and 1067 all belong to one Gerbod, the father of the Earl of Chester and, according to him, the first husband of Matilda. This assumption seems to be the only ground for the inference that Matilda’s first husband was living at the time of her marriage with William, and that therefore the delay and difficulty about the marriage was caused by the necessity of obtaining a divorce. But it is surely simpler and more obvious to take the signature of 1026 to be that of her husband, and those of 1056 and 1067 to be those of her son. With the Gerbod of 1056 or, considering how young he must have been, with those who acted in his name, the Abbey of Saint Bertin had rather fierce disputes. See the narrative in the Cartulary, p. 183, and Count Baldwin’s charter, pp. 184, 185.

I therefore accept the marriage, but the theory of the divorce seems to me quite untenable on every ground. It is remarkable enough that no hint should be found in any contemporary writer that Matilda had been married before her marriage with William, and that we are driven to infer the fact from the language of charters and from the most casual indications elsewhere. But we have more than one parallel case in Norman history. The Norman writers are absolutely silent about the marriage between Duke Robert and Estrith the sister of Cnut (see vol. i. p. 521). So again, we should never have known from the Encomiast of Emma that she ever was the wife of Æthelred. In his courtly pages the sister of Duke Richard is a virgin (see vol. i. p. 454) when she marries Cnut. So in the Norman writers Matilda is ever the daughter of Baldwin, never the widow of Gerbod. And, as Emma is called _virgo_, so Matilda is called _puella_, _pucelle_, _demoiselle_. But, if she is never called the widow of Gerbod, still less is she called his wife. In the case of Cnut and Emma, we know the real facts from the testimony of both English and Norman writers. In the case of William and Matilda, the Norman writers, in the silence of the English, have it all their own way, and we are left to the evidence of the documents. The English writers are silent through indifference; the Norman writers are silent through design. The best informed of all, William of Poitiers, leaves out the fact that there was any opposition to the marriage at all. But, if William’s marriage had been, not simply irregular or uncanonical, but a glaring act of adultery, committed in open defiance of a Papal command, it is hardly conceivable that so astounding a fact should have failed to find any chronicler.

Again, it may perhaps seem strange if William, when in search of a wife, preferred a widow with children to all the princely maidens who, we are told, were to be had for the asking. But it would be far stranger if, with so wide a field before him, his choice lighted on the married wife of another man. Would the wise men of Normandy have recommended such a step? Would Count Baldwin have consented to expose his daughter to such manifest shame? Would the Papal prohibition of the marriage have taken the form which it did take (see above, p. 89)? Would Pope Leo and the Council of Rheims have simply forbidden Count Baldwin to give his daughter in marriage to William the Norman? Would they not rather have warned William and Matilda, as later assertors of discipline warned Philip and Bertrada, against an act of shameless adultery? Can we conceive that Lanfranc would have stooped to interest himself in obtaining a dispensation for the guilty pair, or that a dispensation would ever have been granted by the most complying Pontiff? Such a dispensation could have been granted only on proof of some canonical impediment which rendered the former marriage of Gerbod and Matilda null and void. No proof of such an impediment is produced. It was a daring act on the part of William, Matilda, and Baldwin to contract an uncanonical marriage in the teeth of a direct Papal prohibition. But they would never have ventured on a step breathing such defiance to all law and morals as a marriage between a man and another man’s wife, contracted on the chance that her first marriage might be proved to be illegal.

I hold then that Gerbod was dead before 1049, and that the objection to William’s marriage with his widow was simply one of the usual canonical objections on the ground of kindred or affinity. This is asserted by all the writers who mention the subject (see above, pp. 94, 102, 106). But there is no small difficulty in making out what the nearness of kin between William and Matilda was. Mr. Stapleton (p. 22) assumes that their kindred consisted in the fact that Matilda’s “grandmother was a daughter of Duke Richard the Second of Normandy, and aunt of William the Conqueror.” If this could be made out, William and Matilda would clearly be within the prohibited degrees. But the pedigree does not seem to be at all certain. Baldwin the Bearded, Matilda’s grandfather, undoubtedly married a daughter of Richard the Good (Will. Gem. v. 13). But she could not have been the mother of Baldwin of Lisle. A daughter of Richard and Judith could not have been born before 1010 (see vol. ii. p. 586), at which time the younger Baldwin was a grown man, capable of marrying and rebelling against his father. Baldwin the Bearded must have been quite an old man when he married the daughter of Duke Richard. Moreri (art. Flandre) and the Art de Vérifier les Dates (iii. 4) both say, but without references, that she had no children, and the first wife of Baldwin the Bearded, the mother of Baldwin of Lisle and grandmother of Matilda, is called by them Ogiva of Luxemburg. This is doubtless the “Otgiva” or “Odgiva [Eadgifu?] Comitissa” who died in 1030 or 1031 (Ann. Baldinienses and Formoselenses, Pertz, v. 26, 35), only five or six years before Baldwin’s death. Oudegherst (Annales de Flandre, 63, 67, 75), who calls her Ognie and Odgona, has much to say about her, and about her son’s wonderful birth when she was fifty years old. However all this may be, it seems perfectly clear that Matilda was not the granddaughter of any daughter of Richard the Good. Failing Richard the Good, I cannot suggest any other common ancestor for William and Matilda, but it is quite possible that the marriage of William’s aunt with Matilda’s grandfather may have been held to produce some kind of affinity between William and Matilda.

Prevost, in his note on Wace (ii. 60), has a suggestion of the same kind, namely, that the canonical impediment was the affinity arising from the fact that Matilda’s mother, Adela of France, had been married, or rather betrothed, to William’s uncle, Richard the Third (cf. Palgrave, iii. 264). Again I am not canonist enough to say whether this would really have been any impediment to a marriage between Richard’s nephew and Adela’s daughter; but there seems to be no doubt that Richard the Third was married or contracted to Adela, daughter of King Robert. His marriage contract with an Adela, dated 1026, in which he endows her with large possessions, mainly in the Côtentin, is printed in D’Achery, Spicilegium, iii. 390, and Licquet, Hist. de Normandie, ii. 269 (see also Palgrave, iii. 137). M. Licquet (ii. 5) maintains that this Adela is not King Robert’s daughter, but some unknown wife of the name, whom he holds to have been the lawful mother of the monk Nicolas (see above, p. 380, and vol. i. p. 518). His chief grounds for this belief are that Adela is not described as the King’s daughter, and that the words of the deed (“annulo mihi in carnis unitate jungendam”) imply that the bride was already a grown woman, whereas Adela the daughter of King Robert was, in 1026, a babe in her cradle. Now the deed is drawn up in a rhetorical style; “Domina Adela” is once addressed in the vocative case, and that is the only mention of her name, though she is told that she is “juxta nobilitatis tuæ lineam dotata.” All this looks to me as if she was the King’s daughter, for whom the city and county of Coutances, and a good deal more, which the deed bestows upon her, would surely not be an unworthy dowry. As to her age, the statement that she was then an infant rests on the authority of William of Jumièges, which is generally very good, but which is in this case contradicted by dates. He says (vi. 6) that the elder Baldwin, at some time after the accession of Duke Robert in 1028, took away Adela as a babe from King Robert’s court, and brought her up as his son’s bride till she was marriageable (“A palatinis tricliniis adeptam tulit, et ad domum propriam in cunis asportavit, eamque usque ad annos nubiles diligenti curâ nutrivit”). But we read directly after that the younger Baldwin, puffed up by his royal connexion (“mox ut nobilis puellæ amplexibus cœpit frui”), rebelled against his father, who was restored by Duke Robert (see vol. i. p. 519). All this is said to have happened about the time of the death of King Robert (“quâ tempestate Robertus Rex Francorum moritur”), which took place in 1031. These two statements, in the same chapter, cannot be made to agree. The truth is that Adela could not possibly have been a mere baby in 1026. Her parents, Robert and Constance, were married in 998; her daughter Matilda was the mother of two children before 1049. Compare the imaginary genealogy of Herleva, vol. ii. p. 583.