A Description of England, c.1270

Matthew Paris' map of Britain

A pen-portrait of England in the late thirteenth century, from the chronicle of Robert of Gloucester.

Engelond his a wel god lond, ich wene ech londe best
Iset in þe on ende of þe worlde, as al in þe west.
þe see goþ hym al aboute, he stonte as an yle.
Here fon heo durre þe lasse doute, but hit be þorw gyle
Of fol of þe selue lond, as me haþ y seye wyle.
From souþ to norþ he ys long eiȝte hondred myle,
And foure hondred myle brod from est to west to wende,
A mydde þo lond as yt be, and noȝt as by þe on ende.
Plente me may in Engelond of alle gode y se,
Bute folc yt for gulte oþer ȝeres þe worse be.
For Engelond ys ful ynow of fruyt and of tren,
Of wodes and of parkes, þat ioye yt ys to sen,
Of foules and of bestes of wylde and tame al so,
Of salt fysch and eche fresch, and fayre ryveres þer to,
Of welles swete and colde ynow, of lesen and of mede,
Of seluer or and of gold, of tyn and of lede,
Of stel, of yrn and of bras, of god corn gret won,
Of whyte and of wolle god, betere ne may be non.
Wateres he haþ eke gode ynow, ac at before alle oþer þre
Out of the lond in to þe see, armes as þei be,
Ware by þe schippes mowe come fro þe se and wende,
And brynge on lond god ynow, a boute in eche-ende,
Seuerne and Temese, Homber yt is þe þridde,
And þenne is as wo seiþ þe pure lond a midde.
Homber bryngeþ by norþ muche god and wyde,
Seuerne by west souþ, Temese by þe est syde,
So þat of god ynow, þat in oþer londes ys,
þer by comeþ to Engelond, þat no defaute nys.

Yles þer beþ mony on aboute Engelonde,
Ac þer beþ to fore alle oþere þre, ich understonde,
The yle of Man þat me clepuþ, by twene us and Yrlonde,
þe grete yle of Orkeneye bi ȝonde Scotlonde.
þre þe beste yles þese beþ and mest couþe.

þe firste lordes and maystres, þat in Engelond were,
þese chef townes heo lette in Engelonde rere:
London and Euerwik, Lyncolne and Leycestre,
Colchestre and Canterbury, Bristow and Wircestre,
Chichestre and Grauntebrigge, and þanne Circencestre,
Dorchestre and Wyncestre, and seþþe Gloucestre,
And oþer grete tounes, þat þo were in Walis;
þis was þo in Engelond Brytones were, ywys...

In þe contrey of kanterbury mest plente of fiss is
& mest chas a boute salesbury of wilde bestes iwis
At londone ssipes mest & win at winchestre
At herevorde ssep & orf & frut at wircestre
Sope aboute couentre & ire at gloucestre
Metal as led and tyn in þe contreie of eccestre
Euerwik of fairest wode lincolne of feirest men
Grantebrigge & hontendone mest plente of dep ven
Ely of fairest place of fairest siȝt roucestre.
Evene est aien france stont þe contrei of cicestre
Norwich aien denemarch chestre aȝen irlonde
Duram aȝen norþwey as ich vnder stonde.

So clene lond is engelond & so cler wiþ outen hore
þe veireste men in þe world þer inne beþ ibore
So clene & vair & pur ȝwit among oþere men hii beþ
þat me knoweþ hem in eche lond bi siȝte þar me hem seþ.

Here's a translation:

England is a very good land, I think of every land the best,
Set at one end of the world, right in the west.
The sea surrounds it all about, it stands as an isle;
Its foes dare it the less assail, unless it be through guile
Of people from the country, as has been seen somewhile.
From south to north it is long eight hundred mile,
And four hundred mile broad from east to west to wend,
(That is in the middle of the land, and not at one end).
Plenty one in England of every good may see,
Unless for greed or gluttony it may the worse be.
For England is full enough of fruit and of tree,
Of woods and of parks, which joy it is to see,
Of birds and of beasts, wild and tame also,
Of salt fish and also fresh, and fair rivers too,
Of wells sweet and cold indeed, of pasture and of mead,
Of silver ore and of gold, of tin and of lead,
Of steel, of iron and of brass, of good corn a great sum,
Of wheat and of wool good, better there may be none.
Waters it has plenty and good, and above all the others three
Which run into the sea from the land, as it may be,
Whereby the ships may come from the sea and wend,
And bring to land goods enough, about at every end:
Severn and Thames, Humber it is the third,
And that is, as we said, the whole land them amid.
Humber brings from the north goods from far and wide,
Severn by the south-west, Thames by the east side,
So that now all the produce that in other lands is,
Comes in that way to England, where no lack is.

Isles there are many all round England,
But there are above all others three, I understand:
The Isle of Man, as it is called, between us and Ireland,
The great isle of Orkney beyond Scotland,
The third is towards Normandy, the Isle of Wight in the south;
The three best isles these are and the most widely-known.

The first lords and masters that in England were
These chief towns they did in England rear:
London and York, Lincoln and Leicester,
Colchester and Canterbury, Bristol and Worcester,
Chichester and Cambridge, and then Cirencester,
Dorchester and Winchester, and afterwards Gloucester,
And other great towns which then were in Wales,
This was when in England the Britons were, in truth...

In the country round Canterbury most plenty of fish is,
And most hunting around Salisbury of wild beasts, in truth;
At London ships most and wine at Winchester,
At Hereford sheep and cattle and fruit at Worcester,
Soap around Coventry and iron at Gloucester,
Metal, as lead and tin, in the country of Exeter,
York of fairest wood, Lincoln of fairest men,
Cambridge and Huntingdon most plenty of deep fen;
Ely the fairest place, of fairest sight Rochester.

Right opposite France stands the region of Chichester,
Norwich opposite Denmark, Chester opposite Ireland,
Durham opposite Norway, as I understand.

So pure a land is England, so clear without a stain,
The fairest people in the world are born there;
So bright and fair and clear white among other men they are
They are known in every land by sight where they are seen.

How to Choose an Archbishop of Canterbury

Since Rowan Williams has announced that he is to step down as Archbishop of Canterbury for the doubtless much more congenial atmosphere of a Cambridge college, the speculation about his successor has begun. Just as being Archbishop of Canterbury has always been a difficult job, choosing one has always been a matter of factions and politics (you may find this a comforting thought if you find church politics as depressing as I do). For instance, William of Malmesbury gives a detailed and near-contemporary account of the debate about the election of a successor to Anselm, who died in 1109. With the passage of nearly 900 years, this kind of thing becomes amusing rather than disheartening!

Henry I took five years to get around to the business of appointing a new archbishop, for motives William impugns:

After Anselm of venerable memory had escaped the captivity of his body of clay and bidden farewell to this life, his see was vacant for a full five years... All this time, whenever the king was warned to look to the widowhood of his mother the church, he put his advisors off with a bland reply: the archbishops sent by his father and brother [i.e. Lanfranc and Anselm, chosen by William I and William II respectively] had been of high quality, and he was unwilling to fall short of the good fortune of his relatives; there was therefore need of careful consideration to make sure he put in place an archbishop who equalled or came near to the virtues of his predecessors.

Replies like this seemed entirely lawful and proper, but a pile of money kept the king's mind happy, and cured the unease with which others regarded the delay. Finally, when he could not put it off any longer without almost irremediable scandal, the king assembled a council at Windsor, intending to bring the matter to a conclusion.

Amusingly, in the process of revision William emended this last paragraph to: "Replies like this seemed entirely lawful and proper, and indeed they were. So after long and anxious discussion, the king assembled a council..." Do you believe him? I don't!

[The king's] intention was that the choice should fall upon Faricius abbot of Abingdon, a man of great severity, together with remarkable energy in carrying through his plans. The king, however, did not insist on having his own way, at least in the choice of archbishop, and left it to the decision of the meeting as a whole. Here and on other occasions he, as is well known, displayed remarkable self-control; but as for the bishops, it will make a difference to them at the Last Judgement in what spirit they exercised the decision delegated to them.

Good point, William. He goes on:

When they expressed a preference for someone in clerical orders [i.e. not a monk], objections were raised: no cleric had ever been archbishop of Canterbury, save only Stigand, who had come into the see through impudence and had been properly expelled from it; there was no need for a custom of such long standing to be annulled, particularly as it could not be shown to conflict with the faith.

Disappointed in this plan, and being suspicious of the inflexible Faricius, the bishops made the following points in their deliberations: 'If that Lombard is made archbishop, there will be quarrels and schisms all over again. He will spare no one of us, especially as the king thinks as highly of him as if he had been sent down from heaven. [!] But this is not to be said openly. The argument we must use has to be one that wounds no one's feelings. Thus [they said publicly]: We have had more than enough foreign archbishops. There is good store of men who speak the language of the country, as learned as Lanfranc, as pious as Anselm, and monks like them both. There is, for instance Ralph bishop of Rochester, reputed the equal of the ancients, and better than both old and new for humility and approachability. If you trace his lineage, he is sprung from respectable Norman stock. If you enquire into his life, there is no blot on his copybook. He is the only one whose piety even malice could not carp at, for it is beyond cavil. If you look at his learning, he has drained all Athens dry, if you examine his eloquence, speech flows from his mouth like honey; and his language is that of his native Maine, meticulous and (so to say) well combed.'

Note that when they say they've had enough foreign archbishops, they don't mean they want an Englishman - it means 'a Norman, not an Italian'. None of the bishops at this council were English, and there wouldn't be an English-born Archbishop of Canterbury until Thomas Becket (of Norman ancestry, but born in London) half a century later. By 'the language of the country' they mean Norman French (and it's a bit surprising that Faricius, who was born in Tuscany but had been Abbot of Abingdon for nearly 15 years by this point, didn't speak it). The compromise candidate, Ralph, was Norman by birth but had been in England on and off since about 1102; he was appointed Bishop of Rochester in 1108 and was present at Anselm's deathbed. So he wasn't a foreigner by their standards.

You might wonder how William of Malmesbury knew what the bishops discussed behind closed doors, and how they decided what it would and would not be politic to say; the editors of the Gesta Pontificum suggest it's possible he got this information from his fellow historian Eadmer, who as a senior monk of Christ Church Canterbury was probably present at the discussions, and whom William had certainly met.

Anyway, the bishops' tactful realpolitik achieved their ends:

These opinions made the king change his mind and come round to their view forthwith. This took place four days after the fifth anniversary of the death of Anselm [i.e. 26 April 1114].

Let's hope it doesn't take that long to find a successor this time...


Quotations from William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, ed. and trans. Michael Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), vol.1, pp.201-203.

St Anselm and Bertrand Russell and the Proof of God

St Anselm, from this window in Canterbury Cathedral

This is a snippet from one of the most illuminating books ever written about medieval history, R. W. Southern's Saint Anselm and His Biographer: A Study of Monastic Life and Thought 1059-c.1130, published in 1966. It's an account of Anselm of Canterbury and the Canterbury monk Eadmer, his close friend and admirer, who wrote Anselm's biography (and many other things besides). This little extract exemplifies, to me, one of the best virtues of traditional scholarship: to have such a broad range of reference that you can make connections across time and space - or, to put it rather inelegantly, to have the power of remembering that every 'yesterday' was some real person's 'today'.


Of Anselm’s ontological proof of God, Southern observes:

"Whether it is true or false, nothing is more surprising than the way in which this proof has united, at least temporarily, men of the most diverse temperaments and outlooks – a tenuous link across vast seas of spiritual difference. Among living philosophers none is perhaps further removed from Anselm in outlook, though perhaps not so far in qualities of mind, than he who remembers:

the precise moment, one day in 1894, as I was walking along Trinity Lane, when I saw in a flash (or thought I saw) that the ontological argument is valid. I had gone out to buy a tin of tobacco; on my way back, I suddenly threw it up in the air, and exclaimed as I caught it: ‘Great Scott, the ontological argument is sound.'

"Leave out Trinity Lane, the tobacco and the ‘Great Scott’ (delightful evocation of an age more remote in spirit than the eleventh century) and substitute Bec, Matins and Deo gratias, and it was just so that the argument came to Anselm in 1078:

Behold, one night during Matins, the grace of God shone in his heart and the matter became clear to his understanding, filling his whole being with immense joy and jubilation."

R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and his Biographer: A Study of Monastic Life and Thought 1059-c.1130 (Cambridge, 1966), p.58.


The philosopher in question is Bertrand Russell, as I would not have known without Google. I do like that Southern felt 1890s Cambridge to be 'more remote in spirit' from 1966 than eleventh-century Normandy; I often feel the same way about the 1960s.

St Anselm on the tomb of Archbishop Henry Chicele in Canterbury Cathedral

Parishioners and Troublesome Priests at Fordwich

Stained glass from Fordwich - note the lion!

I've been reading a charming book today: A History of the Town and Port of Fordwich, written in 1895 by a clergyman named C. Eveleigh Woodruff. I intend to post about lovely little Fordwich in the next few days with some more extracts from this book, which is full of great snippets - but for now just let me bring to your attention these amusing stories about trouble between priest and parishioners.

The first dates from 1577. In that year the parish complained to the Archbishop of Canterbury about their rector, William Smith, claiming:

We say that our parson cometh to the Ale house, then he goeth home and falleth out wyth his wife unhonestly.

The charges against Smith were dismissed, but he clearly continued to have problems with his parishioners: around the same time he appealed against John Elmer, one of the church's sidesmen, "for that he called him knave and cock-brayned foole". Ouch!

Just over a century later, in 1713, the vicar was a man named John Nicholls. This incident happened when Nicholls was in his previous post as vicar of Sheldwich:

He was engaged to preach a course of sermons in Selling Church during a vacancy in that benefice. He chose for his subject the history of Joseph, and continued to discourse thereon for five Sundays. The agreement with the Churchwardens was that he should receive ten shillings per sermon, but the authorities did not approve of this perpetual harping upon one string; accordingly Churchwarden Hogben, meeting the preacher after Church, made answer to the enquiry as to whether his services would be required again, "Why no Sir I think not; I have given you fifty shillings for carrying Joseph into Egypt, and I will not give you ten shillings more to bring him back again."

Five Sundays! That poor congregation. Nicholls was a supporter of Queen Anne, and upon the accession of George I in 1714 he preached a pointed sermon at Fordwich against the new king. He might have thought that in his sleepy church no one would object, but he was reported to the authorities by Colonel Short, the inhabitant of the Manor House, and suspended. In time he was returned to his post:

but does not appear to have forgiven Colonel Short for his share in the matter, for on that worthy’s decease, in 1716, the wrong evidently still rankled, and in the parish register the following remarkable entry appears – ‘Buried Samuel Short Esquier and Informer!’.

Nicholls was also involved in a dispute with a parishioner named Thomas Jennings, and when Jennings’ daughter was baptised the Rector made the following note in the register:

Dorothy daughter of Thomas and Susan Jennings baptised, to whom I pray God grant more grace than he has given to the parents.

For all this Nicholls was apparently popular in the town and was twice elected mayor, the only Rector of Fordwich to hold that post. One of his daughters married an ancestor of the author of this book, Mr Woodruff, and the other daughter Catherine married a man named Thomas Mantell of Chilham (presumably a relative of this fellow). Fordwich is now a redundant church, without a vicar; I assume not because its previous incumbants were so difficult to get on with!


All quotations from C. Eveleigh Woodruff, A History of the Town and Port of Fordwich, with a transcription of the XVth century copy of the Custumal (Canterbury: Cross and Jackman, 1895).

The Feast of the (Stubborn Anglo-Saxon) Cross

Today, September 14, is the Feast of the Cross, and so here's a story about a cross which I absolutely love, from the annals of Waltham Abbey. Waltham Abbey, in Essex, is the reputed burial site of Harold Godwinson, who was its patron; but before he came along, their patron was a certain Danish nobleman named Tovi 'the Proud'. Tovi was a wealthy and powerful member of the Danish aristocracy in Cnut's England, so this story must have taken place sometime between 1018 and 1035.

Waltham Abbey's own historian, writing in the 1170s, describes how a blacksmith at the village of Montacute (then called 'Ludgersbury') in Somerset had a dream in which an angel told him to climb a nearby hill and dig, and he would find a cross buried there. On his wife's advice, the smith ignored this dream (never a good idea), so the angel came a second and a third time, and the third time it roughed him about a bit, leaving finger-marks visible in his arm; this convinced him that he'd better start digging, and so he did. The rest of the village went up the hill to help him, and there they uncovered a remarkable treasure-trove: a life-size figure of Christ on the cross, carved in a kind of black marble, and with it a little bell and a Gospel-book.

They sent for Tovi, who owned the land thereabouts, and asked him what to do. He thought that these miraculous finds had to be taken to some appropriate place, but couldn't decide where would be best. This is how they worked it out:

He rose early and after the celebration of divine service, surrounded by a band of leading men he decided, with the consent of all these men, to leave the smaller cross there in the local church, and take the other relics around to places where they knew it would please God. They put them in a wagon to which they harnessed twelve red oxen… Finally the clergy and all the people prayed that God would give the spirit of wisdom to Lord Tovi that he might send these present relics to wherever God willed. Tovi then promised them to Canterbury, the seat of the archbishop at that time, to Winchester, Glastonbury, and London, as well as to other places in England where there were seats of bishops or abbots.

But it's not as simple as that:

The cart stood still as if rooted there, and it could not be moved either by the pulling of the oxen or the pushing of the men. Remembering at last an abode of his which he was very fond of at Reading, he prayed to Christ with many tears that He be pleased to grant the removal of the relics to that place… But the wagon stood still; it was pushed, it was pulled, yokes of oxen were added to the animals in front, but it did not move. Those who were there looked on in astonishment, convinced that this was not happening without the providence and will of God.

The high and noble Tovi continued with prayer after prayer. In naming places he moved from the more important churches to those of less importance, but he was not heard because God in His profound wisdom decreed those relics for another place which He deemed more worthy of the benefit of the gift. At last he remembered a lowly hut which he had begun to build in a woodland region which is now called Waltham, a pleasant place surrounded by luxuriant woods, provided with a river full of fish which is called the Lea; its picturesque, fertile meadows made it a delightful spot. It was quite close to London and near the River Thames of which the Lea is a tributary. His original estate which he had already begun he decided to extend within a wider boundary if God willed that the relics be transported to this place. Marvellous to say! more marvellous to believe! when he had mentioned the name of Waltham the wagon instantly moved, so that you would have thought that the cart was pushing the oxen rather than the oxen themselves pulling the cart. The hearts of the faithful were stirred with joy, and following the image of the crucified one behind their happy leaders, they rejoiced in the successful outcome which God had wrought and in the gift bestowed upon the weary.

The Waltham Chronicle: an account of the discovery of our holy cross at Montacute and its conveyance to Waltham, ed. and trans. Leslie Watkiss and Marjorie Chibnall, Oxford Medieval Texts Series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp.15-19.

I like the idea of Tovi listing place after place, getting more and more frustrated, until at last, finally! he hits on Waltham. The abbey of Waltham was established to look after the cross (so the story says; it probably already existed in some form) and thereafter the cross and figure of Christ remained at the abbey and were a pilgrimage destination. A later story said that figure miraculously bowed its head when Harold Godwinson prayed before it on the eve of Hastings, and that after his death its head remained ever bowed in grief (God was on the English side at Hastings, whatever the Normans said...). Of course, the cross disappeared at the dissolution of the monasteries, so this can't exactly be verified.

But a good story, a nice illustration of a Danish nobleman working for the English church, a great source of pride for Waltham - and all because of some stubborn oxen.

Repost: For St Bartholomew's Day

St Guthlac, the Mercian soldier-turned-hermit who founded the abbey of Crowland in Lincolnshire, arrived at his marshy, devil-haunted hermitage on St Bartholomew's Day, 24th August, 699 AD. Thereafter he chose St Bartholomew as his patron, and said that the apostle defended him from the demons who were constantly besieging his Fenland hideaway. Bartholomew even gave him a whip to beat off the demons; a fact apparently long remembered at Fishtoft in Lincolnshire.

(it seems that Bartholomew is thought to be the same person as Nathaniel from this great story, by the way)

And here's a repeat of something I posted a few months ago in relation to Crowland and St Bartholomew:

From the Chronicle of Crowland Abbey, Lincolnshire, this is a notable cost-cutting initiative by Abbot John Wisbech, who died in 1476:

"He it was who first wisely abolished that ancient or rather that corrupt custom of giving knives to every visitor on St Bartholomew’s day. By this both abbot and convent rejoice in being free for ever from heavy and needless expenses."

St Bartholomew, who was one of Crowland's dedicatory saints, suffered martyrdom by being flayed alive, and so one of his attributes is a knife. I guess people were given them as souvenirs? Sounds like it would get pretty expensive - and a bit of a health and safety issue too.

What Medieval Clergy Ate

If you were ever curious to know how medieval clergy sustained themselves, this is a contemporary description of the food allowance for the twelve canons of the church of Waltham, Essex, when it was refounded in the middle of the eleventh century:

"Each canon's portion was divided up each week as follows: from Saturday to Saturday, each day two loaves of the purest white bread, a third loaf not so white, these three loaves when divided carefully being certainly sufficient for six persons at one meal. Six bowls of ale were quite sufficient for ten persons at one meal. Every ordinary day there were six dishes of food, each one of a different kind, but on feast days of primary importance each man had three pittances of fod, two of feast days of secondary importance, and one on feast days of third rank of importance.

There were the following additional allowances for each of the canons: from Michaelmas to the beginning of Lent a choice of twelve blackbirds, two plovers, two partridges, or one pheasant. For the rest of the year they could have either geese or chickens. At the main festivals of the year, namely Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the two feast days of the Holy Cross [the patronal feast of the house], each canon was allowed wine and mead."

The Waltham Chronicle: an account of the discovery of our holy cross at Montacute and its conveyance to Waltham, ed. and trans. Leslie Watkiss and Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford, 1994), p.31.


This gives one a new understanding of the term 'feast day'! Out of this allowance the canons could give alms, and some of them probably supported families; marriage of canons was a controversial subject at this period, not technically permitted but widely tolerated. Even so, this amount of food has been described by one historian of the religious orders as "gargantuan"...

Testing Miracles in the Eleventh Century...

... the 'how many fingers am I holding up' method. A blind man has just come to Edward the Confessor to be healed, and has been sent water from the saint's morning ablutions; he claims the touch of it has cured him, but Edward wants to be sure:

The king, therefore, with pious curiosity, came unto him in the chapel, and, calling him to him, inquired whether he could indeed see. This the man began to affirm and gave thanks to God. To test the truth of the words, however, the king, as pure as a dove, stretched forth the palm of his hand, and asked for an account of his action. "You are stretching out your hand, O my lord king," the man replied.

Once more the king, sticking his forefinger and middle finger like a pair of horns before the man’s face, asked what he did. And the man answered what he saw. Also, a third time, the king, grasping his beard in his hand, again asked what he did. And the man furnished correctly the information that was sought. Then the king considered that he had been sufficiently examined.

The Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster, trans. Frank Barlow, (1992), p.95.

I must confess that the horns and the beard-pulling amuse me.

The Man Who Lived in the Sea

A story from De Nugis Curilium ('Courtiers' Trifles') by the twelfth-century Latin writer Walter Map, royal clerk and sometime Archdeacon of Oxford. This work is a jumble of stories pulled from a wide variety of sources – classical literature, folklore, court gossip, and historical tales characterised by his editors as "a 12th-century version of 1066 and All That" – all told with witty self-awareness and a kind of satirical wink. This is how he describes himself:

‘I set before you here a whole forest and timberyard, I will not say of stories, but of jottings [‘non dico fabularum sed faminum’]; for I do not spend time upon cultivation of style, nor, if I did, should I attain to it. Every reader must cut into shape the rough material that is here served up to him, that thanks to their pains it may go forth into the world with a fair outside. I am but your huntsman. I bring you the game, it is for you to make dainty dishes out of it.’

So make of this little story what you will, but be aware that Walter Map probably thought it just as silly as you do:

‘Many are alive who tell us that they have seen at sea that prodigy, great, nay, surpassing all wonderment, I mean Nicholas Pipe, the Man of the Sea. For long periods, a month or a year, he would frequent the depths of the sea with the fishes, without breathing the air, yet unharmed; and when he was ware of a storm by foresight, he would forbid ships in harbour to go out, or bid them return if they had gone out. A real man, he had nothing non-human in his form, nor any defect in his five senses, but was gifted, over and above his humanity, with the aptitudes of fish. When he was going down into the sea to make some stay there, he took with him pieces of old iron torn from carts or horses’ feet, or worn-out utensils: I have never yet heard the reason of this. In one respect only was he inferior to mankind and like the fish, that he could not live away from the smell or water of the sea; when he was taken some distance away from it he would run back to it as if his breath failed him. William, king of Sicily, heard of all this and was anxious to see him, and bade him be brought to him, and while the men dragged him by force he died in their hands, owing to his separation from the sea. Though I have read or heard of things not less marvellous, I know of nothing that resembles this prodigy.’

De nugis curialium, trans. M. R. James, iv.13.

Amusingly, there appears to be a children’s book about this story!

A Suffolk Superstition, and St Edmund

As an addendum to yesterday's post about Edmund of East Anglia, here is a strange bit of local superstition recorded from Hoxne, Suffolk (traditionally the site of Edmund's martyrdom):

After being beaten by the Danes at Thetford [it was said], Edmund fled, and, being closely pursued, hid beneath a bridge which spanned the river Dove. A newly-married couple, crossing the river, saw the image of the king’s golden spurs reflected in the water. They went and betrayed him to the Danes. When he was caught, Edmund cursed the place. Until a very late date, young people intent on matrimony used to go miles around to avoid the bridge.

Noted in Grant Loomis, ‘The Growth of the Saint Edmund Legend’, Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature 14 (1932), 83-115.

Anglo-Saxon Measurements

There were apparently some idiosyncracies in how they measured distance in Anglo-Saxon (or technically here I suppose Anglo-Danish) England:

According to a charter of 1023, Cnut gave to the monks of Canterbury the harbour of Sandwich, "with all the landings and dues on either side of the river from Pepperness to Marfleet... extending as far as a small axe can be thrown from a ship onto the land, when the ship is afloat and the river is in full flood."

They also possessed "anything in the great sea beyond the harbour, as far as the sea at the utmost recedes, and the length of a man holding a pole in his hand, and stretching himself as far as he can reach into the sea."

I do hope the monks of Sandwich went around throwing axes off ships and leaning over the sea with poles in their hands to test the exactitude of these measures.


The Latin and Old English can be found here; here's the relevant parts:

7 ic ann þam ilikan menstre to ðare munece bigleoue ða hæuene on Sandwic 7 ealle ða lændinge 7 þa gehrihte of ðam ilkan wætere of ægder healue ðas streames age land seðe hit age . fram Pipernæsse to Mærcesfleote . swa þæt þonne hit bið full flod 7 þæt scip bið aflote swa feorr swa mæg an taperæx beon geworpen ut of ðam scipe up on þæt land þa gereflanges of Cristes circean underfon ða gerihte...
7 gif aht is in ðare micelre sæ wiðutan ðare hæuene swa micel swa seo sæ heo mæst wiðteohð 7 git anes mannes længe þe healt ænne spreot on his hand 7 strecð hine swa feor swa he mæg aræcen into ðare sæ.


Here's something and nothing: in this same charter, Cnut also confirmed the presentation of his own crown on the altar at Canterbury. The earliest version of the famous story about Cnut and the waves - in which he theatrically demonstrates his inability to control the tide - concludes with Cnut placing his crown on a crucifix. Maybe this charter's emphasis on the extent of man's dominion over the seas isn't so odd after all...

Cutting Costs in the Fifteenth Century

From the Chronicle of Crowland Abbey, Lincolnshire, this is a notable cost-cutting initiative by Abbot John Wisbech, who died in 1476:

"He it was who first wisely abolished that ancient or rather that corrupt custom of giving knives to every visitor on St Bartholomew’s day. By this both abbot and convent rejoice in being free for ever from heavy and needless expenses."

St Bartholomew, who was one of Crowland's dedicatory saints, suffered martyrdom by being flayed alive, and so one of his attributes is a knife. I guess people were given them as souvenirs? Sounds like it would get pretty expensive - and a bit of a health and safety issue too.


I found out today that the Crowland Chronicle, which I'm spending a lot of time on at the moment, was completed exactly 500 years, to the very day, before the day I was born. That's pretty cool.

Dangerous Jokes

Harald Hardrada had that nickname for a reason - he was not a man to be messed with. But horrible as this is, I do find it funny:

Harrying in Denmark in 1048, Harald’s men "burned down the farm of a great chieftain called Thorkel Geysa, and carried off his daughters in chains to the ships because they had made derisory remarks the previous winter about King Harald’s plan to invade Denmark; they had carved anchors out of cheese, and said that these could easily hold all the king of Norway’s ships.”

Haralds saga harðraði, ch.32

The girls were OK; their father ransomed them. Still: don't tell jokes about Viking kings.

The Battle of the Fish

Matthew Paris explains natural phenomena:


'Although other great and unheard-of wonders happened in this year [1240], we have thought it worth our while to mention in this work one more remarkable than the rest. As it is the nature of the sea to vomit up on dry land the dead bodies thrown into it, about eleven whales, besides other marine monsters, were cast up on the seacoast of England, dead, as if they had been injured in some kind of struggle — not, however, by the attacks or skill of man. The sailors and old people, dwelling near the coast, who had seen the wonders of the deep when following their vocation in the vast waters, and trafficking to distant countries, declared that there had been an unusual battle amongst the fishes, beasts, and monsters of the deep, which by wounding and gnawing each other, had caused death to several; and those which had been killed had been cast ashore.

One of the fishes, a monster of prodigious size, made its way into the Thames, and with difficulty passed uninjured between the pillars of the bridge; it was carried as far as a manor of the king's called Mortlake, where it was followed by a number of sailors, and at length killed, after a great deal of trouble, by innumerable blows of spears. Of this event, a certain versifier jestingly remarked:

Venerat ad funus Thetidis de piscibus unus,
Quern rex Neptunus misit quasi nobile munos.'

[To Thetis' funeral came a monster fish.
By Neptune sent to make a glorious dish.]



These days it would probably be attributed to global warming.

Anglo-Saxon Executions

This is a weird one. As told to William of Malmesbury, with reference to a miracle performed by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury:

Dunstan "was able to lighten the woes of his sons by great miracles. One of these I have not seen in writing, though I recently heard it narrated by a monk of Christ Church. A thief, condemned to fall to his death, called on the aid of St Dunstan; his eyes already blindfolded, he was pushed away by his executioners and leapt into the chasm, but without coming to any harm. The blessed Dunstan spoke with him in person there, and removed his bandages. The poor man, heartened by this help, found his way along rough paths to higher ground; an invisible hand on his back supported him as he clung to the cliff-face, and prevented him slipping backwards". (p.15, i.20)

This is "apparently the earliest reference to the customary local mode of execution called ‘infalisation’, according to which felons were thrown from a cliff called Sharpeness at Dover" (William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, ed. and trans. Michael Winterbottom, vol.II, p.33).

Hardcore Kentish justice!

St Werburh and The Goose

Werburh (Ely Cathedral)

Today is the feast of St Werburh of Chester, a seventh-century nun and a junior member of an illustrious family of Anglo-Saxon royal female saints. Werburh was the great-niece of St Etheldreda of Ely and her sisters, and was just one of numerous women in her family who founded monasteries, entered religious life, and were later venerated as saints. Etheldreda's sister St Seaxburh married a king of Kent, Seaxburh's daughter St Eormenhild married a king of Mercia, and Werburh was Eormenhild's daughter. So Werburh was related to three of the most important royal dynasties in seventh-century England: Kent and East Anglia, which had been Christian for several generations, and the newly-converted Mercia. Her genealogy is given in the 'List of saints' resting-places' in BL Stowe 944 (f.36):

'Then St Eormenhild, daughter of Eorcenbyrht and Seaxburh, was given in marriage to be King Wulfhere's queen. He was the son of Penda, king of Mercia, and in their time the Mercian people received baptism. Their daughter was St Werburh the holy virgin, and she was buried in the minster which is called Hanbury, and now rests in the city of Chester.'

Werburh's most memorable miracle involves her resurrecting a cooked goose. The story is told by a number of authorities, but since Henry of Huntingdon happens to be by my hand, here's his version:

St Werburg lies at Chester, about whom, among the many things said of her, one is outstanding and unheard of, which I cannot avoid mentioning. For it is written that a large flock of wild geese were destroying her growing corn by feeding on it: she had them confined in a certain house, as if they were domestic geese. In the morning, when she called them, ready to send them out, she saw that one was missing. On enquiry, she heard that it had been eaten by the servants.

"Bring me," she said, "the feathers and bones of the bird that has been eaten."

When they were brought to her, this bride of the high God commanded that it should be whole and should live. And it was done. Then she instructed the geese, which were cheering and crying out at the return of their lost companion, that no other of their kind must ever, in all eternity, enter that field. They all departed in safety. And what the virgin commanded has been observed up to the present day.

Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, trans. Diana Greenway (Oxford, 2002), pp.693-5.

St Werburh's geese (from wikipedia)

This story always reminds me of Thor and his goats, but it's a not uncommon form of saintly power. Werburh's distant cousin St Mildrid is also associated with geese, and other Anglo-Saxon saints who had a particular way with birds (though not with resurrecting them, as far as I know) include St Hilda (reverenced by the sea-birds of Whitby),St Cuthbert (fond of Eider ducks) and St Oswald (had a pet raven).

People can get used to anything

My favourite bit of this passage, a fairly standard medieval interpretation of a metereological phenomenon, is the last line. "Oh, yes, the sky kept turning red, but we weren't that bothered when it happened a third time..."

This took place during Richard I's captivity in Austria, 1192-3; it was written by the Yorkshire chronicler William of Newburgh.

'About the first watch of the night, the intermediate region of the sky between north and east grew so red that it appeared to blaze, as it were; though there was not the slightest cloud, and the stars were brightly shining; and these, too, were so tinged with fiery redness, and streaked with white stripes, that they seemed to twinkle with a kind of blood-stained light. After this dreadful appearance had possessed the eyes and minds of the beholders with astonishment throughout all the borders of England for nearly the space of two hours, by degrees gently vanishing it disappeared, leaving much conjecture concerning it. And in the month of February in the following year [1193], while the king of England was yet detained in Germany, and the news of his captivity was not generally known in England, a portent very similar appeared throughout England, in the same region of the sky, soon after midnight, when the religious orders were chanting their customary praises to God. We know that persons in different provinces were so terrified by the reflection of this tremendous redness on their glass windows, that many of them, supposing that some accidental fire had happened in the adjoining houses, left their chanting, and, marking the dreadful portent, returned to their psalmody… And indeed, in the same year, when the king's detention had now become prolonged in Germany and his speedy release was expected, on the fourth of the nones of November [2 Nov.], before daybreak, the selfsame token appearing for the third time in the same region of the sky, terrified (but in a less degree) the minds of the beholders; for now they were accustomed to it, though it was the cause of increased conjecture and suspicion.'

Mice in little wagons

If you have ever wondered how young boys entertained themselves in the twelfth century, the contemporary Yorkshire chronicler William of Newburgh gives a clue. In his list of the many sins of Roger, archbishop of York, comes this:

"Instead of selecting persons of eminence, with whom (as though with jewels) the church of York had formerly glittered, he conferred benefices on striplings, or even boys still under discipline of their masters, better calculated from their age to build up childish houses, to yoke mice in little wagons, to play together indiscriminately, and to ride on it long reed, than to sustain the character of dignitaries in the church."

I'm afraid I can't elucidiate what 'to ride on it long reed' means, and google doesn't help. Any ideas?

St Wulfstan of Worcester

19 January is the feast of St Wulfstan of Worcester, vegetarian, anti-slavery campaigner, and eleventh-century bishop. Appointed Bishop of Worcester late in the reign of Edward the Confessor, Wulfstan was one of the few high-ranking English churchmen to keep his position after the Norman Conquest. When he died in 1095 he was the only English bishop left in England, and he was highly respected by Normans and English alike for his personal holiness and, in a way, as a relic of the Saxon church, which was so quickly taken over by Norman customs after the Conquest. For the English historian Eadmer, describing why St Anselm, as Archbishop of Canterbury, consulted Wulfstan about pre-Conquest English customs, Wulfstan was "the one sole survivor of the old Fathers of the English people".

Colman, Wulfstan's own chaplain and chancellor, wrote a life of the saint in English, which sadly does not survive; but luckily it was translated into Latin by William of Malmesbury in the 12th century, and so we have a detailed account of his life. The wikipedia article gives all the key facts of his career without giving any of the interesting ones. So here are some of Colman's more memorable stories about him (all quotations are from Michael Swanton's translation of the Latin life in Three Lives of the Last Englishmen):

1. First of all, the story of how he got his name gives a little insight into Anglo-Saxon naming practices. His father was called Æthelstan ('noble stone') and his mother was called Wulfgifu ('gift of the wolf'), so they named their son 'Wulfstan', combining elements from the two names. I suppose 'Æthelgifu' ('noble gift') would have been the other option, but that's a woman's name. Combining bits of other names to make new ones has become popular in recent years, and is often mocked as a ridiculous modern practice, but it was easy for the Anglo-Saxons, because many Germanic names are made of two free-standing elements which can be switched around. Most likely Wulfstan was really named after his very famous uncle, Wulfstan Archbishop of York, who was a prominent homilist, law-maker and advisor to both Kings Æthelred and Cnut - but the combining of names is a nice story.

2. As a child, being educated in the monastery of Peterborough, Wulfstan was taught by a monk named Earnwine, "an expert in writing and painting pictures... He had given the young Wulfstan some books to look after - a sacramentary and a psalter, in which he had illuminated the capital letters with gold. The boy was captivated by the rich decorations, and while his eager eyes explored its beauty, his mind was taking in the meaning of the words. But the teacher, looking to worldly advantage and hoping for larger profit, presented the sacramentary to Cnut, who was king at that time, and the psalter to Emma, the queen. The child was heartbroken at the loss."  This touching story has a happy ending, though.  Wulfstan had a dream in which an angel promised the books would be returned to him, and much later they were: Cnut had sent the books to Cologne as a diplomatic gift to the Holy Roman Emperor, and in the reign of Edward the Confessor they happened to be brought back to England, and were given to Wulfstan as a gift by someone who did not know of his dream. Fetching lost books is a pretty useful saintly attribute!

It would have been a book like this one, the Eadui Psalter

3. Another story tells how as a teenager, back home with his parents, a local girl fell in love with Wulfstan. One day a large group of young people had gathered in a field, competing in races and atheletic games, and Wulfstan won all the honours of the game. "The rural crowd shouted his praises, re-echoing on the ears again and again." (Incidentally, this is a nice insight into how Anglo-Saxon teenagers amused themselves in their free time). Wulfstan, of course, remained humble despite all this praise, so the Devil put it into the mind of the girl "to dance in front of him to the accompaniment of a harp, with lewd gestures and shameless movements such as might gratify the eyes of a lover. And he, whom neither words nor touches had weakened [she had previously been in the habit of squeezing his hand to try and seduce him], now panted with desire, completely reduced by her disarming gestures. He immediately came to his senses, however, and bursting into tears, fled away into some rough undergrowth... There sleep crept over him, and a cloud came down from above, a bright and attractive gleam playing on the eyes of those who saw it spreading out to cover a considerable area, amazing the onlookers." They came and asked Wulfstan to explain what it meant, and he said it was a sign of heavenly love, and that from henceforth he would always be free from sexual temptation. His biographer notes that as an old man he often told these stories about his own life to encourage others - he told the story about his childhood to boys, and this story to young men.

4. Later, as a monk at Worcester, he was praying in the church at night when an old peasant came in and scolded him for being there so late, and challenged him to a fight. Wulfstan - knowing, of course, that it was the Devil in disguise - wrestled with the peasant until he vanished in a puff of smoke. "However, lest he should seem to have achieved nothing, the Devil trampled on the foot of the righteous man with the full weight of inquity, simply piercing it through as if with a red-hot branding iron. Godric, a monk in the same convent, who says he has often seen it... testifies that the wound penetrated to the bone. And I [that is, Colman] knew the boor whose appearance the Enemy assumed. He was certainly an appropriate fellow - with savage strength, monstrous wickedness and hideously deformed face."

The rest of Wulfstan's life was not so beset with trials, although he did perform numerous miracles while he was Bishop of Worcester. The leading men of his day sought his counsel, especially Harold Godwineson, who had a particular esteem for him. After the Conquest, King William also developed a great respect for him, as did Malcolm of Scotland and St Margaret. One of his most notable achievements was to put a stop to the slave trade in Bristol, from where slaves used to be taken for sale in Ireland. Colman has many stories of his personal humility and piety, and I'll finish with this one:

Out of humility, Wulfstan dressed in lamb-skin, avoiding ostentatious clothes. "On one occasion he was benignly reproved by Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, showering the man with the most witty remarks, among which he asked why he wore lamb-skin, when he could and ought to have sable, beaver or wolf. He replied neatly that Geoffrey and such men practiced in worldly wisdom ought to make use of the pelts of crafty beasts, while he, who partook in no subterfuge, was content with lamb-skin. To which Geoffrey rejoined that Wulfstan might at least dress in catskin. "Believe me," replied Wulfstan, "We praise the Lamb of God more often than the Cat of God!" At these words Geoffrey burst out laughing, quite delighted".

And one final story about dress and appearance. Wulfstan strongly disapproved of men with long hair. Apparently "if any of these yielded [Wulfstan] his head, he would cut away the unrestrained locks with his own hand. For this purpose he had a little knife, with which he used to scrape muck from his nails or dirt off of books... If anyone thought to refuse, he would openly accuse him of softness, openly warn him of misfortune. It would come to pass that those who were ashamed to be what they were born and imitated the flowing tresses of women, would prove no better than women in the defence of their homeland against foreigners. As much became evident with the coming of the Normans that same year. Who can deny it?"

So that's why the English lost at Hastings! Elsewhere William of Malmesbury says exactly the opposite about the English defeat at Hastings - it was the short hair that did it. Interesting theories...


For more about Wulfstan, see this post, and for a visit to Worcester Cathedral, see this one.

On the Dangers of Travelling in Winter

It's snowing in the UK, and my planned journey home is looking a little hazardous. Things were harder in eleventh-century Cambridgeshire, though, where the Fenland was apparently apt to freeze; somewhere like Ely could be completely cut off by impassable ice. I've had a year plagued by weather-related travel problems, but I haven't yet resorted to the method used by King Cnut in this delightful story...

During his reign in England (1016-1035), it was Cnut's custom to spend the Feast of the Purification at Ely Abbey every year. One year the winter was so cold that ice made the marsh surrounding the abbey impassable, but he declared that he was willing to travel on the ice from Soham to Ely by wagon if someone would go ahead of him. Cnut was not one to be daunted by a little bad weather! A twelfth-century history of Ely tells the story, in somewhat dry clerical prose:

It chanced that standing by in the crowd was a certain large and rugged man from the Isle [of Ely], Brihtmær surnamed Budde on account of his bulk, and he promised to go ahead of the king. Without delay the king followed behind in the wagon at a fast pace, while everybody marvelled that he should have attempted such a great act of daring. When he arrived at Ely he joyfully celebrated the festival there according to custom...

The king was accustomed to recount that it had so come about and been granted to him by the Lord that a large and rugged countryman had perceived not the slightest hindrance anywhere along the way, so that he himself also, an able-bodied man of ordinary stature, had been permitted to follow after, unswervingly and without fear. And moreover the king, being generous-minded and munificent, and wishing to reward the man’s effort, made a grant whereby he, together with his land-holding, became entitled to perpetual freedom, which rights persist to this day [c.1175.]

From Liber Eliensis: A History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth, trans. Janet Fairweather (Woodbridge, 2005), p.183.


Such a wonderful image: the great king Cnut trying to follow along and keep up in his wagon, as the huge peasant charges ahead across the treacherous ice!