Part 25

(43) i.e. the secular clergy, who observed no rule; opposed to the regulars, or monks.

(44) This poetical effusion on the coronation, or rather consecration, of King Edgar, as well as the following on his death, appears to be imitated in Latin verse by Ethelwerd at the end of his curious chronicle. This seems at least to prove that they were both written very near the time, as also the eulogy on his reign, inserted 959.

(45) The following passage from Cotton Tiberius B iv., relating to the accession of Edward the Martyr, should be added here--

In his days, On account of his youth, The opponents of God Broke through God's laws; Alfhere alderman, And others many; And marr'd monastic rules; Minsters they razed, And monks drove away, And put God's laws to flight-- Laws that King Edgar Commanded the holy Saint Ethelwold bishop Firmly to settle-- Widows they stript Oft and at random. Many breaches of right And many bad laws Have arisen since; And after-times Prove only worse. Then too was Oslac The mighty earl Hunted from England's shores.

(46) Florence of Worcester mentions three synods this year; Kyrtlinege, Calne, and Ambresbyrig.

(47) Vid. "Hist. Eliens." ii. 6. He was a great benefactor to the church of Ely.

(48) This was probably the veteran historian of that name, who was killed in the severe encounter with the Danes at Alton (Aethelingadene) in the year 1001.

(49) i.e. at Canterbury. He was chosen or nominated before, by King Ethelred and his council, at Amesbury: vid. an. 994. This notice of his consecration, which is confirmed by Florence of Worcester, is now first admitted into the text on the authority of three MSS.

(50) Not the present district so-called, but all that north of the Sea of Severn, as opposed to West-Wales, another name for Cornwall.

(51) See a more full and circumstantial account of these events, with some variation of names, in Florence of Worcester.

(52) The successor of Elfeah, or Alphege, in the see of Winchester, on the translation of the latter to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury.

(53) This passage, though very important, is rather confused, from the Variations in the MSS.; so that it is difficult to ascertain the exact proportion of ships and armour which each person was to furnish. "Vid. Flor." an. 1008.

(54) These expressions in the present tense afford a strong proof that the original records of these transactions are nearly coeval with the transactions themselves. Later MSS. use the past tense.

(55) i.e. the Chiltern Hills; from which the south-eastern part of Oxfordshire is called the Chiltern district.

(56) "Leofruna abbatissa".--Flor. The insertion of this quotation from Florence of Worcester is important, as it confirms the reading adopted in the text. The abbreviation "abbt", instead of "abb", seems to mark the abbess. She was the last abbess of St. Mildred's in the Isle of Thanet; not Canterbury, as Harpsfield and Lambard say.

(57) This was a title bestowed on the queen.

(58) The "seven" towns mentioned above are reduced here to "five"; probably because two had already submitted to the king on the death of the two thanes, Sigferth and Morcar. These five were, as originally, Leicester, Lincoln, Stamford, Nottingham, and Derby. Vid. an. 942, 1013.

(59) There is a marked difference respecting the name of this alderman in MSS. Some have Ethelsy, as above; others, Elfwine, and Ethelwine. The two last may be reconciled, as the name in either case would now be Elwin; but Ethelsy, and Elsy are widely different. Florence of Worcester not only supports the authority of Ethelwine, but explains it "Dei amici."

(60) Matthew of Westminster says the king took up the body with his own hands.

(61) Leofric removed the see to Exeter.

(62) So Florence of Worcester, whose authority we here follow for the sake of perspicuity, though some of these events are placed in the MSS. to very different years; as the story of Beorn.

(63) i.e. The ships of Sweyne, who had retired thither, as before described.

(64) "Vid. Flor." A.D. 1049, and verbatim from him in the same year, Sim. Dunelm. "inter X. Script. p. 184, I, 10. See also Ordericus Vitalis, A.D. 1050. This dedication of the church of St. Remi, a structure well worth the attention of the architectural antiquary, is still commemorated by an annual loire, or fair, on the first of October, at which the editor was present in the year 1815, and purchased at a stall a valuable and scarce history of Rheims, from which he extracts the following account of the synod mentioned above:--

"Il fut assemble a l'occasion de la dedicace de la nouvelle eglise qu' Herimar, abbe de ce monastere, avoit fait batir, seconde par les liberalites des citoyens, etc." ("Hist. de Reims", p. 226.) But, according to our Chronicle, the pope took occasion from this synod to make some general regulations which concerned all Christendom.

(65) Hereman and Aldred, who went on a mission to the pope from King Edward, as stated in the preceding year.

(66) Nine ships were put out of commission the year before; but five being left on the pay-list for a twelvemonth, they were also now laid up.

(67) The ancient name of Westminster; which came into disuse because there was another Thorney in Cambridgeshire.

(68) i.e. at Gloucester, according to the printed Chronicle; which omits all that took place in the meantime at London and Southwark.