The account of the rebellion of 1088 in the Historia Regum—at this point almost wholly independent of Florence of Worcester—ends with the expulsion, not of Bishop William of Durham, but of Bishop Odo of Bayeux:
… et ita episcopus [i.e., Odo] qui fere fuit secundus rex Angliae, honorem amisit irrecuperabiliter. Sed episcopus veniens Normanniam statim a Rodberto comite totius provinciae curam suscepit; cuius ordinem causae libellus in hoc descriptus aperte ostendit. Etiam Dunholmensis episcopus Willelmus, viii. anno episcopatus, et multi alii, de Anglia exierunt.[11]
And in a later passage the king’s restoration of Bishop William to his see is thus recorded:
Veniens Dunelmum, episcopum Willelmum restituit in sedem suam, ipso post annos tres die quo eam reliquit, scilicet iii. idus Septembris.[12]
Thomas Arnold, the editor of Simeon’s Opera, remarks upon the clause “cuius ordinem causae libellus in hoc descriptus aperte ostendit” of the Historia Regum, “This ‘libellus,’ describing Odo’s administration in Normandy, appears to be lost.”[13] Taken by itself the passage is obscure, and it is perhaps not surprising that the editor wholly mistook its meaning. But a comparison of it with the clause “quam rem sequens libellus manifestat ex ordine” of the Durham tract at once reveals dependence and resolves the difficulty. The verbal similarities are striking, and the author of course uses the puzzling “causae” because the source from which he drew was in fact the account of a causa, viz., the trial of William of Saint-Calais before the curia regis. It is clear, therefore, that the libellus to which the author of the Historia Regum refers his readers is not a lost treatise on the administration of Bishop Odo in Normandy—as Arnold supposed—but in fact the Durham tract on the ‘unjust vexation’ of Bishop William, which Arnold had himself already published in the first volume of Simeon’s works. A further comparison of all the passages which have been indicated by italics in the foregoing excerpts fully confirms this conclusion and reveals the extent of the debt of the Historia Regum to the Durham tract. Not only the verbal agreements but the close similarities in thought are so marked as to preclude every possibility of independence.
We are now in a position to see how the author of the Historia Regum worked. Having before him the chronicle of Florence of Worcester—which he regularly followed—with its dark picture of Bishop William’s treason, and the elaborate Durham tract in his defence, he chose to suppress all reference to the bishop of Durham in connection with the rebellion, and substituted for him Odo of Bayeux as a scapegoat. Then at the end of his chapter he added, apparently as an afterthought, and borrowing directly from the Durham tract, that Bishop William ‘departed’ from England in the eighth year of his episcopate. The statement of the Historia Regum, therefore, that Odo of Bayeux upon his expulsion from England after the fall of Rochester went to Normandy and had the ‘care’ of the whole duchy committed to his charge, is valueless. If that honor belongs to any one, it is to William of Saint-Calais, bishop of Durham, as set forth in the conclusion of the tract De Iniusta Vexatione.[14]
But the author of the Historia Regum was a clumsy borrower, and we have not yet reached the end of the confusion which has arisen as the result of his easy way of juggling with his sources. In a later passage in which he deals with the return of Bishop William to his see at the time of the expedition of William Rufus against King Malcolm in 1091, he explains that the restoration of the bishop took place on the third anniversary of his retirement, “that is, on the 3d before the Ides of September.” Freeman, relying upon this text, but apparently mistaking Ides for Nones, states that the arrival of the king in Durham and the reinstatement of the bishop took place on 3 September.[15] Comparison with the parallel text of the Durham tract, however, makes it clear that the author of the Historia Regum has here again made an unintelligent and altogether misleading use of his source, copying almost verbatim, but detaching the phrase “iii. idus Septembris” from the next sentence, where it properly refers to an event of the year 1093. It is necessary, therefore, to get back to the evidence of the De Iniusta Vexatione, which not only says that Bishop William was reinstated on the third anniversary of his expulsion, but fixes that earlier date with exactness: “Acceperunt ergo Ivo Taillesboci et Ernesius de Burone castellum Dunelmense in manus regis, et dissaisiverunt episcopum de ecclesia et de castello, et de omni terra sua xviii. kal. Decembr.” (p. 192). The bishop’s restoration, accordingly, should be dated 14 November 1091. If it cause surprise that William Rufus should have undertaken a campaign in the northern country so late in the season, it may be noted that he previously had his hands full with an expedition against the Welsh,[16] and that Florence of Worcester in describing the campaign makes the significant statement, “multique de equestri exercitus eius fame et frigore perierunt.”[17]
It remains to raise a question as to the authorship of the Historia Regum. As is well known, the evidence on which both it and the Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesiae are attributed to Simeon of Durham is not contemporary and not conclusive,[18] though a better case can be made out for the latter than for the former. Without discussing this evidence anew, and without entering at this time upon the more extended inquiry as to whether it is credible that two works of such different character and of such unequal merit can be by a single author, it is still pertinent here to remark their striking difference in point of view with regard to the controversy between William Rufus and the bishop of Durham. The Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesiae speaks of the quarrel and of the bishop’s expulsion and exile without any reserve; and, moreover, it contains remarkably full information concerning his fortunes while in exile.[19] In all this it is freely reproduced in the additions to the Durham libellus (pp. 171, 194 f.). And they in turn are used by the author of the Historia Regum.[20] Yet with these additions and the original libellus and Florence of Worcester all before him, he suppresses every reference to the alleged treason of Bishop William, persistently declines to use such words as expulsion and exile in connection with him, and steadily ignores the quarrel. For him the bishop ‘went out’ of England, although he unconsciously slips into an inconsistency in a later passage when he notes that the bishop was ‘restored’ to the see which he had ‘left.’[21] If the Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesiae and the Historia Regum are by one and the same author, then assuredly he had a bad memory for what he had himself previously written, and his point of view had curiously shifted during the intervening years.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Reprinted with slight revision from E. H. R., xxxii (1917), pp. 382-387.