[1308] Flor. Wig. 1094. “Post hæc rex Willelmus iv. kal. Januarii Angliam rediit, et ut Walanos debellaret, mox exercitum in Waloniam duxit, ibique homines et equos perdidit multos.” I am not at all clear that this entry in Florence is not a confusion. The Chronicle under the same year records the return of the King, and directly after sums up the Welsh warfare of the year; but it is not implied that the King took any part in it. He could not have done so before his return from Normandy, and, to say nothing of the unlikelihood of a winter campaign in itself, the incidental notices of the King’s movements hardly leave time for one.
[1309] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 9. Eadmer writes the name Illingham, a change which might easily have happened after the pattern of Ilchester (see above, [p. 63]) and Islip (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 15), but the g remains in use to this day. There is something very amusing in the note of Henschenius reprinted in Migne’s edition of Eadmer and Anselm, col. 394;
“Alia plura dominia, ut Rochingeham, Ilingeham, Sæftesburia, quæ jam ante occurrerunt, et plura secutura, potuissent designato locorum situ explicari, si operæ pretium visum esset eorum causa totas Anglici regni tabulas perlustrare, et esset qui exsoleta jam nomina, ubi requirenda sint, indicaret. Poterit postea curiosior aliquis hunc defectum supplere.”
Fancy a man reading his Eadmer, and not making the faintest effort to find out where any place was. But perhaps this is better than M. Croset-Mouchet, who always turns the Bishop of Exeter into a Bishop of Oxford (cf. N. C. vol. iv. p. 779), and who has a place Srewsbury, which does duty alike for the earldom of Shrewsbury and for the bishopric of Salisbury.
[1310] So say the Margam Annals, 1095; “Commotio fuit stellarum, et obiit Wlstanus Wigorniensis episcopus.” But unluckily it appears from Florence that the stars did not shoot till April 4. Still it is edifying to mark the different results of the death of a saintly and of a worldly bishop. The next entry is, “Moritur Willelmus episcopus Dunelmensis, et hic commotio hominum.” According to Hugh of Flavigny (Pertz, viii. 474) the stars paid regard to the death of an abbot who in no way concerns us; “Stellæ de cœlo cadere visæ sunt, et eadem nocte Gyraldus abbas Silvæ majoris [in the diocese of Bourdeaux] migravit ad Dominum.” Sigebert’s Chronicle (Pertz, vi. 367) has some curious physical details.
[1312] The story is told by William of Malmesbury, Vit. Wlst. Angl. Sacr. ii. 266. “Præmonuerat ministros velle se ad illud pascha convivari accuratis epulis cum bonis hominibus.” He then brings the poor people into the hall and “præcepit inter eos sedili locato epulas sibi apponi.”
[1313] The steward’s doctrine is “competentius esse, ut episcopus convivaretur cum paucis divitibus quam cum multis pauperibus.” The bishop makes his scriptural quotation, and adds, “illis debere serviri, qui non haberent unde redderent.” He then winds up, “Lætius se videre istum consessum, quam si, ut sæpe, consedisset regi Anglorum.” One would like to have Wulfstan’s English. We must remember that Wulfstan was commonly surrounded at dinner by a knightly following. Vit. Wlst. 259. “Excepto si quando cum monachis reficeretur, semper in regia considentibus militibus palam convivabatur.”
[1314] Vit. Wlst. 266. “Multo eum suspiciebat rex honore, multo proceres; ut qui sæpe ipsum ascirent convivio, et assurgerent ejus consilio.” Then follows the list of his foreign admirers, but it is only of the Irish kings that we read that “magnis eum venerabantur favoribus.” Malcolm and Margaret “ipsius se dedebant orationibus;” the foreign prelates “epistolis quæ adhuc supersunt ejus ambierunt apud Deum suffragia.”