“Bishop John, servant of the servants of God, to Alfric the distinguished earl, and our dearly beloved son in the Spirit, perpetual health and apostolical benediction. We have learned, from the report of certain faithful people, that you commit many enormities against the church of the holy mother of God, called Mary of Glastonbury, which is acknowledged to belong solely to, and to be under the protection of, the Roman Pontiff, from the earliest times; and that you have seized with boundless rapacity upon its estates and possessions, and even the churches of Brent and Pilton, which, by the gift of king Ina, it legally possesses, together with other churches, that is to say, Sowy, Martine, Budecal, Shapwick, and that on account of your near residence you are a continual enemy to its interests. It would, however, have been becoming, from your living so near, that by your assistance the holy church of God might have been much benefited and enriched; but, horrible to say! it is impoverished by your hostility, and injured by your deeds of oppression; and since we doubt not that we, though unworthily, have received from St. Peter the apostle the care of all the churches, and solicitude for all things; we therefore admonish your affection, to abstain from plundering it, for the love of the apostles Peter and Paul, and respect to us, invading none of its possessions, churches, chapels, places, and estates; but if you persist, remember, that by the authority of the chief of the apostles, committed unto us, you shall be excommunicated and banished from the company of the faithful, subjected to a perpetual curse, and doomed to eternal fire with the traitor Judas.”
[187] Glastonbury is situated on land which was once an island formed by a stagnation of inland waters, in a low situation.
[188] The twelfth of Edgar was 971.
[189] Here is an omission, apparently, which may be supplied from the Ang. Sac. ii. p. 33. “A piece of ground, to wit, of ten farms (or manors), called Estotun,” &c. G. Malm. de Vita Adhelmi.
[190] Edgar’s laws for the punishment of offenders were horribly severe. The eyes were put out, nostrils slit, ears torn off, hands and feet cut off, and, finally, after the scalp had been torn off, the miserable wretches were left exposed to birds or beasts of prey. V. Acta Sanctor. Jul. 2, in Vita Swythuni.
[191] Whorwell, Hants.
[192] This seems to have been founded on the singular circumstance of his not having been crowned till within two years of his death.
[193] Virg. Æn. ii. 169.
[194] When the question was agitated, whether the monks should be supported or the canons restored, the crucifix is said to have exclaimed, “Far be it from you: you have done well; to change again would be wrong.” See Edmer, and Osberne, Angl. Sacra, ii. 219, 112.
[195] The life of Elphege, by Osberne, is in the Anglia Sacra, ii. 122.