[256] “Pagi places the commencement of Gregory’s papacy in May 1044, but Ughelli cites a charter in which the month of August, 1045, is stated to be in the first year of his pontificate. He was deposed at a council held at Sutri, on Christmas-day, A.D. 1046, for having obtained the holy see by simony. Mr. Sharpe remarks that Malmesbury’s character of this pope is considered as apocryphal. Compare Rodul Glaber, lib. v. c. 5.”—Hardy.
[257] “Steteruntque comæ, et vox faucibus hæsit.”—Virgil, Æneid iii. 48.
[258] There are various stories of this kind in Gregory’s Dialogues.
[259] The original is as follows:
Filius Evandri Pallas, quem lancea Turni
Militis occidit, more suo jacet hic.
I am unable to say who was the author of this epigram, but it is not too hazardous to assert that it was not composed either by Ennius or by any other ancient poet.
[260] There seems no reason to doubt the truth of this circumstance, since the exhibition of the Siamese twins, the most extraordinary lusus naturæ that has occurred in the nineteenth century. Medical science, aided by comparative anatomy, has ascertained that the bodies of both man and the brute creation are susceptible of combinations—not usually occurring in the course of nature,—which in former times were thought impossible, and as such were universally disbelieved.
[261] Sometimes called St. Audry. She was abbess of Ely monastery. St. Werburga was patroness of Chester monastery.
[262] Archbishop of Canterbury, from A.D. 1006 to 1012. See Sax. Chronicle, pp. 402, 403.
[263] Bede, book iv. chap. 14. There are some MSS. which want this chapter. The former editor of Bede accounts for it very satisfactorily; stating that a very ancient MS. in the Cotton Collection has a note marking that a leaf was here wanting; and that those which want the chapter were transcripts of this imperfect MS.