Note 1217 — Chapter IV · (continued 3)

The letter of Anselm to Wulfstan appears among the Epistles (iii. 19). Wulfstan’s answer is given in the text of the Historia Novorum. Anselm speaks of the action of the earlier archbishops in this matter; “Quod etiam sanctus Dunstanus et alii prædecessores mei fecisse probantur, ipsis ecclesiis quas dedicaverunt adhuc stantibus.” This is a little touch from a time when the churches of Dunstan’s day were being largely rebuilt, that of Harrow most likely among them. Wulfstan is well described by Eadmer; “Supererat adhuc beatæ memoriæ Wolstanus episcopus unus et solus de antiquis Anglorum patribus, vir in omni religione conspicuus, et antiquarum Angliæ consuetudinum scientia apprime eruditus.” There is something very remarkable in the way in which Wulfstan speaks of the archbishop to whom he made his first profession (see N. C. vol. ii. pp. 473, 655); “Extant quippe et in nostra diœcesi altaria, et quædam etiam ecclesiæ in hiis scilicet villis quas Stigandus vestræ excellentiæ prædecessor, haut tamen jure ecclesiasticæ hæreditatis sed ex dono possederat sæcularis potestatis, ab ipso dedicata.” Wulfstan, speaking his own words in his own letter, speaks of Stigand in quite another tone from that which he had used in the profession which was put into his mouth by Lanfranc (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 655). The places referred to are in Gloucestershire, and will be found in Domesday, 164 b. Most of the lands had passed to the Archbishop of York; some of them first to William Fitz-Osbern, and then to the King. It would seem then that, in whatever character Stigand held them, it was not as Archbishop of Canterbury. Wulfstan’s witness therefore goes so far as to give the archbishop the right to oust the diocesan bishop, not only on the lands of the archbishopric, but on any lands which he may hold as a private man.