Note 955 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

Sir Francis Palgrave (iv. 366), countersigned by Dean Church, Anselm, 243, assures us that “Edith was very beautiful.” Mr. Robertson (i. 153, note) will not allow that she was more than “rather pretty.” The Abbess in Hermann of Tournay witnesses to her beauty at the age of twelve, but all that William of Malmesbury (v. 418) can say of her is that she was “non usquequaque despicabilis formæ.” We have already heard of her studies at Romsey, and in her letters to Anselm (Epp. iii. 55, 119) the display of scriptural and classical learning might have satisfied Orderic himself. It is more comforting to find in the second letter that she wishes to bestow the abbey of Malmesbury on one bearing the English name of Eadwulf. Anselm refuses his consent, because Eadwulf sent him a cup, which seemed like an attempt at simony. Eadwulf however did in the end become abbot.