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secrated by Langton, whose next consecration of a bishop was not until Oct 5, 1214. It is very unlikely that Giraldus would select archbishop Langton as a patron, before his victorious entry into England in July 1213.1 Moreover, it appears that the Life of St. Hugh, presented to Langton with this Life of Remigius, was not even fully written until long after the commencement of the Interdict in the spring of 1208; and not until Bishop Infra, 135, Hugh de Wells was in a position to reward writers of cap. xiii. St. Hugh's miracles, which can only have been the case after John's delivery of their bishopricks to the exiled bishops June 1, 1213. The Interdict was not removed Infra, 136. until June 29, 1214, and seems plainly to have been still in force when Giraldus gave his last polishing touches to these treatises. We may conclude, I think, safely, that his two treatises of this volume, with the general preface to both, were finished, and perhaps moreover presented to Langton, somewhere late in the year 1213, or somewhere in the first six months of 1214.

At the end of his treatise De Jure, &c., Giraldus speaks of these two Lincoln treatises as the last of the Vol. iii. Legenda Sanctorum which he had written, and as issued 373. when he was about 70 years old. Supposing that he was born in 1147, or near upon that year, as seems probably to have been the case, this 70 years old is very near to the truth for Giraldus, if he is referring to the presentation of these treatises to Langton. But, as if ashamed of being so near the truth, and determined to be always somehow far wrong in any matter of date, he associates with these Legendæ his Gemma Ecclesiastica, as also issued when he was about 70 years old, though it is certain that it was issued about the same time as the first edition of the Life of Remigius, not

1 See vol. vi., Preface, xxxiv.

n. 2.

2 See vol. v., Preface, lvi.; and vi., Preface, xl.

VOL. VII.

b

later than the year 1199,' when he would be about 50 years old. Giraldus, in any matter of date, is a most inconceivable blunderer.

Probable addi

In the absence of any manuscript of tions in this se- the first edition, it is impossible to say what were the alterations or additions in

cond edition.

this second edition, as alone we now have it. But I

imagine these must have been of very small amount. Infra, 3-7. The preface which now precedes it is a general preface to the two treatises, as presented in one volume to Langton; the actual Life of Remigius begins with the table of chapters at p. 9; and thence down to the end of the treatise, there are only two or three instances of what seem to be additional matter in this second edition. The account which Giraldus gives of Hugh's Infra, xl. buildings at Lincoln, in p. 40 and 41 infra, can hardly have been written two or three years before his death. But the strongest instance, perhaps, is at p. 80 infra (n. 2), where is a short section that must, one would think, have been penned after St. Hugh's death; but this is not at all absolutely certain. Another very probable instance of addition is at p. 75 (n. 1). The large bulk, however, of this second edition of the treatise, it seems to me pretty clear, was but a simple transcript of the first edition.

After marginal There are three additions to the manuor other additions. script of this second edition, as originally written; two short ones in the margin, and a longer

He presented a copy of it to pope Innocent III. in Dec. 1199 (De Rebus, &c., vol. i., 119). It may have been written some years before this time.

It is possible that, as in the case of the Life of Remigius, there may have been a second edition of the Gemma Ecclesiastica, the date of

issue of which would agree, more or less closely, with the seventy years of Giraldus's age. But of such second edition there is no known copy, and no trace of such to be found in all that is to be gathered from Giraldus about his various works.

one on an inserted leaf; all in a very similar hand, if not the same as that of the text. The first, at p. 44 (n. 1), infra, is an addition of a few words in the margin to the remark of bishop Henry de Blois, on hearing of the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The second, on the same page (n. 3), is the addition on an inserted leaf, and describes particulars at the consecration of St. Thomas by bishop Henry. The third, at p. 60 (n. 3), is a marginal addition, telling us of the full belief of bishop Bartholomew of Exeter in Henry II.'s direct guilt in the murder of St. Thomas, after he had received the confession of William de Traci, one of the murderers. Whether these additions were made before or after the presentation to Langton in 1213 or 1214, it is impossible to say; but they are, no doubt, Giraldus's own additions. The two first are in his treatise De Jure, &c., written soon after the summer of Vol. iii. 1215,' where Giraldus reproduces much of what he here tells us about bishop Henry de Blois.

§ 3. SOURCES OF INFORMATION; VALUE OF THIS LIFE, &c.

In compiling in this treatise the history of the bishops of Lincoln up to his own time, Giraldus, no doubt, was mainly indebted for his materials to the accounts of

359.

The early Lin- these bishops as contained in the Martyrcoln records. ology, or some other kindred record or records, which he found at Lincoln. There has come down to us, unhappily in part only and imperfectly, another history of the bishops of Lincoln, compiled by John de Schalby, a canon of Lincoln, some hundred and twenty or thirty years after this treatise of Giraldus. was written. This later history, so far as I can, I have given in Appendix E of this volume. John de Schalby Infra, 193.

&c.

1 See vol. vi., Preface, xli. and n. 2.

expressly says and this must refer especially to the early portion of his history-that the written archives of the church were one main source of his materials. For the bishops, therefore, before St. Hugh, he would have probably just the same early authorities as Giraldus had used. He is plainly quite independent of Giraldus : sometimes one is fuller or briefer, sometimes the other; but there is a close correspondence very often between them, not only in matter, but in words and sentences and whole chapters almost, that seems to prove certainly that in compiling their respective histories of the early bishops, they used the same early records.

Value of this And hence the value of this treatise of Life of Remigius. Giraldus. We have in it, in some part, something not far from a simple transcript of the history of the bishops up to his own time, as he found it recorded at Lincoln about the year 1198. And it proves, moreover, the value of the history of the after compiler John de Schalby; that his pages are copied, as to the history before his own time, from authentic earlier Lincoln records.

The account of

true.

This, however, is not the case as regards Remigius very un- the portion of this treatise of Giraldus, from which it takes its name, the account of Remigius the first bishop, and the founder of the church. It seems clear that Giraldus says much about him, that had no better authority than his own fancy of what was or ought to have been the case, or a like fancy of some of his Lincoln friends his informers, or, at the best, some vague traditions, already however, it may be, recorded by the custodians of Remigius's tomb, — which were to be made the most of, in the attempt to raise Remigius to the post of local saint of Lincoln.

As in his cano- For instance, the canonical election to nical election. Dorchester by the clergy, as related in Infra, 14. the first chapter of the Life, is all a fancy. Remigius,

perhaps, not quite impossibly, may have been elected, in a way, or rather not refused by the clergy of Dorchester; he speaks of his election in his after profession to Lanfranc, but this, no doubt, simply means that he Infra, 151. was the elect of William the Conqueror, like the rest of William's bishops.1 Anyhow, his election by the clergy, if such there was, would be the merest form and farce, no better than the episcopal elections for many long years well known to us. Of Giraldus's canonical election there can have been nothing; he was made bishop of Dorchester by the sole will of the conqueror, his patron. Again, the statement of the same chapter, cration by Lan- that he was consecrated by archbishop Lanfranc, is certainly untrue. He was consecrated to Dorchester by archbishop Stigand, some Infra, 14, two or three years before Lanfranc's accession to Canterbury, and was himself one of the assisting bishops at Lanfranc's consecration.

And his conse

franc.

Of the remainder of this first chapter, the account of Remigius having been in some sort a manager or leader of the abbot of Fescamp's contingent to William's army of invasion is true enough, though probably wrong as to some particulars. His unwilling acceptance of so un

1 A mere election by the king, influenced more or less by his advisers, was then the rule in England. Thus, Florence of Worcester tells us that William was 66 a rege "Willelmo electus," in 1081, to the bishoprick of Durham. Anselm, in his address to the prelates, barons, &c., at Rockingham, reminds them how he had been elected to Canterbury by William II., with the full counsel and assent of such of them as were then present at the court (Eadmeri, Hist. Nov.; Selden, p. 26, 1. 37, &c.). It is not, however, very usual for the king to be said

to elect, in the historians of the
time. They more generally say
that the king gave to such a person,
or invested him with, such a bishop-
rick. Often, no doubt, as in the
case of Anselm, if not generally,
the barons and prelates would be
consulted: episcopal elections seem
to have been generally made at
councils where many of them would
be present; but the only election
by the clergy of the vacant see de-
pended upon some of them being
present at the council, and assenting,
with the other clergy and laity pre-
sent, to the king's choice.

and n. 1; and 151.

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