be derived. In all likelihood, this register was not begun to be kept very long before Giraldus wrote, and the early miracles, before about the middle of the twelfth century, were only recorded on the authority of very doubtful tradition.

The source, per

It is this register, no doubt in being, haps, of Giraldus's and still receiving additions, when Giralfalse account of Remigius. dus was at Lincoln, which I suppose to have been the most likely source, if any source he had, for his untrue account of the election and consecration of Remigius, and of his virtues and sanctity. But however this may have been, such an authority would not give an atom of historical value to what Giraldus tells us on any one of these points. All that he says. on these points, all but wholly if not quite, we can only look upon as simple fiction.

The successors

Chapters XXI.-XXV., which briefly Infra, 31of Remigius. give the history of the five successors of 39. Remigius, before the accession of St. Hugh in 1186, are taken in great measure, if not wholly, from the contemporary Lincoln records. These chapters agree very closely with John de Schalby: sometimes one writer is Infra, 195, the fuller, sometimes the other, just as must naturally be the case with compilers, at different times and with different notions of what was most worthy of handing down, from the same originals.

Robert Bloet, 1094-1123.

&c.

195.

Robert Bloet, the first successor of Infra, 31, Remigius, ought to be regarded at Lincoln with almost as much reverence as Remigius himself. Remigius transferred the see to Lincoln, built the church and founded an establishment of twenty-one canons. Bloet, besides many costly gifts of ornaments to the church completed by Remigius, and purchases of many

1 The latter part of the account of Geoffrey, bishop-elect (infra, 37), is perhaps an addition of Giraldus,

and the only one to be found in
these chapters, upon what he derived
from the Lincoln records.

lands and manors for its benefit, moreover provided prebends for twenty-one more canons. He was a most bountiful benefactor, co-founder rather he may well be called, who did not much less for the new see of Lincoln than had been done by the actual founder, his predecessor. The Lincoln records, however, as here preserved to us by Giraldus and John de Schalby, while describing his conspicuous prudence and probity, and his bountiful benefactions, speak unfavourably of him on account of the loss of Ely, and the grant of the mantle to Henry I., the redemption of which afterwards by St. Hugh from Richard I., is so dwelt upon by Hugh's biographers as one of the most excellent acts of his saintly episcopate.1 As to the creation of the new see of Ely, and the consequent loss to the diocese of Lincoln, they allow that it was done "per regiam voluntatem et violentiam;" Bloet would be unable to prevent it, however strongly he may have striven; and, so far as we know, was quite blameless in the matter. We can now only look upon it as anything but blameworthy, even if he was willing and active in giving up a portion of his enormous diocese to a new see; but medieval Lincoln bodies would regard very differently any such concession, however forced upon him against all his will and all his best resistance. And as to his grant of the mantle to the king, we know nothing of the circumstances connected with it; it may have been a part of some bargain very beneficial to the see of Lincoln, though perhaps at the time not altogether approved of, and certainly afterwards looked upon as a badge of abject servitude. It is plain, however, that at Lincoln these two concessions were soon considered to be very damaging, and disgraceful enough almost to cancel all memory of the good points in Bloet's character, and all gratitude for his bountiful benefactions.

And more unhappily still for his after good fame, Bloet was no friend to monks. The Peterborough con

1 See infra 41, 108, 199; and Mag. Vit. S. Hugonis, 184, &c.

tinuator of the Saxon Chronicle, A°. 1123, tells us that it was mainly owing to his exertions that the successful resistance was made that year to the appointment of a monk to the archbishopric of Canterbury, as always hitherto had been the case; and adds that Bloet never loved the rule of monks, but was ever against them and their rule. William of Malmsbury, the only other at all contemporary monkish writer who gives us anything to the purpose, while admitting some good points in his character and naming some of his benefactions, yet plainly enough displays his monkish feeling of enmity, by insinuation however rather than open assertion, against such an enemy of monks.1

This comparatively favourable account of Bloet is in a second edition of Malmsbury's De Gest. Pont.; he had before, in 1125, published the first edition, in which he had attacked Bloet most savagely.2 This abuse he found it necessary to retract. But after monkish writers, Higden for instance and his followers, have drawn their

"viscera Egnesham, reliqua Lin"docolinæ sepulta sunt." De Gest. "Pont., Hamilton, p. 313.

There can be little if any truth in Malmsbury's sneering "non gra"viter," &c. about the consecration of the church by Bloet. The provision made for this ceremony by Remigius, would cause small saving indeed of cost and trouble to Bloet, when he at length consecrated the church, at the very least close upon two years afterwards. As for the removal of the bowels after death, it was what was always done, when the body had to be carried any distance for burial. It was done even in the case of St. Hugh. Magna Vita, 364.

2 De Gest. Pont., 313, n. 4, and 314, n. 1.

account of Bloet from Malmsbury's first edition, and accordingly they describe him as a "vir libidinosus," as one whose unholy body could not rest at Lincoln in peace, nocturnal ghosts horrifying the place of his burial, until this was purged by prayers and masses and alms.1 Still later writers,-bishop Bale for instance, a most unscrupulous liar in very unscrupulously lying days,improve upon this, and make him a monster of iniquity. And from such worthless authorities, Bloet's character has come down to our latter days. Even at Lincoln, his bad reputation is even yet a shameful tradition; and what was raised to his honour has been made a memorial to his disgrace. The effigy with the horn to its mouth, which caps one of the turrets2 on the western front, no doubt is the effigy of Bloet,--the horn in such position expressing his name, Blow-it. The effigy in Lincoln tradition is the "Swine-herd of Stow;" the opprobrious name handed down for one of their very greatest benefactors.

1 Twysden, 2364 and 988. Why Bloet was charged with being "vir "libidinosus," is difficult to say. Henry of Huntingdon indeed tells us that Bloet had a son, born to him before he became bishop of Lincoln; but, supposing this son to have been born in wedlock, which there is no reason to doubt, not a shadow of disgrace or shame would hence fall upon Bloet. The mere fact, however, of his having had a son was, perhaps, to a spiteful monkish pen, ground enough for its baseless calumny.

This son of bishop Bloet, Simon by name, received, as was but fitting, a princely education; he was a youth of high talents and great promise, but pride was his bane; he was made dean of Lincoln, and for

a time was high in favour at the royal court; he was disgraced and imprisoned; he made his escape, and went into exile and misery. Anglia Sacra, ii. 697. Henry of Huntingdon classes him, with prince William, the young earl Richard of Chester, and other such, as a striking instance of the often wretched cutting-short of early greatness.

2 The effigy on the corresponding turret has been generally supposed, in modern days, to represent St. Hugh. But is there any decent authority for this? Does it not seem more likely that it was intended for Remigius,--the two great early benefactors, the actual founder, and his successor worthily considered as with him co-founder, being thus together honoured?

For all such statements, whether of Higden or Bale or others, are simply worthless calumnies; the utmost we can safely gather from them is that Bloet, in these writers' days had a bad character, had no friends, and was to be hit hard. We have contemporary brief mention of him in the Peterborough Saxon Chronicle, and in William of Malmsbury; and longer accounts from the early Lincoln records of the present volume, as preserved by Giraldus and John de Schalby, and more especially in what Henry of Huntingdon has told us of him.1 Put these contemporary authorities together and fairly weigh them, and we shall give to Robert Bloet a very different position from what later writers assigned to him. He was no doubt too much of a courtier, and had his heartstrings too closely tied to royal favour and earthly pomps, to be a model Christian bishop; but he was a generous, noble-hearted, princely prelate, kind and loving and bountiful to all about him," the patron and advancer of learned and good men. Such men he was careful to keep around him; his household was the school where Henry of Huntingdon was educated, to which Henry I. entrusted a favoured son," and where St. Gilbert of Sempringham passed several years of his early life. Epitaphs are proverbially lying; but an epitaph inserted in a dry truthful old history is a very different thing from one inscribed on a tombstone by partial friends in modern days. There must have been some general good opinion of Bloet, something far more than the writers mere