Infra, p. 186.

causes.

phænomenon is looked for, that phænomenon is sure to be found. An age which expects miracles is sure to find miracles, as an age which believes in witches is sure to find witches. That is to say, there will in most cases be a certain number of instances of real imposture; but there will also be a number, most likely a much greater number, of instances in which men predisposed to expect miracles will in perfect good faith see miraculous agency in cases where a less credulous age will see only natural It should be noticed too that a hard-headed and experienced court official like Roger of Howden, a critical and indeed sceptical balancer of historical evidence like William of Newburgh, were fully as credulous in these matters as the somewhat flighty and enthusiastic Giraldus. One thing is plain; miracles were not accepted in those days without a certain amount of examination and testing of evidence. Giraldus wrote before the more solemn examination into Hugh's miraculous powers which was held by order of Pope Honorius the Third when the petition was made for his canonization. This examination was held by a commission in which the abbot of Fountains was joined with the archbishop of Canterbury, and that archbishop Stephen Langton.1 The examinations of which Giraldus speaks are all local, held by the dean and chapter or other officers of the church of Lincoln. He implies that no miracles were wrought by Hugh in his lifetime; for he looks on the special honour which befell him at his burial as the first miracle wrought by him, and as a special reward of the care which he had himself bestowed on the burial of others.2 Then follow various

miracles, some of them wrought very soon after the saint's death. One of them, in the fourth chapter of the second Distinctio, connects itself with the account given by Roger of Howden of the preaching of Eustace abbot of Flay. That missionary prelate enforced the better observance of Sunday, including the latter part of Saturday. Roger of Howden, it will be remembered, records several astounding miracles which accompanied his preaching. So we find here that Alice of Keal, who persisted in working on Saturday evening, notwithstanding the abbot's preaching, had both her hands contracted as a punishment. In this case the rural dean and the archdeacon,—the former appears under the odd title of "decanus plebanus,"-at once believe; but the sub-dean See Glosof Lincoln, in the discharge of his office as penitentiary, p. 258. sary, infra, puts no faith in the story. Alice goes to Canterbury to St. Thomas, and is thence sent back to St. Hugh. And on coming back to Lincoln she is at last cured, first in one hand and then in the other, during a mass sung by the very same sub-dean William who had at first refused to believe her story. It is worth noting that, among the stories which Giraldus has got together to prove the sanctity of Remigius, there is also one in which St. Thomas of Canterbury interferes for the benefit of a blind woman, seemingly not far from Lincoln, but without laying on her the burthen of a journey into Kent. He bids her go for healing to the tomb of Remi- Infra, gius; "hunc enim mihi socium in Anglia dedit Deus." P. 28. There is another story in the next chapter, in which a dropsical woman of Beverley first prays in vain at the

Infra, p. 130.

tomb of St. Hugh, and then thinks of going to Canterbury to St. Thomas, but gets cured at Lincoln instead. In this case the miracle is examined and certified by the two chapters of Lincoln and Beverley. In some cases, that of the knight John Burdet for one, the cure is gradual. This may suggest that the story is true as a relation of facts, but that men full of the notions of the time looked on a natural recovery as wrought by the power of the saint. Certainly, in the second of these two cases, the means of cure are the very strangest. Mortar from Hugh's tomb is applied to the wounds of a man suffering from cancer, and from that time he begins to mend. Nor do we fail to find in the case of St. Hugh, as in the case of other saints, the stock story of the man who doubts or disbelieves in the saint's sanctity, but is brought to a better mind by some vision or miracle. In this case the sceptic is a member of the church of Lincoln, described as the sub-dean Philip, a person whom Mr. Dimock has failed to identify. He had, strange to say, doubted as to St. Hugh's sanctity, which we may perhaps charitably understand of a mere doubt as to his miraculous powers. A vision which he saw taught him better, and from that time he diligently preached the merits of the saint.3

§ 7. THE PROFESSION OF REMIGIUS TO LANFRANC.

ted by Stigand.

First in the collection of pieces which form Mr. Dimock's Appendix comes a document of special interest for the history of the early years of the Conqueror, and which I myself ventured to quote, perhaps somewhat prematurely, in writing the history of those years.1 This is the document which proves that at least one Remigius consecra- bishop was consecrated after the Conquest by the supposed schismatic primate Stigand. The doubts as to Stigand's canonical position had been so prevalent that he seems to have consecrated only two bishops even during the reign of Eadward, and the fact that Remigius was consecrated by Stigand is not mentioned elsewhere. We inay believe that it was a fact which neither Remigius nor the other churchmen of his time were anxious to keep in mind. But we have it here stated, on the very best of all authorities, that of Remigius himself in his profession to Lanfranc. The document

The profession compared with that of St.

Wulfstan.

must be compared with the contemporary profession of St. Wulfstan to Lanfranc. The cases of the two prelates differed so far as this, that Wulfstan had only made profession to Stigand, but had taken care to be consecrated by Ealdred archbishop of York. The matter of the two documents is very nearly the same, but the exact words hardly ever agree. Both assert in strong and even violent language the uncanonical position of Stigand; both, utterly against the truth of history, charge Stigand with having by force or fraud driven his Norman predecessor Robert from his see. It is hardly needful to prove that, if Stigand had any hand in the deprivation and punishment of Robert, it was simply by giving his voice, like any other

1 Norman Conquest, iv. 132. 2 Ib. ii. 433.

3 Ib. ii., pp. 463, 634.

Englishman in the assembly by which that deprivation and banishment were decreed.1 Both enlarge on the crime of Stigand in using the pallium which Robert had left behind him. Both also enlarge on the various decrees put forth against Stigand by successive popes. But the actual words and the order of the statements differ most remarkably, and it may be noticed that, in the version which is put into the mouth of English Wulfstan, the name of the Norman Robert is not found. The words in Wulfstan's profession are

cessores

"Sanctam Dorobernensem ecclesiam, cui omnes antemeos constat fuisse subjectos, Stigandus jampridem invaserat, metropolitanum ejusdem sedis "vi et dolo expulerat, usumque pallii quod ei ab"stulit contempta apostolicæ sedis auctoritate temerare præsumpserat."

The profession of Remigius is fuller :

"Cum enim, contempta Helmeanensis ecclesiæ medio"critate, translatus esset [Stigandus] ad Wentanæ civi"tatis episcopum, stimulante ad hoc majoris honoris ambitu, post paucos annos Robertum archiepiscopum

partim vi partim insidiis expulit, metropolem invasit, pallium quod a sede apostolica ipse detulerat cum " ceteris ablatum usurpare non metuit."

of Robert from Rome with his pallium is recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle, 10482 (1051), while the pallium which was afterwards sent to Stigand by Benedict X. in 1058 was merely sent," and that most likely by the hands of Earl Harold. Towards the end, the matter of the two professions becomes quite different, as well as the language; for Remigius had, what Wulfstan had not, to account for his having committed

1 lb. i., pp. 334, 339.

2 Ib. ii. 120.

See the Chronicles for that

year, and Norman Conquest, ii. 432.