Introduction I

Home , Eustace (Bishop of Ely), Hervey le Breton, James Bentham, Liber Eliensis, Nigel (bishop of Ely), Pope Victor II

INTRODUCTION I. THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE LIBER ELIENSIS The chronicle, known since 1848, when part of it was published by D. J. StewartJ under the title Liber Eliensis, survives in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. O.2.1 (E), and in a manuscript in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of Ely (F) 2. E is a manuscript of the late twelfth century 3; on vellum; 228 x 165 mm.; 256 folios (plus two fly-leaves) 4; 30 gatherings of three, four or five leaves 5; 29 lines (to fo. 8ov) and from 30 to 35 lines (from fo. 81 to the end) to the page; single column; initials coloured in red and green. The handwriting is of the same general character throughout and the work of different scribes difficult to distinguish. Three main hands can be singled out 6. Hand A wrote all Book I and Book II to the second line of ch. 90 ', including the rubrics as far as ch. 84 8. Hand B begins in Book II, ch. 90, and continues to the end of Book III, ch. 43 9. Cc. 44-50 seem to be written in several different hands, perhaps including a rough version of B, and B more certainly resumes towards the end of ch. 50 and continues to the middle of ch. 92 10. From Book III, ch. 44, to the middle of ch. 92 the manuscript is very roughly written, and cc. 69-92 n in particular are in an increasingly untidy hand. There are many erasures and marginal additions, which seem to reveal traces of the process of composition. This suggests that scribe B was himself the compiler of this section of the work. Hand B also wrote the rubrics of Book II, cc. 85-103, and most of the rubrics after ch. 90 overflow into the margin or are written on erasure. The rest of the manuscript is written in a neat hand, C 12, and the same hand has written

1 Published in 1848 by the Anglia Christiana Society. * Stewart's edition probably owes its title to this MS., which is familiarly styled Liber Eliensis. For a general introduction to the MSS. of the L.E. see Miller, Ely, pp. 4-7; Harmer, Writs, p. 464; T. D. Hardy, Desc. Cat., i, 278-80, 590-91; ii, 104-07, 309, 508, 553; C. Gross, Sources and Literature of English History, 2nd edn., no. 1372; N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (1941), pp. 42-43; G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (1958), pp. 41-44, and especially W. Holtzmann, Papsturkunden in England, i, 67, 75, 86, 96-97, 103 05, 108, 171; ii, 75-93- 3 Described by M. R. James, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (1900-1904), iii, 79-82. 4 Including the kalendar occupying the first fourteen folios, which are not numbered. 5 Fos. 229 and 230 are from a fourteenth-century music book and form a separate gathering of two leaves. * But cf. M. R. James, loc. cit., who distinguished between only two. 7 The end of fo. 76. 8 A number of insertions in the text and margin are written in hands of the same period which cannot be conclusively identified with each other or with other hands in the manuscript. See fos. 14, 15-15V, 43. 44. 45- * Fo. 125V. 10 Fos. 125V—51V. xl Fos. 144—51V. 12 The handwriting of marginal additions in this part of the L.E. can only rarely be identified with any degree of certainty (C on fos. 107-09V, 116V-17, 160, 164, 169V, 171V; B on fos. 113V-14, 145, 145V with marginal additions by C). Marginalia on fos. 100 and IOIV may be in the hand of O. xxiii

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 xxiv INTRODUCTION the rest of the rubrics. The first fourteen folios, which contain an Ely kalendar * and lists of the abbots and bishops of Ely, are not numbered, and according to the existing foliation the Liber Eliensis occupies fos. 1-177. It is followed by the Inquisitio Eliensis, a record of the plea of 1071 X 75 2 and short Lives of Sexburga, ^Ermenilda, JLrcongota, Werburga, ^Edelberga and Wihtburga. F is a manuscript of the early thirteenth century; on vellum; 267 x 185 mm.; 190 folios (numbered in pencil 1-188, but the numbers 78 and 84 have been used twice 3); 22 gatherings, 13 of four leaves, 8 of five leaves 4; the fifth gathering is of two leaves plus one folio; mainly with catchwords; 30 lines to the page; double column; initials coloured red, green and sometimes blue. Four main hands can be distinguished: A, from fo. 2 to 21 (except for an insertion in another thirteenth- century hand on fo. 13, col. b); B, from fo. 2iv to io8v (excepting the indices of chapter headings to Book II on fos. 36-38V and to Book III on fos. 107-08V); C, from fo. 109 to mv; D, to the end of the Liber Eliensis. There are important additions in a hand of the late thirteenth or fourteenth century, perhaps that of O B, and in a hand of the thirteenth century, as on fos. 59V and 61. The Liber Eliensis occupies fos. 2-i88v. It is preceded by notes in various hands, especially one on the ' confessors ' buried at Ely 6 and another on the convent's rights of jurisdiction in the isle of Ely, and it is followed by a charter of Prior Hugh (fi. 1200) and a scarcely legible memorandum in a hand of the fifteenth century '. The versions of the Liber Eliensis found in E and F, while not identical, share the same form and most of the same contents. The work is there divided into three books. Book I, after a prologue and a brief chapter De situ Eliensis Insule, takes the history of the monastery at Ely from its first foundation by St Etheldreda to its destruction by the Danes in 870. Book II covers the time of the abbots from the restoration of the abbey during the reign of Edgar to the death of the last abbot in 1107, and Book III treats of the first two bishops of Ely, Hervey the Breton (1109-31) and Nigel (1133-69). The whole is prefaced by a general prologue and ends with a passio of St Thomas Becket. It has no title, but is referred to in the rubrics as historia Eliensis insule 8. Only one other manuscript, Bodl., Laud. Misc. 647 (0), retains something of this form. It is a more impressive production than either E or F; on vellum; 363 X 225 mm.; 188 folios (according to a pencil foliation which numbers all except blank folios—with the exception of the first fly-leaf); regular gatherings of six, the 1 Printed by F. Wormald, Benedictine Kalendars after izoo, vol. ii. Cf. also B. Dickins, Leeds Studies in English and Kindred Languages, vi, p. 15. 2 Both edited by N. E. S. A. Hamilton as part of his I.C.C. See infra, p. 426. 3 The pencil foliation has been used in this edition and the duplicate folios are here numbered 78a and 84a. An older foliation excludes fo. 1 and numbers the remainder 1-189. 4 This includes the index of chapter headings to Book II which was added later. The end of this index was written on a separate folio which was originally bound to precede fo. 39, but when the manuscript was re-bound in 1930 it was misplaced and is now fo. 36. 8 E.g. on fos. 47 and 92. 6 Infra, p. xxxviii. ' For a brief description see Historical Manuscripts Commission, 12th report, appendix, part ix, p. 393. 8 Infra, pp. i, 62, 63, 245. Although this would be a more correct title for the chronicle, the conventional title has been retained to avoid confusion.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 INTRODUCTION xxv last two of seven, leaves; with catchwords; double column; 44 lines to the page; written in a well-formed book-hand of the early fourteenth century, with initials coloured alternately red and blue and with an elaborate pen-style decoration of initials and margins. The Liber Eliensis occupies fos. 3-177V. Books I and II remain, with some exceptions, unaltered. Book III lacks most of the miracle stories found in E and F, but has many more charters, and in all three books O frequently adds additional information from other chronicles. Book III is continued beyond 1169 and takes on increasingly the pattern of a cartulary, interspersed with notices of the elections and deaths of English kings and bishops of Ely. The continuation ends after recording the accession of Bishop William of Louth in 1290 and was presumably finished before he died in 1298 x. Another group of manuscripts preserves versions, not of all the Liber Eliensis, but of one or two books only. Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Titus A.i (G), written in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century 2, has on fos. 3-23V a shorter version of Book II. It ends at ch. 96 and omits all the charters as well as most of those narrative chapters which are not concerned with the history of the possessions of the abbey 3. Fos. 24-55V contain a cartulary of royal privileges and writs from Edgar to Henry II, papal privileges from Victor II to Adrian IV, private charters of Bishops Hervey and Nigel and other documents concerning the priory of Ely up to the election of Geoffrey Ridel to the bishopric in 1173. These documents include almost all the documentary material used in the Liber Eliensis. Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Domitian xv (B), written in a regular book-hand of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, opens with a short chronicle from the birth of Christ to 1158 * and continues with the general prologue, Book I (fos. 7-31V), and the shorter version (as in G) of Book II (fos. 74-94). The books are separated by a booklet on the second translation of St Etheldreda in 1106 and a book of miracles. Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Vespasian A.xix, fos. 29V-51, contains an extract from Book III. The handwriting belongs to the period 1257-86, for it occurs also in a list of bishops on fo. 51 up to and including the name of Hugh Balsham, who was appointed to Ely in 1257, while the name of John Kirkby, who succeeded him in 1286, is written in a different hand. A third group of manuscripts present an Ely chronicle of a different kind. The material is arranged, not by books and chapters, but as a series of acta of individual abbots and bishops. These acta are prefaced by a few, brief chronological notes on the foundation of Ely, by a libellus breviter comprehensus in quo continetur genea- logia et vita beate Etheldrede et sororum suarum, and by an account of the tenth-century restoration. The whole consists of a radically abbreviated version of the Liber Eliensis, as far as it goes, with a few differences especially in the dating of some of 1 The hand of O occurs also in a list of bishops and kings in Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Vespasian A.xix, fo. 51, which confirms the date. The hand, format and decoration also recalls Liber M, written about the same time. See infra, p. xli. 2 Cf. Holtzmann, Papsturkunden in England, i, 75; Hardy, Desc. Cat., ii, 36; Davis, Medieval Cartularies, p. 43. Space does not permit so detailed a description of these subsidiary MSS. mentioned here as that given for E, F and O. Further details can be found in my unpublished dissertation, Historia Eliensis, Book III (Cambridge University Library). 3 Infra, p. xliv. 4 Infra, p. 410.

1 The relation of the contents of the Chronicon to the L.E. is best illustrated by the edition of H. Wharton in Anglia Sacra, i, 591-688. The chronological notes are taken from Book I (especially the De situ and ch. 41) and Book II (especially cc. 1-4 and 86) with additions from Bede, lib. i, and Florence. The genealogy corresponds largely with Book I, although the order is sometimes changed and new material added. There is no prologue to Books I and II. The history of the restoration of the abbey is abbreviated from Book II, cc. 2-4, 7, 37 and 50 and the rest is told in the form of a gesta abbatum: Abbots Brihtnoth (from cc. 6, 52-54, 56), iElfsige (from cc. 57, 76-77, 79, 80), Leofwine (from ch. 80), Leofric (from cc. 80, 85-86, 94), Wulfric (from cc. 94, 97-98), Thurstan (from cc. 98, 101-03, 109, 111-13), Theodwin (from cc. 113, 115, 116, 114), Symeon (from cc. 118-19, 128, 130-37) and Richard (from cc. 140—43) with the second translation of Etheldreda (from cc. 144-48). Under the life of Bishop Hervey part of the prologue of Book III is retained, followed by excerpts from cc. 1-9, 17, 21, 25, 26, 28-36, 38, 41-43. The life of Nigel is abbreviated from cc. 44, 45, 47-54, 61, 64, 69, 73, 77-78, 82, 86, 89, 92, 96, 122-23, I37-41- 2 But cf. Wharton, op. cit., p. xlvi, who distinguished only three hands, ending at 1388, 1434 and i486 respectively. 3 Lambeth, MS. 448, fos. 78-91. 4 This version of the Chronicon, apart from being bound up in the same volume, has no connection with the version of L.E., Book II and the cartulary mentioned supra, p. xxv. 6 Now MS. Titus A.i, fos. 141—45, ending in 1435. 6 A life of the bishops only, described by M. R. James, Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (1912), ii, 56-58. ' A full Chronicon to the installation of John Morton (1479-86). The MS. is described in Historia Eliensis, Book III.

1 A number of later transcripts have also been examined, but these add nothing to the tradition of the surviving MSS. (See especially Brit. Mus.,MSS. Add. 6261, fos. 15—42V; 33491, fo. 28; Cotton Faustina E.iv, fo. 105; Claudius A.viii, fos. 119-23V; Vespasian B.xv; Vespasian A.xviii; Harley 258; Lansdowne 207 E.6; Lansdowne 320; Bodl., Rawlinson C.850, fos. 97-98V; Tanner 441; Tanner 118; also a fragment of Book II in a MS. belonging to Miss M. A. Arber. See also the valuable collections of James Bentham, C.U.L., Add. 2945, 2950, 2951, 2953, 2962 and of Bishop Wren, Ely Diocesan Registry, G.2.) 2 T. Hearne, Leland's Collectanea, i, pt. ii, pp. 588 ff. 3 P. 87. 4 Anglia Sacra, i, 591-688. His marginal references to Cottonian i and Cottonian ii are to Titus A.i and Nero A.xv/xvi. He also knew C.C.C., 287 and excerpted sections from MSS. Cotton, Vespasian A.xix (pp. 678-81), Titus A.i (part i) (p. 682), and Domitian xv (p. xxxix) for the beginning of Book III, Book II, ch. 178 and the general prologue respectively. 6 Vol. ii, 707 ff.; from MS. Cotton, Domitian xv. 8 The Bollandist edition was based on a transcript owned by the college at Douai (and used also by Mabillon). This was copied later for Bolland and collated with the original in the Cotton Library (which must be Domitian xv). This collated transcript, no longer complete, survives as Vol. I of Phillipps MS. 8174 olim Heber, which was presented to Ely by Canon V. H. Stanton in 1897 an(i is riow in the possession of the Dean and Chapter. Vol. II of this MS. gives extracts from Titus A.i. It is not clear whether this volume was copied from a transcript kept at Douai or directly from Titus A.i. See Bollandist Ada Sanctorum (1st edn.) Junii, iv, 489 ff. ' And other extracts; see supra, p. xxvi, n. 1. 8 Pp. 463 ff. 8 Printed from his MS., which is now at Trinity College, Cambridge, O.2.41, from which he also printed seven Anglo-Saxon charters and the privilege of Pope Victor II (Book II, cc. 5, 9, 58, 77, 82, 92, 93, 95). 10 Infra, p. xxxiv. " Omitting cc. 53, 55, 69 and 70. 12 The transcript used to be P.R.O. Transcripts 31/5, no. 75, but it was sent to the secretary of the Anglia Christiana Society and not returned. 13 Papsturkunden in England, ii. Detailed references are given in the footnotes to the text. He also prints the index of chapter headings of Book III with references to another printed edition of it (C. W. Stubbs, Historical Memorials of Ely Cathedral, 1897).

1 E.g. Bede, i, 15; ii, 15; iii, 7-8; iii, 18; iv, 3 and especially iv, (17) 19. The Eccl. Hist, is sometimes expressly cited under such titles as Anglorum historia (infra, Book I, ch. 8) and once strangely as liber sermonum Bede presbiteri (ch. 9). 2 Ed. T. Mommsen, M.G.H., Chron. Min., iii, 314-15 (infra, Book I, ch. 34). 3 Infra, Book I, cc. 2 and 8. 4 Infra, Book II, cc. 86, 100—01, 140. For comments on this MS. see Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, ed. T. Arnold (R.S., 1890), i, pp. viii, 340 1, and J. R. H. Weaver, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, Anecdota Oxoniensia, Medieval and Modern Series, Part xiii (1908). 5 Infra, Book I, ch. 15; Book II, ch. 80. The A.S.C. used must have been a version of the E type. The 673 entry is in all versions, but Abbot Leofwin is mentioned only in E and F. Another reference, to the A.S.C. s.a. 798 (in Book II, ch. 147), must be to an addition in F, which alone has this information, but it does not indicate the source used by the L.E., since ch. 147 is part of a passage borrowed from a Life of St Wihtburga. Cf. infra, p. xxxvii. 6 Book II, ch. 90. Cf. Encomium Emmae Reginae, ed. A. Campbell (Camden third series, vol. lxxii), pp. lxv ff. 7 Infra, Book II, cc. 107, no, in. 8 Ibid., cc. 107, 109, no. 8 See Gesta Guillelmi, pp. xv and 270. 10 Hist. Eccl., ii, 197, 196, 184, 197-98. n See infra, p. 286. 12 See notes to Book II, ch. 107, and cf. Gesta Guillelmi, p. 200 and Orderic Vitalis, Hist. Eccl., ii, 149. 13 Hist. Eccl., ii, 217-18; Gesta Guillelmi, p. xv.

1 Infra, Book I, ch. 7. 2 Ibid., ch. 8. 3 Ibid., prologue and cc. 8-10. 4 Ibid., De situ, ch. 8; also cited in the general prologue and Book II, ch. 105. 5 Infra, Book II, proem and cc. 53, 72. The Life by Adelard (Memorials of St Dunstan, ed. W. Stubbs, R.S., 1874, pp. 53-68) may also have been used. See infra, Book I, ch. 42; Book II, cc. 53, 72. 6 Infra, Book II, ch. 71. ' Infra, Book I, ch. 37. 8 Infra, Book I, ch. 6. 9 Ibid., ch. 2. 10 Ibid., prologue. xl Ibid., ch. 36. 12 Ibid., ch. 6. 13 Infra, Book II, ch. 62. 14 Infra, Book I, ch. 42. 15 ' cum plurimo comitatu ducum et procerum, quos enumerare honerosum est, in cronica vero describuntur ' (Book I, ch. 39). 16 Ibid. 17 Infra, Book II, ch. 79. ls Infra, Book III, ch. 143. 1B Ibid., ch. 25. 20 In ch. 46 Stephen's actions immediately after his accession are described in words which Florence (i, 224-25) uses for the reign of Harold (also used in L.E., Book II, ch. 101). Ch. 72 describes the state of England before the battle of Lincoln (1141) in words taken from the Florence annal for 1136 (ii, 96). This cannot be derived from Bodl., MS. 297 which ends in 1131. But it occurs in other chronicles associated with Bury—Brit. Mus., MSS. Harley 447 and 3775 s.a. 1136. 21 E.g. in a chapter, not in E or F, added after Book II, ch. 54. See infra, p. 126. 22 E.g. in Book II, ch. 79. 23 Infra, p. 126, n. 2.

1 O, fos. 109.V— ii2v, 115V, 118-24, I^1- These notes concern the consecration of Geoffrey Ridel (Diceto, i, 391-95), the death of Henry II (Diceto, ii, 65), the death of Geoffrey Ridel (Diceto, ii, 68), the election of William Longchamp (Diceto, ii, 69, 75), the election of Eustace (Diceto, ii, 159), the death of Richard I (Diceto, ii, 166; but O has a different set of verses), and the accession of John (Diceto, ii, 166). 2 For the accession of John (Howden, iv, 87-88) and some passages concerning Richard's crusade and captivity (Howden, iii, 112, 182, 185). 3 See the introduction to The Historical Collections of Walter of Coventry, ed. W. Stubbs (R.S., 1872). The shared passages concern the end of the interdict and the coronation of Henry III (Walter of Coventry, ii, 216-17, 225-26, 229-30 and 244). 4 Infra, p. 6. 5 Cc. 1-2. 6 Ch. 3, beginning ' Beata et gloriosa regina iEtheldretha . . .' 7 Cc. 26-31. 8 Ch. 32. 9 Cc. 39-49. 10 Infra, Book III, ch. 33. 11 They are included also in Book III as cc. 33-36. 12 He refers to the miracles of Hervey's time as nostro tempore and prefaces the first of them with a eulogy on Henry I. Cf. C. W. Stubbs, Historical Memorials of Ely Cathedral, p. 66. The metrical version ends incomplete after the first of these miracles and the scribe of the MS. left a space in his index of chapter headings for the three remaining miracles. This suggests that this copy was made while Gregorius was still at work and therefore belongs to the reign of Henry I. Also one of the miracles of Bishop Nigel's time (Book III, ch. 60) is dated 1134-35 and this was presumably not yet available for copying into the Corpus book. The handwriting and the decorated initial at the beginning of the MS. would suit a date in the second quarter of the twelfth century. Cf. G. Zarnecki, The Early Sculpture of Ely Cathedral (1958), pp. 31 and 43, n. 20. The MS. is described in M. R. James, Desc. Cat. of the MSS. in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, ii, 251-53. 13 See Analecta Bollandiana, xlvi, 86-88.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 INTRODUCTION xxxi phrase Beata et gloriosa Mtheldretha, which is the opening also of Book I, ch. 3, and have many passages in common with Book I, cc. 3-32, and with each other x. They cannot be derived from the Liber Eliensis, since it includes material on the life of Etheldreda which they would not have passed over. For other reasons, it is unlikely, if not impossible, that the compiler of the Liber Eliensis knew the Corpus text and that of Dublin in an earlier manuscript version and compiled Book I from the two. We may rule out as an alternative the possibility that he used only one of them. There are many verbal parallels with Dublin which are not shared by Corpus 2. On the other hand, occasionally the echo of a phrase in the Liber Eliensis, which is not in Dublin, can be found in Corpus 3, and in one instance, where Corpus' interprets the name Ely as digna Dei domus, the same interpretation and wording is given in the Liber Eliensis *, without any parallel in Dublin. If, then, we were to assume that the compiler drew on both versions and worked, as on this assumption he must have, mainly from Dublin, it is difficult to see why he should pick on the occasional, and insignificant, phrase from Corpus. It is far more likely that he found the phrases which he shares with Dublin and Corpus, or with either one of them, in a version of the Life which has not survived. The question then arises how this postulated version is related to Dublin and Corpus. It is possible that Dublin, which is closest to Bede, was the first to be produced and that from it a revised version, now lost, was made which in turn was the source of Corpus and the Liber Eliensis. But there may have been another link in the chain. Dublin, Corpus and the Liber Eliensis include a passage which Corpus and the Liber Eliensis place immediately after the death and before the translation of Etheldreda and which in the Liber Eliensis clearly marks the conclusion of the first part of the Life, while in Dublin it stands as the concluding phrase of the whole work 5. There is no reason why Corpus and the Liber Eliensis, or the Life from which they worked, if they found the passage in the Dublin position, should have moved it back into the middle of the work. It is much more likely that Dublin, using a version of the Life which placed the passage in the position retained in Corpus and the Liber Eliensis, moved it to the end of the whole as a fitting perora- tion. It is impossible to reach certainty, but by this reasoning we could postulate a lost version, based on Bede, divided into two parts, the first of which ended with Etheldreda's death. From this Dublin would derive, merging the two parts into one and moving the concluding phrase of the first part to the end of the second. From this same lost version there would also derive a second lost version, which retained the division into two parts, but made other alterations in phrasing and order, and which was used by Corpus and the Liber Eliensis 6.

1 These are indicated in the footnotes to the text infra. 2 E.g. ch. 4. 3 See notes to cc. 4, 10, 21, 26, 27, and 28. 1 Ch. 15, which adds the construction from the Hebrew on which this interpretation rests. 6 See notes to ch. 21. 6 Other surviving Latin Lives of Etheldreda closely follow Bede, iv (17) 19. Cf. Hardy, Desc. Cat., i, 264, 282—84; Analecta Bollandiana, xvii, 67; xxix, 76; xlvii, 244; liv, 342; lvi, 336; also Cat. Cod. Hag. hat., ii, 355. Only the Life in Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Tiberius D.III departs appreciably from the language of Bede and introduces some rhyming prose. But it shares no significant parallels with Dublin or Corpus.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 xxxii INTRODUCTION Miracles, attributed to the merits of St Etheldreda, are recorded in each of the three books of the Liber Eliensis. Some of these, if not all, must have been taken from older miracle collections. Clear evidence, if difficult to interpret, of such a source exists only for the miracles of Book 11. These form part of a self- sufficient and coherent narrative. It describes the plan of an archipresbyter, head of a community of clerks at Ely in the reign of Eadred, to check on the contents of Etheldreda's tomb. In the course of the narrative five of the saint's miracles are recalled 2, and a digression to explain the existence of a hole in the tomb refers to the miraculous punishment of a heathen Dane who, at the time of the Danish raid on Ely in 870, tried to break it open in search of loot3. Then follows an account of the priest's investigations and punishment. This narrative is said to have been committed to writing by iElfhelm 4, a young man in clerk's orders and one of the priest's associates. No separate work of this description, which could have been the source of Liber Eliensis, Book I, cc. 43-49, has survived, but its one- time existence is confirmed by the miracle book which follows the Life in Dublin and Corpus. This book comprises the same miracles and, although the narrative sequence has been broken up to provide a series of separate miracle stories, set in chronological order, it is evident that the source from which it was derived followed the same order as found in the Liber Eliensis 6. It is unlikely that this source is the Liber Eliensis itself, since there is no reason to believe that Book I had been completed early enough to have been used at a time when the Corpus manuscript had not yet been written. Nor can the Liber Eliensis be derived from the Dublin/Corpus book, as the Liber Eliensis retains the narrative in what must be an earlier form and in a style of simple rhyming prose which shows no sign of having been abbreviated from the elaborate rhyming pattern, interspersed with hexameters, of Dublin/Corpus. It may be that both are derived from a common original, but there are grounds for holding that, while the Liber Eliensis has incorporated ^Elfhelm's work in its original form, Dublin/Corpus has used a later adaptation of it. This solution is suggested by Book I, cc. 41-42, which give an account of the Danish attack on Ely and the punishment of the heathen Dane written at greater length and in a more ambitious rhyming prose than the version included in MM helm's narrative. There are parallels between these chapters and Dublin/ Corpus which reveal a relationship much closer than that between the latter and cc. 44-49 6. But here again Dublin/Corpus cannot have been the source of the simpler and self-sufficient rhyming scheme of the chapters in the Liber Eliensis. There must have been a version, itself based on iElfhelm's work, from which the compiler of the Liber Eliensis took his cc. 41-42 and which served as the basis of the Dublin/Corpus book. The existence of such an adaptation of iElfhelm's narrative would also explain verbal parallels between Dublin/Corpus and Book I, ch. 38, and perhaps those between another book of miracles in B and Book I, ch. 37, and Book II, cc. 1-4.

1 See ch. 49,' Hec breviter memorantes, in libro miraculorum beate virginis plene disseruntur'. 2 Cc. 44-48. 3 Ch. 41, and also in ch. 49. 4 Ch. 42. 6 At the point where the L.E. inserts the miracles, the Dublin/Corpus Book omits them, but refers to ' que prescripta sunt miracula '. 6 They are indicated in the footnotes to the text.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 INTRODUCTION xxxiii B is introduced by the same prologue as the Dublin/Corpus book and includes four of the miracles of the Dublin/Corpus version *. But it has a much larger collection of miracles and, following on the prologue, adds a section which treats briefly of the history of Ely from the death of Etheldreda to the restoration of the monastery in the reign of Edgar. This section has no exact parallel in the Dublin/Corpus book, but it shares a number of passages with Book I, ch. 37, and Book II, cc. 1-4. The possibility cannot be excluded that this section is derived from the Liber Eliensis 2. But in one instance, where a phrase occurs in both, it is B which seems to retain it in its original position 3. Also at the end of a passage common to both, which is ultimately derived from the Libellus, B reads: ' Alias quoque terras quam- plurimas ab aliis emens ecclesie adiecit, quas per singula numerare otiosi negotii est, cum proprio alibi contineantur volumine. Ceterum ut regis magnificentia legentibus innotescat . . . subsequens ipsius privilegium declarabit, quod iccirco hie ponendum videtur, ut cunctis liqueat quanta firmitate domus Dei fundamento suo innitatur.' The Liber Eliensis gives a different rendering: ' Aliasque terras . . . adiecit, que proprio alibi continentur volumine; singula tamen breviter dignum duximus hie admit- tendum ' 4. Then follows a list of Bishop Êthelwold's gifts to Ely and a chapter, introducing Edgar's privilege, which ends with the words ' privilegium . . . innitatur ' 5. The privilege follows in both versions. At first sight B seems merely to have adapted the words of the Liber Eliensis to its own purposes. The volumen referred to is the Libellus, most of which is copied into the Liber Eliensis, but which B omits. But it is difficult to see why a miracle collection should go out of its way to make known a charter which was already available in the manuscript of the Liber Eliensis and, quite apart from that, the phrase makes better sense if we treat it as belonging to B originally and as written before Liber Eliensis, Book II existed. The terms in which it is couched then convey the significant distinction that B is omitting the record of Bishop Êthelwold's acquisitions of land, which could be found in the Libellus, but is adding for the benefit of its readers a copy of Edgar's charter, because this the Libellus omits. If this reasoning is sound, the compiler of the Liber Eliensis must have used this section of B in an earlier manuscript version. The suggestion that this earlier version was in fact part of the adaptation of Êlfhelm's work rests only on very slight evidence. There are no parallels in the Dublin/Corpus book, but at the point where we should expect to find them—after a brief reference to the restoration of the monastery—it apologises for an omission: ' Sed his omissis, ad ea que spopondimus enarranda transeamus ', and from this we may infer that the source from which the author of Dublin/Corpus worked contained further details. We cannot be certain, therefore, but it may be

1 Cc. 44-47. 2 B is a manuscript of the thirteenth century or later and, even if we assume that the collection of miracles existed in an earlier manuscript version, which is likely, it cannot have been composed before 1174, as one of the miracles refers to Bishop Geoffrey Ridel (fo. 72, col. b). The collection also retains phrases which make sense only in the context of the L.E. (e.g. ' ut supra memoravimus', Book II, ch. 122; ' cuius iam supra meminimus', Book III, ch. 138; Richard Fitz Neal, ' supermemoratus ', Book III, ch. 138; Ranulf, ' memoratus', Book III, ch. 47). 3 See notes to Book II, ch. 1. 4 See notes to Book II, ch. 3. 6 Book II, ch. 4. C

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 xxxiv INTRODUCTION argued that .ZElfhelm's narrative, as represented by Book I, cc. 43-49, was succeeded by a more elaborate version which formed the basis of the Dublin/Corpus book and which is represented more faithfully by Book I, cc. 41-42, and by the occasional phrase in eh. 38. This version may also have included the account of the history of Ely, as given in B and adapted in Book II, cc. 1-4, and Book I, ch. 37. The only other local sources used in Book I are Lives of Sexburga 1 and Jirmenilda 2. The sources of Book II are easier to trace. Cc. 1-49 3 are taken from a work which survives in two manuscripts, Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Vespasian A.xix, fos. 2-27V (A) 4 and Trinity College, Cambridge, O.2.41, pp. 1-64V (C)5, under the title Libellus quorundam insignium operum beati Mthelwoldi. Both manuscripts belong to the twelfth century and C was probably written between April 1139 and the end of 1140 6. These two versions of the Libellus are, but for a few unimportant variant readings, identical7. They give a brief account of the restoration of Ely, with echoes from Wulfstan's Life of St iEtherwold 8, and a record of lands acquired by him on behalf of Ely and of pleas which arose from these transactions. This record, written originally in Old English, had been preserved at Ely and was translated into Latin—according to the translator's own statement—at the instigation of Bishop Hervey, that is between 1109 and 1131, and was known as the liber de terris sancti JEftelwoldi9. Towards the end of Book II the compiler declares his debt to another local source: ' Comprimo magnifica gesta Herewardi' and again ' In libro autem de ipsius gestis Herwardi, dudum a venerabili viro ac doctissimo fratre nostro beate memorie Ricardo edito, plenius descripta inveniuntur' 10. A work answering this description has survived in a manuscript belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough—the Register of Robert of Swaffham, compiled in the thirteenth century n. These Gesta Herwardi are divided into two parts. The 1 See notes to Book I, cc. 18, 32, 35. The passages there noted occur also in a Life of Sexburga in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. O.2.1 to which they intrinsically belong. As this life is a copy appended to the manuscript of which the L.E. forms the first part, the compiler must have used it in an earlier manuscript version. The collections of Lives in Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Caligula, A.viii, and C.C.C., MS. 393 contain only a set of lectiones on Sexburga which have not been used. 2 See ch. 36, where a parallel is noted with the Life in Trinity, MS. O.2.1, which is related to, but not identical with, the lectiones in MS. Cotton, Caligula A.viii, and Corpus, 393. 3 Except cc. 5, 6, 9, 16, 28, 29, part of 39, 40. 4 Described in detail in Historia Eliensis, Book III. 6 Described by M. R. James, The Western MSS. in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, iii, 145-46. 6 Infra, p. xl. 7 A and C share an omission due to a scribal error which is made good in E and F. The latter must therefore derive from an earlier manuscript version of the Libellus, while A, which has two omissions not in C (infra, Book II, cc. 18, 32), is probably a copy of C. 8 Infra, Appendix A, p. 395. 9 Infra, Book II, proem. Cf. also Book III, cc. 119 and 120, where it is referred to as ' liber terrarum quern librum sancti iESelwoldi nominant '. Cf. also D. Whitelock, ' The Conversion of the Eastern Danelaw ', Saga-Book of the Viking Society, xii (1941), p. 160. For further comments see Professor Whitelock's Foreword, supra, pp. ix-xviii, and also infra, p. li. 10 Infra, Book II, ch. 107. 11 Printed by C. T. Martin as an appendix to Gaimar's Lestorie des Engles (ed. Sir T. D. Hardy and C. T. Martin, R.S., 1888, ii, 339-404) under the title Gesta Herwardi incliti exulis et militis.

References will be made to this edition. For a notice of the earlier editions by T. Wright and F. Michel see ibid., p. xlvii, and for a later edition see De Gestis Herwardi Saxonis, ed. S. H. Miller, Fenland Notes and Queries, iii (1895-97). Cf. Hardy, Desc. Cat., ii, 22; F. Liebermann, Uber Ostenglische Geschichtsquellen, p. 14; H. W. C. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins (13th edn., 1949), App. Ill, pp. 525—26; Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv, note OO, pp. 804-12. 1 Gesta Herwardi, p. 339. 2 Book II, cc. 104-07. 3 See notes to cc. 104 and 105. The common passages in cc. 106 and 107 have not been noted for lack of space. 4 Gesta Herwardi, pp. 375-76. 6 Ibid., p. 381. 6 Ibid., p. 383. ' Ibid., pp. 387-88. 8 Ibid., p. 390. 9 E.g. Deda's report on the resources of the island and on the privileges of the abbey. Other phrases are introduced from William of Poitiers in ch. 107. 10 In Deda's report (ch. 105), Gesta Herwardi, p. 379. 11 Ibid., in William of Warenne's reply. 12 In its account of the skirmish at Reach [ibid., pp. 382—84), the fight in the king's kitchen (pp. 385-88), and the last battle (pp. 388-90). 13 P. 377. I4Ch. 104. 15P-377- 16Ch. 104. "Pp. 380-81. 18Ch. 105. 19P. 381. 20Ch. 105.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 xxxvi INTRODUCTION tempus exegi' (Gesta) x against ' quamdiu illuc mansi ' (L.E.) 2. As it is unlike the compiler's normal habit to interfere with the style and wording of his sources in this way, we may infer that these differences from the Gesta were already present in the source which the compiler used. The exact relationship between this source, of which no manuscript version has survived, and the Gesta is a matter only for conjecture. The differences are too great to be attributed to a scribe making a copy. The answer is probably to be found in the preface to the Gesta. The author informs us that he had once abandoned the work and, when eventually prevailed upon to publish it, finding it imperfect, ' curae nobis fuit iterum ... ad hoc ineo stilum convertere, et vobis iterum in morem historiae libellulum retexere, de hiis quae a nostris et a quibusdam suorum audivimus' 3 . The words imply that he did not copy, but re-wrote an earlier work which included the recollections of Hereward's followers, and an earlier passage indicates that the object of his revision was to improve language and style 4. The earlier and cruder version could then have been the source of the Liber Eliensis and the assortment of differences and similarities would be most satisfactorily explained on the hypothesis that the author was not revising an earlier Latin text, but producing a new translation into Latin of stories which had come to him in the vernacular. The author of the Gesta, as well as the author of the version represented by the Liber Eliensis, would then be the Richard, monk of Ely, referred to in Book II and, although the author of the Gesta nowhere identifies himself as a monk of Ely, the evidence supports rather than contradicts such an identification. In the preface he reveals himself as the member of a community 5. Some of his information on Hereward was derived a nostris, which would suit Ely. He was familiar with the topography of the island and, in referring to Ely, he speaks of in temporibus abbatum as a term requiring no further explanation 6. This reference to the times of the abbots puts the date of the Gesta after the accession of Bishop Hervey in 1109. The monk Richard was dead before the Liber Eliensis had been completed, that is before 1174 7, and even if the author of the Gesta—quite regardless of any identification with Richard—had been a mere boy when he saw the associates of Hereward and they very old, he is not likely to have lived longer than about this time 8. Book II, cc. 144-48 give an account of the second translation of Etheldreda in 1106 which is related to similar accounts found in B and in a Life of Wihtburga. In B 9 it is given, like the book of miracles, as a separate booklet, De secunda trans- latione, inserted between Books I and II of the Liber Eliensis. It is, with few exceptions, identical with cc. 144-47 an(i parts of cc. 148 and 150, and an introductory

1 P. 381. 2 Ch. 105. There are similar examples in ch. 106 (Gesta, pp. 382, 384). 3 Gesta Herwardi, p. 340. 4 He describes his first attempt as ' crudam materiam . . . minus dialecticis et rhetoricis enigmatibus compositam et ornatam ' (ibid., p. 340). 6 Ibid., pp. 339 40. 6 The point is made by Liebermann, loc. cit. 7 See infra, p. xlviii. 8 If the vestra dilectio, addressed in the preface, is—as is likely—a bishop of Ely, the Gesta were probably written before 1131, since the addressee also is stated to have seen two of Hereward's knights and it is improbable that they, maimed as they were, lived long enough to meet Bishop Nigel. 9 Fos. 33 ff.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 INTRODUCTION xxxvii chapter, summarising the early history of Ely and of the building of the abbey church, has echoes from ch. 142 and concludes with all but the first sentence of ch. 143. There is no indication in the corresponding parts of Book II that they might be adapted from a self-sufficient work of this kind and the inference must be that the booklet has been compiled from the Liber Eliensis. The Life of Wihtburga is one of the collection of Lives in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 393. It ends with the story of Wihtburga's translation to Ely, which except for a few readings is the same as Book II, ch. 53, followed by a version of her translation to the new church which is identical with parts of cc. 144 and 148 and all of ch. 147, as well as being less directly related to the description in ch. 144 of those invited to attend the ceremony and of Bishop Herbert's speech. The style of the shared passages, which is characteristic of the rhyming prose of Corpus, and the order of the narrative, which is changed at one point in the Liber Eliensis from that retained in Corpus 1, indicates that the Liber Eliensis is dependent on a Life of Wihtburga of the Corpus type. It cannot have been Corpus itself, since it omits the name of Wido of Pershore, given in the Liber Eliensis, as present at the ceremony 2, and there is supporting evidence for the existence of such a Life, because Corpus shares a common source, which has not survived, with another Life of Wihtburga included in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. 0.2.1 3. The story of the translation to Ely of the relics of St Alban, given in Book II, ch. 103, occurs also in the Life of St Alban in the Nova Legenda Anglie 4 by John of Tynemouth who found it ' in cenobio Heliensi scriptum '. John's version adds the date of St Alban's translation to the monastic church at Ely (IV. Id. Maii), also that the abbot of St Alban's who brought the relics later died at Ely and that the Ely monks, on being commanded by King William I to restore the relics to St Albans, sent a different set of bones. It lacks the information that at Ely St Alban's relics 1 Corpus gives the names of those who inspected Wihtburga's body at a point corresponding to the middle of Book II, ch. 147, where the L.E. says quos supra memoravimus, having already named them in ch. 144. Evidently the source used by the L.E. had the names in the same place as Corpus. 8 Also the chronological calculations in ch. 147 ' De huius quippe . . . ostensa est corpore ' are given later in Corpus, as the last passage of the Life (cf. infra, ch. 148). This position is more appropriate and there is no reason why the L.E. should have advanced it. The most likely explanation is that it was a marginal addition in the source used by both. 3 Fos. 236V-240V. The Trinity and Corpus Lives are for the most part identical. Corpus cannot be derived from Trinity, since a number of phrases, which it does not share with Trinity, fit too naturally into the stylistic pattern of the whole to be regarded as later additions. Also Corpus makes no use of much historical and genealogical information which Trinity adds to the prologue. These additions in Trinity are made in a simple prose quite distinct from the rhyming prose of the matter shared with Corpus; yet Trinity cannot be based on Corpus, since it ends with a miracle which occurs earlier in Corpus and it is Corpus, not Trinity, which acknowledges a change of order (' His e diverso tempore assimilatis et ex similitudine annexis, ad superiora proposita reditus detur associabilis '). Corpus therefore must have worked from a source which placed the miracle in the same position as it occupies in Trinity, and it is this source, of which no manuscript version has survived, to which both owe their common stock. The Trinity Life in its present state does not include the two translations, but it ends abruptly—the last few lines being added in a later hand—and they may well have been part of its source. Another collection of Wihtburga's miracles in Caligula A.viii bears no close relationship to either Trinity or Corpus and does not help to determine their common source. 4 Ed. C. Horstmann (1901), i, 36.

1 R. Vaughan, Matthew Paris (1958), p. 200. 2 Ibid., pp. 198-204. 3 Cf. Bentham, Ely, i, 85. 4 Cc. 62, 65, 71, 72, 75, 86, 87 and 99. 5 In every case, with the exception of Bishop Osmund, the date of death is given in a similar form. Each is said to have been translated inter alios (or some similar phrase) and the opening passage of the chapter about Wulfstan clearly was intended to introduce a narrative treating of them all (' primum earn in serie aliorum collocantes, quos subsequens narratio declarabit'—and this in ch. 87 when in the L.E. only the account of Osmund remains to be given). The compiler explains the change of sequence: ' Horum primus est in ordine vir optimus Wlstanus, licet aliquorum, exigenti narrationis serie, supra meminimus '.

1 ' Ad hoc monacus Ricardus auctor huius operis et hanc historiam stilo commendavit, causam negotiumque pro ecclesia suscipiens . . . de arbitrio domini pape decidendum appellavit ' (ch. 96). See infra, p. xlvii. 2 ' Pretermitto plurima que in opusculis fratris nostri historiarum studiosissimi deserti et eloquentissimi viri plenius referuntur ' (ch. 44). ' Hec quidem latius scriberem, sed, quoniam in venerabilis iam dicti patris Ricardi opusculis plene inveniuntur, ad alia festinamus ' (ch. 45). 3 They are indicated in the footnotes to the text. The argument is more fully set out in ' The Historia Eliensis as a Source for Twelfth-Century History ', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, xli (1959), pp. 311-16. 1 E.g. ' Itaque cara et preclara Eliensis metropolis luxit et elanguit, suo orbata presidio a iugo destituta solatio . . . et de more pro pastore in vigiliis, in ieiuniis . . .' (ch. 44); '. . . cuius honestas totam curiam illustrabat, potestas regebat, largitas extollebat . . .' (ibid.); '. . . verba pretendit . . . monita adiungit . . . ferre commonuit . . . devote spopondit . . .' (ch. 45); '. . . vir impius, inventor sceleris . . . multipliciter afflixit . . . gravamina intulit . . . contumeliis lacessivit . . . rapere non timuit ..." (ch. 96). If Richard is taken to be the compiler of the L.E. itself as well as the author of these opuscula, the evidence from style cannot of course be admitted to help determine the contents of the opuscula. See infra, p. xlvii. 5 His complaints at the curia covered a wide range (cc. 102, 101) and a digest of them might well have been included in the Stetchworth historia. 6 In B (Book of Miracles) these four chapters are given as one continuous story, but, as this is clearly derived from a source which had previously mentioned Nigel's clerk Ranulf, it is probably taken from the L.E. The only other narrative sources taken into Book III are the miracle stories in cc. 33, 35 and 43. The most interesting of these is ch. 33, concerning the liberation of Bricstan, which is adapted from a story composed by Abbot Warin of St Evrout, another version of which has found its way into Orderic Vitalis, Hist. Eccl., iii, 122-34. Like other miracle stories in Book III these probably belonged to a collection of miracles from which they were copied in approximately chronological order into the L.E.

1 Book II, cc. 9, 39, 58, 72. 2 Book III, ch. 53. 3 Book II, ch. 39. 4 Book II, cc. 5, 9, 39, 58, 82, 92, 93, 95, 116-17, 120-27, 136; Book III, cc. 2-7, 10-13, 15-16, 18-19, 26, 55, 54, 56, 65-67. 5 Book III, ch. 55 precedes ch. 54. 6 Cc. 28, 77, 114 and 139. ' Cc. 8, 14, 20-24 and 4°> 49> 63- 8 Except one letter of Archbishop Theobald in D. See infra, Book III, ch. 91. 9 Cc. 68, 85, 79, 84, 80-81, 83 (end of the second hand in C), 95, 105 and part of 104 (end of C and change of hand in D); only in D, cc. 91 (followed by another version of this which is not in the L.E.), 90, 106, 134. 10 See textual notes to e.g. Book II, cc. 117, 126, 127, 136 and Book III, cc. 79, 85. For omissions in D only see e.g. Book III, cc. 2, 6, 7, 13, 81, 83.

1 This relationship between C, D and E matches the suggestion made by J. H. Round for the versions of the I.E. in the same manuscripts. Refuting the conclusions of N. E. S. A. Hamilton —who took the version in E to be derived from C—he held that the D version was an inferior copy of C and that E, which corrects C's inaccuracies, derived from a source held in common with C. Cf. Hamilton, I.C.C., pp. 97 fi. and xiii ff. and Round, Feudal England, pp. 124-25. They use the letters A for Tiberius A.vi (D), B for Trinity, O.2.41 (C), and C for Trinity O.2.1 (E). Cf. also G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies, pp. 42—44. 8 Italso lacks Book II, ch. 128 (added in the margin of F only) and Book III, ch. 133 (in the margin of E only). Book III, ch. 114 is entered twice. While the cartulary seems to have begun originally with Book II, ch. 116, four charters were later copied in to precede it (Book II, cc. 92, 93, 9. 39) and one was added at the end (Book II, ch. 77). It ends with fifteen documents, not in the L.E., mainly connected with the election of a successor to Bishop Nigel, three of which have been printed by R. Foreville, ' Lettres " Extravagantes " de Thomas Becket . . .' (Melanges d'histoire du Moyen Age dedies a la memoire de Louis Halphen, no. xxix, pp. 225-38). 3 Book III, cc. 8, 14, 71, 75, 76. It also includes the inventory in Book II, ch. 114 (in the margin of E), but not that in Book II, ch. 139. 1 Book III, cc. 49, 63, 70, 71, 75, 76, 87, 88, 114. These are followed in G by letters of Innocent II (Book III, cc. 54-55, 65-67, 56) after which the order of the L.E. is resumed, except that ch. 128 precedes ch. 127. Also Book III, ch. 8, precedes ch. 7. 6 See textual notes to e.g. Book II, ch. 114; Book III, cc. 2, 5, 16, 18, 22, 23, 66, 71, 85, 98, 103, 106, 129, 140. 6 See the concluding phrases of Book II, cc. 116 and 117, Book III, cc. 4 and 5. In Book II, ch. 136 G adds igitur and idem with E and F—words which do not belong to the charters and are omitted from C and D—and in several instances shares other readings with E and F against C and D (e.g. Book III, ch. 54). 7 One error which clearly originated in E led to amendments in G and F. In E the last word on fo. 172 is Dei, the first on fo. 172V is legiis. G amends the latter to legibus, F (on erasure) to privilegiis (ch. 134). It is, however, possible that G preserves the original version. In Book III, ch. 85 F reads in aquis sicut solebant, where E and G omit sicut (E adding in quibus in the margin), and in ch. 14 G and E read scilicet which is omitted in F. 8Cc. 114, 139. • See infra, p. xliv.

III. THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE MANUSCRIPTS The relationship of the manuscripts of the Liber Eliensis cannot be established with certainty. There are marked differences between E and F which indicate that E cannot be a copy of F. Apart from the handwriting of E, which seems to be the earlier of the two, F includes chapters in the text which are only in the margin of E 2 and, while F seems to be a fair copy throughout, there is one section in E which looks like the compiler's autograph 3. For this section at least F is probably a copy of E, and this may be true for the whole of Book III 4. For Book II, however, E cannot be the sole source of F, since the latter reproduces the Libellus in full, which E severely abbreviates, and has other additions 6. Whether F used E as a basis from which to work, while making its own additions, or whether an earlier recension, which has not survived, has been used, must be left open to doubt 6. It is perhaps unlikely that F worked from E, as we might in that case expect some vestige in E also of F's emendations and additions, especially where F has made good an omission 7 or altered individual words 8 and in cc. 113-15, where F has re-organised the material. There is, moreover, evidence of an earlier recension, now lost, of E, which F might have used. Book II in E is preceded by an index of chapter headings. This is not merely a summary list, compiled from the rubrics of the chapters which follow in the text of E and later inserted in a vacant space left for the purpose. It was copied into E in the same hand as that of the text immediately preceding and following—a hand which wrote the first seventy-six folios of the Liber Eliensis, to the second line of Book II, ch. 909. It must therefore be either the copy of an index to an earlier manuscript version of Book II or at least compiled from the rubrics in the text of such a version. It represents a Book II of the E type, but with some differences. In its omissions it agrees with E against F. It has no rubrics for F, cc. 69, 70, 138, where the 1 Cf. G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies, p. 43. The manuscript resembles O in handwriting and general appearance. a Book II, cc. 114, 138; Book III, cc. 8, 14, 32, 71, 75, 76. 8 Fos. 144-3iv (Book III, from the end of ch. 68 to the middle of ch. 92). But the autograph may begin already earlier. See supra, p. xxiii. 4 This would explain the errors shared by E and F in Book III, cc. 15, 54, 56, 95, 134, 137, 138. F has several omissions and inferior readings which could be the result of careless copying (cc. 26, 35, 36, 60, 96, 116) or attempted correction (cc. 38, 43, 74, 121). For a variant which can probably be traced to an error in E see supra, p. xli. 5 It adds an excerpt from William of Poitiers in ch. 90 and also the cc. 69, 70, 138. 6 The strongest piece of evidence for E as the direct source of F is the inclusion of the word perrexit in the text of ch. 142. This occurs at the corresponding place on the line in E, but is part of the inset rubric. As this is written in red in E, F's error is unnatural, and it may be that E exactly reproduced the lay-out of an earlier recension with the rubric in the same shade of ink as the text. 7 E.g. in cc. 55, 66, 69, 85, 109, 111, 134. 8 E.g. in cc. 83, 104, 105, 106, 137. In ch. 78 E reads ornamentis, followed by ornatibus lined through: yet F reads ornatibus only. 9 It also wrote the rubrics to the text as far as Book II, ch. 84.

1 The rubric to ch. 108 was originally missing also from the index of F, as was that of ch. 109, and they were added in the margin. But this seems to be without significance, as the index in F was copied in after the completion of F Book II and as the additions are in the same hand as the rest of the folio on which they occur, presumably correcting an accidental omission by the scribe. *I-e- 73, 77, 80, 74, 75, 78, 79, 84, 85, 81, 82, 86-89, 83, 90. 3 The only exception is ch. 80, which ends with the election of Abbots Leofwine and Leofric in the reign of Cnut. But here too the chief time reference is the death of Abbot TElfsige tempore regis Mthelredi, which would account for its insertion at this point. 4 For instance, if F did not work from E, the recension from which it did work must have had an abbreviated version of the Libellus like E. F gives the phrase ' Collectis igitur omnibus terris . . . habenturque ibi hyde lx ' as the last sentence of both cc. 23 and 24. If F had been prepared from a Book II giving the Libellus in full, the sentence would have come only in ch. 24. E, however, omits the chapter of the Libellus, corresponding to ch. 24 in F, except for this last sentence which it appends to ch. 23 without a new rubric. Presumably the F version copied ch. 23 from an abbreviated version like E, then supplied ch. 24 in full from the Libellus and repeated its last sentence.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 xliv INTRODUCTION curavit', gives the inventory of the abbey treasures taken by Ranulf Flambard. In the margin in a different hand and without rubric is added an inventory taken in the time of Godfrey. F, on the other hand, gives Godfrey's inventory after ch. 113 (changing the end of ch. 113, as given in E, and adding a new narrative chapter—115) and Ranulf's, without the opening sentence in E, as ch. 139. In the archetype, therefore, the chapter represented by the rubric following ch. 117 was probably Godfrey's inventory and the chapter represented by the rubric following ch. 113, which has verbal parallels with the opening sentence of Ranulf's inventory in E, must have either made some reference to this inventory or included a copy of it. E then preferred the position after ch. 117 for Ranulf's inventory rather than Godfrey's and omitted to find a place in the text for Godfrey's altogether. F, however, made a more radical revision in removing Ranulf's inventory to a chrono- logically more suitable position and inserting Godfrey's in the place vacated by it after ch. 113 1. But although the F version seems to be ultimately descended from this archetype, it is unlikely that F itself, which has the appearance of a fair copy, is immediately derived from it. It is safer to postulate a recension of the F type, adapted from the archetype, from which F was later copied. There is some support for this theory in the version of Book II in B and G. This stops at ch. 96 and includes only those chapters concerned with the acquisition— or in ch. 96 the alienation—of the abbey lands 2. B is a copy of G 3. G is closer to F than to E in its variant readings 4 and in that the Libellus chapters are given in full and ch. 90 includes the extract from William of Poitiers. It cannot be an earlier recension from which F, or the postulated original of F, have been expanded, since its readings are frequently inferior 5 and it is clearly abbreviated from a more complete Book II 6. It could be copied from F, but the handwriting seems to be of an earlier date and in one instance it retains a scribal error which in F has been corrected on erasure 7. It is possible that G copied F before the correction was made, but, as the correction seems to be in the hand of the text, it is more likely that it derived the error from a common source. For Book I the evidence comes only from variant readings. E and F frequently 1 The cartulary in G gives Godfrey's inventory after ch. 117, which suggests that G was here following the archetype and not E. As it omits Ranulf's inventory altogether this suggests further that the archetype did not give this inventory in full in a form suitable for inclusion in a cartulary. The omission of the same inventory from O must have a different explanation, as O gives cc. 113-15 in the order of F. As, like E, O also omits ch. 138, it may have been following F at one point and E at the other. Cf. infra, p. xliv. 2 It omits cc. 5, 9, 28, 39, 58, 77, 82, 92, 93, which are documents; cc. 6, 50-57, 71-72, 76, 79, 80, 84-87, 91, 94, which are narrative chapters not concerned with the Ely lands, and ch. 15, which is a later marginal addition in F. The only anomaly in this selection is the inclusion of ch. 90, recording the betrayal of Alfred in 1036. 3 B is the later manuscript. Its readings generally agree with G—especially where the order of words differs from E and F (e.g. cc. 8 and 11). In ch. 74, where the word Berchinges occurs in EFO, it has been erased in G, while it is entirely omitted from B. 4 E.g. BG and F share omissions against E in ch. 62. 6 BG frequently have a different word order from F, where F agrees with E and the Libellus (e.g. cc. 8 and 11). 6 -E.g. it keeps the phrases introducing charters, even when the charters themselves do not follow (cc. 8, 38). 7 See the textual notes to ch. 29.

1 E.g. in cc. 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18. 2 E.g. adoptatam E: adoptivam F (ch. 14); salute E: statu F (ch. 16); vestimentis E: vestibus F; reperiit E: habuit F (ch. 16). 3 He would not otherwise have copied the fragment of Book II, nor separated Book II from Book I by inserting between them the tract on the second translation (which comes at the end of the full Book II) and the book of miracles. 4 In cc. 8 and 9 E and F have lengthy additions on erasure which are not in B. It is unlikely that B could have copied F before the additions were made, since they are made in a hand which looks earlier than that of B. B could therefore derive from a copy of F Book I, taken before these additions were made, or from a source shared by E and F. In ch. 8 also B (with O) has a variant from E and F, which may come from such a common source (super Deirorum provinciam . . . super provinciam Eboracam adhibuit E, showing signs of erasure; super Deirorum et Bernici- orum provincias . . . super provinciam Eboracam adhibuit F; super Deirorum, on erasure, provinciam . . . Eboracam hoc est Berniciorum adhibuit B; super Deirorum etc. as B, but without erasure, O). All versions make the error of not realising that the province of York is the same as that of Deira. But B and F seem to have used a source, which could not be E, with the word Berniciorum in it, perhaps as a suggested correction of the erroneous Deirorum, misunder- stood by B and F. 5 E.g. in cc. i, 54, 55, 61, 62, 65, 66, 69, 85, 101. 6 E.g. in cc. 102, 109, 131, 136, 142, 148. 7 E.g. in cc. 104, 105, 106 (F alone adds eiusdem domus), 133, 134 (F alone adds ab Mo), 137. The chief exceptions from this rule are in cc. 31 (EO add two verbs not in F); cc. 59 and 67 (where omissions in FBG are made good in EO); ch. 78 (ornamentis followed by ornatibus lined through, E; ornatibus, F; ornamentis, O) and ch. 83. Also after ch. 101 FO sometimes agree against E;«.g. ch. 101 (occurrere, E and Florence; concurrere, FO); ch. 109 (impegre, FO; omitted in E). The same distribution applies approximately where F adds words, not in E, by interlining. Up to ch. 105, with a few exceptions, these added words are in the text of O; after that they are omitted from O, as from E. 8 Ch. 2 (favore, EFBG; fervore, AC; favore . . . vel fervore, O); ch. 73 (perpetuo, with final 0 on erasure, F; in perpetuum, E; perpetuo vel in perpetuum, O); ch. 100 (edoctum, E; eductum, F; eductum vel edoctum, O). Cf. also ch. 89, where O shares a long addition with F, but also one sentence which is only in E.

IV. THE AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE LIBER ELIENSIS There is nowhere any indication to contradict the impression given by the prefaces to the three books that the compilation was the work of one man. He was clearly a monk of Ely, but we cannot be certain of his name. He has sometimes been identified with a monk Thomas8, on the grounds that Thomas wrote the miracle story in Book III, ch. 61 in the first person singular de me ipso. But the style employed in this chapter is not found elsewhere in the Liber Eliensis and, although it may be said that he used a flamboyant style in ch. 61 only, because it was appropriate to his subject, it is unlikely that he could have denied his taste 1 Book II, cc. 134, 137, 148. 2 Book II, cc. 15, 128. 3 O continues its preference for E up to Book III, ch. 55 (e.g. it does not share F's omission in ch. 26 and misreading in ch. 38), but follows F in bad readings in cc. 54, 56, 69, 74, 92. In cc. 95, 127, 135 it agrees again with E, and in a passage in ch. 138, -where E is unintelligible, it first followed E and then produced its own emendation. In Book I, O generally agrees with F, but cf. supra, p. xlv, n. 4, where it shares a reading with B, which may represent an older version of Book I. 4 It includes cc. 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 25, 33, 41, 44—47, 51-56, 62, 72-73, 137. 6 E is still a copy up to this point, and the second copyist's hand, which took over at the beginning of Book II, ch. 90, stops after ch. 43. If G cartulary used this manuscript of the L.E. it would explain why it abandons the sequence of the L.E. with the first charter (ch. 49) after ch. 43. Also ch. 43, the last chapter dealing with Bishop Hervey's time, is in itself a likely place for a break in the composition of the L.E. See supra, p. xxiii. 6 By previous editors of the L.E. and the Chronicon. Their findings, discussed in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, xli (1959), pp. 309—10, need not be examined in detail, since they are all based on the evidence of Book III, cc. 44, 45 and 61, which is cited below. The difference between them lies, not in their conclusions, but in that they found this evidence in a variety of MSS. Wharton had to rely on Book III in A, which has cc. 44 and 45, and on the book of miracles in B, which includes a copy of ch. 61. Mabillon and Papebroch had the evidence of B only. Gale had a manuscript (E) of the L.E., as had Stewart, but the latter printed only a few, incomplete notes made by H. Petrie. Cf. also Liebermann, t)ber Ostenglische Geschichtsquellen, pp. 225 ff. and M. Bateson in D.N.B. under Thomas of Ely.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 INTRODUCTION xlvii for rhyming prose and hexameters for the whole length of the Liber EHensis. It is far more probable that Thomas was the compiler of a collection of miracles into which he introduced one witnessed by himself x. A stronger claimant is Richard, the author of the Stetchworth historia and of the opuscula on the priory's grievances. His name would lend considerable authority to the Liber Eliensis, at least for its twelfth-century portions. A senior monk of Ely, whose experience was not con- fined to domestic affairs, he is probably to be identified with the later sub-prior 2 and prior 3 of that name. Richard's claim has long been recognised. Boston of Bury mentions him as author of Sermones quamplures 4, but not of any historical work. Leland calls Ricardus Anguillarianus Monachus author of Anguillarianae res gestae insulae 5. Bale in his Index Britanniae Scriptorum 6 quotes Boston, but in his Catalogus ', apart from correctly using Leland and Boston, he attributed to Richard also Carmina diversa and aliqua nonnulla. This is an error which can be traced back to the Index 8, where these latter items are on the authority of Matthew Paris attributed to Roger de Insula, Anglus nacione. Above Roger Bale wrote ' Ricardus ' and above Anglus ' putatur Eliensis', and Roger was subsequently altogether omitted from the Catalogus. Bale's error passed to, among others, Wharton 8 and Tanner 10. This claim depends on the evidence of one passage. Describing the early stages of the litigation over Stetchworth, Book III, ch. 96 tells us that Bishop Nigel had first confirmed the priory in its possession of the manor, but was obliged after an appeal heard before Archbishop Theobald and Bishop Hilary of Chichester to reverse his decision: ' . . . prenotatorum simul consilio episcoporum atque precepto adversarium ilium Henricum, monachis inconsultis, in possessionem, quam petebat, de Stevechesworde . . . introduxit. Ad hoc monachus Ricardus, auctor huius operis, et hanc historiam stilo commendavit, causam negotiumque pro ecclesia suscipiens solus ex omnibus restitit . . . et de arbitrio pape decidendum appellavit.' The construction of the italicised passage is unfortunately obscure. Stewart seems to have concluded—in a sentence which is also far from clear—that it had been 1 The nearest approximation to his style in works produced at Ely is to be found in the version of the Book I miracles in Corpus, MS. 393, Trinity College, Dublin, B.2.7 and B. 2 He was one of the party which represented the monks at the election of Geoffrey Ridel (G, fo. 54V). 8 He succeeded Salomon in 1177 (Bentham, Ely, i, 216-17) and was not himself succeeded before 1189 (ibid., p. 217. Bentham does not give his authority for this date, but this must be the concord ' facta die Sabbati prox' post festum Sancti Andr' anni primi electionis domini Willelmi de Lungchamp ' which Bentham copied into Vol. VII of his notebook, C.U.L., MS. Add. 2950, from Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Tiberius B.ii, fo. 255). This Richard is not to be identified with the monk Richard said to have written the Gesta Herwardi (see supra, p. xxxvi), who must have been dead by the time Book II was copied into E (where he is referred to as beate memorie). 1 Catalogus Scriptorum Ecclesiae, C.U.L., MS. Add. 3470, no. 169. 5 De Scriptoribus Anglicis, ed. A. Hall, Commentarii de Scriptoribus Anglicis (Oxon., 1709), i, 245. Cf. Leland's Collectanea, ed. T. Hearne, i, pt. ii, 598 ff. 6 Ed. R. L. Poole and M. Bateson (1902), p. 344. ''Scriptorum Illustrium Maioris Britanniae Catalogus (1557), p. 269. 8 P. 405. 9 Anglia Sacra, i, p. xlv. 10 Notitia Monastica (1774), p. 35.

1 Liber Eliensis, p. vi. 2 See infra, App. E, p. 436. 3 See supra, p. xxiii. 4 See supra, p. xlvi. 6 See The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. J. R. H. Weaver, pp. 9-10. 6 See infra, Book II, Proem. 7 The date of Prior Alexander's translation of the relics of the ' confessors ' buried at Ely (Book II, ch. 87). This evidence for the date of Book II is roughly corroborated by Book II, ch. 54, which cannot have been written before 1144, since it mentions a silver cross ' quam Nigellus episcopus tulit ' and this must be one of three crosses mentioned in Book III, ch. 89. The same chapter includes a letter from Henry of Huntingdon, described as a venerable old man, which refers to events of about 1150. 8 ' Tempore adhuc superstitis domini Nigelli episcopi ' . . . 9 This agrees with the evidence of the kalendar, which precedes the L.E. in E and which gives the obit for Nigel, but not for Geoffrey Ridel. Cf. F. Wormald, Benedictine Kalendars after 1100, vol. ii and B. Dickins, Leeds Studies in English and Kindred Languages, vi, p. 15. The passio of St Thomas could also have become available by then. See E. Walberg, La Tradition Hagiographique (1929), pp. 133-34.

V. THE VALUE OF THE LIBER ELIENSIS The value of a compilation, made between 1131 and 1174, of materials so varied in date and content, is open to question. The materials themselves are not of course objective records of the acknowledged rights of the abbey, but represent its claims in times of stress and its needs to justify existing customs by appeal to ancient privilege. Thus the production of a Life and miracles of St Etheldreda are testi- mony less of a lively cult of the saint than of the doubts and disrespect of the generations of monks and laymen in the century after the Norman invasion 3. The emphasis on the antiquity of the abbey's liberty owes much to the disputes arising from the Norman settlement and from later attempts by Bishops Hervey 4 and Nigel5 to recover alienated lands. The determination of Abbots Simeon and Richard to establish exemption from episcopal control 8 may have led them to seek evidence for it when none existed. Suspect in themselves, these materials, 1 See supra, p. xxxix. 2 See supra, p. xxxix. This more cautious conclusion is adopted in my article, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, xli, p. 311. • See infra, Book II, cc. 131, 132; Book III, ch. 58. Cf. D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England (1949), pp. 118-19. 4 Book III, ch. 9. 6 Book III, ch. 48. • Book II, cc. 118, 141. D

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 1 INTRODUCTION as presented in the Liber Eliensis, incur further suspicion, because we are here made to see them through the eyes of men determined to claim for the new cathedral priory the rights and lands which the convent had enjoyed in the time of the abbots and to prevent the new bishops from assuming, by right of succession to the abbots of Ely, the exercise of powers in the isle which had been denied to their predecessors in their episcopal capacity, the bishops of Lincoln. The narrative account therefore, no less than the documents, of the Liber Eliensis cannot be accepted without careful scrutiny for signs of forgery, bias, or less culpable inaccuracy resulting from ignorance or misinterpretation. From such a scrutiny the documents emerge remarkably well. Of the royal writs and charters only Edgar's privilege 1, Edward the Confessor's confirmation 2, the report of the discussio libertatis of 1080 3, and Eadred's charter in Book II, ch. 28 need be considered spurious. Of the papal letters only the privilege of Victor II is suspect *. Charters confirming grants from Bishops Hervey and Nigel are above suspicion, except those recording the division of lands between monks and bishop 5. But whatever may be said of the form of these instruments, the contents of Bishop Nigel's charter at least can be accepted as genuine e. The authenticity of Hervey's charter is more seriously in doubt since the discovery among the Ely muniments of an original charter 7, which was not copied into the Liber Eliensis and describes a less generous settlement. One may suspect that the monks substituted for it a document which more nearly met their demands—ch. 26—and which was presented to Bishop Nigel to provide a model for his arrangement between 1137 and 1139. In fact, Nigel could not have been ignorant of Ely, D. and C, Cart. 51, since it was witnessed by the archdeacon whom he inherited from his predecessor 8, and the difference between the two charters can be adequately explained without assuming either to be a forgery. The difficult Latin of the passage introducing ch. 26 9 lends itself to the construction that Hervey's plan to separate the livelihood of the monks from the rest of the income from the Ely lands caused much indignation and that the monks did not consent to his proposals until he had promised to consider a gradual increase of the monks' share after inquiring into their specific needs. The original proposals, it is suggested, are embodied in the Ely charter and the eventual improvements in ch. 26, and an essential difference between the two arrangements is indicated—again in difficult Latin—by the preamble to ch. 26. This implies that Hervey had first merely earmarked the incomes from certain manors for the various requirements of the convent (necessaria monachorum) as distinct from the res episcopates, and such an assignment, conferring no rights

1 Book II, ch. 5. 2 Book II, ch. 92. 3 Book II, ch. 116. 4 Book II, ch. 93. 6 Book III, cc. 26 and 54. 6 The versions which have survived as Brit. Mus., Harley Cart. 43.H.4 and 43.H.5 appear to be not originals, but scriptorium copies (see infra, cc. 26, 54). The contents of Nigel's charter are taken over verbatim into the papal confirmations of 1139 and 1144 (Book III, cc. 56 and 85). Nigel's charter was later confirmed by himself (Book III, ch. 135; Ely, D. and C, Cart. 55) and it served as the basis for William Longchamp's charter of confirmation (Ely, D. and C, Cart. 57). 7 Ely, D. and C, Cart. 51; printed by Miller, Ely, pp. 282-83. Cf. ibid., p. 76. 8 William the Breton. The clerk Gocelin of Ely, who became a member of Nigel's familia, also witnesses this charter. Cf. Book III, cc. 78, 89, 90, 92. 9 See infra, Book III, ch. 25.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 INTRODUCTION li of administration or free disposal of the manors themselves, is all that the Ely charter records 1. Possession and independent control of the manors themselves was the subject of the later grant, in response to bitter complaints, which is copied in ch. 26 2. The earlier arrangement, thus revoked and anyhow insignificant by comparison, would not require detailed notice in the Liber Eliensis and ch. 26, no less than the Ely charter, can be regarded as authentic 3. The same is true of the few private charters which are included 4 and of the abstracts of Old English wills and other grants 6. The records derived from the Libellus are in a category by themselves 6. The survival of two manuscripts of the Libellus itself proves that the compiler of the F version of the Liber Eliensis merely incorporated a translation, prepared in Hervey's time, without any important alterations. But exactly what the translator had before him is less obvious. His ultimate source was clearly a number of informal records in Old English of acts of purchase by Bishop iEthelwold which generally, but not always 7, include the account of a law-suit after the death of King Edgar. Such records, also connected with ^Ethelwold, are well known from the cartularies of Abingdon, Winchester and Peterborough 8, and traces are found of them also in a twelfth-century Latin version in the Ramsey Chronicle 9. The details of the transactions described are convincing. No doubt the records present only Bishop iEthelwold's side of the case, but the selection of the facts and the bias of the presentation at least belongs to the period of the transactions themselves: there are no later controversies over the estates concerned which might have occa- sioned forgery or interpolation at a later date. Whether the translator was the first to arrange documents, separately preserved, consecutively in a book, or whether he was working from an existing collection, we are not expressly told 10. But there 1 The manors are arranged under the headings ad victum, ad vestitum, ad luminare, ad operationem, and some of these arrangements continued to be observed after the priory gained full control. See infra, Book III, ch. 105 and F. R. Chapman, Sacrist Rolls of Ely (1907), i, 120. 2'. . . res monachorum a rebus episcopalibus separatim ordinavi, et . . . separatim possidere permisi . . .' 3 This explanation accounts also for other differences between the charters. Manors named in the Ely charter, but absent from ch. 26, had probably been alienated (e.g. Willingham, Hard- wick and Hatfield were later held as knights' fees of the bishop, Miller, Ely, pp. 183-84. Kingston was recovered by Nigel in 1135, infra, Book III, ch. 48. Hoo was exchanged, Liber M, p. 146). Of the additional possessions in ch. 26 Nigel confirms elsewhere that the monks had held Winston (' sicut illam melius et liberius quando ad episcopatum venimus tenuerunt ', Liber M, p. 155) and their own court (Book III, ch. 135) in Hervey's time, and he is not likely to have been deceived, as he made a survey of the Ely revenues soon after his accession (Book III, ch. 48). 4 Book III, cc. 139-41. 6 Book II, cc. 60-70, 73-75, 81-82, 88-89. 6 Book II, cc. 7-8, 10-14, I6-27, 30-49. 7 Cc. 11, parts of 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21-23, 26, 31, 36-40, 42-49. 8 Cf. Robertson, Charters, nos. XXXI, XXXVII-XL, LIII. There are other instances concerned with Rochester, Christ Church, Canterbury, and Hereford (ibid., nos. XLI, XLIV, LIX, LXVI, LXIX, LXXVIII, LXXX). 'E.g. pp. 48—51, 59-61, 76—79. Cf. F. M. Stenton, The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (1955), p. 44. 10 The proem to Book II and the concluding phrase of Book III, ch. 119 (which quotes the Latin Libellus verbatim) suggest only that there was a liber de terris sancti /Edelwoldi in the Latin translation. But the introductory phrase to Book III, ch. 120 (which proceeds also to quote the Latin Libellus) seems to imply that such a book existed before its translation into Latin (' in libro iam dicto sancti ^Edelwoldi Anglice composuerunt, sed nunc temporis in Latinum transmutatum . . .').

1 Cc. 8-24 (except for the intrusion of transactions concerning Cambridge in cc. 18-20). 2 See infra, Book II, ch. 24. It is unlikely that, as has been suggested, the hidage figures here given have been adjusted to agree with those sworn to at the Domesday inquest, since they rarely coincide with the totals in Domesday Book and since in cases where the tenth-century estate has been re-organised before the Norman conquest no attempt is made to identify it with the corresponding Domesday estate. See infra, Book II, cc. 8 and 9, and notes. 3 See especially the group of estates at the end of the Libellus (infra, Book II, cc. 42-49), bought and later lost by iEthelwold, with the apparently contemporary comment that now the bishop, or the church, lacks both land and purchase money; also ch. 11, where an account of the purchase of land at Chippenham is added to the descriptio of Downham with the final comment on the six and a half predia which cost sixty shillings, while no one with any sense would value them at more than twenty. 4 See Robertson, Charters, no. XXXIX for a list of iEthelwold's gifts to Peterborough and no. XL for a list of sureties for the purchase of estates for Peterborough. 6 Book II, ch. 7. 6 Except for Harting, given to Edgar in exchange. ' See infra, Book II, ch. 5. These details do not appear either in the Old English version of the Stowe charter nor in the other surviving version of Edgar's grant to jEthelwold of the monastery of Ely with the estates at Melbourn and Armingford. 8 Book II, ch. 9. 9 Book II, ch. 39.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 INTRODUCTION liii limits are after the accession of iEthelredx and before the death of Abbot Brihtnoth 2. This collection of documentary material is the most valuable part of the Liber Eliensis. For the domestic history of Ely it effectively illustrates the growth of the endowment, its fortunes after the Norman invasion, and the way in which the lands were allocated to support the separate establishments of bishop and monks after the creation of the bishopric of Ely in 1109 3. In the wider field of English history the Libellus is full of interest 4, and the documents of the Stetchworth case give a good example of the procedure of appeals to the papal curia and the use of judges delegate in the reign of Stephen 5. The worth of the compiler's own comments and of the information derived from narrative sources is more uneven. For the history of Etheldreda's foundation additions to Bede are insignificant and scarcely repay the labour of sifting the mass of conventional verbiage in praise of the ascetic life 6. For the ' time of the abbots ' the compiler adds the date of the restoration, which was probably taken from a local set of annals ', and a brief notice on each of the abbots, including generally details of their consecration and the date of their death 8. His account of the history of the abbey's franchise is uncritical, reflecting no doubt what had by the twelfth century become the conventional view of his house. He presents the Stowe version of Edgar's charter as an authentic instru- ment 9 and emphatically accepts Edward the Confessor's charter with the dogma that the total immunity from the interference of royal officers, which the abbey had claimed in the eleventh century for all its lands, and the freedom to call any bishop of their choice to perform the essential episcopal functions there, derived from the right which Etheldreda had enjoyed in the island, bestowed on her ' pro dotalicio iure ' 10. This view must be rejected with the document on which it rests, and it is no longer possible to reconstruct with any degree of certainty when the abbey acquired its franchise and what rights it comprehended u. It is too much 1 Book II, ch. 11 refers to .SJthelred ' futurum regem tune vero comitem', but this could be the translator's interpolation. 2 His name occurs in some of the transactions, but elsewhere the title abbas is used without qualification, which may indicate that Brihtnoth had not been succeeded at the time of writing. The calculation of the total hidage of the island of Ely may be connected with the measuring of the island by Leo, the prepositus in Brihtnoth's time (Book II, ch. 54). 3 See Miller, Ely, pp. 16-25, 66-70, 74-77, 155-62, 165—75. 4 See Professor Whitelock's foreword, supra, pp. ix-xviii. 5 See infra, Book III, cc. 96-114. 6 They include the place of her birth, given as Exning (Suffolk), a legendary account of her journey south from Coldingham, the dates for her marriage to Tonbert (652) and his death (654-55), an(i a mistaken attempt to prove that Etheldreda was the daughter of Hereswith (see infra, Book I, cc. 2, 3, 4, 13). ' The date is given as 970 iuxta cronicum (Book II, ch. 3, q.v.). 8 See infra, Book II, cc. 57, 80, 84, 94, 98, 112, 113, 115, 118, 137, 140, 150 and App. D, pp. 410-13. 8 See infra, Book II, ch. 5. 10 Book II, ch. 92. Cf. Book I, ch. 15. 11 The problem is discussed by Miller, Ely, pp. 9-15 and V.C.H., Cambs., iv, 1—8. The grant of the Ely hundreds and the Suffolk hundreds is included in the Stowe version of Edgar's charter and also in the summary of what may be another version of this charter in the Libellus (supra, p. lii). The Suffolk hundreds were certainly in the abbey's possession before iEthelwold's death in 984 (infra, Book II, ch. 41). That the hundred and a half of Mitford was acquired in Edgar's time we have on the authority only of the L.E. (ibid., ch. 40).

1 Book III, cc. 9, 39, 48. Cf. Miller, Ely, pp. 165-75. 2 See infra, App. D, pp. 426-32. 3 E.g. Book III, cc. 37, 101; Book II, ch. 54; also Book III, cc. 78, 89, 92, 101. 4 Even in Book III there are mistakes. A muddled introductory phrase to four papal letters (cc. 65-68) obscures the fact that Nigel himself visited Rome in 1140 (ch. 68) and four of Stephen's writs (cc. 49, 70, 71, 76) have been misplaced. See infra, App. E. 5 Book I, ch. 1. • Book I, ch. 6. ' Book II, ch. 91. 8 Book II, ch. 85. 9 Book II, ch. 91, where he is said to have been brought up in the monastery. 10 Book II, ch. 87. u Book II, cc. 98, 103. 12 Book II, ch. 71. 13 iEthelstan (Book II, ch. 65), iElfgar (cc. 72, 75), jElfwin (ch. 86). There is also a reference to the death of Asgar the Staller in captivity (ch. 96), to the death of William de Warenne (ch. 119) and the probably erroneous information that Henry I was crowned by Archbishop Thomas of York (ch. 140). 14 E.g. on the death of Alfred at Ely in 1036 (Book II, ch. 90). 18 Book II, cc. 102-11.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 INTRODUCTION lv 1069 to 1075, and he inserts extracts from William of Poitiers out of their context * and from Florence regardless of chronology 2. This narrative as a whole—quite apart from individual errors—is clearly untrustworthy, since it cannot be reconciled with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Florence, which describe the siege and capture of Ely in the annal for 1071 3, and with the fact that Abbot Thurstan died in 1072 4. It is difficult to reconstruct the local tradition of the siege. The circumstances leading to William I's attack given in the Liber Eliensis are taken from Florence. The rest of the story seems to come from local sources. One of these is the legend, recorded in the Gesta Herwardi and without dates, of Hereward's successful defence of the island 5. A second is a brief digest of Hereward's operations. This so con- sistently follows the phrases of a single biblical source—/ and II Maccabees—as to have no parallel elsewhere in the Liber Eliensis and therefore to suggest that it existed as a separate opusculum later incorporated as a whole by the compiler of the Liber Eliensis 6. The details of this account are obscured by the biblical language, but it seems to summarise Hereward's exploits as described in the Gesta Herwardi and as reproduced more fully in Liber Eliensis, Book II, cc. 104-07. But it adds the date for this unsuccessful siege as 1069 and also the statement that William I had to abandon it in order to attend to the affairs of the kingdom since he was faced with inroads from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Denmark. It adds further, that on the advice of Bishop William of Hereford and others the king at this time distributed among his knights those of the abbey lands which lay outside the island. A third seemingly separate account7 tells of a successful assault, seen from the Norman angle, which ends with the surrender of the island, and this surrender is made—whether by the compiler of the Liber Eliensis or his source it is impossible to say—to follow after a secret treaty between Abbot Thurstan and the king at Warwick in the seventh year from the beginning of the rebellion. These sources seem to be made up of three distinct fragments of local tradition. (1) They present different versions of the same siege operations. First, William crossed the lacus Cotingelade, but was unable to storm the rebels' fortifications at Alrehede. He then tried with the aid of local levies to bring his siege weapons to bear on Alrehede, at first unsuccessfully, when Hereward had them set on fire, and a second time—perhaps in the absence of Hereward—with success. After a laborious crossing of the marshland of the island he then reached Witchford and paid a visit to the monastery, whereupon the abbot sought him at Witchford to make his submission. Throughout these operations negotiations seem to have been carried on for a truce, accompanied by charges of ill faith on both sides and by the king's threats to enfeoff his knights permanently in the abbey lands outside the

1 See infra, Book II, cc. 109-10. 2 Extracts from the annal for 1071 are followed by an account of the siege dated 1069 (ch. 102), followed in turn by extracts from 1067 (ch. 103), and from 1067, 1085 and 1069 (ch. 104). 8 Cf. also accounts other than Florence dependent on A.S.C. as Henry of Huntingdon, Hist. Anglorum, p. 205 and Simeon, ii, 195 (using Florence); also Orderic Vitalis, Hist. Eccl., ii, 215-16. Freeman's view is generally accepted ' that the whole campaign took place in the course of the year following the departure of the Danish fleet ' (Norman Conquest, iv, 475) in the summer of 1070 (A.S.C, E). 4 See infra, App. D, p. 412. 5 Book II, cc. 104 07. 6 Book II, ch. 102. 7 Book II, cc. 109-11.

1 For these details see infra, Book II, cc. 104—11 and notes. The story of the capture of the rebels is quite unreliable. Edwin, whose presence at Ely at this time is most unlikely, is said to have been captured there, while Morcar, who is reliably reported to have been captured there, is in the L.E. said to have escaped. 2 See infra, App. D, p. 430. 3 Orderic Vitalis, Hist. EccL, ii, 185. 4 This might have induced the compiler to extend Abbot Thurstan's life beyond 1075. 6 Florence, s.a. 1070; cf. infra, Book II, cc. 101, 102. 6 Gesta Herwardi, p. 374. 7 See the Peterborough addition to A.S.C., E, s.a. 1070.

1 Cf. also the version of the siege in Orderic Vitalis, Hist. Eccl., ii, 215-16, suggesting that Morcar was tricked into surrender. 2 See infra, Book II, ch. 102. 3 V.C.H., Cambs., ii, 381-85, with map on p. 382, and Bentham, Ely, i, 104, n. 2, which refers to the later legend that William's army was encamped to the south of the causeway on Belsar's Hills, on the edge of the fen, in the manor of Willingham. 4 See H. C. Darby, Medieval Fenland, p. no. 6 See T. Lethbridge in P.C.A.S., xxxiv, pp. 90-91; xliv, pp. 23-25 and in V.C.H., Cambs., i, 332-33. His view has the support of A. K. Astbury, The Black Fens (1958), pp. 49—51. 6 Book III, ch. 46, which is the source of the briefer account in Diceto, i, 248. 7 It adds a new date—18 December—to an already varied tradition. See infra, Book III, ch. 46. 8 Book III, ch. 72. There is also an interesting description of the miserable living conditions in the isle during the ' anarchy ' which bears out reports from Peterborough and Ramsey (Book III, ch. 83; cf. J. H. Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 213-20).

VI. PLAN OF THE EDITION (a) The Text It is impossible to devise a self-consistent plan for an edition of a charter- chronicle which will satisfy its requirements both as a narrative history and a collection of charters. The latter requires that the text should present the original version of the document, where possible, and otherwise the nearest approximation to it. This would imply introducing into the text original charters from the beginning and middle of the twelfth century, the Stowe charter of about the eleventh century, versions from cartularies C and D, which frequently retain older versions of personal and local names, and occasionally from Liber M (end of the thirteenth century), each with their several characteristic spellings. It would further raise the problem whether pleas described in the Libellus should be regarded as documents and printed from manuscripts of the Libellus rather than of the Liber Eliensis. The result would be a medley of texts from manuscripts ranging over three centuries in which the unity and distinctive quality of the Liber Eliensis would be wholly lost. The edition is therefore planned to display the character of a twelfth-century charter-chronicle, planned as a composite work in which documents are subordinated to a narrative history. The text reproduces F, as the most complete of the early versions of the Liber Eliensis. Conventional contractions have been extended without notice except in doubtful cases, when extensions are shown within square brackets. Since the scribes show no consistency in their use of e and use ee only for the initial letter 1 Book III, ch. 122. The evidence of this chapter has been needlessly condemned as a ' scandalous and highly imaginative narrative ' on the grounds that it refers to Bishop Alexander of Lincoln and Pope Eugenius III who were no longer alive in 1158 (H. G. Richardson, ' Richard Fitz Neal and the Dialogus de Scaccario ', Engl. Hist. Rev., xliii (1928), pp. 163-66). The compiler, however, is here making two points: (i) Etheldreda's ' palla ' was pawned to provide money for the purchase of the treasurership when the king was preparing his Toulouse campaign in 1158, and (ii) this palla had already been pawned on a previous occasion (' similiter altera vice') when Bishop Alexander had presented it to Eugenius III at whose command it was restored to Ely (presumably in 1145 when Alexander paid one of his visits to Rome, Henry Hunt., Hist. A nglorum, p. 278). 2 See infra, App. E. * It has found its way into only one major chronicle. Ralph of Diceto had good contacts with Ely in Richard Fitz Neal and William Longchamp (Diceto, i, p. lxxiv; ii, pp. xxxi-xxxii). He derived his note on the insurrection at Ely (ibid., i, 252-53) from Book III, cc. 47, 51-53, on Hugh Bigod's oath at Stephen's accession (ibid., i, 248) from Book III, ch. 46, on Archbishop Wulfstan from Book II, ch. 87 (ibid., i, 172). For the value of the L.E.'s tradition that an insurrection against Stephen and Bishop Nigel was planned in 1135-37 see infra, Book III, ch. 47.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 07:02:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000000571 INTRODUCTION lix of Old English names, the letter e is printed in all cases, except personal and local names, in place of the ae and oe of classical usage. For easier reading the scribes' punctuation and arbitrary use of capitals, as well as their indiscriminate use of c or t before i, are discarded in favour of modern convention; v is printed for u before a following vowel, and consonants are doubled {e.g. cowwendo) without notice unless the use of a single consonant seems consistent. The loose sentence structure of much of the Liber EUensis makes it impossible to apply any rigid stan- dards of punctuation, and it is not always possible to tell—especially where clauses begin with a relative pronoun—where the beginning of a new sentence was intended. Punctuation marks have therefore been used sparingly with the primary aim to ease the reader's task rather than to achieve any overall consistency. Interlinea- tions and important erasures are indicated in the lettered notes, and readings found in other manuscripts have not normally been introduced into the text, except in a few instances where the patently imperfect state of F requires emendation. (b) Documents To conform with the rest of the chronicle the text of the documents is also taken from F and at times retains its imperfect extensions (e.g. Teste where Testibus or Testimonio would be more appropriate). Routine contractions are extended without notice. In doubtful cases and for clearly incorrect readings (especially in personal and local names) extensions and emendations are intruded into the text when the complete or correct reading can be supplied on good manuscript authority; then the reading of F is shown in the lettered notes. If the correct reading cannot be supplied in this way, extensions and emendations are shown within square brackets, when they can be confidently conjectured; otherwise the abbreviation of the manuscripts is retained. All variants are given only for original charters where these exist; elsewhere, to avoid overcrowding the notes, variants are shown only if they serve to establish a more reliable version, to display the relationship of the manuscripts, or if they suggest any significance from a linguistic point of view. (c) Lettered Notes These comprise the collation with E and 0 and, where relevant, with the version of Book II in B and G, with the Libellus, with the cartularies in C, D, G, and Liber M (with occasional additions from other cartularies), original charters, and infrequently the version of Book III in A. No special notice is given at the head of chapters of which manuscripts are to be collated, except where subsidiary manuscripts deviate from F and in the case of documents, where all manuscripts collated are indicated. The aim of the collation is not to present a complete recon- struction of subsidiary manuscripts, but to illustrate their interrelationship and expose significant variations. (d) Numbered Notes These notes do not aim at a comprehensive commentary on the text. Their primary purpose is to indicate sources incorporated by the compiler of the Liber EUensis. In addition to the pointed brackets in the text, direct borrowings are indicated in these notes by the phrase e.g. ' from Bede ', less direct relationships

F Ely, Dean and Chapter MS. (Liber Eliensis). E Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. O.2.1 (Gale). 0 Bodl., MS. Laud. Misc. 647. A Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Vespasian A.xix (Book III and Libellus). B Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Domitian xv (Books I and II, Chronicle and Book of Miracles). G Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Titus A.i (Book II and Cartulary). C Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. 0.2.41 (Gale) (Cartulary and Libellus). D Brit. Mus., MS. Cotton, Tiberius A.vi (Cartulary). M Ely Diocesan Registry, Liber M (Cartulary).