AElfric, St Edmund, and St Edwold of Cerne.

At the end of his Life of St Edmund, AElfric comments on the number of English men and women venerated as saints: 'England is not deprived of God's holy ones.' (1) AElfric himself wrote few homilies for the feast days of English (or British) saints, however. (2) Cuthbert, Alban,/Ethelthryth, Swithun, Oswald of Northumbria, and Edmund form only a meagre company) AElfric's limited selection is also conservative. His main source for four of these--Cuthbert, Alban, AEthelthryth, and Oswald--is Bede, a point AElfric stresses. (4) The Benedictine Reformers had promoted a reverence for Bede and the 'golden age' of Northumbrian monasticism, making AElfric's decision to produce vernacular accounts of these saints readily understandable. (5) Swithun was a natural choice as the patron saint of AElfric's alma mater, Winchester, but AElfric's decision to write a life of St Edmund is less explicable. It does not seem the foundation at Bury was monastic in AElfric's time (the monks later claimed that the house was refounded by Cnut around 1020). (6) Nor does it seem Bury itself was promoting Edmund's cult when AElfric wrote, since Abbo had written his Passio sancti Eadmundi at the request of monks of Ramsey and dedicated it to Archbishop Dunstan. Why, then, did AElfric write a life of St Edmund?

This article argues that AElfric wrote a life of St Edmund because he had been sent to a new monastery at Cerne, founded by his secular patron, AEthelmaer. (8) Cerne was thought to be the burial place of a hermit called Edwold, the brother of St Edmund. Though St Edwold's cult at Cerne cannot be definitively traced back to AElfric's time, it is probable that Edwold's relics were translated to the monastery shortly after its foundation. (9)

Cerne's ostensible foundation charter, dated 987, details how AEthelmaer endowed a monastery dedicated to SS Mary, Peter, and Benedict on the advice of King AEthelraed, Archbishop Dunstan (d. 988), and AElfheah, Bishop of Winchester. (10) He presented the monastery with a moderate endowment mostly in Dorset: five estates and several tithes immediately, with two more estates promised on his death. The monks were to follow the Rule of St Benedict and to be able to choose a secular patron freely. Though the document's authenticity and purpose have been questioned, (11) it seems to preserve an authentic account of the abbey's pre-Conquest endowment, since all the estates mentioned (except one) belonged to Cerne when the Domesday Book was compiled. (12)

AEthelmaer was not Cerne's only early benefactor, though we cannot identify any others. Nine additional estates are mentioned in the Domesday Book, (13) which made Cerne the eighteenth wealthiest house in England in 1066. (14) Late medieval beliefs about the origin of Cerne's early endowment are unreliable. At an inquisition of 1440, the monks asserted that King Edgar had presented an 'Abbot John' with an estate at Musterton in the parish of Piddlehinton and that the Conqueror had given an 'Abbot William' estates at 'Estwerdesford' and Frome St Quentin. (15) Similarly questionable is Leland's claim that the despoliation of the monastery prompted Cnut to give an estate at 'Frommutha'. (16) Indeed, the history of the abbey remains obscure until the mid-twelfth century when Abbot William Scottus was deposed for immorality and replaced, temporarily, by Bernard, Prior of Gloucester, events vividly chronicled in the letters of Gilbert Foliot. (17) We know the name of only one pre-Conquest abbot, Leofsuna, who witnessed a Sherborne charter that dates from 1012. (18) The earliest of the memoranda now bound with the so-called Book of Cerne date from between 1142 and 1184, when Joscelin de Bohun was Bishop of Salisbury, but appear to have been copied in the fourteenth century. (19) Brief references by Anglo-Norman historians suggest lax discipline at Cerne after the Conquest. (20) One Haimo was deposed for simony by Anselm in 1102. (21) One of his successors, Roger, was a former Abbot of Mont Saint-Michel who had resigned after becoming unpopular with the monks there. (22) It is difficult to imagine Edwold's cult being promoted in these troubled years.

How and when the monastery at Cerne adopted the cult of St Edwold is not clear. AEthelmaer's foundation charter records a dedication to the BVM and SS Peter and Benedict. The Domesday Book and William of Malmesbury describe a monastery dedicated to St Peter alone. However, the Mappa mundi of Gervase of Canterbury (d. 1210), (23) and the obituary roll of Amphelissa, Prioress of Lillechurch (d. after 1214), (24) both record a dedication to SS Peter and Edwold. The notion that the monastery was dedicated to SS Peter and AEthelwold, occasionally repeated by modern historians, (25) is recorded only in the list in London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian MS A.xviii, fols [154.sup.t]-[156.sup.v]. (26) Despite the absence of a formal dedication to Edwold before the twelfth century, hagiographical sources suggest Edwold's cult was integral to AEthelmaer's foundation of the monastery.

The earliest account of St Edwold is provided by William of Malmesbury in his description of Cerne in the Gesta pontificum. (27) After recounting a story originally told by Goscelin in his Vita S. Augustini concerning a divine vision granted to Augustine at Cerne and the miraculous appearance of a well there, (28) William continues:

   Ibi, succedentibus annis, Eduuoldus frater Edmundi regis et
   martiris uitam heremeticam solo pane cibario et aqua triuit,
   pertesus, ut fama est, mundi delitarum, quod se et fratrem durior
   excepisset fortuna. Fit enim plerumque ut, aduersitatibus seculi
   ammonitus, generosus animus ad Deum se conuertat attentius, qui nec
   falli nec fallere nouit. Et prima quidem uirtus est bene per se
   uelle, secunda cogi posse; sed non minoris, ut estimo, deputatur
   menti Paulus qui ad bonum flagello coactus est aspero, quam Petrus
   qui libens et statim accurrit uocanti Domino. Eduoldus ergo post
   religiose actam uitam, magna sanctitatis opinione ibi sepultus,
   dedit occasionem posteriori tempore Egeluuardo prediuiti homini ut
   cenobium eo loco saneto Perro construeret: non ita exiliter ut
   putatur, quin immo habundanter, si illi quorum interest non ea
   nebulonibus suis sed Dei seruis impertirentur. (29)

William, writing around 1125, is our earliest source for several key pieces of information concerning St Edwold: that he was the brother of St Edmund of East Anglia and that his burial at Cerne 'gave occasion' ('dedit occasionem') for 'Egeluuardus' (presumably AEthelweard, AEthelmaer's father) to endow a monastery there. William does not connect Edwold's decision to settle at Cerne with Augustine's earlier activities there, though later historians often inferred a connection. (30) There is, however, no mention of any translation of the relics of St Edwold, an event which we know from an entry in a Sherborne calendar to have occurred before c.1061 or shordy after. (31) For details of this event, we must turn to the life of St Edwold included by the mid-fourteenth-century hagiographer John of Tynemouth in his Sanctilogium Angliae. (32) Having accorded Edwold many of the virtues and miracles expected of a confessor, the life continues:

   Procurante igitur Almaro episcopo et decernente sancto Dunstano,
   ossa sancti Edwoldi de terra eleuata, cum ad episcopalem sedem
   Schireburnie ferri deberent, a loco illo moueri non potuerunt.
   Episcopus igitur cum populo genua flectit, orationibus humiliter
   instans; et Almarus comes qui tunc aderat, vt ad Cernelium
   portaretur si ipse sanctus dignaretur, cum ceteris deum exorat. Et
   ecce statim putares ipsum feretrum vltro exilire, ac etiam
   exportari velle. Sic ergo beatus Edwoldus pridie idus augusti cum
   magno honore Cernelium deportatur et in ecclesia sancte Marie
   collocatur; qui et innumeris miraculorum signis locum illustrare
   non desinit. Prefatus vero Almarus monasterium in eodem loco
   fundauit, et multis possessionibus adauxit. (33)

There is clearly some confusion here, since 'Almarus' (presumably AEthelmaer) is presented as both 'comes' and 'episcopus'. (34) However, the rest of the contents seems more reliable. We know from the Sherborne calendar that Edwold's translation was celebrated on 12 August, and from Cerne's foundation charter that Dunstan advised AEthelmaer to endow the monastery. It may also be significant that the primary source and dedicatee of Abbo's Passio S. Eadmundi was Dunstan, who had himself been told the story by AEthelstan's armiger. (35) Dunstan may have been promoting the cults of Edmund and Edwold simultaneously. If credible, Sherborne's frustrated interest in the relics attests to the popularity of Edwold's cult in the late tenth century.

Thus, the Sherborne calendar shows that Edwold's relics had been translated by c.1061 or shortly after, and the agreement between the foundation charter and Tynemouth's life concerning the involvement of Dunstan suggests that Dunstan encouraged AEthelmaer's endowment of the monastery and translation of the relics. Though St Edwold did not initially appear in the monastery's dedication (and still did not by 1086), by the late twelfth century the monastery was dedicated to SS Peter and Edwold. William of Malmesbury shows that Edwold was believed to be St Edmund's brother by c.1125.

It cannot be proven that AElfric was aware of St Edwold, but the balance of probability suggests he knew St Edwold's local following and knew his connection to St Edmund. This may have contributed to AElfric's willingness to write a life of St Edmund and may explain why the life of St Edmund has a protracted conclusion, focusing on the prevalence of 'God's holy ones'. (36) AElfric writes:

   Nis angel-cynn bedaeled drihtnes halgena . ponne on engla-lande
   licgap swilce halgan swylce paes halga cyning is and cupberht se
   eadiga . and sancte aepeldryo on elig . and eac hire swustor
   ansunde on lichaman geleafan to trymminge . Synd eac fela odre on
   angel-cynne halgan pe fela wundra wyrcad . swa swa hit wide is cud
   pam aelmihtigan to lofe . pe he on gelyfdon. (37)

AElfric's comment that the deeds of English saints are 'widely known' repeats his earlier disclaimer:

   Fela wundra we gehyrdon on folclicre spraece . be pam halgan
   eadmunde pe we her nellap on gewrite settan . ac hi wat gehwa .
   (38)

In both passages, we see AElfric's typical earnestness in distinguishing miracles that are appropriate to be set down in writing from further deeds of Edmund (and other English saints) that circulated orally. AElfric's acknowledgement of popular stories of saints, particularly stories concerning Edmund, seems to reflect his awareness of the popular cult of Cerne's local saint of choice, Edwold.

AElfric's involvement in the promotion of English saints in late Anglo-Saxon England has rarely occasioned comment. (39) His Lives of Saints, produced at the request of Ealdorman AEthelweard and his son AEthelmaer, contained lives of Alban, AEthelthryth, Swithun, Oswald of Northumbria, and Edmund. He had earlier included a Life of St Cuthbert in his second series of Catholic Homilies. None of these lives was part of AElfric's main hagiographical source, the Cotton-Corpus legendary, (40) so their inclusion required his specific initiative. (41) AElfric also restyled and abridged one of the most important contemporary works of Latin hagiography: his Vita S. AEthelwoldi, though seemingly abridged from Wulfstan of Winchester's more extensive Life, is dedicated to Cenwulf, Bishop of Winchester, which suggests AElfric envisaged it as more than an epitome for his personal use. Moreover, it is not overly implausible to suggest from the evidence above that AElfric is likely to have had some involvement in the management of the cult of St Edwold at Cerne, however intangible that involvement is for us now. This may be yet another way in which AElfric's role as 'munuc and maessepreost' of the newly founded Dorset monastery at Cerne is reflected, however quietly, in the prodigious literary output that obtained a national audience. (42)

MARK FAULKNER

St John's College

Oxford

NOTES

I would like to thank Professors Malcolm Parkes, Malcolm Godden, and Ralph Hanna and the anonymous Medium AEvum referee for their comments.

(1) 'Nis angel-cynn bedaeled drihtnes halgena.' AElfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Walter W. Skeat, EETS, os 76, 8z, 94, 114, reprinted as 2 vols (London, 1966), II, 332.

(2) On the reasons behind AElfric's selection of saints, see Patrick H. Zettel, 'AElfric's hagiographical sources and the Latin legendary preserved in B.L. MS Cotton Nero E i + CCCC MS 9 and other manuscripts' (unpub. D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1980), pp. 70-87; Mechthild Gretsch, AElfric and the Cult of Saints in Late Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 34 (Cambridge, 2005), esp. pp. 1-20. Gretsch suggests AElfric's selection of saints was influenced by the allocation of blessings in AEthelwold's Benedictional. As she admits, this does not account for his lives of Cuthbert, Alban, Oswald, or Edmund.

(3) AElfric's Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text, ed. Malcolm Godden, EETS, SS 5 (London, 1979), pp. 81-91 ; AElfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, I, 414-24, 432-40, 440-70; II, 124-42, 314-34.

(4) 'Beda se snotera engla deoda lareow' (AElfric's Catholic Homilies: The Second Series, ed. Godden, p. 81); 'nu cwaed se halga beda'; 'swa swa se lareow beda on daere bec saede'; 'swa swa us rehte beda'; 'nu cwaed se halga beda' (AElfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, I, 432, 440; II, 126, 142).

(5) On the Reformers' respect for Bede, see, for example, Joyce Hill, Bede and the Benedictine Refirm, Jarrow Lecture 1998 (Jarrow, 1998). On their emulation of a 'golden age' of monasticism, see AEthelwold's account of 'King Edgar's establishment of the monasteries': 'him eallurn waes an heorte 7 an saul, ne heora nan syndrige aehta naefde ... ac ealle ping heom gemaene waeron. paes sylfa peaw forpy lange purh myndgunge paes halgan weres on Angelcynnes mynsterum forpweard waes 7 wel peonde' (Councils & Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church: A.D. 871-1204, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, Martin Brett, and C. N. L. Brooke, 2 vols (Oxford, 1980, I, 145).

(6) Most clearly evident in the portfolio of documents added in the late eleventh century to London, British Library, Harley MS 76 (the Bury Gospels), fols 137-41. These documents include Cnut's bilingual charter of privileges in favour of Bury St Edmunds (P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968), no. 980) and the Latin report of the trial of Bishop Arfast of East Anglia's claim that Bury should be his episcopal church (Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I (1066-1087), ed. David Bates (Oxford, 1998), no. 39). Annals added to the Easter Tables of the 'Vatican Psalter' (Rome, Vatican City, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. Lat. 12) and at the end of Bury's copy of the bilingual Benedictine Rule (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 197) celebrate 1020 as the year in which Cnut agreed to the monasticization of Bury.

AElfric himself comments that one should 'wel gelogige [pa stowe] mid claenum godes peowum, to cristes peow-dome' (AElfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, II, 326), which seems to be an obtuse way of saying that Edmund's shrine (presumably at Bury) should be served by monks, with the implication that it was not monks who staffed it when AElfric was writing.

(7) The Passio is usually dated 985 x 987, i.e. during Abbo's sojourn at Ramsey, but there seems to be no reason to assume the Passio was actually written while Abbo was at Ramsey. Dunstan's death provides a terminus ad quem of 988, after which AElfric had a copy 'binnan feawum gearum' (AElfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, II, 314).

(8) 'Ic aelfric munuc and massepreost ... weard asend on aepelredes daege cyninges fram aelfeage biscope adelwoldes aeftergengan to sumum mynstre de is Cernel gehaten, purh aedelmaeres bene daes pegenes.' AElfric's Catholic Homilies: The First Series, ed. Peter Clemoes, EETS, ss 17 (Oxford, 1997), p. 174.

(9) For Cerne, see William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, new edn by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel, 6 vols in 8 (London, 1817-30), II, 621-8; John Hutchins, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, 3rd edn by W. Shipp and J. W. Hodson, 4 vols (Westminster, 1861-74), IV, 18-26; M. M. C. Calthrop, 'Cerne Abbas', in The Victoria History of the County of Dorset, vol. II, ed. William Page (London, 1908), pp. 53-8; D. H. Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1987), p. 137; The Cerne Abbey Millennium Lectures, ed. Katherine Barker (Cerne Abbas, 1988); AElfric's Prefaces, ed. Jonathan Wilcox, Durham Medieval Texts 9 (Durham, 1994), pp. 9-11.

For Edwold, see J. M. J. Fletcher, 'Saint Edwold', Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset, 22 (1956), 32-4; John Blair, 'A handlist of Anglo-Saxon saints', in Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, ed. Alan Thacker and Richard Sharpe (Oxford, 2002), p. 530.

(10) Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 1217; printed Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici, ed. J. M. Kemble, 6 vols (London, 1839-48), III, 224-6.

(11) The Crawford Collection of Early Charters and Documents, ed. A. S. Napier and W. H. Stevenson, Analecta Oxoniensia 7 (Oxford, 1895), pp. 88, 120 argues that the charter is spurious, while H. P. R. Finberg, The Early Charters of Wessex, Studies in Early English History 3 (Leicester, 1964), no. 613 and G. D. Squibb, 'The foundation of Cerne Abbey', Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset, 31 (1984), 373-6 defend it as genuine. The main objections are the late date of the earliest surviving text of the charter and the anachronistic reference to AEthelmaer as 'satrapa regis AEthelredi'.

Barbara Yorke ('AEthelmaer, the foundation of the Abbey of Cerne and the politics of the tenth century', in Cerne Abbey Millennium Lectures, ed. Barker, p. 22) argues that Cerne was founded in Edgar's reign and that AEthelmaer was attempting to reclaim part of the endowment in 987, but she depends on unreliable fifteenth-century evidence.

(12) The charter mentions 'Minterne', Winterbourne Abbas, Little Bredy, Long Bredy, Renscombe, Cerne, 'AEschere', Poxwell, Affpuddle, and Bloxworth (the last three estates were promised at AEthelmaer's behest by their current owners). Compare Ann Williams and G. H. Martin, Domesday Book: A Complete Translation (London, 2003), pp. 205f. 'Minterne' seems to have been included in the Cerne Abbas entry. The exception is 'AEschere', apparently Esher in Surrey, which AEthelmaer presented to Eynsham Abbey on its foundation in 1005 (see Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 911).

(13) Based on the values assigned to the estates, several were clearly of limited value (Little Puddle, Radipole, Woodsford, Hethfelton, and Worgret), though Nettlecombe, (West) Milton, Kimmeridge, and Symondsbury were more significant.

(14) Dom David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 702f.

(15) [Anon.], 'Inquisitiones post mortem for Dorset', Somerset and Devon Notes and Queries, 12 (1912), 371 and 13 (1913), 49. Dom David Knowles, C. N. L. Brooke, and Vera C. M. London, The Heads of Religious Houses in England and Wales 940-1216, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 37, 244 record that William 'de Agorn', a monk of Mont Saint-Michel, was abbot at the rime of the foundation of St Mary's, York (1093 1098, ?1095). One Edward was abbot in 1075 and subscribed to the acta of the Council of London.

(16) John Leland, De rebus Britannicis collectanea, 2nd edn, 6 vols, ed. Thomas Hearne (Oxford, 1715), III, 67 ('ex libello de vita sancti AEdwoldi fratris sancti Eadmundi Martiris'). 'Frommutha' was evidently an estate at the mouth of the Frome which lay one and a half miles from Wareham. Cnut landed there in 1015 (Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Charles Plummer, 2 vols (Oxford, 1892), I, 146).

(17) Z. N. Brooke, The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot, Abbot of Gloucester (1139-48), Bishop of Hereford (1148-63) and London (1163-87), completed by Dom Adrian Morey and C. N. L. Brooke (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 507-10.

(18) M. O'Donovan, Sherborne Charters, Anglo-Saxon Charters 3 (Oxford, 1988), no. 14.

(19) B. F. Lock, 'The Cerne Cartulary', Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, 28 (1907)), 65-95 and 29 (1908), 195-223. For the date, see Michelle Brown, The Book of Cerne: Prayer, Patronage and Power in Ninth-Century England, British Library Studies in Medieval Culture 1 (London, 1996), pp. 28f.

(20) William of Malmesbury: Gesta pontificum Anglorum: The History of the English Bishops, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2007), II.84.7.

(21) Eadmeri Historia novorum in Anglia, ed. Martin Rule, RS 81 (London, 1884), p. 142.

(22) Chronique de Robert de Torigni, abbe de Mont-Saint-Michel, ed. Leopold Delisle, 2 vols (Rouen, 1872-3), II, 224.

(23) The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. William Stubbs, RS 73, 2 vols (London, 1879-80), II, 414-49 (p. 422).

(24) Cambridge, St John's College, MS 271. See Alison Binns, Dedications of Monastic Houses in England and Wales 1066-1216 (Woodbridge, 1989), p. 67.

(25) e.g. Knowles et al., Heads, p. 37.

(26) For this list, see Walter de Gray Birch, 'On three lists of monasteries compiled in the thirteenth century', Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 28 (1872), 45-64 (pp. 47f.).

(27) Gesta pontificum Anglorum, ed. Winterbottom, II.84.

(28) Ed. D. Papebroch apud Acta sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur (Antwerp, 1643-1925), Maii VI (1688), pp. 391f.

(29) 'In later years, Eadwold, King Edmund the Martyr's brother, lived a hermit's life there on nothing but coarse bread and water; he had, they say, grown tired of the luxuries of this world, for he and his brother had met with hard luck. Indeed, it often happens that a noble spirit is warned by adversity in this world to turn with more attention to God, who can neither deceive, nor be deceived. The first virtue, of course, it to have intentions of one's own accord, the second to be capable of being forced to have them; but no less, I think, is the merit of Paul, who was driven into good by a bitter scourge, than that of Peter, who ran straight to meet the call of the Lord in all willingness. So after a life devoutly lived Eadwold was buried at Cerne with a high reputation for sanctity, in after years giving the impulse to a very rich man, AEthelwold, to build a monastery there in honour of St Peter, and that not so meanly as is thought, but rather on a lavish scale, it only those concerned passed the wealth on to the servants of God rather than their own worthless friends.'

(30) e.g. the chronicle formerly attributed to John Brompton, printed Historiae Anglicanae scriptores X, ed. Roger Twysden (London, 1652), col. 807. Leland reports that a 'vetus codex' said there was a 'coenobiolum' for three monks on the site of the well (Collectanea, III, 67).

(31) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 422, pp. 29-40 = English Benedictine Kalendars before A.D. 1100, ed. Francis Wormald, HBS 72 (London, 1934), P. 191 (12 August, 'translatio sancti Eadwoldi anachoritae'). For the date, see P. R. Robinson, Dated and Dateable Manuscripts c.737-1600 in Cambridge Libraries, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1988), I, 59 (no. 165).

In the mid-1340s, the canons of Waltham Abbey believed that Harold Godwineson had given them a relic of St Edwold: Nicholas Rogers, 'The Waltham Abbey relic-list', in England in the Eleventh Century, ed. Carola Hicks, Paul Watkins Medieval Studies 12 (Stamford, 1992), pp. 157-81 (p. 163).

(32) Nova legenda Anglie, ed. Carl Horstmann, 2 vols (Oxford, 1901), I, 362-4. Note that Horstmann printed from Wynkyn de Worde's augmented and alphabetized edition of 1516, but the Life of St Edwold was included for 29 August in Tynemouth's original, which now survives only in London, BL, Cotton Tiberius MS E.i. An unpublished life, which does not mention Cerne, appears in London, BL, Sloane MS 1772, fols 15-18v Sequences for the translation and deposition of St Edwold are included in the late fourteenth-century sequentiary bound with the Book of Cerne, fols xvir/23-xviv/17, xviir/17-xviiv/14. For details, see the description by A. N. Doane in Anglo-Saxon Bibles and 'The Book of Cerne', Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile 7 (Tempe, Ariz., 2002), pp. 4-27 [arts. 45, 47].

(33) 'When the bones of St Edwold had been lifted from the earth, while Bishop Almar [sic] was overseeing and St Dunstan giving the orders, they should have been carried to the episcopal seat of Sherborne, bur were not able to be moved from that location. Therefore the bishop bent his knees with the people, praying modestly; and Almar comes who then arrived prayed God with others that they might carry the saint to Cerne if it was fitting for him. And, lo!, you [Edwold] were thinking to leap out of the reliquary to the further side [i.e. to Cerne], and even to want to be carried away there. Thus therefore the blessed Edwold was carried to Cerne with great honour on the day before the Ides of August [12 August] and placed in the church of St Mary; and he does not cease to illuminate that place with the innumerable signs of miracles. Truly, the aforementioned Almar founded a monastery in the same place, and enriched it with many possessions.'

(34) The Bishop of Sherborne in 987 was AEthelsige I (978 x 979-991 x 993).

(35) Three Lives of English Saints, ed. Michael Winterbottom, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts (Toronto, 1972), pp. 67f.

(36) AElfric's lives of Cuthbert, Oswald, and Alban end with a simple doxology, his life of St AEthelthryth with a comment on lay people preserving chastity in marriage, and his life of St Swithun with some remarks on the achievements of King Edgar, Dunstan, and AEthelwold.

(37) AElfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, II, 332, 334: 'The English people is not deprived of God's holy ones when there lie in England such holy ones as is this holy king, and the blessed Cuthbert and St AEthelthryth of Ely (and also her sister), incorrupt in body to exhort the faith. As is widely known, there are also many other holy ones in England who work many miracles, to the glory of the Almighty in whom they believed.'

(38) AElfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, II, 332: 'We heard many wonders in the vernacular tongue concerning the holy Edmund which we do not want to set in writing here, but everyone knows them.' See also AElfric's remarks about Swithun's miracles, ibid., I, 466, 468.

(39) Though AElfric: Three Lives of English Saints, ed. G. I. Needham, rev. edn (Exeter, 1976) prints AElfric's lives of Oswald, Edmund, and Swithun together, the editor makes no comment on AElfric's rationale for translating these lives.

(40) For the contents of this and related collections, see Zettel, 'AElfric's hagiographical sources', pp. 13-39 and Peter Jackson and Michael Lapidge, 'The contents of the Cotton-Corpus legendary', in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints' Lives and their Contexts, ed. Paul Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1996), pp. 131-46.

(41) It has been argued that Paris, BnF, MS Lat. 5362 is a later copy of a collection of materials relating to English saints compiled by AElfric. The manuscript, copied by a Norman scribe c.1100 and of later Fecamp provenance, contains (fols 1-84): Bede's prose Vita S. Cuthberti, excerpts from Bede's Historia ecclesiastica concerning St Cuthbert; excerpts from the Historia de S. Cuthberto; Abbo's Passio S. Eadmundi; excerpts from Bede's Historia ecclesiastica concerning Oswald, king and martyr; and concerning St Birinus; the Epitome miraculorum et translationis S. Swithuni; AElfric's Vita S. AEthelwoldi; and excerpts from Bede's Historia ecclesiastica concerning St AEthelthryth. See Wulfstan of Winchester: Life of St AEthelwold, ed. Michael Lapidge and Michael Winterbottom, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1991), pp. cxlviii-cxlix; Michael Lapidge, The Cult of St Swithun, Winchester Studies 4.ii (Oxford, 2003), pp. 555-7.

(42) For another recent attempt, see Jonathan Wilcox, 'AElfric in Dorset and the landscape of pastoral care', in Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Francesca Tinti (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 52-62.