hill-side which sheltered the abbey to the north were associated with a visitor from a yet more distant land. In the time of the Danish kings there came seeking for admission at Malmesbury a stranger of whom the brotherhood knew no more than that he was a Greek and a monk, and that his name was Constantine. His gentle disposition, abstemious habits, and quiet retiring ways won him general esteem and love; his whole time was spent in prayer and in the cultivation of the vineyard which he planted with his own hands for the benefit of the community; and only when at the point of death he arrayed himself in a pallium drawn from the scrip which he always carried at his side, was it revealed to the astonished Englishmen that he had been an archbishop in his Eastern home.[216] [209] Godfrey was a monk of Jumièges; Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. c. 271 (Hamilton, p. 431). [210] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, prolog. l. ii. (Hardy, p. 142). [211] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. c. 275 (Hamilton, pp. 438, 439). [212] _Ib._ c. 218 (p. 365). [213] _Ib._ c. 224 (pp. 376–378). [214] _Ib._ c. 246 (p. 397). [215] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. c. 240 (Hamilton, p. 394), and _Gesta Reg._, l. ii. c. 122 (Hardy, p. 190). The story seems however to be false. It probably originated in a confusion, first between John Scotus and John the Old-Saxon, who was nearly murdered by the monks of Athelney; and secondly, between both these Johns and a third scholar bearing the same name, who is mentioned by Gotselin of Canterbury as buried at Malmesbury, but whose real history seems to be lost. See Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, vol. iii. pp. 300, 301, 315, 316, 318–320. [216] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. c. 260 (Hamilton, p. 415).