History of the Cathedral Church of Wells: As Illustrating the History of the Cathedral Churches of the Old FoundationFreeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
History
History of the Cathedral Church of Wells: As Illustrating the History of the Cathedral Churches of the Old Foundation
Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Wells Cathedral
Things thus went on in our church of Wells without anything very
memorable happening, from the days of Æthelhelm the first Bishop, who
was appointed in 909, to those of Duduc, who was Bishop from 1033 to
1060.[18] Tombs bearing the names of several Bishops of those days
are still to be seen in the church. But they are all work of the
thirteenth century, and, if the names given to them are trustworthy,
Bishop Jocelin, when he rebuilt the church, must have made new tombs
for his predecessors, a thing which sometimes was done. But when
we get to Duduc, we are getting towards things which ought to be
remembered; we are getting to the actual local history of the church
of Wells itself, which hitherto it has been hard to distinguish from
the general history of the Church in England. Duduc was the first
Bishop who was not an Englishman; he was a Saxon. Of course there was a
sense in which the Bishops before him might be called Saxons, that is
West-Saxons, subjects of the King of the West-Saxons and probably in
most cases themselves of West-Saxon blood. But Duduc was a Saxon from
the Old-Saxon land in Germany, the old land of our fathers, and this is
always the meaning of the word Saxon in the history of those times.[19]
This Bishop Duduc was in high favour both with King Cnut and afterwards
with Eadward the Confessor. And his name at once brings us to a story
which connects our church of Wells with the greatest Englishman of
those days, though in a way which has brought undeserved obloquy on his
name. I dare say some of you have read the tale of Harold's plundering
the church of Wells, banishing the Bishop, bringing the Canons to
beggary, and what not. However, I will read you the story as it stands
in Collinson's "History of Somersetshire." He is speaking of the next
Bishop Gisa, of whom I shall say more presently.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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