This Godric, whose name is indissolubly associated with Finchale Priory, although he was in no sense the founder of it, was as selfish and dirty an old anchorite as ever attained the brevet rank of sainthood. Born about 1065, the first thirty years of his life were spent as a pedlar and sailor, during which he travelled far and wide, and met with many adventures; and the remainder he spent in pilgrimages or a hermit-life of penance and prayer. The _Dictionary of National Biography_ gives a very complete history of him, compiled from all available sources, the most important being the MS. life by his contemporary Nicholas of Durham. While he was leading the roving life of a pedlar he was nearly drowned in trying to catch a porpoise, and afterwards made a pilgrimage to Rome, presumably in thankfulness for his rescue. But the time was unfortunate, for it appears to have been about 1086, when Gregory VII., Hildebrand, had just died in exile, when the Anti-Pope Clement III. was in possession of the Vatican, while the newly elected Pope Victor III. was afraid to enter Rome, which then lay sunk in the most frightful anarchy. The spectacle he beheld could scarcely then have induced him to accept a religious vocation; and we find that for sixteen years afterwards he led a seafaring life, trading between England, Scotland, Flanders and Denmark, presently going so far afield as the Holy Land, where the Chronicler’s description of him as "Gudericus pirata de regno Angliae" sufficiently indicates the character of his occupation. Returning thence, he paid a visit to the shrine of St. James of Compostella; and when he reached home he accepted a menial position in the house of a countryman, which suggests that he had not made much money by his ventures. But with a restless spirit on him he went two more pilgrimages to Rome, and the second time he took his mother with him carrying her, it is said, on his shoulders where the way was difficult. It was on this journey that he was accompanied by a lady of wondrous beauty, whom he met on his way in London, who left him there again on his return, and who nightly washed his feet; a story which perhaps grew out of the custom of noble ladies, and which became more common later on, of washing the feet of pilgrims in penance for some special sin, in the manner described by Charles Reade in _The Cloister and the Hearth_. On his return, somewhere about 1104, he settled for a time at Carlisle, and then went to share his cell with a hermit named Aelrice, by Wolsingham, and perhaps learn the lessons which were to guide him in his future life. After a stay here of only seventeen months the hermit died, and directed, he believed, by St. Cuthbert, Godric went again on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, after which he was instructed to return and take up his residence at Finchale. Not knowing the locality by name he returned to Durham where he resided for some time until a chance conversation disclosed the whereabouts of the place.