ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



i/'ulfstan and the Northumbrian witan swore fealty to Eadred. But next 

 :ar Wulfstan was implicated in a second revolt." Eadred harried 

 [orthumbria, and burned the minster at Ripon," Wulfstan's punishment 

 ;ems to have been delayed till 952, when he was imprisoned at Jedburgh, 

 xpelled from his diocese he retired to Dorchester, where he ' obtained a 

 ishopric,' and in 957 died at Oundle. His successor at York was a Dane, 

 >skytel. 



In 972, Oskytel was succeeded by his kinsman, Oswald, Bishop of 

 V^orcester." Educated under the protection of Oda, the Danish Archbishop 

 f Canterbury, and instructed in the Benedictine rule at Fleury, he became 

 ne of the prime movers in the restoration of monastic discipline. ' Impiger 

 lonachus ' is the epithet given to him by his anonymous biographer. Seven 

 lonasteries in the diocese of Worcester owed their origin or reformation to 

 im," and he was the joint founder of the fenland monastery of Ramsey. When 

 ;dgar the Peaceable sent him to York, he was allowed to retain his bishop- 

 LC of Worcester, in order that his monks there might not be deprived of 

 is pastoral care.^* In Yorkshire, the monasteries destroyed by the Danes 

 ly deserted and in ruins. Oda, some years previously, had visited Ripon 

 nd had carried away the body of St. Wilfrid, as the Canterbury monks con- 

 :antly asserted, or of his later namesake, to Canterbury.^" Oswald paid the 

 uined church a visit, and found there the remains of one of the Wilfrids and 

 f other Saxon abbots." These he appears to have enshrined at Ripon. °^ 

 t is probable that he rebuilt the church and re-established the monastery, 

 lis biographer clearly states that he revived the monastic life at York,^' 

 lut monastic reform seems to have been less actively pursued in Northumbria 

 ban in Mercia. Oswald lived till 992. Aldulf, Abbot of Peterborough, suc- 

 eeded him at York and Worcester, and translated his body from its burial-place 

 n Worcester Abbey to a new shrine.** Danish invasions, before Oswald's death, 

 lad begun to disturb the country anew. In such circumstances, efforts after 

 , monastic revival must have had little chance of success. An invasion in 993 

 Irove the congregation of St. Cuthbert from Chester-le-Street southward with 

 heir patron's body. They rested for a while at Ripon, before their final removal 



" Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 948 ; Rog. Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 56. See also William Malmesbury, 

 "rest. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 7. 



^ Angl.-Sax. Chron. an. 948 ; Rog. Hoveden, loc. cit. Angl.-Sax. Chron. and Flor. Worcester give 

 le date of Wulfstan's translation to Dorchester as 954 ; Hoveden and Wendover as 953. 



" The anonymous 'Vita Oswaldi,' printed in Hist. Ch. Tork (Rolls Ser.), i, 399 seq., is a vi'ork of very 

 igh historical value. Raine also prints Eadmer's ' Vita ' and ' Miracula Sancti Oswaldi ' (ibid, ii, i seq.), the 

 Vita Sancti Oswaldi' by Senatus, Prior of Worcester (ibid, ii, 60 seq.), and two short lives of the saint, the 

 ;cond by Capgrave (ibid, ii, App. 489 seq.). 



'* So Oswald's anonymous biographer. Hist. Ch. Tork (Rolls Ser.), i, 439. 



" Eadmer, ibid, ii, 28, says that this was due to St. Dunstan. 



*" Oda asserts this in the preface, attributed to him, which precedes the metrical life of St. Wilfrid by 

 ridegoda. Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 106, and the story is told by Eadmer, 'Vita Wilfridi,' ibid, i, 224, 

 25. . Eadmer, however, wrote as a partisan of Canterbury, and his admission that 'aliquantula pars' of the 

 ody was left at Ripon may have been made in order to evade the fact that Oswald and his earlier biographer 

 :em to have had no doubt as to the authenticity of the relics discovered at Ripon. 



" See Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, pref p. xliii. 



" ' Vita Oswaldi,' Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 462. Eadmer's account, ibid, ii, 30, is confused and vague, 

 wing to his desire to emphasize the translation of the relics to Canterbury by Oda. 



^ Ibid, i, 462. Raine makes the passage refer to Ripon ; of which it is doubtless true. But it refers in 

 le first place to York : ' de loco in quo ejus pontificalis cathedra posita est, quid referam, quidque dicam ? ' 



*' Eadmer, ' Miracula 8. Oswaldi,' Hist. Ch. York. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 45 seq. The translation took place on 

 5 Apr. 1002. (Hoveden, Flor. Worcester, Wendover.) 



