Appendix 2: Members of the Circle Appointed to High Ecclesiastical Offices, 956–1016

Summary

THE KEY sources for most bishops and abbots from Æthelwold's circle are lists of the Old Minster's alumni and references in Wulfstan Cantor's hagiography and other lists from the New Minster Liber Vitae. The first of these lists claims to record ‘brothers of the Old Minster, Winchester, serving the Lord there under the protection of lord St Peter the apostle’. This is immediately followed by a list of abbots, who also ‘especially devoted themselves’, according to the rubric. Most of these men can be associated with the circle through other sources as well, with two possible exceptions. The list begins by commending Womar, abbot of Ghent. Womar may have visited the Old Minster: as Michael Lapidge has argued, he may even have witnessed Swithun's translation and have been motivated to oversee translations of saints in Ghent. However, he was not trained at the Old Minster, and his stay there would have been relatively brief, so he will not be counted as a member of the circle here. Neither will Germanus, described as abbot of Ramsey. His connections to both the post-reform Old Minster and Ramsey are debatable. According to Byrhtferth of Ramsey, Germanus was a clergyman in Winchester who accompanied Oswald to the continent and was trained at Fleury. When Germanus returned to England, he seems to have remained at houses associated with Oswald and eventually led the community at Winchombe and possibly Ramsey, briefly, and Cholsey. Still, manuscripts associated with him (as identified by Michael Lapidge) show a sympathy with the circle's programme in terms of the Psalter and elements of the script, and Byrhtferth also linked him to an Abbot Ælfheah and an Abbot Foldbriht, both of whom may have been members of the circle.

Many of these people – particularly the bishops – were claimed by other houses in the post-Conquest period. In particular, William of Malmesbury claimed that many of these bishops had been monks of Glastonbury, a claim accepted by David Knowles. William's maximalist picture of Glastonbury's influence, however, seems to have assumed that ecclesiastics who donated altar fittings and other gifts to Glastonbury had been trained there. In the last part of that chapter, William specifies bishops’ death days, implying that he was using calendars or chapter house books, which may have recorded all major figures, not just those with a specific Glastonbury connection.