decided; Maurice did not dare to set up his judgement on such a matter against that of the venerable saint, the relic of a state of things which had passed away.[1]
Assembly at Hastings. February 2, 1094. Those of the great men of England who had come to the Gemót at Gloucester from the more distant parts of the kingdom could hardly have reached their homes when they were again summoned to give the King the benefit of their counsels. William Rufus was so strong upon his throne that in his days assemblies were sure to be frequent. He was moreover planning a campaign beyond the sea, so that it was very doubtful whether he would be able this year to wear his crown in England at the usual times of Easter and Pentecost. The Easter Gemót was therefore in some sort forestalled. As the starting-point for his second invasion of Normandy the King had chosen the spot which had been his father's head-quarters in the great invasion of England. At Pevensey he had once beaten back the invasion of his Norman brother; at Hastings he now gathered the force which was for the second time to avenge that wrong. The
- [Footnote: quippe et in nostra diœcesi altaria, et quædam etiam ecclesiæ in hiis scilicet
villis quas Stigandus vestræ excellentiæ prædecessor, haut tamen jure ecclesiasticæ hæreditatis sed ex dono possederat sæcularis potestatis, ab ipso dedicata." Wulfstan, speaking his own words in his own letter, speaks of Stigand in quite another tone from that which he had used in the profession which was put into his mouth by Lanfranc (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 655). The places referred to are in Gloucestershire, and will be found in Domesday, 164 b. Most of the lands had passed to the Archbishop of York; some of them first to William Fitz-Osbern, and then to the King. It would seem then that, in whatever character Stigand held them, it was not as Archbishop of Canterbury. Wulfstan's witness therefore goes so far as to give the archbishop the right to oust the diocesan bishop, not only on the lands of the archbishopric, but on any lands which he may hold as a private man.]
- ↑ There is something amusing in the tone of glee in which Eadmer records his patron's triumph; "Secure deinceps suorum morem antecessorum emulabatur, non solum ecclesias, inconsultis episcopis, sacrans, sed et quæque divina officia in cunctis terris suis per se suosve dispensans."
