General respect for Wulfstan.
His correspondence.
His increased sickness. Whitsuntide, 1094.
Wulfstan and Robert of Hereford. Wulfstan with honour; we may doubt whether either knew enough of the other's language for rebukes to be met by repartees. The great men of the realm did the like. Foreign princes, prelates, and potentates honoured him with gifts and asked for his prayers.[1] Among his correspondents were the Pope—doubtless Urban—Malcolm and Margaret of Scotland, and the kings of Ireland. To this list are added the Archbishop of Bari and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, which last name suggests correspondence on the common needs of Christendom. At Pentecost Wulfstan was very sick; he sent for his special friend Bishop Robert of Hereford, him whose skill had foretold that Remigius would never dedicate his minster.[2] Robert came; the humble Wulfstan made his confession and submitted to the discipline.[3] But he lived on during the rest of that year. Shortly after the beginning of the new year, he had another visit from Bishop Robert and two abbots of his diocese, Serlo of Gloucester and Gerald, abbot of the still unfinished house which Robert Fitz-hamon was raising at Tewkesbury.[4] Wulfstan again confessed; he foretold his own
- [Footnote: ut sæpe, consedisset regi Anglorum." One would like to have Wulfstan's
English. We must remember that Wulfstan was commonly surrounded at dinner by a knightly following. Vit. Wlst. 259. "Excepto si quando cum monachis reficeretur, semper in regia considentibus militibus palam convivabatur."]confessione facta, etiam disciplinam accepit. Ita vocant monachi virgarum flagra, quæ tergo nudato cædentis infligit acrimonia."]
- ↑ Vit. Wlst. 266. "Multo eum suspiciebat rex honore, multo proceres; ut qui sæpe ipsum ascirent convivio, et assurgerent ejus consilio." Then follows the list of his foreign admirers, but it is only of the Irish kings that we read that "magnis eum venerabantur favoribus." Malcolm and Margaret "ipsius se dedebant orationibus;" the foreign prelates "epistolis quæ adhuc supersunt ejus ambierunt apud Deum suffragia."
- ↑ See above, p. 312.
- ↑ Vit. Wlst. 267. "Humanorum excessum [had he given in a little too much to foreign ways?
- ↑ Serlo we have heard of before; see N. C. vol. iv. p. 383. Of Tewkesbury I shall have to speak below, and see N. C. vol. v. pp. 628, 629.
