Consecration of Gerard and Samson. June 6, 1096. suspecting that his bishopric was not granted for nothing, whatever may have been the case with Samson at Worcester. The bishops-elect came to Anselm for consecration. He was then with his friend Gundulf at Lambeth, then a manor of the see of Rochester. In the chapel of the manor Anselm ordained them priests.[1] The next day he consecrated them in the cathedral church of London, with the help of four of his suffragans, three of whom, Thomas of York, Maurice of London, and Gundulf of Rochester, had in different ways a special interest in the ceremony. The fourth was Herbert, described as of Thetford or Norwich. It was in the course of this year that he began his great work in his last-named see.[2]
Anselm consecrates Irish bishops. This year too Anselm was able to show that his style of Patriarch of all the nations beyond the sea was not an empty title. It was now that he consecrated two bishops to sees in Ireland, Samuel of Dublin and Malchus of Waterford. They were both Irish by birth, but monks of English monasteries, Samuel of Saint Alban's, Malchus of Winchester. They came with letters from the clergy and people of their sees, and from King Murtagh or Murchard, of whom we shall hear again, and who takes to himself the sounding title of King of Ireland. Both were consecrated by Anselm, Samuel at Winchester, Malchus at Canterbury.[3] It was no new claim; two predecessors of Samuel had already been consecrated by Lanfranc.
- [Footnote: constant study of Julius Firmicus. According to Hugh of Flavigny
(Pertz, viii. 496), he sacrificed a pig to the devil, while of his brother more wonderful things still were told. See Pertz, viii. 496, and Appendix G.]*
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 35.
- ↑ See above, p. 448, and Appendix X.
- ↑ Eadmer gives the account of these Irish bishops (Hist. Nov. 34, 36). Samuel is described as being "a rege Hiberniæ Murierdach nomine, necne a clero et populo in episcopatum ipsius civitatis electus est, atque ad Anselmum, juxta morem antiquum, sacrandus cum communi decreto directus." Of King Muirchertach, whose name is written endless ways, and whom it is
