esse’ (ib. cc. 39, 40, 148; Galfrid, c. 2; De Mirac. c. 21; cf. Galfrid, c. 2).
Godric's life was written by three contemporaries: his confessor, Prior German of Durham (1163–88), by Reginald of Durham, and by Galfrid, who dedicated his life to Thomas, prior of Finchale. Galfrid's life, which is almost entirely composed of extracts from German and Reginald, is printed in the ‘Acta Sanctorum.’ Galfrid, however, had when a little boy seen the aged Godric, and has left us a detailed description of the saint's personal appearance. German's account of Godric, except for the above selections, seems lost. Reginald was commissioned by Prior Thomas of Durham (c 1158–63) and Æthelred of Rievaulx (d. 1166) to visit the old man with a view to writing a life. At first Godric refused to countenance a biography, but he gradually yielded, and blessed the completed work when Reginald presented it to him a few weeks before his death (Reg. cc. 140, 166). Some incidents Reginald picked up from Godric's nephew and others of his attendants (cc. 48, 51). Stevenson recognises three recensions of Reginald's works: (1) Harleian MS. 322 (its short and earliest form); (2) Harleian MS. 153; (3) Bodley MS. Laud. E. 47.
The dates of Godric's active life are mainly conjectural, being based (1) upon the statement that he was sixty years at Finchale, and (2) upon his identity with Albert of Aix's ‘Gudric the English Pirate.’ This throws back the sixteen years of his seafaring life to 1086–1102; and, if he was from twenty to twenty-five when he gave up his pedlar's pack, he must have been born between 1060 and 1065. He was ‘mediocris ætatis,’ i.e. about thirty-five, when with Ælrice at Wolsingham (ib. c. 11; cf. Dante, Inf. i. 1). The chronology, however, would be much simplified if, taking the sixty years as a round number, we could put his settlement at Finchale a few years later, c. 1115.
[Libellus de Vita S. Godrici, ed. Stevenson (Surtees Soc.), 1847; Acta Sanctorum (Bollandus), 21 May, pp. 68, 85, where Galfrid's Life is printed; Capgrave's Nova Legenda Angliæ, ed. 1516, foll. 157, b 2–166, b 2; Historia Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, ed. Raine (Surtees Soc.), 1837; Albert of Aix, ed. Migne, vol. clxvi.; Fulcher of Chartres, ed. Migne, vol. clv.; Chron. Malleacense ap. Labbe's Bibliotheca Nova, vol. ii.; Simeon of Durham, vols. i. ii. (Rolls Ser.), ed. Arnold; Roger of Wendover, ii. 340–59, &c., iii. 10, ed. Coxe (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Walter Map, De Nug. Curial. ed. Wright (Camden Soc. 1850), William of Newburgh (Rolls Ser.), ed. Howlett, i. 49–50; Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints, ed. 1847, v. 289–91, Baring-Gould's Lives of the Saints, ed. 1872, v. 322–31; Kingsley's Hermits, ed. 1875, pp. 308–28; Harpsfeld's Hist. Eccles. Anglic. ed. 1622, pp. 407–12; Orderic Vitalis, ed. Prevost (Soc. de l'Hist. de France); Casley's King's Library MSS. 89–98; Ritson's Bibl. Poet. 1–4; Morley's English Writers, ed. 1864, pp. 469–470; Englische Studien, xi. (1887–8), 401–32; Eng. Hist. Rev. (1902), 479–80.]
GODSALVE, EDWARD (d. 1568?), catholic divine, was nominated by Henry VIII one of the original fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, 19 Dec. 1546 (Rymer, Fœdera, xv. 107). He was a great friend of John Christopherson, bishop of Chichester, and in Mary's reign he was appointed to a stall in that cathedral. On 28 April 1554 he was admitted to the rectory of Fulbourn St. Vigors, Cambridgeshire, and in the same year he proceeded B.D. He signed the Roman catholic articles 26 July 1555, and during the visitation of the university by Cardinal Pole's delegates in February 1556–7 he, Dr. Sedgwick, Thomas Parker, and Richard Rudde were deputed to peruse books, and to determine which were heretical. He refused to comply with the changes in religion made after the accession of Elizabeth. In February 1559–60 William Barlow, bishop of Chichester, wrote to one of the queen's ministers, probably Cecil, announcing his intention to deprive Godsalve of his prebend (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 150). Soon after this Godsalve was deprived of all his preferments and obliged to retire to Antwerp. There he was elected professor of divinity in the monastery of St. Michael. He was living in 1568, but when he died is unknown.
His works are: 1. ‘Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ pars prima, qua continetur Eusebii Pamphili lib. 10, &c.,’ Louvain, 1569, 8vo. This Latin translation by John Christopherson, bishop of Exeter, was edited by Godsalve, who translated Pars tertia, ‘Hist. Eccles. Scriptores Græci,’ &c., Cologne, 1570, fol., with Godsalve's original dedication and two of his letters prefixed. Other editions appeared at Cologne in 1581 and 1612. 2. ‘Elucidationes quorundam textuum Sacræ Scripturæ,’ manuscript.
[Pits, De Angliæ Scriptoribus, p. 737; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 330; Dodd's Church Hist. i. 510; Addit. MS. 5870, f. 68; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 275; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Lamb's Documents illustrative of the Hist. of the Univ. of Cambridge, pp. 175, 193, 216.]
GODSALVE, Sir JOHN (d. 1556), clerk of the signet, and comptroller of the mint, was the son and heir of Thomas Godsalve (d. 1542), registrar of the consistory court at Norwich and an owner of landed property in Norfolk, by his first wife Joan, who was
