Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wulfwig

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
921304Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 63 — Wulfwig1900Alice Margaret Cooke

WULFWIG or WULFWY (d. 1067), bishop of Dorchester, appears in a doubtful charter of 1045 as royal chancellor (Cod. Dipl. iv. 102). In 1053 he succeeded Ulf in the great bishopric of Dorchester (A.-S. Chron. ii. 155, Rolls Ser.) His predecessor was living and had been irregularly deprived, and Freeman suggests that the record of this fact in the chronicle (ib.) may indicate some feeling against Wulfwig's appointment (Norm. Conq. ii. 342), but there seems to have been no opposition. Wulfwig apparently shared the scruple about the canonical position of Archbishop Stigand [q. v.], for he went abroad to be consecrated (A.-S. Chron. l. c.). His appointment is thought to mark a momentary decline in Norman influence, and he was the last of the old line of Dorchester bishops, for his death occurred when the great English ecclesiastical preferments were passing into Norman hands. Wulfwig died at Winchester (Flor. Wig. ii. 1, Engl. Hist. Soc.) in 1067, and was buried in his own church at Dorchester (A.-S. Chron. ii. 171). His will is extant (Cod. Dipl. iv. 290), and is witnessed by a large number of persons, beginning with the king.

[See, in addition to the chief authorities quoted in the text, Stubbs's Registr. Sacr. Angl. p. 20; Freeman's Norm. Conq. i. 759, iv. 130–131; Green's Conquest of England, pp. 546, 579.]

A. M. C.-e.