Eadwine and Wulfgar - monks behaving badly
I am terribly bored by the history of great people. Wars and politics, currency reforms, royal marriages, fiscal policy, state-building, trade treaties - these top-down topics are famously dry. It’s a sad reality that much of the history of pre-Conquest England is taught in this manner, often out of necessity: Bede, Vikings, Alfred and his cakes, the unreadiness of Æthelred, and 1066.
But we need to remember that history was populated by ordinary (and mostly invisible) people. If these are harder for us to see in the early medieval period, they are nonetheless present, and crucial to our understanding of history. They went about a number of mundane tasks; they washed their clothes, they met their friends, they fell in and out of love, they tripped and spilled their newly-bought drinks. And it’s those little interactions between people, and the hidden rules by which they lived their lives, that are really interesting. That’s what I’m really trying to get at with my current PhD research into nicknames. So, alongside posting in-depth looks at specific nicknames in early medieval England, I’m going to use this Substack to post shorter extracts about fringe individuals that appear (often only once) in the texts of pre-Conquest England. Some of these are firmly based in fact; some, like the example below, appear to be colourful works of contemporary fiction. It is my hope that we will soon have a list of readings for those interested not just in the kings and bishops of pre-Conquest England, but its ordinary people, and the shape that their lives may have taken.
At some point between 963 to 984, at the Old Minster in Winchester, Eadwine the monk became a thief.1 Money was stolen, although how much and from who is unclear. In stealing this money, we are told, Eadwine had been inspired by the devil. The result was a hostile atmosphere among the Old Minster, with suspicion between the brothers over who the secret thief might be.
Photo Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Incorrupt_Cuthbert.jpg This illustration is actually from a 12thC version of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, showing the saint’s body being found incorrupted. I thought the monks here looked shifty enough to illustrate Eadwine’s theft.
A plea was made by Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, for the thief to come forward. The culprit did not come forward, and after three days Æthelwold’s patience appears to have worn thin. Before the brothers of the Old Minster, he declared:
‘Despite my order, this sacrilegious thief has refused to restore with my blessing the money he took. Now let him return it with the curse of Almighty God upon him, and be bound in body as well as soul by my authority’.2
Divine retribution was swift, and literal:
‘the monk was invisibly tied up in his seat, his hands attached to each other beneath his cowl. He sat there in a daze wondering what to do. All the rest of his limbs he could move and use, but his hands the holy man had bound and rendered useless by the authority conferred on him by God’.3
This, quite understandably, shook Eadwine. He tearfully confessed his theft to the bishop, whose forgiveness freed Eadwine from his divine shackles. Later, Eadwine relayed the spectacular happenings to his fellow monk Wulfgar, who suggested they keep the entire unfortunate situation a secret.
This ill-behaved pair, Eadwine and Wulfgar, appear in The Life of St Æthelwold. A text written by Wulfstan c.996, a prayer-leader (precentor/cantor) at the Old Minster in Winchester, this work was later summarised by Ælfric. This brief passage continues the sources’ consistent aim of emphasising a positive image of Æthelwold. ‘His practice to be merciful to those who wept and showed penitence’ is applauded as fair and just judgment. But all the more significantly, we are shown the God-given power of Æthelwold, and the reader is left in little doubt of his saintly nature:
The incident lets us perceive the merit in God's eyes of a man who by a mere word and without being aware of it could perform such a miracle.4
Great emphasis is placed on the fact that Æthelwold is unaware of the punishment he inflicts, presumably as a symbol of his power without even trying.
Whether Eadwine and Wulfgar ever really existed is unclear to us, as is the question of Eadwine’s crime and his punishment. But it provides a fascinating view into later tenth-century monastic communities, and begins to humanise the past. If you want to learn more about the people that lived in England before the Norman Conquest, subscribe to the newsletter.
Eadwine goes un-named in Wulfstan’s account of the actions that follow, and is named only in Ælfric’s later copying of the text. For the text itself, see below.
The Life of St Æthelwold, eds. and trans. M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1991), 50-1.
The Life of St Æthelwold, 50-1.
The Life of St Æthelwold, 50-1.