The Binding of Eadwine - Monks Behaving Badly

Theft, Lies, and Dodgy Haircuts in 10th Century England

At some point between 963 to 984, in Winchester, suspicion began to foment among the brothers of the Old Minster. A pouch of money had disappeared into the night. When it became clear that the coins hadn’t simply been misplaced, suspicion and whispered gossip grew.

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, but 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. After three days of suspicion, Æthelwold’s patience appears to have worn thin. Before the brothers of the Old Minster, ‘fearsomely angry and full of menace’, 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’.¹

Unknown to Æthelwold, the culprit sat among the assembled brothers. The monk Eadwine,² we are told, had been led to theft by the devil himself. Whether he felt the pangs of guilt before Æthelwold’s speech, whether he sat sweating in his cassock among his fellow brothers, we do not know. Whatever the case, he was soon to regret his actions.

No sooner had Æthelwold’s curse been uttered, divine retribution struck swiftly, and literally:

‘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 understandably shook Eadwine. Fearful of divine wrath, and still invisibly bound, Eadwine tearfully confessed his theft to the bishop. Æthelwold, ever the model of grace and Christian charity, forgave him his sin, and Eadwine was freed from his divine shackles.

Eadwine left, presumably in a state of great relief, and recounted the spectacular happenings to his fellow monk Wulfgar. This companion advised him, kindly, that it might be wisest if he kept the entire unfortunate situation a secret…

Eadwine, the light-fingered monk, appears in a text now kown as The Life of St Æthelwold. Written in c.996 by Wulfstan , a prayer-leader (precentor/cantor) at the Old Minster in Winchester, the text was later summarised, and altered, by Ælfric. There are some notable differences between the versions of the text: Wulfstan does not name Eadwine, nor does he specify the nature of the theft.

As the name suggests, the text aims to emphasise the magnificence of Æthelwold. Through the binding of Eadwine, we are left with little doubt over the God-given power of Æthelwold. 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. But so, too, is Æthelwold’s virtue stressed; his foregiveness - ‘his practice to be merciful to those who wept and showed penitence’ -⁴ is applauded as wise and just judgment. Medieval texts are infrequently subtle, and the anecdote leave the reader is left in little doubt of how they are supposed to feel:

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.⁵

I am terribly bored by the history of great people: wars and politics, currency reforms, royal marriages, fiscal policy, state-building, trade treaties. 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.

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.

If you’re interested in the lost lives of early medieval England, consider subscribing to the newsletter to keep up to date. If you’re feeling particularly generous, in a way that I’m sure Ælfheah would have heartily approved of, consider a paid subscription, or buying me a gluten-free beer here. The life of a post-doc is fraught with uncertaintly!

1. The Life of St Æthelwold, eds. and trans. M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1991), 50-1.

2. 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.

3. The Life of St Æthelwold, 50-1.

4. The Life of St Æthelwold, 50-1.

5. The Life of St Æthelwold, 50-1.