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XIII.—The Legend of St. Wulfhad and St. Ruffin at Stone Priory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Gordon Hall Gerould
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Extract

In a recently published volume I have referred to the curious relationship that subsists between the legend of St. Wulfhad and St. Ruffin, which is known to us through the Cottonian ms. Nero C. XII, and a set of verses dealing with the founders and benefactors of Stone Priory in Staffordshire, which has been preserved by Dugdale in the Monasticon. In my Saints' Legends I had not the space to present in detail the evidence by which these two documents are connected, nor to discuss freely the interesting problems that they suggest. The evidence is of such a character, and the problems involved are so novel, that a further consideration of the matter seems desirable.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , 1917, pp. 323 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1917

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References

1 Saints' Legends, 1916, pp. 273-275.

2 Ed. Horstmann, Altengl. Leg., N. F., pp. 308-314.

3 Ed. 1846, vi, pp. 230-231.

4 B. H. L. 8735. Printed by Dugdale, vi, pp. 226-230, from ms. Cott. Otho A. XVI, and thence in A. SS. IUL. v, pp. 575-581.

5 When I wrote the paragraph about the legend in Saints' Legends, I had not, in my blindness, made out the reference to the list of Norman lords, and so placed the account of the founders on the right of the choir.

6 Aside from obvious modernizations, the relations to the Priory of Nicholas de Stafford and his son Edmund (vv. 93-110) are reversed in the text as we have it.

7 See R. W. Eyton, in Collections for a History of Staffordshire by the William Salt Archaeological Society, ii, p. 200.

8 “Ipse Rotbertus (de Stadford) tenet Waletone et Ernaldus de eo.”

9 See W. H. R. Curtter, in Victoria County History of Staffordshire, p. 222. Robert de Toeni assumed the style of de Stafford, though it was not till a century and a half later that his descendant Ralph (1299-1342) became Earl of Stafford.

10 See Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, ed. T. D. Hardy, 1854, iii, p. 49, and Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, 1897, p. 44.

11 The text reads “Glentone” and “Glentam,” which are corruptions. Enisan reads “Ensam,” it may be noted.

12 Of this relationship I find no other mention, and see no way to test the accuracy of the statement.

13 The skepticism of R. W. Eyton, place cited, seems to me quite misdirected.

14 By a stupid lapse, not easy to forgive, I wrote Carthusian instead of Augustinian in Saints' Legends, p. 274.

15 According to the legend (vv. 364-370) and the Latin Passio (Monasticon vi, p. 230), St. Wulfhad's head was left by the canon at Viterbo, on his way home. The Latin particularizes that it was deposited at the church of St. Laurence there. It does not appear in the very full lists of relics belonging to the Cathedral of S. Lorenzo, to be found in F. Cristofori, Le Tombe dei Papi in Viterbo, 1887, pp. 234-237. The Latin account implies, though it does not expressly say, that the visit of canonization took place soon after the Benedictine Revival. This does not agree with the English statements, and it is inherently improbable.

16 Both of them are to be found in the Monasticon vi, pp. 231-232. For Roger de Clinton, see LeNeve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, i, p. 544, and Stubbs, Registrum, p. 226. Stubbs failed to note that Roger was not enthroned until 1130.

17 The statement in A Survey of Staffordshire … by Sampson Erdeswick Esq., ed. T. Harwood, 1844, p. 36, note, to the effect that Ernaldus de Walton forfeited Stone to the King, who then granted it to Robert de Stafford, is apparently based on the legend, vv. 349-350, which, however, refers to Arnold's property at large. Robert, the grandson of the original Robert, seems to have swallowed up his vassal's forfeited lands and thus to have come into a more direct patronage of Stone Priory, though the title to it was clearly vested in the Canons of Kenilworth. See G. Wrottesley, in Collections . . by the William Salt Arch. Soc. i, p. 178, for the record of a fine due by Arnold in 31 Henry I. The Priory Church fell in 1749. The state of the ruins in 1909 is described by F. Parker, Collections … by the William Salt Arch. Soc., New Ser., xii, p. 105.

18 See Dugdale, Baronage, i, p. 174.

19 E. P. Hammond, “Two Tapestry Poems by Lydgate,” Engl. Stud., xliii, pp. 10-26.

20 The St. George may also be read in H. N. MacCracken, The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, 1911 (EETS. cvii), pp. 145-154.

21 The former inedited as yet, the latter accessible in J. O. Halli-well, Minor Poems of Lydgate, 1840 (Percy Soc. ii), pp. 129-135.

22 Work cited, pp. 140-143.

23 P. 10.

24 Miss Hammond's quotations (p. 21) from the lists of the tapestries of Charles VI of France and of Henry V of England are interesting and valuable.

25 See M. Sartor, Les Tapisseries de Reims, 1912, pp. 137-158.

26 i, p. 377.

27 ii, pp. 246-248.

28 St. George has 245 lines, Dance Macabre 672, Bycorne and Chichevache 133, A Prayer to St. Thomas 120, and Falls of Seven Princes 49.

29 Printed in the Monasticon, vi, p. 1364, from an Ashmole ms.

30 vi, pp. 122-124: “Ex vet. pergam. ms. penès …. Talbot de Grafton, in Com. Wigorn. arm. a. 1587.”