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Authors: Charles Palliser
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the new levies arrived the next day and Alfred immediately led an assault on the town and recaptured it, inflicting utter defeat on the enemy. At a mass in the Old Minster Olaf and his family and thegns were baptized and took the sacrament, and then he and Alfred exchanged rich gifts. With the capture of the town the treachery of Beorghtnoth was discovered for one of Wulflac’s chaplains, a man called Cathlac, revealed how the martyred bishop had tried to convey a message to the king about the eclipse. Beorghtnoth proved his treachery by fleeing to the Danelaw. Wulflac’s body was recovered from the well and buried in the Old Minster in a black stone coffin lined with lead and embellished with sculptures depicting ...
[et cetera, et cetera].
The body was washed and anointed and covered in a cloth of fine ...
I don’t think that’s particularly interesting.
The Old Minster had been looted by the Danes and now that its buildings were being repaired, a curious incident occurred. Cathlac found an old document hidden in a wall which had been laid open by the ravages of the Danes. This was a charter under which an earlier king of Wessex a hundred years before had granted certain rights to the Abbey. Alfred accepted the validity of the charter and confirmed these rights henceforth in perpetuity, further endowing the see as a tribute to his martyred friend and teacher. And from that time forth miracles began to occur in association with St Wulflac and in particular with the well into which his body had been thrown. For it was found that loathsome sores were healed by water from the well, trees that were nourished with water from the well bore fruit in the depths of the winter ...
There’s rather a lot more of this and it’s not frightfully interesting – nor particularly convincing – so I’ll stop there.’
I was very moved by the story – as I always am when I think of the life of that extraordinary man, the English scholar-king who saved the nation from extinction. ‘Can you guess what my hypothesis is about the young chaplain?’ I asked.
Austin shook his head.
‘Did you notice that he is the only character about whose private thoughts and feelings we are informed? In that scene when Alfred is praying, Grimbald writes that he was “deeply moved by this mark of the king’s respect for him and alarmed by what he suspected of Beorghtnoth’s treachery”. I believe the young chaplain was none other than Grimbald himself.’
Austin pursed his lips. ‘That would explain why he is allowed to give such wise advice.’
I laughed. ‘That’s very cynical. But you’re right and that supports my theory which I recently published in a paper for the
Proceedings of the English Historical Society
.’
‘How authentic is that story?’ Austin asked. ‘To me it sounds no more so than the famous cakes.’
‘There are a few difficulties,’ I admitted.
‘What about Wulflac predicting an eclipse?’
‘Yes, that raises some awkward questions. The astronomical knowledge that would have permitted that had been lost centuries earlier – at the collapse of Alexandrian civilization, in fact. But the writings of Ptolemy and Pliny were certainly known in England at that time, and so Wulflac and Alfred could well have understood what an eclipse was when one occurred.’
‘Was there an eclipse at that time? Is it possible to establish that?’
‘There is not known to have been one at precisely that moment. That is one reason why many scholars have refused to accept the authenticity of the
Life
.’
‘Believing that it was forged? By whom and why?’
‘Well, it survived in only one manuscript with the addition of a preface by Leofranc who described there how he had ordered it to be copied and distributed so that everyone should know how wise and learned King Alfred was.’
‘Does the manuscript itself provide any clues?’
‘Unfortunately it was destroyed in 1643 when the Library here was ransacked. So all
[et cetera, et cetera].
The body was washed and anointed and covered in a cloth of fine ...
I don’t think that’s particularly interesting.
The Old Minster had been looted by the Danes and now that its buildings were being repaired, a curious incident occurred. Cathlac found an old document hidden in a wall which had been laid open by the ravages of the Danes. This was a charter under which an earlier king of Wessex a hundred years before had granted certain rights to the Abbey. Alfred accepted the validity of the charter and confirmed these rights henceforth in perpetuity, further endowing the see as a tribute to his martyred friend and teacher. And from that time forth miracles began to occur in association with St Wulflac and in particular with the well into which his body had been thrown. For it was found that loathsome sores were healed by water from the well, trees that were nourished with water from the well bore fruit in the depths of the winter ...
There’s rather a lot more of this and it’s not frightfully interesting – nor particularly convincing – so I’ll stop there.’
I was very moved by the story – as I always am when I think of the life of that extraordinary man, the English scholar-king who saved the nation from extinction. ‘Can you guess what my hypothesis is about the young chaplain?’ I asked.
Austin shook his head.
‘Did you notice that he is the only character about whose private thoughts and feelings we are informed? In that scene when Alfred is praying, Grimbald writes that he was “deeply moved by this mark of the king’s respect for him and alarmed by what he suspected of Beorghtnoth’s treachery”. I believe the young chaplain was none other than Grimbald himself.’
Austin pursed his lips. ‘That would explain why he is allowed to give such wise advice.’
I laughed. ‘That’s very cynical. But you’re right and that supports my theory which I recently published in a paper for the
Proceedings of the English Historical Society
.’
‘How authentic is that story?’ Austin asked. ‘To me it sounds no more so than the famous cakes.’
‘There are a few difficulties,’ I admitted.
‘What about Wulflac predicting an eclipse?’
‘Yes, that raises some awkward questions. The astronomical knowledge that would have permitted that had been lost centuries earlier – at the collapse of Alexandrian civilization, in fact. But the writings of Ptolemy and Pliny were certainly known in England at that time, and so Wulflac and Alfred could well have understood what an eclipse was when one occurred.’
‘Was there an eclipse at that time? Is it possible to establish that?’
‘There is not known to have been one at precisely that moment. That is one reason why many scholars have refused to accept the authenticity of the
Life
.’
‘Believing that it was forged? By whom and why?’
‘Well, it survived in only one manuscript with the addition of a preface by Leofranc who described there how he had ordered it to be copied and distributed so that everyone should know how wise and learned King Alfred was.’
‘Does the manuscript itself provide any clues?’
‘Unfortunately it was destroyed in 1643 when the Library here was ransacked. So all
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