BoAr: FNQ: Hereward II
http://
boar.org.uk/ariwxo3FNQsupII.htm Latest edit 30 Aug
2008.
Web page
& commentary © 2007 R.J.PENHEY With
thanks to the trustees of the Willoughby Memorial Library
The Bourne Archive
FNQ
This thread begins with the title page
De Gestis Herwardi Saxonis.
II.
De quibus parentibus Herwardus natus ; et quomodo a pueritia in
magnanimitatibus operum crevit, et quare a patre et patria expulsus est, unde
Exul cognominatus est.
Ex Anglorum gente1 multi robustissimi memorantur viri,
et Herwardus Exul2 præclarissimus inter præclaros et
insignis miles cum insignioribus habetur. Hujus igitur pater fuit quidem Lefricus
de Brunne3, nepos comitis Radulfi cognominati
Scabre4 et mater Aediva5
trinepta Oslaci ducis, utroque parente nobilissime progenitus. Puer enim erat
spectabilis forma et vultu decorus, valde decoratus ex flavente cæsarie et
prolixa facie, oculisque magnis, dextro ab alio variante modicum glaucus ;
verum severus aspectu fuit, et ex nimia densitate membrorum admodum rotundus,
sed nimis pro statura mediocri agilis, et in omnibus membris tota comperta
efficacia. Inerat etiam illi a pueritia multa gratia et fortitudo corporis, et
perfectum virum hujus rei ex facultate statim in adolescentia forma virtutis
ejus eum demonstrabat, et erat gratia fortitudinis et virtute animi in cunctis
excellenter præditus. Nam quantum ad liberalitatem attinet, ex paternis rebus
et propriis dapsilis erat, et liberalissimus, solatium ferens omnibus
indigentibus, scilicet crudelis in opere, et in ludo severus, libenter inter
coætaneos commovens bella, et inter majores ætate in urbibus et in villis sæpe
suscitans certamina, nullum sibi in ausibus et fortitudinum executionibus parem
nec majores etiam ætate relinquens. Hic ergo dum in talibus adhuc juvenculis et
multis majoribus animositatum progressibus de die in diem proficeret, et
juvenis supra modum in viriles actus transcenderet, interdum nemini parcebat
quem vel in fortitudine aliquantum rebellem suæ virtuti cognoscebat seu in
certamine. Propterea quidem et his etiam de causis sæpissime seditionem
faciebat in populo et tumultum in plebe. Unde patrem sibi inutilem et parentes
valde ingratos reddebat, ob magnanimatatum ejus opera et fortitudinum6 cum
amicis quotidie et vicinis decertantes, et inter provinciales velut hostes et
tyranni se pro illo agentes, strictis gladiis et armis pæne semper filium a
ludo vel a certamine revertentem muniendo. Quod tandem pater ejus ferre non
valens, ipsum a facie sua depulit. Nec sic quidem
adquievit, sed assumptis secum collectaneis, patrem ad sua prædia tendentem
interim præcedebat, distribuens bona illius amicis et sibi faventibus,
constitutis insuper sibimet in quibusdam paternis rebus ministris et
servientibus, ut suis annonam ministrarent. Qua de re pater ejus a rege Eduardo
impetravit, ut exul a patria fieret, patefactis omnibus quæcunque in patrem et
contra parentes vel quæ contra provinciales egerat. Et factum est. Unde statim
agnomen Exulis adeptus est, in decimo octavo ætatis anno a patre et patria
expulsus.
The
Exploits of Hereward
the Saxon.
II.
Of what parents
Hereward was born, and how from his boyhood he increased in the splendour of
his deeds, and why he was driven forth by his father and country ; whence he
was surnamed “The Outlaw.”
Of the nations1 of the
English many very mighty men are recorded, and Hereward the Outlaw2 is esteemed most distinguished amongst the
distinguished, and a famous knight with the more famous. His father was
Leofric, of Bourne3, grandson of Earl Radulf, surnamed Scabre4
; and his mother was Aediva5 great-great-granddaughter of Duke Oslac ; most nobly descended by both parents. For he was a
boy remarkable for his figure, and comely in aspect, very beautiful from his
yellow hair, and with large grey eyes, the right eye slightly different in
colour to the left ; but he was stern of feature, and somewhat stout, from the
great sturdiness of his limbs, but very active for his moderate stature, and in
all his limbs was found a complete vigour. There was in him also from his youth
much grace and strength of body ; and from practice of this when a young man
the character of his valour showed him a perfect man, and he was excellently
endowed in all things with the grace of courage and valour of mind. For as
regards liberality, he was, from his father’s possessions and his own,
bountiful and most liberal, giving relief to all in need ; although cruel in
act, and severe in play, readily stirring up quarrels among those of his own
age, and often exciting contests among his elders in cities and villages ;
leaving none equal to himself in deeds of daring and pursuit of brave actions,
not even among his elders. While therefore he in such youthful and more mature
progress in courage advanced from day to day, and as a youth greatly excelled
in manly deeds ; at times he spared no one whom he
knew to be at all a rival in courage or in fighting. For which reasons also he
very often stirred up sedition among the populace and tumult among the common
people. Whereby he made his father opposed to him and his parents very ungracious ; for because of his deeds of courage and
boldness6 they were daily contending with
their friends and neighbours and amongst the country folk who behaved like
enemies and tyrants because of him, almost always protecting their son when
returning from sport or fighting with drawn swords and arms. At lengths his
father, not able to endure this, drove him from his presence. Nor then indeed
did he keep quiet, but taking with him those of his own age, when his father
was going to his estates, he sometimes went before him, and distributed his
goods among his own friends and supporters, even appointing in some of his
father’s possessions stewards and servants of his own, to supply corn to his
men. Wherefore his father begged King Edward that he might be banished, making
known everything he had done against his father and parents, and against the
country people. And this was done. Whence forthwith he acquired the surname of
the Outlaw, being driven from his father and country in the 18th
year of his age.
Here we have the
basics laid out quite clearly and a frame of reference provided. Consistency or
not, between these data and what is said later will provide some check on the
truth of each.
1. ↑ Strictly, this translates as ‘nation’. [FWP]
2. ↑ He
was exiled, which meant that in
3. ↑ Here we learn that Hereward’s father was
Leofric who was associated with Bourne. He was of eminent descent, being the
grandson of Earl Radulf. This might be seen as a problem. The rank of earl was
created during Canute’s reign in
Figure 1 A modern version of Leofric's emblem, used by the Mercian
Regiment. (Thanks to Wikimedia Commons)
Though it is fashionable to doubt
the identity, the description leaves little room for thinking Hereward’s father
anyone but Leofric,
Earl of Mercia, particularly when it is combined with later references to
circumstantial detail. For example, the father was of a standing such that he
was able to ask the king to exile Hereward and having asked, he had his request
granted.
4. ↑ It is sometimes suggested that Scabre is a form of the word
‘staller’. The latter was a title which went with an office which had
originated as that of bodyguard but by the mid eleventh century had come to
include something like ‘Guardian of National Security’. Scabre is Latin for ‘rough, scruffy, untidy, scabby, mangy’ (Hanford &
Herberg). There was an Earl Radulf who for example, held the jurisdiction
of Drayton in the time of Edward the Confessor but as grandfather of Leofric,
the relevant Earl Radulf would have been an adult by the mid-tenth century so
would not have recognized the title, earl. He would have been a jarl or an
ealdorman. DNB, (Leofric, earl of
5. ↑ Names
of this period, particularly those of women, come in various forms. We may
begin with the assumption that like Godgifu, Aediva is a variant of the name of
the lady whose name is written in modern times as Godiva, the wife of
Leofric, Earl of Mercia. She appears to have died in 1067 (DNB 2007 Godiva). The
Domesday Book records the property (in 1065) of Countess Godiva (Comitissa Godeua) around
Her relationship with Oslac is a little difficult. If this
report refers to Oslac of Wessex, the generations would be more than forty
years apart. If Oslac is an Anglicisation of Áslákr, Jarl of southern
Hereward was, as we are told at the close of this chapter,
‘in the 18th year of his age’ when he was exiled. He was thus
between seventeen and eighteen years old when he arrived at Gilbert of Ghent’s
house at Christmas (Chapter
III). This left time for his visits beyond
Godiva would have needed to have been born in the period
1015 to 1020, not much before because the need to fit in the relevant
generations since Oslac and not much after since she was of marriageable age
before Hereward was born, if she was to be the mother of Hereward’s elder
brother, Ælfgar. However, Ælfgar is reported as having sons useful as soldiers,
in 1070/1 (Chapter XIX).
This would have required her birth not long after 1000. The DNB 2007 (Godiva) makes her
the mother of Ælfgar
and estimates her birth year as about 990 but gives no grounds for these
assumptions. It also suggests that her marriage to Leofric dated from about
1010. This would have comfortably enabled his grandsons to be of soldierly age
by 1070, when they are reported as part of the gathering of men heading for Ely
(Chapter XIX). If Turbertinus
was Edwin’s great-grandson, as stated, (Chapter XIX) even this is
barely long enough a span. If we assume a mistake has been made at some stage,
we may read him not as the great-grandson of Edwine, Earl of Mercia but of
Leofric, Earl of Mercia. This would mean that placing Godiva’s birth in 990 would
be amply early. Her death in 1067 would then make her life 77 years long which
is not impossible but probably exceptional. There are two catches. The first is
that the DNB (Eadwine)
asserts that Edwine, Leofric’s grandson had no descendents. The second is that Godiva
would have been too old in the 1050s to have born the young son killed at the
time of Hereward’s return.
The first may be explained by the DNB’s not having taken
account of Turbertinus: the production of a great-grandson of Leofric need not
have involved Edwin. The second can be explained quite simply, if Godiva was
Leofric’s first wife and Aediva was another woman, who became his second and
was young enough in the 1050s to have born the young son, killed at the time of
Hereward’s return in Chapter
XIV. This leaves the births of Hereward and the younger son occurring
before Godiva died in 1067. Though, despite her apparent piety DNB 2007 (Godiva), there is
no sign that she had retired to a nunnery. The modern mind-set would see this
as a very unlikely state of affairs but Leofric was not a modern man.
We are left with looking at the differences between Danish
law and that of
Canute, the Danish king of
Mos danicus is Latin for Danish
custom or law. More danico is its ablative singular form and was a quasi legal Latin phrase
meaning ‘according to the Danish custom or law’ or ‘in the Danish manner’. The
expression appears as ‘danesch manere’
in the
The French Wikipedia article on the subject, of which the
following is a translation, takes a more balanced view. (Taken with thanks,
August 2007.)
More danico means ‘in the Danish manner’ in Latin.
Marriage ‘more
danico’ or in the ‘danesche manere’
in the
(There is now a Wikipedia article in English which
covers the subject much more fully.)
From a French perspective, the
significance of mos danicus lay in Normandy but in Bourne, the
English name for it will have been used. That was Dena lagu, which is written today as Danelaw and is the name
applied to the part of
By the time that the way in which
The 1030s dates are significant
since although Knut had partially unified
Edward came to the throne in 1042.
He was much influenced by his association with
Leofric was in public office by
1019 (DNB 2007 Leofric,
Earl of Mercia), so will not have been born much after 1000. If we allow 18
years per generation, Leofric was born in 998. It is all possible, provided
Ælfgar was born of Leofric’s first wife in about 1019 and Leofric married the
mother of Hereward and Leofric’s unnamed young son, later. This would have made
Ælfgar Hereward’s half brother, which may well be true also of Morcar.
It seems in any case, that Aediva
(Eadgifu, pronounced Eadyiva) is a form not of Godiva, or Godgifu (pronounced Godyiva) but of the modern name Edith. This tends to
confirm the duality of the mothers of Ælfgar and Hereward, though they were
simultaneously, wives (more danico)
of Leofric.
The word more, the ablative singular of mos,
appears again in Chapter
XXII.
Hereward had been formally exiled:
in
Hereward’s Behaviour
The tensions arising from a
marriage more danico, followed by a
time when the new ‘Christian’ attitudes began to take hold in the former
Danelaw, could well explain Hereward’s behaviour. A boy growing up feeling that
he is regarded as an embarrassment is likely to respond either with destructive
behaviour or by excelling. It seems that the subject of the present text did
both. If the youth was an embarrassment in any case, Leofric’s efforts to expel
him from the country would be the more explicable. On expulsion, the first
place Hereward went to was further
It has to be remembered that all
the time he was exiled he had to be somewhere outside
Gilbert
of
The name of Gilbert of Gant, in Chapter III, appears not to
fit the hypothesis of an inclination toward a Scandinavian culture. A Gilbert
of Ghent was a major post-Conquest land-holder in
Very unusually, the text says
explicitly, that he was wealthy, (dives) which may
imply that his notability may have arisen from this rather than his wealth’s
being a consequence of militarily backed power: in other words, that he was a
merchant. Right through to the nineteenth century, such men tended to act in
some respect as bankers. It may be that the Gilbert of Ghent of the text and the
one of the Domesday Book are identical and that he earned his Anglo-Norman
lands by supporting the invasion financially: in view of the timing of his
receipt of the Yorkshire lands, perhaps by lending money for the unexpectedly
prolonged need to pay soldiers to pacify
Aediva
It may be possible to find Aediva
(Edith) mentioned in the Domesday Book but she would have to be distinguished
from the other Ediths mentioned there. In
In Cambridgeshire, Edeua pulcra (Edeva the Fair) was a
quite extensive property holder (DB). She seems to
have been the same Edith who was the sister of Edwin and Morcar, therefore the
granddaughter of Hereward’s father, Leofric. She was married to Gruffudd ap
Llywelyn, of Gwynedd then to Harold II, of
Edith, Hereward’s mother seems to appear
in some Domesday Book entries under the names Eddiue, Eddiua and Eddeua, translated by Morris as Eadgifu
(which would be pronounced Eadyiva); mainly in Lindsey, Lincolnshire (Morris 18,25. 26,26.
34,1;3;8-9;27. 36,1-2;5). In one of these (36,5) at
The Domesday Record of Hereward’s Property
The matter of the Domesday Book’s
record seems to give people trouble in reconciling the elevated social standing
of Hereward’s family (given that he was Leofric, Earl of Mercia’s son) and the
meagreness of Hereward’s property.
The Domesday record refers in
principal, to two periods; what it calls T.
R. E. (in tempore regis Edwardi - in King Edward’s time) and modo – ‘now’, the time when the survey
was completed (1086). In
The reality is that the only
difficulty lies in explaining why property is listed under Hereward’s name at
all. He had been formally exiled by the king, before Leofric died in 1057. The
earlier period recorded in Domesday is that at King Edward’s death, early in
1066 by the modern calendar. As an exile from
The four items in Lincolnshire (MorrisJ), which are listed as
involving his name are one clear statement (CK 4) that he did not own the
relevant property when he left: one statement (CK 48) that the property had
been repossessed before he left: one property (42,9)
which he had held jointly with a man called Toli and which the latter
presumably took over before losing it to Odger the Breton: and one (8,34) which
is harder to explain. Between 1065 and 1086, Hereward’s 12 bovates had come
into the hands of Peterborough Abbey. It could simply be that there were complications
which caused the lawyers to be a bit slow on that one. It was still, so to
speak, subject to contract when King Edward died.
Why Hereward’s property is not
listed under modo, is a more
interesting question, thrown up by Chapter XXXVI.
6. ↑ Perhaps makes better sense as magnanimatatis and
fortitudinis respectively. [FWP]