Law and litigation in theLibellus Æthelwoldi episcopi

Abstract

The work entitledLibellus quorundam insignium operum beati Æthelwoldi episcopi, in both of the manuscripts in which it is preserved as an independent text, is an account of how the endowment of Ely Abbey was accumulated in the years following the refoundation of the abbey in 970, and how it was defended in the difficult times which followed the death of King Edgar in 975. TheLibelluswas produced by an Ely monk writing early in the twelfth century, who says in the prologue to the work (LE, Appendix A) that Hervey, first bishop of Ely (1108–31), suggested to him the project of translating into Latin certain vernacular records concerning Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester (963–84), the founder of the monastery, to supplement thevitacomposed by WulfstanCantor. The text includes verses in praise of Æthelwold, and in praise of the village of Downham: similarities in vocabulary and metre to a metricalvitaof St Æthelthryth composed by a monk of Ely called Gregory, also during the time of Bishop Hervey, suggest that the author of theLibelluswas probably the same man. TheLibellushas long been known as a work in its own right, but it has been printed as such only once, over 300 years ago, and it has been accessible to scholarship primarily in the form in which it was incorporated into bk II of the twelfth-century history of Ely Abbey known asLiber Eliensis, whose compiler used it as the basis for his own account of the refoundation of the abbey and its fortunes during the succeeding decades.