St Wulfstan and his World

Abstract

St Wulfstan and his World. Edited by JULIA S. BARROW and N.P. BROOKS (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005; pp. xx + 242. £50). WULFSTAN, bishop of Worcester (1062–95), is noteworthy both as the English bishop who lasted longest in the new world after 1066 and as the subject of a near contemporary Life, originally written in Old English by his chaplain Coleman but extant now only in the Latin translation by William of Malmesbury (a new edition appeared in Oxford Medieval Texts in 2002). As the last Anglo-Saxon bishop, Wulfstan is of interest to those seeking to analyse the Norman Conquest and its aftermath: how cataclysmic an event was it, what of the old order survived and what cultural fissions and fusions did it generate? And for those working on hagiography and cult there is Wulfstan the saint, for Coleman's Life was intended to secure public recognition of the bishop's sanctity. In this it was successful. Miracles occurred at Wulfstan's tomb, a ritual elevation took place in 1198 and finally the—very rare—privilege of papal canonisation followed in 1203.