was a West Saxon, it may have been addressed to him. The name Ælfric was common at this period, and it is impossible to be sure about the identity of those who bore it.
That the traitor in 992 and 1003 was the same man may, however, be taken as certain (on the identity of the ealdormen named Ælfric see Freeman's Norman Conquest, i. 305, 306). Whether the son of Ælfhere, the traitor in the fleet and in the field, and the ealdorman who fell at Assandun, were one person, cannot be said with certainty. It may have been so, for we know too little of the causes of the events of the time to decide such a question on the mere ground of the improbability of changes in men's conduct.
[A.S. Chronicles; Florence of Worcester; Henry of Huntingdon; Historia Eliensis, ii. c. 7; Thorpe's Diplomat. p. 282; Memorials of St. Dunstan, p. 396, Rolls Ser.; Will. of Malmesbury, Gest. Reg. lib. ii. c. 151; Freeman's Norman Conquest, i. c. 5.]
ÆLFRIC (fl. 1050), archbishop-elect of Canterbury, was a kinsman of Earl Godwine. From early youth he was brought up in the monastery of Christ Church, and was much beloved by his fellow monks. He was well skilled in worldly matters and took delight in them. On the death of Archbishop Eadsige (October 1050) Ælfric was elected to the see of Canterbury by the monastic chapter of his house. In this election the clergy of the province seem to have concurred. The monks sent to Godwine, in whose earldom they were, and informed him of the canonical election of Ælfric and begged him to use his influence in behalf of his kinsman. The earl promised to do all he could in the matter. King Eadward was, however, at this time inclined to the faction which opposed the earl, and refused his request in behalf of Ælfric. In the mid-Lent meeting of the witan, in 1051, Robert of London was appointed archbishop, much to the anger of English churchmen.
[Lives of St. Edward the Confessor, ed. Luard, Rolls Ser.]
ÆLFRIC, called Bata (or the bat) (fl. 1005), was a monk and a disciple of Ælfric the abbot, called Grammaticus [q. v.], at Winchester, some time before 1005. From the Oxford MS. of Ælfric's ‘Colloquium’ it appears that Ælfric Bata added something to this work composed by his master, and, as the Grammar and Glossary of Grammaticus are combined in that manuscript with the Colloquy, it is not unlikely that Ælfric Bata copied and edited the whole collection. It has been supposed that some of the writings attributed to the master were the work of the disciple. As, however, the only ground on which this opinion rests is that it is either impossible or unlikely that they should have been written by Ælfric, archbishop of Canterbury, there is no reason for accepting it, for it is capable of ample proof that the archbishop and the grammarian were not the same person. Ælfric Bata, no less than his master, was regarded as an opponent of transubstantiation. Osbern, who wrote with the evident intention of upholding this doctrine, of which his patron, Archbishop Lanfranc, was the champion, in his ‘Miracles of St. Dunstan’ represents the saint appearing in a vision to a worshipper at his tomb and saying that he had been opposing Ælfric Bata, who was ‘trying to dispossess the church of God.’
[For Ælfric's Colloquium, see Ælfric Grammaticus, Miracula S. Dunstani, Osbern, in Memorials of St. Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, p. 136 (Rolls Series); Wright's Biog. Lit.]
ÆLFRIC, abbot, called Grammaticus (fl. 1006), was a celebrated author and translator. As no name seems to have been more common at the close of the tenth century than that of Ælfric, and as it was borne by several ecclesiastics of whom some record exists, there has been much controversy about this writer's identity. By Mores (De Ælfrico, &c., ed. Thorkelin, 1789), who is followed by Wright (Biog. Brit. Lit. i. 480), Dean Hook (Abps. of Cant. i. 439), and Mr. Freeman (Norman Conquest, i. c. 5), he has been identified with Ælfric, archbishop of Canterbury [q. v.] This theory is impossible, for in the second preface to the ‘Homilies’ he speaks of the days of Æthelred as already past; and though in the earlier preface he offers his work to Archbishop Sigeric (d. 994), who approved it, yet the second preface was probably written at a later time, and after the death of Æthelred in 1016. Besides, we find him describing himself as abbot when writing the ‘Life of Æthelwold,’ bishop of Winchester, in 1005, in which year Ælfric, archbishop of Canterbury, died. By Wharton (Anglia Sacra, i. 125) he is held to be one with Ælfric, archbishop of York, and this opinion is adopted by Thorpe in his preface to the ‘Homilies.’ Although this is not impossible, yet, as Canon Stubbs (Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. ed. Stubbs, ii. 86, n.) has pointed out, on this theory ‘the archbishop would have lived to nearly ninety years of age, a fact that would have most likely been recorded if it were so.’ All we know of Ælfric, archbishop of York, makes it highly improbable that he was the author of abbot Ælfric's works. Ælfric the
