Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/396

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don, 1717. The copy in the British Museum has copious manuscript notes by Peter Le Neve, Norroy. According to Gough only the latter portion of this most inaccurate edition was printed from Dugdale's copy; the earlier part was supplied from a manuscript lent by Thoresby (British Topography, ii. 229–30). Gough is evidently right (cf. Salt, List, pp. 21–2; Harwood, Erdeswicke, 1844, pp. xcix–c). Both parts were reissued, 8vo, London, 1723. It was also incorporated in Shaw's unfinished ‘History of Staffordshire,’ fol., London, 1798–1801. Another edition, ‘collated with manuscript copies, and with additions and corrections, by Wyrley, Chetwynd, Degge, Smyth, Lyttelton, Buckeridge, and others,’ was published by Thomas Harwood, 8vo, Westminster, 1820 (new edit. 8vo, London, 1844). Erdeswicke is also said to have written, or at least revised, ‘The true Use of Armorie,’ published under the name of William Wyrley, his pupil and amanuensis, 4to, London, 1592. Wood, who possessed the original manuscript, much injured by damp, maintained that Wyrley was the sole author, ‘and that Erdeswyke being oftentimes crazed, especially in his last days, and fit then for no kind of serious business, would say anything which came into his mind, as 'tis very well known at this day among the chief of the College of Arms’ (Athenæ Oxon., ed. Bliss, ii. 217–18). Dugdale, however, was of a different opinion (The Antient Usage of bearing Arms, ed. 1681, p. 4), adding in note: ‘I was assured by Mr. William Burton … that Mr. Erdeswicke did to him acknowledge he was the author of that discourse; though he gave leave to Mr. Wyrley … to publish it in his own name.’ The two poems ‘The Life of Sir John Chandos’ and ‘The Life of Sir John de Gralhy Capitall de Buz,’ prefixed to the tract, were certainly written by Wyrley.

[Erdeswicke's Survey of Staffordshire, ed. Harwood, 1844, pp. xxxvi–xliii, 47, 48, 54; Fuller's Worthies (1662), Staffordshire, pp. 45–6; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 736–7, ii. 217–19; Ormerod's Cheshire, i. xvii, iii. 119, 240; Gillow's Bibliographical Dict. of the English Catholics, ii. 174–6; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. xiii. 283; Gower's Sketch of the Materials for a Hist. of Cheshire (1771), pp. 30–1; Gough's British Topography, i. 249, ii. 229–30, 239; Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. App. p. 49, 4th Rep. App. p. 362, 5th Rep. App. p. 339, 6th Rep. App. p. 246, 8th Rep. App. p. 31; Coxe's Cat. Codicum MSS. Bibl. Bodl. (Rawlinson), pars v. fasc. ii. p. 692; Moule's Bibliotheca Heraldica, p. 41.]

ERIGENA, JOHN SCOTUS (d. 875) [See Scotus.]

ERKENWALD or EARCONWALD, Saint (d. 693), bishop of London, is said to have been born at Stallington (Stallingborough?) in Lindsey, of the family of Offa, a king of the East Angles (Capgrave, Acta SS. Bolland. 30 April, iii. 790), which Dr. Stubbs suggests may mean that he belonged to the royal race of the Uffings (Dict. of Christian Biography). Before he became bishop he founded two monasteries, one at Chertsey in Surrey, over which he presided himself, and the other at Barking in Essex, which he committed to the care of his sister Æthelburh or Ethelburga [q. v.] In his foundation at Chertsey he is said to have been assisted by Frithewald, under-king of Surrey under Wulfhere, king of the Mercians (Flor. Wig.; Gesta Pontiff. 143), and this statement is to some extent confirmed by some spurious charters (Kemble, Codex Dipl. 986 sq.), from which it may be inferred that Chertsey was founded in the reign of Ecgberht of Kent (d. 673), and passed under Frithewald, the lieutenant of Wulfhere, when the Mercian king spread his dominion over Surrey (Stubbs; Green). On the death of Bishop Wini, and during the reign of the East-Saxon kings Sebbi and Sighere, Archbishop Theodore, either in 675 or 676, consecrated Earconwald to the bishopric of the East-Saxons, and he had his episcopal see in London. He was famed for his holiness. When he was infirm he was drawn about his diocese in a horse-litter, which was reverently preserved after his death, and in the time of Bæda worked many miracles (Hist. Eccl. iv. 6). By Theodore's invitation he was present at the reconciliation made at London in 686 between the archbishop and Wilfrith (Eddi, c. 43). Ini, in the preface to his laws made about 690, when the East Saxons had submitted to him, speaks of Earconwald as ‘my bishop’ (Thorpe), and he and Wilfrith join in attesting a charter (Kemble, Codex Dipl. 35), which was probably made during Wilfrith's exile in 692 (Stubbs). His death may have taken place in 693, and very likely on 30 April, which was observed as his ‘day.’ He is said to have died at Barking, and the canons of his church and the monks of Chertsey are represented as disputing with the nuns for the possession of his body. The canons had the best of the quarrel, but their victory was endangered by the sudden rising of the waters of the Lea, which had been swollen by a storm. A miracle overcame the difficulty, and the body was carried to London and laid in St. Paul's. A new shrine was made for him in 1140, and his body was translated to the ‘east side of the wall above the high altar’ on