Here 930 corresponds with the sixth year of the reign, but all the other terms apply to 934. Moreover, Wulfstan's attestation as archbishop of York agrees with the later date. It is a curious fact that B. C. S. 703 [cf. 1344], a grant of Athelstan to St Peter's at York, has the same confusion of dates. We may remember that from 972 to 1023 the archbishops of York were also bishops of Worcester Oswald, Aldulf, Wulfstan: so that the connexion between the two churches may have been intimate during the whole of this period. Our charter is said to have been issued at London; but the York charter is dated on the same day at Nottingham.
There are other grounds for the rejection of this charter; but we need only mention here the odd phrase Britannicae gentis in the description of the king's title.
We conclude, therefore, that not one of the four charters in which Athelstan is represented as making grants to Worcester has any claim to be considered as genuine. Accordingly the supposed evidence for the existence of a church of St Mary and for a community of monks at Worcester before the time of St Oswald disappears entirely when critically investigated.
B. WYNSIGE AND THE MONKS AT WORCESTER
The date of the introduction of monks by Oswald into the church of Worcester deserves a more careful consideration than it has yet received. The accepted date is 969, the year to which Florence of Worcester assigns the expulsion of the clerks and the establishment of monks under Wynsige as dean. For this date he claims to have the authority of Oswald himself.[1] This appears to be supported by a charter (B. C. S. 1243) of Oswald, which bears the date 969, and is attested by 'Wynsige monk and all the monks at Worcester'. It is probable that Florence had this charter before him and drew his date from it.
But we shall presently see that so early a date is inconsistent with the fact that Wynsige had received his habit at Ramsey, and had been under training for several years in that monastery. It is therefore necessary to submit the charter in question to a critical examination, We have noticed above (p. 16) that for the years 962 to 969 we
- ↑ Unde S. Oswaldus sui voti compos effectus, clericos Wigornensis ecclesiae monachilem habitum suscipere renuentes de monasterio expulit; consentientes vero hoc anno ipso teste monachizavit, eisque Ramesiensem coenobitam Winsinum, magnae religionis virum, loco decani praefecit,' Flor. Wig. sub anno 969.
