THE SAXON CATHEDRAL AT CANTERBURY
was taken up and laid under the altar of St. Mary-in-the-Crypt.[1] Somner says, but apparently without authority, that this Prelate was, after his death, canonized.
On the death of Archbishop Eadsige, King Edward the Confessor called a meeting of the Great Council in London in Mid-Lent, 1051, at which he appointed Robert the Frank, called Robert of Jumièges, who had been Bishop of London since 1044, to be Archbishop. Robert at once proceeded to Rome for the pallium and on his return was enthroned in the Cathedral on St. Peter's Day, 1051. He was, however, expelled on September 14 in the following year and outlawed for his part in the discord made between Earl Godwine and the King. He was a turbulent Norman and more fitted to be a soldier than a priest; in the hurry of his escape from England, and from the anger of Earl Godwine, he left his pallium behind him. He appealed to the Pope, whose assistance failed in reinstating him as Archbishop of Canterbury, and returning to Jumièges, he died and was buried near the High Altar of the Abbey Church. The deposition of this Norman Prelate and the appointment of his successor Stigand was one of the reasons given for the invasion of England by William the Conqueror.
Stigand, who had previously been made Bishop of Elmham in 1043, and afterwards of Winchester in 1047, was uncanonically appointed Archbishop of Canterbury on the deprivation of Robert in 1052. He was excommunicated by several Popes,[2] and seems to have bought and sold Church property simoniacally, to have occupied a schismatical position even to appropriating the pallium left behind by his predecessor. In 1058, however, he obtained another pallium sent by Pope Benedict X from Rome. He consecrated in Christ Church the Precentor of the Cathedral, a Clerk named Ethelric, to be Bishop of Selsey, and at the same time Siward as Bishop of Rochester.
In 1067 he consecrated Remigius as Bishop of Dorchester.
He was present at the death-bed of Edward the Confessor, the eve of Twelfth Day (January 6), 1066, who was buried on the following day in Westminster Abbey Church, which he built and had just had consecrated.
- ↑ Willis, Arch. Hist. of Cant. Cath., p. 57.
- ↑ Freeman, Norman Conquest, Vol. II, p. 607.
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