Spearhafoc
Spearhafoc | |
---|---|
Bishop of London-elect | |
Appointed | 1051 |
Term ended | 1052 |
Predecessor | Robert of Jumièges |
Successor | William the Norman |
Orders | |
Consecration | never consecrated |
Personal details | |
Denomination | Christian |
Spearhafoc was an eleventh-century
His name means "sparrowhawk" in Old English[3] (Speraver in Latin).
Clerical career
Spearhafoc was a monk at Bury St Edmunds Abbey, who according to several sources, including the Norman chronicler Goscelin, who knew him personally, "was outstanding in painting, gold-engraving and goldsmithery", the painting very likely mainly in illuminated manuscripts.[4] It was probably his artistic work which brought into contact with the royal family and the Godwins.[5][6] King Edward the Confessor imposed him as Abbot of Abingdon following the death of Æthelstan on 29 March of either 1047 or 1048.[7] In 1051 Edward promoted him to Bishop of London, but upon the return of the previous Bishop of London, Robert of Jumièges, newly elevated to Archbishop of Canterbury, from his trip to Rome to receive his pallium, Robert refused to consecrate Spearhafoc, claiming that Pope Leo IX had forbidden it.[8] After a stalemate "all that summer and autumn", with an unconsecrated Spearhafoc in possession of the see, the fall of Earl Godwin in September 1051, with whom Spearhafoc seems to have been allied, precipitated matters. Spearhafoc was expelled from London, and fled abroad, taking with him the gold and gems intended for King Edward's crown, as well as treasure from the London diocesan stores, stuffed into "very many bags":
... auri gemmarumque electarum pro corona imperiali cudenda, regis ejusdem assignatione receptam haberet copiam. Hinc et ex episcopii pecunia marsupiorum farsisset plurimum receptacula, clanculo Anglia secedens ultra non-apparuit.[9]
The exact sequence and implied motivation of events differs between the sources,[10] but even the history of his own monastery concluded "God's vengeance brought such ends for those by whose trickery the Church was diminished for their own profit".[11] In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Spearhafoc's flight, placed in 1052, is related immediately after the description of Edward putting away his queen, which may imply a close relation between these events.[12] A Norman kinsman of the king, Rodulf, had already replaced Spearhafoc in Abingdon, though he died in 1052.
Spearhafoc was replaced by William the Norman, and was the last Bishop of London of English ethnic origin for many years, probably until Roger Niger was appointed in 1228.
Artistic work
Anglo-Saxon metalwork had a famous reputation as far afield as Italy, but hardly any pieces have survived the depredations of the Norman Conquest in 1066, and the English Reformation,[13] as well as sales by their owners to buy land or for other purposes, of which a number by Spearhafoc's abbey of Abingdon are recorded after the Conquest.[14] The references to three specific projects by Spearhafoc (the crown and the two sets of statues in Canterbury, described below), none of which have survived, are about works in precious metal, and he is one of a small number of metalwork artists from the period whose name we know and whose work is described in any way. Even the imprecise details given, mostly by Goscelin, are therefore valuable evidence of what Anglo-Saxon metalwork was like. Anglo-Saxon skill in gold-engraving, designs and figures engraved on gold objects, is mentioned by many foreign sources, and the few remaining engraved figures closely parallel the far more numerous pen-drawn figures in manuscripts, also an Anglo-Saxon speciality. Wall-paintings, which seem to have sometimes contained gold, were also apparently often made by manuscript illuminators, and Goscelin's description of his talents therefore suggests an artist skilled in all the main Anglo-Saxon media for figurative art – of which being a goldsmith was then regarded as the most prestigious branch.[15]
Many monastic artists reached senior positions; Spearhafoc's career in metalwork was paralleled in less sensational fashion by his contemporary Mannig, Abbot of Evesham (Abbot 1044–58, d. 1066),[16] and at the end of the previous century Saint Dunstan had been a very successful Archbishop of Canterbury. Spearhafoc's predecessor as Abbot of Abingdon, Saint Æthelwold of Winchester, had by this time acquired a reputation as a goldsmith, and was credited with the production of a range of metal objects at the abbey, including many figures and objects in precious metal, bells and even a pipe organ. However the lack of any reference to such skills in the contemporary biography by Wulfstan suggests this was a later elaboration, though one that shows the high status of goldsmithing at the time.[17]
Like Spearhafoc, Mannig's biography, with some precise details, is given in the chronicle maintained by his abbey.[18] His work also had a miracle associated with it – the lay goldsmith Godric stabbed his hand with an awl during the work on the large shrine at Evesham, which was miraculously healed overnight.[19] Spearhafoc and Mannig are the "only two goldsmiths of whom we have extended accounts", and the additional information given about Godric, the leader of a team brought in by Mannig for the shrine, is also unique among the surviving evidence. Some twenty years after the miracle, Godric joined the Abbey of Evesham, presumably in retirement, and his son later became Prior there.[20]
Spearhafoc's miracle
According to Goscelin, while Spearhafoc was working on metal figures at
No comparably early
Citations
- ^ Dodwell:46
- ^ Dodwell:46–47. As well as Goscelin and the monastic histories referenced below, Spearhafoc's career is covered in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
- ISBN 0199299374. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
- ^ Dodwell:46 and 55. Goscelin's description of Spearhafoc, including this quotation ("picturae, sculpturae et aurificii probatissimum" – the translation is Dodwell's), comes in his book on the translation of the relics of Saint Augustine of Canterbury.
- ^ Dodwell:46 and 55, who quotes Goscelin, and Historia:ciii-cv for the other sources.
- ^ Smith, et al. "Court and Piety" Catholic Historical Review p. 573
- ^ Historia:ciii-cv
- ^ Historia:ciii-cv, and Smith:573
- ^ Dodwell:Note 26 on p. 257, quoting the Chronicon Abingdon
- ^ The fullest account used is in the Introduction to the Historia:ciii-cv. See also Barlow 1970; Kelly 2000. Dodwell:47
- ^ Historia:civ
- ^ Chronicle for 1052
- ^ Dodwell:44–47, 61–83, 216ff
- ^ Dodwell:220 lists several
- ^ Dodwell:58, 79–83, 92–3
- ^ See Dodwell, passim
- ^ Dodwell:49–50
- ^ Gransden:65. History
- ^ History:159 and Dodwell:65–66
- ^ Dodwell:48, 80 and 65–67
- ^ Dodwell:58, who seems to contradict himself here as to whether this was before or after Spearhafoc became abbot, saying it was "Some time before 1047" but that he was already abbot.
- ^ Dodwell:213–216
- ^ Dodwell:213–215
- ISBN 0-85331-270-2; pp. 140–149 & figs, for the evolution of the monumental crucifix. No early large metal examples have survived, though for example Charlemagne is known to have had one in his chapel at Aachen.
References
- Barlow, Frank 1970. Edward the Confessor.
- Dodwell, C.R.; Anglo-Saxon Art, A New Perspective, 1982, Manchester UP, ISBN 0-7190-0926-X(US edn. Cornell, 1985)
- Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis: The History of the Church of Abingdon, Translated by John Hudson, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-929937-4
- History of the Abbey of Evesham; Translated, edited and introduced by Jane E. Sayers, Leslie Watkiss, Oxford University Press, 2003,
- Gransden, Antonia; Legends, Traditions, and History in Medieval England, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1992, ISBN 1-85285-016-7
- Kelly, S. E. 2000.Charters of Abingdon, part 1. Anglo-Saxon Charters 7.
- Smith, Mary Frances; Fleming, Robin; Halpin, Patricia (2001). "Court and Piety in Late Anglo-Saxon England". The Catholic Historical Review. 87 (4): 569–602. S2CID 159900538.
External links