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Updated: May 16, 2025
He was in high favor with Harold during his short reign, and was for some time at court, where the fine Saxon gentlemen learnt to dread the neighborhood of the old Bishop; for Wulstan considered their luxury as worthy of blame, and especially attacked their long flowing hair.
Had I not a most delectable wood in this spot?" where now only stumps were to be seen. Wulstan had always been a church-builder, and he renewed his cathedral after the Norman fashion; but when it was finished, and the workmen began to pull down the old one, which had been built by St. Oswald, he stood watching them in silence, till at last he shed tears.
The favor and esteem with which Wulstan was regarded did not cease, but he was obliged to spend a life of constraint.
Wulstan himself could have wished, the dream of a dandy having proved more efficacious than the entreaties of a saint. But, as Stowe informs us, "scarcely was one year past, when all that thought themselves courtiers fell into the former vice, and contended with women in their long haires."
If any of them placed their heads within, his reach, he would crop off "the first-fruits of their curls" with his own little knife, enjoining them to have the rest cut off; and yet, if Wulstan saw the children of the choir with their dress disordered, he would smooth it with his own hands, and when told the condescension did not become a Bishop, made answer, "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant."
The four archiepiscopal biographies by Osbern, the three by Eadmer, Malmesbury's lives of Aldhelm and Wulstan, the larger collection of works by Giraldus Cambrensis, Chaundler's biographies of Wykeham and Bekington, and the collection of smaller documents which accompanied these, formed a more valuable contribution to our ecclesiastical history than had up to Wharton's time ever been made.
King John had great veneration for St. Wulstan, the founder of Worcester Cathedral, and he was laid to rest beside that saint's shrine. Worcester suffered the usual penalties of the towns in the Severn Valley: it was destroyed by the Danes and burned by Hardicanute, and in the twelfth century town, castle, and cathedral were all consumed by a fire supposed to be caused by the Welsh.
The men who never quarrelled with him were Lanfranc, Edgar Atheling, and William Fitzosborn. The first was saintly and strong; the second, honest, upright, and simple; the third was endeared by boyish memories, and to these, perhaps, may be added Edward the Confessor and good Bishop Wulstan.
Above all, Wulstan delighted in giving his blessing in Confirmation, and would go on from morning till night without food, till all his clergy were worn out, though he seemed to know no weariness. His clergy seem to have had much of the sluggishness of the Saxon, and were often impatient of a temper, both of devotion and energy, so much beyond them.
Our good Wulstan had a happier lot, and spent his time in his own round of quiet duties in his diocese, binding up the wounds inflicted by the cruel oppressors, but exhorting the Saxons to bear them patiently, and see in them the chastisement of their own crimes.
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