mention of omnes qui ad eiusdem conuenerunt solemnitatem, a phrase hardly intended for a church in which he was merely commemorated like any other saint. There is thus some reason for concluding, with Lingard, that the Collectar was a copy of an original compiled for use in the famous church of St. Martin at Tours, to which Lingard noticed that the phrase in the third collect, per intercessionem eiusdem protectoris nostri, was peculiarly appropriate.

To say more than this would be to venture too far upon the path of conjecture. The commemoration of St. Denis and his companions on 9 October (p. 72) and of St. Quintin on 31 October (p. 73) may also point to a Gallican origin. It may be noted, however, that, if Tours was the ultimate source from which the Collectar, or some of its special contents, were derived, there is still the possibility that this copy was actually made for the use of some other church dedicated to St. Martin, and, taking into account the influence of the Liber Capitularis of Stephen of Tongres upon this class of service-book, that this church may have been the church of St. Martin at Liége.1 In this case, the further possibility arises that the original from which the collects for 11 November were taken was a Sacramentary embodying collects in use at Tours, and that the Collectar itself was compiled at Liége or in the neighbourhood at the time when such books were coming into fashion in the dioceses of the Low Countries.

The period at which we have certain knowledge that the book had arrived in England, viz. the later part of the tenth century, is the era of ecclesiastical reform under the guidance of Dunstan and Æthelwold, when the efforts of the English reformers were supplemented by encouragement from the churches of the Low Countries and of the Loire region. The Collectar may thus have reached England from either of these districts. It remains to consider the date of the entry by which its presence in this country may be determined.

This is the remarkable note which follows the four collects for the intercession of St. Cuthbert (p. 185). It runs as follows:

Besuðan wudigan gæte æt áclee on westsæxum on laurentius mæssan daegi. on wodnes dægi ælfsige dæm biscope in his getélde aldred se profast das feower collectæ on fif næht áldne mona ær underne. awrat.

1 The collegiate church of St. Martin at Liége was founded by Eraclius, bishop of Liége c. 960-971 (Gallia Christ., iii, 844). The date seems almost too recent, considering the probable date of the entry on page 185, for a book composed for use in this church to have found its way to England.

The translation may be given thus:

To the south of Woody Gate at Aclee in Wessex on St. Lawrence's mass-day, on Wednesday, for Ælfsige the bishop in his tent Aldred the provost wrote these four collects, when the moon was five nights old before terce.

The days of the week and month are obviously Wednesday, 10 August, and the fortunate notice of the age of the moon limits it to certain years. The choice of these is further limited by the mention of the bishop. There were three bishops of the name of Ælfsige, viz. Ælfsige, bishop of Winchester 951-959, Ælfsige II, bishop of Winchester c. 1012-1032, and Ælfsige, bishop of Chester-le-Street 968-990. The fact that the entry was made in Wessex suggests at first sight a bishop of Winchester rather than Chester-le-Street; but the special honour paid to St. Cuthbert points, on the other hand, to Chester-le-Street rather than Winchester. As a matter of fact, the claims of Winchester can be dismissed. St. Lawrence's day fell on a Wednesday in 953 and 959, and again in 1015, 1020, and 1026, but the age of the moon corresponds with none of these dates. But, while Ælfsige was bishop of Chester-le-Street, St. Lawrence's day occurred three times on a Wednesday, viz. in 970, 981, and 987. The last of these dates may be ruled out, as the moon was then in its second quarter; but in 970 it was new on 6 August, and in 981 on 5 August. Aldred's note at this point becomes somewhat ambiguous. It was written before 9 a.m. on 10 August, and, though in 970 that day was the "fifth night " of the new moon, it should not be forgotten that St. Lawrence's mass-day had its liturgical beginning at vespers the evening before, and that "fif næht áldne mona may therefore refer to that evening, which would be true of 981. In a note upon the passage,2 Felix Liebermann argued on behalf of 970, and rejected 981 and 987, "because in those years on 10 August six to eleven days were already passed since the new moon." In 981, however, only five days had passed, and, although the general evidence is in favour of 970, this should not be left out of consideration.

There can be little doubt with regard to the identity of the place where the note was written. In a note to his edition of Asser's Vita Alfredi, W. H. Stevenson, commenting upon the traditional identification of Aclea, the site of the battle between Ethelwulf and the Danes in 851, with Ockley in Surrey, referred to the present passage, and suggested

1 Literally "on a five-night-old moon."

2 Herrigs Archiv, civ, 122.

b

1

that Wudiga Gæt is Woodyates, on the road from Salisbury to Blandford and on the confines of Wiltshire and Dorset. He remarked that close by is a place called Oakley." At Woodyates the modern road follows the line of the Roman road from Old Sarum to Dorchester, and here General Pitt-Rivers identified the site of the intermediate Roman station of Vindogladia. About a mile south of the Woodyates inn, this road passes over Oakley Down, a wide stretch of unenclosed land thickly covered with tumuli, and, near this point, is crossed by another old track leading from Cranborne to Shaftesbury. Whether Oakley Down is the site of the battle of 851 is another question; but the relation of Oakley Down to Woodyates is exactly that which is indicated by Aldred's note.

Liebermann, arguing for the 970 date, said: "It is precisely in this year that we have the single historical document containing the name of Ælfsige, in which, in company with twelve bishops, twelve abbots and others, he witnesses a donation of Eadgar to Ely, and therefore at aWitenagemot. Such a meeting often took place at Ockley in Surrey, where, according to the note in question, the bishop of Durham's tent stood."

8

The document to which Liebermann refers is printed by Kemble and Birch, and is a grant of land at Stoke-by-Nayland in Suffolk made by Eadgar to the monastery of Ely.2 It is subscribed by Dunstan and twelve other bishops, of whom the last appears in Birch's text, and apparently in all copies of the charter but that in Liber Eliensis, as Ælfrige. The contemporary Ælfric, bishop of Elmham, is generally identified with the Wuluwric of this charter; and Searle in his lists of Anglo-Saxon bishops accepts this, while he appears to suspend judgment upon the identity of "Ælfrige" with Ælfsige of Chester-le-Street, in spite of the reading in Liber Eliensis. There is, however, no good evidence for such a name as Ælfrige, nor can it be accounted for on etymological grounds; and it may be reasonably assumed that the form is due to a misreading of the s in Ælfsige as 7. The full date of the charter is not given, but it must have been before the death in 970 of one of the signatories, Oswulf, bishop of Ramsbury; but at what period of the year he died we do not know.

1 Stevenson, Asser's Life of King Alfred, 1904, p. 178.

2 Kemble, Cod. Dipl., No. мccLxx; Birch, Cart. Sax., No. 1269.

3 Birch, op. cit. (iii, 565).

4 See Searle, Anglo-Saxon Bishops, etc., pp. 48, 49, 188, 189. He does not mention Elfrige,' however, in his general list, ibid., p. 225.

It is perhaps unnecessary to say much of Liebermann's acceptance of the purely haphazard identification of Aclee in Wessex with Ockley in Surrey. This conjecture was endorsed by most writers, until W. H. Stevenson showed that the old forms of the name Ockley laid it open to doubt. But, even if it may be argued that Ockley, close to the junction of Stane Street with another Roman road coming from the north-west, was the site of the battle between the men of Wessex and the Danes, it does not follow that it was the only Aclea. Dr. Plummer's note in Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel suggests that Wudiga Gæt is Newdigate, about two miles E.N.E. of Ockley1; but this is merely to supply a very questionable identification, as compared with one which is satisfactory in name and site alike.

3

There is also some looseness in Liebermann's statement that Witenagemots were often held at the spot, assumed to be Ockley, where Ælfsige's tent was pitched. Ecclesiastical synods were held, under the presidency of Archbishop Jaenberht, in 782, 787, 788, and 789, at a place called Aclea (Æcleah, Acleth). In 816 Archbishop Wulfred held a synod in loco praeclaro æt Eclea.2 The meetings in 805 in celeberrimo loco Hacleah nominato, and in 824 in loco celebri ubi dicitur Acleah, were apparently of a wider character than synodal; but Haddan and Stubbs hesitated to call either a Witenagemot without qualification. Further, they refrained from identifying the place positively, save in one instance, the synod of 787. Then, relying presumably upon a grant made by Offa to Chertsey Abbey, which exists in a form probably forged, they settled upon Ockley, which is in the same county as Chertsey; although at a considerable distance from it. At the dates referred to, however, we can hardly look for the locus praeclarus æt Acleah in a spot which was remote both from Canterbury and from the Mercian influence under which most of these synods and meetings were conducted. It is possible that the older antiquaries, who identified it with Oakley, near Gravesend, were not far wrong; and it is also possible that the specific reference of the Durham

1 Two Saxon Chronicles, ii, 78. Stevenson, ut sup., points out that Newdigate (Niwedan-geate) could not be confused with a form derived from Wudiga. 2 See Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii, 439, 462–5.

3 Ibid., iii, 558-9, 595.

4 Ibid., iii, 439, 463-4. Reasons are given (ibid., iii, 464) for the conjecture that the locus qui dicitur Acleth of 789 may have been the meeting-place of a northern synod at Aycliffe.

5 See ibid., iii, 559, where it is shown that the probable date of the synod at "Hacleah in 805 involves the conclusion that the place was within two or three days' journey (at most) from Canterbury.

book to Aclee in Wessex may distinguish Oakley Down from the famous Aclea of the synods.

In 869, however, eighteen years after the battle of Aclea, when the royal house of Wessex had risen to the supreme position in England, a Witenagemot, at which the bishops of Winchester and Sherborne were present, was held under Æthelred of Wessex at Wudiga Gæt. Here we have a much closer point of contact with Aldred's note; and there is good ground for supposing that here, a century before 970, we have a mention of Woodyates. If we are to presume that the Aclea of the synods is the Aclee of the Durham Ritual, and consequently that the locus praeclarus was Oakley Down, it is curious that Woodyates, close by, takes its place in 869, without any allusion to Aclea. Further, if Ælfsige's tent was pitched on Oakley Down in 970 or 981, the mention of its geographical relation to Woodyates suggests that on this occasion Woodyates, the site of the meeting of the West Saxon Witan in 869, was the centre of the synod or Witenagemot, whichever it was, for which we can hardly doubt that he was present.

There seems, however, to be no other evidence for such an assembly at this spot in either of the years above mentioned. Nor does the scanty historical information concerning Ælfsige afford help towards the determination of a date. Apart from notices of his accession and death, only one incident of his episcopate is recorded. It is said, in an anonymous tract included in the printed editions of Symeon of Durham, that Eadulf and Oslac, the two earls between whom Northumbria was divided after the fall of the kingdom in 966, were accompanied by Elfsige when they brought Kenneth, king of Scots, to do homage to Eadgar. "Isti duo comites cum Elfsio, qui apud Sanctum Cuthbertum episcopus fuerat, perduxerunt Kynet regem Scottorum ad regem Eadgarum. Qui, cum illi fecisset hominium, dedit ei rex Eadgarus Lodoneium et multo cum honore remisit ad propria." Neither the date nor the place at which this event occurred is known. Roger of Wendover mentions it in 975, the year of Eadgar's death and of the expulsion of Oslac from his earldom; and in his account Eadulf is the only one of the two earls who is named. This, however, does not preclude an earlier date; but, as Kenneth II did not become king of Scots until 971, the incident can hardly be referred with certainty to 970. It is possible that the protection of Eadgar and the

Sym. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 382; (Surtees Soc.), i, 312. See also the note on p. 90 of the latter edition.