ST. OSWALD was nephew to St. Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, and to
Oskitell, bishop first of Dorcester, afterwards of York. He was educated
by St. Odo, and made dean of Winchester; but passing into France, took
the monastic habit at Fleury. Being recalled to serve the church, he
succeeded St. Dunstan in the see of Worcester about the year 959. He
shone as a bright star in this dignity, and established a monastery of
monks at Westberry, a village in his diocese. He was employed by duke
Aylwin in superintending his foundation of the great monastery of
Ramsey, in an island formed by marshes and the river Ouse in
Huntingdonshire, in 972. St. Oswald was made archbishop of York in 974,
and he dedicated the church of Ramsey under the names of the Blessed
Virgin, St. Benedict, and all holy virgins. Nothing of this rich mitred
abbey remains standing except an old gate-house, and a neglected statue
of the founder, Aylwin, with keys and a ragged staff in his hand to
denote his office; for he was cousin to the glorious king Edgar, the
valiant general of his armies, and the chief judge and magistrate of the
kingdom, with the title of alderman of England, and half king, as the
historian of Ramsey usually styles him.[1] {486} St. Oswald was almost
always occupied in visiting his diocese, preaching without intermission
and reforming abuses. He was a great encourager of learning and learned
men. St. Dunstan obliged him to retain the see of Worcester with that of
York. Whatever intermission his function allowed him he spent it at St.
Mary's, a church and monastery of Benedictins, which he had built at
Worcester, where he joined with the monks in their monastic exercises.
This church from that time became the cathedral. The saint, to nourish
in his heart the sentiments of humility and charity, had everywhere
twelve poor persons at his table, whom he served, and also washed and
kissed their feet. After having sat thirty-three years he fell sick at
St. Mary's in Worcester, and having received the extreme unction and
viaticum, continued in prayer, repeating often, "Glory be to the
Father," &c., with which words he expired amidst his monks, on the 29th
of February, 992. His body was taken up ten years after and enshrined,
by Adulph his successor, and was illustrated by miracles. It was
afterwards translated to York, on the 15th of October, which day was
appointed his principal festival.
* * * * *
St. Oswald made quick progress in the path of perfect virtue, because he
studied with the utmost earnestness to deny himself and his own will,
listening attentively to that fundamental maxim of the Eternal Truth,
which St. Bennet, of whose holy order he became a bright light, repeats
with great energy. This holy founder declares in the close of his rule,
that, He who desires to give himself up to God, must trample all earthly
things under his feet, renounce every thing that is not God, and die to
all earthly affections, so as to attain to a perfect disengagement and
nakedness of heart, that God may fill and entirely possess it, in order
to establish therein the kingdom of his grace and pure love forever. And
in his prologue he cries out aloud, that he addresses himself only to
him who is firmly resolved in all things to deny his own will, and to
hasten with all diligence to arrive at his heavenly kingdom.
Footnotes:
1. The titles of honor among our Saxon ancestors were, Etheling, prince
of the blond: chancellor, assistant to the king in giving judgments:
alderman, or ealderman, (not earldonnan, as Rapin Thoyras writes
this word in his first edition,) governor or viceroy. It is derived
from the word ald or old, like senator in Latin. Provinces, cities,
and sometimes wapentakes, had their alderman to govern them,
determine lawsuits, judge criminals, &c. That office gave place to
the title of earl, which was merely Danish, and introduced by
Canute. Sheriffe or she-reeve, was the deputy of the alderman,
chosen by him, sat judge in some courts, and saw sentence executed;
hence he was called vicecomes. Heartoghan signified, among our Saxon
ancestors, generals of armies, or dukes. Hengist, in the Saxon
chronicle, is heartogh; such were the dukes appointed by Constantine
the Great, to command the forces in the different provinces of the
Roman empire. These titles began to become hereditary with the
offices or command annexed under Pepin and Charlemagne, and grew
more frequent by the successors of these princes granting many
hereditary fiefs to noblemen, to which they annexed titular
dignities. Fiefs were an establishment of the Lombards, from whom
the emperors of Germany, and the kings of France, borrowed this
custom, and with it the feodal laws, of which no mention is made in
the Routun code. Titles began frequently to become merely honorary
about the time of Otho I. in Germany.
Reeve among the English Saxons was a steward. The bishop's reeve was
a bishop's steward for secular affairs, attending in his court.
Thanes, _i.e._, servants, were officers of the crown whom the king
recompensed with lands, sometimes to descend to their posterity, but
always to be held of him with some obligation of service, homage, or
acknowledgment. There were other lords of lands and vassals, who
enjoyed the title of thanes, and were distinguished from the king's
thanes. The ealdermen and dukes were all king's thanes, and all
others who held lands of the king by knight's service in chief, and
were immediately great tenants of the king's estates. These were the
greater thanes, and were succeeded by the barons, which title was
brought in by the Normans, and is rarely found before the Conqueror.
Mass thanes were those who held lands in fee of the church. Middle
thanes were such as held very small estates of the king, or parcels
of lands of the king's greater thanes. They were called by the
Normans vavassors, and their lands vavassories. They who held lands
of these, were thanes of the lowest class, and did not rank as
gentlemen. All thanes disposed of the lands which they held (and
which were called Blockland) to their heirs, but with the
obligations due to those of whom they were held. Ceorle (whence our
word churl) was a countryman or artisan who was a freeman. Those
ceorles who held lands in leases were called sockmen, and their land
sockland, of which they could not dispose, being barely tenants.
Those ceorles who acquired possession of five hides of land with a
large house, court, and bell to call together their servants, were
raised to the rank of thanes of the lowest class. A hide of land was
as much as one plough could till. The villains or slaves in the
country were laborers, bound to the service of particular persons;
were all capable of possessing money in property, consequently were
not strictly slaves in the sense of the Roman law.
Witan or Wites, (_i. e._ wisemen,) were the magistrates and lawyers.
Burghwitten signified the magistrates of cities. Some shires (or
counties) are mentioned before king Alfred; and Asserius speaks of
earls (or counts) of Somerset, and Devonshire, in the reign of
Ethelwolph. But Alfred first divided the whole kingdom into shires,
the shires into tithings, lathes, or wapentacks, the tithings into
hundreds, and the hundreds into tenths. Each division had a court
subordinate to those that were superior, the highest in each shire
being the shire-gemot, or folck-mote, which was held twice a year,
and in which the bishop or his deputy, and the ealderman, or his
viceregent, the sheriff, presided. See Seldon on the Titles of
Honor; Speman's Glossary, ad. noviss. Squires on the Government of
the English Saxons. Dr. William Howel, in his learned General
History, t. 5, p. 273, &c. N.B. The titles of earls and hersen were
first given by Ifwar Widfame, king of Sweden, to two ministers of
state in 824; on which see many remarks of Olof Delin, in his
excellent new history of Sweden, c. 5, t. {}, p. {}34.
{487}
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