Goscelin

Goscelin of Saint-Bertin (or Goscelin of Canterbury) was a Benedictine hagiographical writer, born between 1020–1035 and who died shortly after 1107. He was a Fleming or Brabantian by birth and became a monk of St Bertin's at Saint-Omer. Goscelin stayed at many monasteries and cathedrals throughout England and collected, wherever he went, materials for his numerous biographies of English saints.

Contents 1 Life 1.1 Flanders 1.2 England 2 Writing 3 Works 3.1 Flanders (Ghent) 3.2 Sherborne and Wilton (Wessex) 3.3 East Anglia 3.4 Barking Abbey (Essex) 3.5 St Augustine's, Canterbury 3.6 Kentish Lives 4 Notes 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

Life

Flanders

According to William of Malmesbury, Goscelin was a monk of St Bertin's. On the other hand, as the author of the Vita Amalbergae virginis, he appears to be very well informed about the hagiographic tradition in Flanders and Brabant, more especially related to Saint Peter's Abbey of Ghent. He probably stayed there for a number of years.

England

According to William of Malmesbury, Goscelin arrived in England with Herman, bishop of Sherborne, which makes most historians believe he arrived in 1058.^[1] According to Goscelin's own testimony in his Liber Confortatorius however, he passed the village of Potterne or Bishops Cannings on the way to his bishop, which seems to date his arrival between 1048 and 1055, when Herman's see was still located at Ramsbury.

Goscelin's patron and companion was Herman, Bishop of Sherborne. He functioned as secretary to the bishop and as chaplain to the nuns of Wilton. His fortunes took a turn for the worse when Bishop Herman died in 1078 and was succeeded by Osmund of Sées, whom Goscelin in his Liber confortatorius describes as a "king who knew not Joseph".^[2]

Writing

William of Malmesbury praises his industry in the highest terms. He was at Ely about 1082, where he wrote a life of St Æthelthryth. Between 1087 and 1092 he was at Ramsey, and compiled there a life of St Ivo, or Ives. In 1098 he went to Canterbury, where he wrote his account of the translation of the relics of St Augustine and his companions, which had taken place in 1091. This he dedicated to St Anselm, and it was probably his last work.

The Canterbury Obituary, quoted by Wharton, gives 15 May as the day of his death but does not name the year. He was still alive in 1107, when he was asked to review a hagiography.

His works consist of the lives of many English saints, chiefly of those connected with Canterbury, where he spent his last years. Some of them have been printed by the Bollandists, by Jean Mabillon, and by Jacques-Paul Migne. Others are contained in manuscripts in the British Museum (London) and at Cambridge. A full list of his known writings is given in the eighth volume of the "Histoire littéraire de France". His chief work was a life of St Augustine of Canterbury, professing to be based on older records and divided into two parts, -- an "Historia major" (Mabillon, Acta SS. O.S.B., I) and an "Historia minor" (in Wharton, Anglia Sacra, I). His method seems to have been usually to take some older writer as his basis and to reproduce his work, in his own style.

The Liber Confortatorius dedicated to Eve of Wilton, a former pupil who went to Angers to live as a recluse, is some kind of a "letter of consolation", remembering Eve about her vocation and to utter Goscelin's feelings about her sudden departure. The close relation between Eve and Gosceling has been compared with the love story between Abelard and Heloise.

According to William of Malmesbury, Goscelin was also a skilled musician.

Works

Flanders (Ghent)

• Vita S. Amalbergae virginis (ed. J.B. Sollerius, Acta Sanctorum mensis Julii III (1723) 90-102).

Sherborne and Wilton (Wessex)

• Shortly after 1078: Life of St Wulfsige (of Sherborne), ed. C.H. Talbot, "The life of Saint Wulsin of Sherborne by Goscelin." Revue Bénédictine 69 (1959): 68–85; tr. Rosalind C. Love (2005). "The Life of St Wulfsige of Sherborne by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin: A New Translation with Introduction, Appendix and Notes". In Katherine Barker, David A Hinton and Alan Hunt. St Wulfsige and Sherborne: Essays to Celebrate the Millennium of the Benedictine Abbey, 998-1998. Oxford. pp. 98–123. 
• Between 1080-1082: Liber confortatorius, ed. Stephanie Hollis, Writing the Wilton Women: Goscelin's Legend of Edith and Liber Confortatorius. Medieval Women Texts and Contexts 9. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004; ed. C.H. Talbot, The Liber confortatorius of Goscelin of Saint Bertin. 1955. 1–117; tr. Monika Otter, Goscelin of St Bertin. Book of Encouragement and Consolation (Liber Confortatorius). Library of Medieval Women. Cambridge, 2004.
• Life of St Edith (of Wilton), ed. Stephanie Hollis, Writing the Wilton Women: Goscelin’s Legend of Edith and Liber Confortatorius. Medieval Women Texts and Contexts 9. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004.

East Anglia

• "Life and Miracles of St Ivo", ed. W.D. Macray, Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis. London, 1886. lix-lxxxiv.
• Lives of female saints of Ely, ed. and tr. Rosalind C. Love, Goscelin of Saint-Bertin. The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely. OMT. Oxford, 2004.
  • "Life of St Æthelthryth", lost (one may compare the Miracula S. Ætheldrethe and Vita S. Ætheldrethe in Love's edition).
  • Vita S. Wihtburge "Life of St Wihtburh"
  • Lectiones in festivitate S. Sexburge, "The Lesson on the Feast of St Seaxburh. Compare Vita S. Sexburge in Love's edition.
  • Lectiones in natalis S. Eormenhilde "Lessons on the anniversary feast of St Eormenhild" (daughter of Seaxburh).
  • "Life of St Waerburh" daughter of Eormenhild; edited also by Carl Hostmann and translated by Henry Bradshaw, The Life of Saint Werburge of Chester. EETS. London, 1887.

Barking Abbey (Essex)

• Lives of the female saints of Barking Abbey, ed. M.L. Colker, "Texts of Jocelyn of Canterbury which relate to the history of Barking Abbey." Studia Monastica 7.2 (1965). 383-460.
  • "Life and Miracles of St Wulfhild" (pp. 418–34)
  • "Life of St Æthelburh"
  • "Life of St Hildelith"

St Augustine's, Canterbury

• Historia maior
• Historia minor
• Liber de miraculis S. Augustini and Historia translationis S. Augustini, ed. Patrologia Latina 80 (1850). 43–94, 485–520. On a miracle which occurred in relation to the translation of the relics of St Augustine of Canterbury, and the monastic goldsmith Spearhafoc.
• Vita S. Laurentii (Laurence of Canterbury)
• Vita et miracula S. Melliti
• Vita S. Iusti
• Vita S. Honorii
• Vita S. Deusdedit
• Vita S. Theodori
• Vita, translatio et miraculi Adriani
• Vita et miraculi S. Letardi

Kentish Lives

• "Life of St Mildrith (of Minster-in-Thanet)", ed. D.W. Rollason, "Goscelin of Canterbury's account of the translation and miracles of St Mildrith (BHL 5961/4). An edition with notes." Mediaeval Studies 48 (1986): 139–210; ed. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend. A Study of Early Medieval Hagiography in England. Leicester, 1982. 105-43 (based on MS BHL 5960).

In addition, many other Lives have been ascribed to Goscelin, e.g. those of St Swithin^[3], St Grimbald and St Mildburg, but many such cases now prove unlikely or unsatisfactory.

Notes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). "Goscelin". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 

Further reading

• Barlow, Frank (1992). The Life of King Edward who Rests at Westminster Attributed to a Monk of Saint-Bertin (2nd ed.). Oxford: Boydell Press. 
• Barlow, Frank (2004). "Goscelin (b. c.1035, d. in or after 1107)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11105. Retrieved 2 Oct 2007. 
• Hayward, Rebecca (2005). "Representations of the Anchorite Life in Goscelin of Saint-Bertin's Liber Confortarius". In Liz Herbert McAvoy and Mari Hughes-Edwards. Anchorites, Wombs and Tombs: Intersections of Gender and Enclosure in the Middle Ages. Cardiff. pp. 54–64. 
• Licence, Tom (2006). "Goscelin of St Bertin and the Life of Eadwold of Cerne". The Journal of Medieval Latin 16: 182–207. 
• Love, Rosalind C. (2005). "'Et quis me tanto oneri parem faciet?': Goscelin of Saint-Bertin and the Life of Amelberga". In Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe and Andy Orchard. Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge. Toronto Old English Series. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 231–52. 
• Love, Rosalind C. (2004). Goscelin of Saint-Bertin. The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely. Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford. 
• Love, Rosalind C. (2000). "Goscelin of Saint-Bertin". The Blackwell encyclopedia of Ango-Saxon England. p. 213. 
• Love, Rosalind C. (1996). Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Latin Saints' Lives: Vita s. Birini, Vita et Miracula s. Kenelmi, and Vita s. Rumwoldi. OMT. Oxford. 
• Rigg, A. G. (1992). A History of Anglo-Latin Literature. Cambridge. 
• Sharpe, Richard (1991). "Words and Music by Goscelin of Canterbury". Early Music 19: 94–7. 
• Williams, Ann (1995). The English and the Norman Conquest. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. 
• Talbot, C. H., ‘The Liber confortatorius of Goscelin of Saint Bertin’, Studia Anselmiana, fasc. 37 (Analecta monastica, 3rd series 1955) 1–117.

External links

• Works by or about Goscelin in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Persondata
Name	Goscelin
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Date of birth
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Date of death	1107
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