Early Life
Little is known about Leofric, as his cathedral town was not a centre of historical writing, and he took little part in events outside his diocese. Little notice was taken of his life and activities; only a few charters originated in his household and there is only one listing of gifts to his diocese. No official acts from his episcopate have survived, and there is just a brief death notice in the Leofric Missal, although no notice of his death occurs in the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. He occurs as a witness to royal charters.
Leofric was probably born in Cornwall, and his parents were English. Because canon law required that a bishop be 30 years old when consecrated, it is likely that Leofric was born before 1016. The medieval chronicler Florence of Worcester referred to him as a Brytonicus, which presumably meant that he was a native of Cornwall. He had a brother, Ordmaer, who acted as his steward and administered the family estates. Leofric was educated in Lotharingia, and may have been brought up abroad. Leofric may have gone into exile either in 1013 when Sweyn Forkbeard, the king of Denmark invaded England or in 1016, when Sweyn's son Cnut became king of England. His education possibly took place at the church of St Stephen's in Toul, where the future Pope Leo IX was a canon from 1017 to 1024 and bishop after 1027.
Read more about this topic: Leofric (bishop)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“We [actors] are indeed a strange lot! There are times we doubt that we have any emotions we can honestly call our own. I have approached every dynamic scene change in my life the same way. When I married Charlie MacArthur, I sat down and wondered how I could play the best wife that ever was.... My love for him was the truest thing in my life; but it was still important that I love him with proper effect, that I act loving him with great style, that I achieve the ultimate in wifedom.”
—Helen Hayes (1900–1993)