Wulfstan (died 1023) - Life

Life

Wulfstan's early life is obscure, but he was certainly the uncle of one Beorhtheah, his successor at Worcester but one, and the uncle of Wulfstan of Worcester. About Wulfstan's youth we know nothing. He probably had familial ties to the Fenlands in East Anglia, and to Peterborough specifically. Although there is no direct evidence of his ever being monastic, the nature of Wulfstan's later episcopal career and his affinity with the Benedictine Reform argue that he had once studied and professed as a Benedictine monk, perhaps at Winchester. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Wulfstan was consecrated bishop of London in 996, succeeding Aelfstan. Besides the notice in the Chronicle, the first record of his name is in a collection of nine Latin penitential letters collected by him, three of which were issued by him as bishop of London, and one by him as "Archbishop of the English". The other five letters in the collection (only one of which is addressed to Wulfstan, as archbishop) were issued by Pope Gregory V and by a Pope John (either Pope John XVII or Pope John XVIII). In the letters issued by Wulfstan as bishop of London he styles himself "Lupus episcopus", meaning "the bishop Wolf". "Lupus" is the Latin form of the first element of his Old English name, which means "wolf-stone".

In 1002 Wulfstan was elected Archbishop of York and was immediately translated to that see. Holding York also brought him control over the diocese of Worcester, as at that time it was practice in England to hold "the potentially disaffected northern archbishopric in plurality with a southern see." He held both Worcester and York until 1016, resigning Worcester to Leofsige while retaining York. There is evidence, however, that he retained influence over Worcester even after this time, and that Leofsige perhaps acted "only as a suffragan to Wulfstan." Although holding two or more episcopal sees in plurality was both uncanonical and against the spirit of the Benedictine Reform, Wulfstan had inherited this practice from previous archbishops of York, and he was not the last to hold York and Worcester in plurality.

Wulfstan must have early on garnered the favour of powerful men, particularly Æthelred king of England, for we find him personally drafting all royal law codes promulgated under Æthelred's reign from 1005 to 1016. There is no doubt that Wulfstan had a penchant for law; his knowledge of previous Anglo-Saxon law (both royal and ecclesiastical), as well as ninth-century Carolingian law, was considerable. This surely made him a suitable choice for the king's legal draftsman. But it is also likely that Wulfstan's position as archbishop of York, an important centre in the then politically-sensitive northern regions of the English kingdom, made him not only a very influential man in the North, but also a powerful ally for the king and his family in the South. It is indicative of Wulfstan's continuing political importance and savvy that he also acted as legal draftsman for, and perhaps advisor to, the Danish king Cnut, who took England's West Saxon throne in 1016.