Bishop of Sens near the end of the seventh century. Little is known of him except that his relics were raised in 704, the probability being that he died in 695. Two biographies exist, a shorter one in ASB, March, iii. 143 sqq., the other and longer in ASM, iii. 1, pp. 340 sqq. It was long thought that the second arose from the first through
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BIBLIOGRAPHY: The early material is collected in ASR, Mar., iii. 143-165. Consult: Histoire littéraire de la France, vii. 512; A. Kluit, Num S. Wulfrannus . . . regem aqua baptismi initiare potuit, in his Hist. critica comitatus Hollandiœ et Zeelandiœ, i. 2, pp. 1 sqq., Middelburg, 1777; J. Ghesquière, Acta sanctorum Belgii, vi. 485 sqq., Brussels, 1794; L. M. Duru, Bibliothèque historique de l'Yonne, i. 184-188, Auxerre, 1850; A. Thijm, Der heilige Willibrord, pp. 94 sqq., Münster, 1863; G. La Vieille, Abrégé de la vie . . . de S. Wulfran, Rouen, 1876; W. Glaister, Life and Times of St. Wulfram, London, 1878; A. Molinier, Les Sources de l'hist. de France, i. 140-141, Paris, 1901; Legris, in Analecta Bollandiana, xvii. 287 sqq.; Levison, in NA, xxv. 601 sqq.; Rettberg, KD, ii. 514-517; DOB, iv. 1195; KL, xii. 1810-11.
Bishop of Worcester; b. at Long Itchington (a village near Warwick) in or before 1012; d. at Worcester Jan. 18, 1095. Educated in the monastic schools at Evesham and Peterborough, he was ordained between 1033 and 1038, and, preferring the regular to the secular clergy, he was professed in the cathedral monastery, where he ultimately rose to be prior. After considerable reluctance, due to his excessive modesty, Wulfstan was consecrated, Sept. 8, 1062, bishop of Worcester by Aldred, archbishop of York, who had been obliged by the pope to promise to resign the see of Worcester. Despite this, it was some time befoie Wulfstan could induce Aldred to resign the temporalities of the diocese, and even then the archbishop retained no less than twelve estates properly belonging to the bishopric of Worcester. After the successful issue of the Norman invasion, Wulfstan made his submission to William the Conqueror, and at the council of 1070 again petitioned for the possession of the estates, which were in the royal possession during the vacancy of the archdiocese of York in consequence of Aldred's death. Two years later the request was granted through the influence of Lanfranc (q.v.), although this prelate had at first sought to have Wulfstan deprived of his see because of insufficient education. The bishop of Worcester ultimately became the friend of the new archbishop of York, Thomas, as well, despite the fact that Worcester had been detached from the province of York, probably to the satisfaction of Wulfstan, and had been transferred to its present connection with the province of Canterbury.
Himself ascetic, humble, and devout, Wulfstan insisted on the observance of the same virtues on the part of his monks, and he was equally rigid in the performance of his episcopal duties. He built or restored many churches, some of his work being still preserved in the crypt and other parts of the cathedral of Worcester, and as a preacher and confessor he was highly esteemed. He successfully ended the slave-traffic in Bristol, where even William the Conqueror had failed, and he was beloved by English and Normans alike. He remained loyal to the king throughout, helping to hold Worcester for William Rufus against the rebels in 1088, and in 1085 he assisted the Worcestershire commissioners in taking their survey for Domesday. He was too infirm to attend the consecration of Anselm (q.v.) as arch. bishop of Canterbury in 1093, but early in the next year he was asked, as the only survivor of the pre-Norman episcopate, to decide a dispute between Anselm and Maurice, bishop of London, his verdict being in the archbishop's favor.
Wulfstan was popularly reckoned a saint from the day of his death, but he was not canonized until 1203, his day being Jan. 19. His shrine in Worcester cathedral was melted in 1216 to furnish money demanded for the convent, and two years later his body was translated to a new shrine when the restored cathedral was dedicated.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The earliest lives, some of them going back to the period of their subject, are collected most fully in ASR, Jan., ii. 238-249, of. ib., May, vi. 79; some are in ASM, vi. 2, pp. 840-865; and one is in MPL, clxxix. 1734-72; others are in H. Wharton, Anglia sacra, i. 541-542, ii. 241-270, London, 1691. Consult further: W. F. Hook, in the Archœological Journal, xx (1863), 1-28; DNB, lxiii. 174-176.
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