[A.D. 1056.] LEOFGAR, “Earl Harold’s mass-priest,” succeeded Æthelstan. “He,” says the Chronicle, “wore his kenepas (headpiece?) in his priesthood, until he was a bishop; he forsook his chrism and his rood, his ghostly weapons, and took to his spear and to his sword, after his bishophood, and so went in the force against Griffith the Welsh king; and he was there slain, and his priests with him, and Ælfnoth the shire-reeve, and many good men with them, and the others fled away. This was eight nights before Midsummer[46].” After Leofgar’s death the see remained vacant for four years, during which it was under the rule of Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester.
[A.D. 1061-1079.] _Walter of Lorraine_, chaplain of Queen Edith, was consecrated at Rome by Pope Nicholas II. (He had accompanied Bishop Ealdred of Worcester to Rome, on his elevation to the see of York.) Bishop Walter was a prelate of questionable sanctity, if the story told of him by William of Malmesbury is not an invention of his enemies.
[A.D. 1079-1095.] ROBERT DE LOSING, like his predecessor a native of Lorraine, is said to have been one of the most learned of the bishops consecrated by Lanfranc. Bishop Robert found his cathedral in ruins. It had apparently remained uncared for during the troubled times of the Conquest, and it had been partly burnt, as we have seen, by the Welshmen under Earl Ælfgar. The Bishop rebuilt it, taking for his model the church of Aachen, (Aix la Chapelle,) founded by Charlemagne. The existing choir (see Pt. I. § II.) has been regarded as part of Bishop Robert’s work.
Remigius of Lincoln, who had also been rebuilding his cathedral, had fixed the day for its dedication, and invited Bishop Robert of Hereford to be present. He refused to undertake the journey, however, saying, according to William of Malmesbury, that the stars assured him the dedication would not take place in the lifetime of Remigius; who died, in fact, the day before that appointed. Bishop Robert is said by Malmesbury to have received a forewarning of his own death from St. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, with whom he had lived in the closest friendship. When Wulfstan was on his death-bed, Robert was absent with the King. His friend, says the Chronicler, appeared to him in a dream, and directed him to hasten to Worcester if he wished to see him once more. Bishop Robert set out at once, but whilst resting at Cricklade he was again visited by Wulfstan, who said, “Thou hast done what was possible, but in vain, for I have now departed. Thou, however, shalt not remain here long; and as a token that I speak true, thou shalt to-morrow receive a gift from me.” Accordingly, the Prior of Worcester, where Robert arrived the next day, presented him with a cope lined with lamb-skins, which St. Wulfstan had been in the habit of wearing on his journeys. The Bishop recognised the token, and returning to Hereford died there in the following June, (1095). St. Wulfstan’s death occurred in January.