HKB
(63) i.e. The ships of Sweyne, who had retired thither, as before described.
(64) "Vid. Flor." A.D. 1049, and verbatim from him in the same year, Sim. Dunelm. "inter X. Script. p. 184, I, 10. See also Ordericus Vitalis, A.D. 1050. This dedication of the church of St. Remi, a structure well worth the attention of the architectural antiquary, is still commemorated by an annual loire, or fair, on the first of October, at which the editor was present in the year 1815, and purchased at a stall a valuable and scarce history of Rheims, from which he extracts the following account of the synod mentioned above:--
"Il fut assemble a l'occasion de la dedicace de la nouvelle eglise qu' Herimar, abbe de ce monastere, avoit fait batir, seconde par les liberalites des citoyens, etc." ("Hist. de Reims", p. 226.) But, according to our Chronicle, the pope took occasion from this synod to make some general regulations which concerned all Christendom.
(65) Hereman and Aldred, who went on a mission to the pope from King Edward, as stated in the preceding year.
(66) Nine ships were put out of commission the year before; but five being left on the pay-list for a twelvemonth, they were also now laid up.
(67) The ancient name of Westminster; which came into disuse because there was another Thorney in Cambridgeshire.
(68) i.e. at Gloucester, according to the printed Chronicle; which omits all that took place in the meantime at London and Southwark.
(69) Now Westminster.
(70) i.e. Earl Godwin and his crew.
(71) i.e. from the Isle of Portland; where Godwin had landed after the plunder of the Isle of Wight.
(72) i.e. Dungeness; where they collected all the ships stationed in the great bay formed by the ports of Romney, Hithe, and Folkstone.
(73) i.e. Godwin and his son Harold.
(74) i.e. the tide of the river.
(75) Godwin's earldom consisted of Wessex, Sussex, and Kent: Sweyn's of Oxford, Gloucester, Hereford, Somerset, and Berkshire: and Harold's of Essex, East-Anglia, Huntingdon, and Cambridgeshire.
(76) The church, dedicated to St. Olave, was given by Alan Earl of Richmond, about thirty-three years afterwards, to the first abbot of St. Mary's in York, to assist him in the construction of the new abbey. It appears from a MS. quoted by Leland, that Bootham-bar was formerly called "Galman-hithe", not Galmanlith, as printed by Tanner and others.
(77) Called St. Ethelbert's minster; because the relics of the holy King Ethelbert were there deposited and preserved.
(78) The place where this army was assembled, though said to be very nigh to Hereford, was only so with reference to the great distance from which some part of the forces came; as they were gathered from all England. They met, I conjecture, on the memorable spot called "Harold's Cross", near Cheltenham, and thence proceeded, as here stated, to Gloucester.
(79) This was no uncommon thing among the Saxon clergy, bishops and all. The tone of elevated diction in which the writer describes the military enterprise of Leofgar and his companions, testifies his admiration.
(80) See more concerning him in Florence of Worcester. His lady, Godiva, is better known at Coventry. See her story at large in Bromton and Matthew of Westminster.
(81) He died at his villa at Bromleage (Bromley in Staffordshire).--Flor.
(82) He built a new church from the foundation, on a larger plan. The monastery existed from the earliest times.
(83) Florence of Worcester says, that he went through Hungary to Jerusalem.
(84) This must not be confounded with a spire-steeple. The expression was used to denote a tower, long before spires were invented.
(85) Lye interprets it erroneously the "festival" of St. Martin.--"ad S. Martini festum:" whereas the expression relates to the place, not to the time of his death, which is mentioned immediately afterwards.
(86) This threnodia on the death of Edward the Confessor will be found to correspond, both in metre and expression, with the poetical paraphrase of Genesis ascribed to Caedmon.