In all three texts, Goscelin will also ignore chronology and link stories together by type rather than by time. For instance, he describes how Edith saved Cnut from shipwreck at sea, and, in the same chapter, he describes how “later on,” Ealdred, the archbishop of York, was also saved at sea by Edith.72 Just a few chapters afterward, Goscelin describes how Edith defended the property of Wilton during the reign of Queen Emma, and then writes “we also add an event which has recently taken place, very similar to this one,” going on to tell a story about Brihtric in the next chapter.73 Similar pairings are evident in Goscelin’s work for Kenelm: he matches together two stories about feast day punishments (cc. 20–21), two stories about mute men speaking (cc. 23–24), and two stories about fetters bursting (c. 26). These are all in a section ostensibly dedicated to stories from abbot Godwin’s tenure. Matching stories together like this held rhetorical as well as practical value, beautifying Goscelin’s texts in ways that later miracle collectors would also emulate.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Goscelin’s work to slot miracle stories into chronologies is his treatment—or, rather, lack of treatment—of the Norman Conquest. In Goscelin’s histories, William the Conqueror and Norman prelates appear briefly at the end of the story simply as the next in the line of succession of leaders, with no mention of Harold’s brief reign and no suggestion that a watershed event had occurred. Goscelin describes the abbacy of Ælfgifu at Wilton, for instance, as “partly under [King Edward] and partly under the present king, William.”74 In his three early works, the closest Goscelin comes to mentioning the consequences of the Conquest is at the end of the Translation of Edith, where he describes how a young Wilton nun felt upset about Edith’s failure to prevent the “erosion of the possessions of the monastery.” Yet even here, Goscelin does not name or blame any Norman for this erosion—it is the nun who is chided for disbelieving in Edith’s powers.75
Goscelin’s silence about the Conquest and reluctance to tell stories about the very recent past invite a range of readings. Paul Antony Hayward reads parts of the Life and Translation of Edith as “a direct command to Lanfranc to support [Edith’s] cult” with the “veiled aggression that typifies his work.”76 In general, Hayward sees the English hagiography of the 1070s and 1080s, nearly all of it written by Goscelin, as intended “to assert the righteousness of these English communities”: “These saints’ cults may well … have been the most formidable weapon left to the English in their resistance to Norman attempts to deprive them of their offices.”77 Stephanie Hollis views Abbess Godiva at Wilton as the woman behind the Life and Translation of Edith, suggesting that Godiva sought “to employ Edith again in the service of the convent by commissioning a Legend from Goscelin, with a view to attracting powerful patronage in defense of the monastery’s lands.”78 Susan Ridyard, who does not believe that Norman prelates were generally hostile to English saints’ cults, nevertheless suggests that Goscelin’s Life and Translation of Edith, along with other texts of the period, could be read as “defensive hagiography,” that is, “an attempt to vindicate not only the status of a saint but also the history, the traditions and the political status of the religious community with which that saint was associated: it was an act of monastic propaganda on a grand scale.”79
One difficulty with reading Goscelin’s early corpus as monastic propaganda is the very limited circulation of these works. This fact makes it difficult to view these texts as winning patronage or propagandizing for Wilton or Sherborne even within religious circles. One complete and two abridged manuscript copies of Goscelin’s Life of Wulfsige survive; all of them date from the fourteenth century.80 There are also only three extant copies of the Life and Translation of Edith. The earliest of these, from the early twelfth century, lacks the dedicatory letter to Lanfranc and the Translation.81 The Life and Miracles of Kenelm appears to have been the most widely circulated of these three texts, with nine extant manuscript witnesses, but unfortunately Goscelin does not name his (likely Norman) dedicatee.82 Rosalind Love, the editor of the Life and Miracles of Kenelm, remains undecided whether or not the text should be read in the context of “the sweeping of the new broom” at Winchcombe.83
Two Normans we know Goscelin thought of as readers of his early texts were Bishop Osmund, to whom he sent the Life of Wulfsige, and Archbishop Lanfranc, who received the Life and Translation of Edith. Osmund had been in England for less time than Goscelin and probably did not know many of the stories Goscelin recounts in the Life. If Osmund read the text, he likely did come away with a clearer understanding of Wulfsige’s history at Sherborne. But, importantly, he does not seem to have needed the text to respect Wulfsige. Osmund had honored Wulfsige and Juthwara with a translation to new silver reliquaries before Goscelin completed the text.84 Archbishop Lanfranc, too, probably knew few of the stories Goscelin recounts in the Life and Translation of Edith and would have learned something if he read it. However, it is highly unlikely that Goscelin thought of him as a man hostile to English saints in general or Edith in particular.85
It is much easier to make an argument that Goscelin’s west country hagiography was designed to gain Norman respect and patronage for Goscelin than for the saints and houses he wrote about. Goscelin’s dedicatory letters beseech his readers for their good favor. He begins his letter to Lanfranc, for instance, by reminding the archbishop that it is his responsibility to accept all gifts and to see “for what uses of the Church the work of each individual is fit.”86 At a point when Goscelin had likely been driven out of the west country, he rather poignantly declares to the archbishop that “no person is shut out, we are all invited to the supper of the Lamb … the gifts of all are demanded.”87 Goscelin plays up the humility game in these letters, requesting, for instance, that Osmund see in the Life of Wulfsige “not so much the clumsiness of the workman as the evidence of truth, so that under your bright gaze the night and gloom of bombastic incredulity might not mar the bright radiance of sanctity.”88 If we did not know that Osmund already celebrated Wulfsige’s cult, it would be easy to read this passage as expressing a fear of Norman “incredulity,” but it seems rather to reflect Goscelin’s anxieties about Osmund accepting his work. Goscelin’s care to name his chief oral and written sources in his texts also seems designed to enhance the credibility of his own writing. Although Goscelin implores Lanfranc to accept the Life and Translation of Edith despite the fact so much of it was based on stories told by women—“nor will their sex be a reason for detracting from the truth of their testimony … the handmaids of the Lord prophesy as well as the menservants”—he never expresses any fears that English testimony per se would be doubted by his Norman readers.89
Goscelin’s longing, as he states in the Book of Consolation, for a “little refuge similar to yours … where I might pray, read a little, write a little, compose a little; where I might have my own little table … where I might revive the dying, tiny spark of my little intellect, so that, unable to be fruitful in good deeds, I might yet be just a little bit fruitful by writing in the house of the Lord,” suggests that Goscelin’s composition of hagiography had a lot to do with his own sense of fulfillment.90 Goscelin also complains to Eve of lethargy: “I wish I could point to my successes and say … ‘with the pen of a scrivener that writes swiftly.’ I have become more sluggish than a snail.”91 When he wrote this, he may well have been thinking specifically of the Life of Wulfsige and Life and Translation of Edith, texts that appear to have loitered long in the planning and gathering stage. Goscelin attributes his failure to complete the Life of Wulfsige before Herman’s death to “day-dreaming,” and writes of delaying the completion of the Life and Translation of Edith as a result of “bashfulness or negligence.”92 He speaks of “the requests of the senior nuns” at Wilton and the requests of the brothers at Sherborne in the prologues of these hagiographies, but Goscelin seems to have completed these texts on his own timetable and in response to his own pressing needs—his