Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/197

 friendly to Wulfred, for he made him a grant on his coronation. The estates of which Cenwulf had despoiled the see passed to his daughter, the Abbess Cwenthryth. Wulfred claimed them at a council held at Clovesho, apparently in 825, by Beornwulf, the successor of Ceolwulf. Cwenthryth met the archbishop, and promised to surrender the estates. When in 826 the Mercian power was on the eve of its overthrow by Egbert, the West-Saxon king, and the friendship of the archbishop was of especial importance to the Mercian king, Beornwulf held another council at Clovesho in which he caused Cwenthryth to restore the property of the see (ib. pp. 594, 596–604). In spite of the friendly relations that seem to have existed between Wulfred and Baldred, the archbishop probably welcomed the invasion of Kent by the West-Saxon forces, for when Baldred was fleeing before them he granted Malling to the see, as though to purchase Wulfred's good will. Wulfred was on good terms with Egbert and his son Æthelwulf. He died on 24 March 832. He was a man of singular courage and no small political ability. So far as may be gathered from the canons of the council of 816, he appears to have been pious, and he was a liberal benefactor to his church. His will in its known form was drawn up after his death, about 833 (ib. p. 557,, Codex Dipl. No. 235).

[All that is known of Wulfred will be found in Haddan and Stubbs's Eccl. Documents, and in Kemble's Codex Dipl., to which references are made above.]  WULFRIC, called or  (d. 1010), founder of Burton Abbey, was son of Leofwine, probably a thegn of Ethelred II, and himself signs charters as ‘minister’ or thegn. The assumption that his father was Leofwine, earl of Mercia, and father of Leofric [q. v.], is uncorroborated by any satisfactory evidence, and the name Leofwine was extremely common. Wulfric himself is sometimes, but probably erroneously, styled ealdorman, and Palgrave's suggestion that he was ealdorman of Lancaster is based on several misconceptions (, Norman Conquest, i. 671–2). Wulfric owned lands in many parts of England, but chiefly in West Mercia. He was killed on 18 May 1010 fighting against the Danes at the battle of Ringmere, near Ipswich. He was buried in the cloisters of Burton Abbey, where also was buried his wife Ealhswith, who seems to have predeceased him, leaving issue one daughter. The remains of an alabaster statue of Wulfric, which is believed to have replaced an earlier one, still exist at Burton Abbey.

Wulfric made his will in 1002, giving a large portion of his property for the foundation of a Benedictine abbey at Burton-on-Trent. The endowment ‘is said to have been valued even at that time at seven hundred pounds’ (, Monasticon, iii. 33). Ethelred II's charter of confirmation is dated 1004, and to obtain it Wulfric paid the king two hundred marks of gold, each archbishop ten, and each bishop five marks. Wulfric's will is printed in Kemble's ‘Codex Diplomaticus’ (vi. 147–50), in Thorpe's ‘Codex’ (pp. 543 seq.), and in Dugdale's ‘Monasticon’ (ed. Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel, iii. 36–40). A sixteenth-century transcript is in British Museum Stowe MS. 780, ff. 1–3. The original charter of Burton Abbey belongs to the Marquis of Anglesey.

[Anglo-Saxon Chron. ed. Thorpe, i. 262–3, ii. 116; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 178, Sym. Dunelm. ii. 142, Burton Annals in Annales Monastici, i. 183, ii. 171, and Walter of Coventry (all these in Rolls Ser.); Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus, iii. 332, and Flor. Wig. i. 162 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Chron. Johannis Bromton in Twysden's Decem Scriptores, col. 888; Tanner's Notitia Monastica; Erdeswick's Staffordshire, p. 241; Hunter's Deanery of Doncaster, i. 7, 99, 152, 281, 307; Shaw's Staffordshire; Freeman's Norman Conquest, i. 347, 671–2; notes from the Rev. G. W. Sprott, D.D.]  WULFSTAN (fl. 1000), versifier, was a monk of St. Swithun's, Winchester. He was a pupil of Bishop Ethelwold [q. v.], and became priest and precentor (, New Minster, p. 25). Leland records that he had a fine voice (Scriptt. Brit. p. 164), and ascribes to him a versification of Lanferth's work on the life and miracles of St. Swithun (Collect. i. 151–156), from which he quotes largely. The work follows on Lanferth's in the Royal MS. 15 C. vii., the whole being written in an early eleventh-century hand. It is in all likelihood the Sherborne manuscript which Leland used. The work opens with a letter in hexameters addressed to Ælfheah [q. v.], then bishop of Winchester, wherein the writer describes Ælfheah's buildings at Winchester, and in particular the organ which he made. This letter is printed in Migne's ‘Patrologia,’ cxxxvii. col. 107, ‘Acta SS.’ Aug. i. 98, and Mabillon's ‘Acta SS.’ v. 628. There follows another verse-letter addressed to the monks of Winchester, printed in Mabillon, v. 634, with two books of the ‘Miracles of St. Swithun,’ each containing twenty-two chapters in hexameters. These two books have not been printed.

Wulfstan also wrote a life of St. Ethelwold, apparently written in verse, the style