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CHICHESTER AND VICINITY 25
even hand mighty and unmighty." Instead of telling certain people in plain language that they were liars, he " answered little and was rather cross-grained, deeming that he wotted that other things were truer than that which was now set forth." His strenuous methods of dealing with dissentients were by no means universally approved, nor were his rude Norse subjects as respectful to the Christian preachers as they should have been. "Then stood the bishop up in his choir-cope, with a mitre on his head and a staff in his hand" and " set forth the Faith to the bonders." But Thord of the big belly scoffingly replied, " Much sayeth he, the horned one yonder, who hath a staff in hand, the upper end whereof is crooked after the fashion of a wether's horn." Eventually his zeal on behalf of the White Christ cost Olaf his life; in 1030 he was slain in battle; but soon his repentant subjects realised that he had been in truth a holy man, and the great Cathedral of Trondhjem rose among the Norwegian forests to enshrine his relics. Just north and just south of London Bridge was a similar settlement of commercial Danes, whose memory is also preserved by churches dedicated to St. Olaf, and to another Scandinavian saint, Magnus the Martyr of Orkney. The Rape of Chichester was granted by the Conqueror with that of Arundel to Roger of Montgomery, who seems to have given the south-west quarter of the city to the Church, to which some part of it may have belonged before.* The south-
: William of Albini, who married Queen Adeliza, widow of Henry I., received with her the confiscated Chichester property of the Montgomery family, and he formally confirmed this gift for the souls of his ancestors and the remission of his sins, a purpose which it is to be hoped was duly achieved. |
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