Note Aaa. pp. , 425. The West-Saxon Earldom

There is, I think, quite evidence to show that Godwine was raised to Earl’s rank very early in the reign of Cnut, but that he was not invested with the vast government of which we afterwards find him in possession till some years later.

I do not try to identify any of the signatures of “Godwine minister” in the later days of Æthelred. There are a good many of them, and some of them may be signatures of the great Earl; but the name Godwine is so common that it is utterly impossible to say anything either way. But Godwine undoubtedly signs as Earl from the very beginning of Cnut’s reign. The earliest charters of Cnut are of the year 1018, and Godwine signs one of these (Cod. Dipl. iv. 3) as “dux,” though seemingly, as one would expect, as the junior Earl. But, as Cnut kept Wessex in his own hands, while he appointed Earls over Northumberland and Mercia, Godwine could not have been Earl over all Wessex so early as this. He must have been simply the local Earl of some one shire. That shire may have been Kent. He is called Earl of Kent by Eadmer (“Cantiæ comes magnanimus,” p. ), and it is his usual description in later accounts. But writers who did not take in the position of an Earl of the West-Saxons, and who did not understand that his jurisdiction took in Kent, may have called Godwine Earl of Kent simply because they found him acting as Earl at Dover in 1051. And, on the other hand, we have just seen (see above, p. ) that there were other versions which call his first earldom Sussex, and even Gloucester. I do not pretend to settle the question, and it is of no great moment. The one important point is that Godwine was raised to high rank in the very beginning of Cnut’s reign, and was raised to higher rank still somewhat later.

That Godwine at a later time, under Harthacnut and Eadward, held an earldom which took in all Wessex—that is the old kingdoms of Wessex, Kent, and Sussex—there is no doubt. He appears as the immediate ruler of Wessex from the death of Cnut onward, and he is distinctly called “West-Saxonum dux” (Fl. Wig. 1041; cf. 1009). It might indeed be thought that his promotion to this greater government did not take place till after the death of Cnut, when Godwine acted as the minister of the absent Harthacnut. But it is clear from the Biographer of Eadward (392) that he was raised to some special rank by Cnut at the time which I have stated in the text. He attracted Cnut’s notice from the very beginning. “Ubi ... regnum cessit Cnuto regi vario eventu bellorum, inter novos adepti regni principes regio adscitos lateri, hic Godwinus ... probatus est.” This quite falls in with his signature as Earl in 1018. But after Cnut’s visit to Denmark in 1019, after Godwine’s exploits and his marriage (see pp. –424, and Note DDD), we read, “Quum repatriaret [Cnutus] in Angliam, feliciter actis omnibus, totius pene regni ab ipso constituitur dux et bajulus.” So in the next page we read, “Regnante supradicto Cnuto rege, floruit hic in ejus aula primus inter summos regni proceres; et agente æquitatis ratione, quod scribebat scriptum, quod delebat omnes censebant delendum. Et in hujus potentatus solio potenter viguit, donec et hunc regem et ejus totam stirpem Ille qui regna pro libitu suo transfert succidit.” That is, in plain words, Cnut on his return to England in 1020 invested Godwine with an office which made him the first man in the kingdom, and which he kept through the reigns of Cnut’s sons. It was therefore from Cnut and in 1020 that Godwine received the office which we find him holding under Harthacnut, that of “West-Saxonum dux.” The charters tell the same tale. From 1019 onwards (see Cod. Dipl. iv. 9 et seqq.; vi. 179 et seqq.) Godwine always signs before every other Englishman, while in 1018 (iv. 3) Æthelweard signed before him. For a while (iv. 9, 14, 17, 29) we find some of Cnut’s Danish Earls and kinsmen, Thurkill or Eric, signing before him, but Godwine always signs among them, and gradually, as Cnut’s government became more and more English, it became the established rule for Godwine to sign at the head of the laymen. That Godwine then was Earl of the West-Saxons uninterruptedly from 1020 to 1051 there can I think be no doubt. Of the nature of the office and the policy of the appointment I have spoken in the text. It is plain that it was something quite new, something quite different from the ordinary ealdormanship of a shire in Kent or elsewhere.

“Bajulus,” the word used by the Biographer here and afterwards in p. to express Godwine’s position, exactly answers to the Eastern Vizier, and the title is specially common in Sicily and the Levant. But the word is the parent of all the various forms of bailiff, bail, and such like. See Ducange in Bajulus, and Roquefort, Glossaire de la Langue Romane, in Bailleul.

Thierry has an amusing glimmering of truth when he says (i. 168), “Après une grande victoire remportée sur les Norwégiens, Godwin obtint la dignité d’earl, ou chef politique de l’ancien royaume de West-Sex, reduit alors à l’état de province.” He saw by some happy instinct, for the Life of Eadward was not then published, that Godwine’s great promotion followed on his exploits in the North; but he turned Godwine’s enemies, who are in every account called either Swedes or Wends, into Norwegians, and he placed the appointment between 1030 and 1035, after Cnut’s conquest of Norway. Moreover, of all Cnut’s dominions Wessex was just the part which was the furthest from being reduced to the form of a province.