Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, who kept his bishopric after the Norman Conquest of England
Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, having once sworn never to eat meat, kept that vow for the rest of his life. History remembers him as the only bishop who kept his see after the Norman Conquest of England. Church historians explain this by the pastor's immense authority among the people: so great that the Normans did not dare to remove him.
Wulfstan spoke out actively against the slave trade, was a great benefactor, and cared not only for the building of churches but also for the sorrows of the very poor. At the same time he was a devoted servant of both Pope and king. In 1066 Wulfstan accompanied King Harold on his march to the north, and under William he led the levy of the people that put down the earls who had risen in revolt against the crown.
Aelred of Rievaulx tells one of the most striking episodes of Wulfstan's life. In 1076 the bishop refused the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had ordered Wulfstan to surrender his crozier and ring. Wulfstan retorted wittily, though in breach of church rules, that he was prepared to lay down his bishopric only at the will of King Edward the Confessor, who had ordained him. (Edward the Confessor died in 1066.)
There is a beautiful legend of the episcopal staff, which Wulfstan drove into the tomb of a saint, inviting the archbishop to try to take it away. The staff, it is told, could not be moved or drawn out of the stone until Wulfstan was restored to his bishopric.
Even in his lifetime Wulfstan worked miracles. He is credited with the miraculous rescue of a workman who fell from a roof, with numerous cures of the gravely ill, and even with healing the blind daughter of Harold II, Gunhild, of her blindness. The bishop was canonised by Innocent III a little over a hundred years after his death at the age of 87.
Long before canonisation he was widely venerated, and not merely as the patron saint of Worcester. The young English king Henry II came to his resting place with his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, and they laid their crowns on Wulfstan's tomb, swearing never to wear them again.
