- Goscelin
Goscelin (sometimes called Gotselin in his
manuscripts was aBenedictine biographicalwriter who died about 1099. He was born in the north ofFrance and became a monk of St. Bertin's atOmer . Hermann,Bishop ofSalisbury , brought him toEngland , but the exact date of his doing so is disputed. Wright gives 1058, on the authority ofWilliam of Malmesbury , but Goscelin himself states that he accompanied Hermann toRome in 1049, shortly before the greatCouncil of Reims in that year, and as that prelate returned to England in 1053, it seems likely that Goscelin came with him then. He remained in England to the end of his life, visiting many monasteries and cathedrals, and collecting, wherever he went, materials for his numerous biographies of English saints. William of Malmesbury praises his industry in the highest terms. He was atEly about 1082, where he wrote a life of St.Etheldreda . Between 1087 and 1092 he was atRamsey , and compiled there a life of St.Ivo , or Ives. In 1098 he went toCanterbury , where he wrote his account of the translation of the relics of St. Augustine and his companions, which had taken place in 1091. This he dedicated to St.Anselm , and it was probably his last work. The CanterburyObituary , quoted by Wharton, gives15 May as the day of his death but does not name the year. He was certainly alive in the beginning of the year 1099, but we hear nothing of him afterwards. His works consist of the lives of many Englishsaint s, chiefly of those connected with Canterbury, where he spent his last years. Some of them have been printed by theBollandists , byJean Mabillon , and byJacques-Paul Migne . Others are contained in manuscripts in theBritish Museum (London ) and atCambridge . A full list of his known writings is given in the eighth volume of the "Histoire littéraire de France". His chief work was a life of St.Augustine of Canterbury , professing to be based on older records and divided into two parts, -- an "Historia major" (in Mabillon, Acta SS. O.S.B., I) and an "Historia minor" (in Wharton, Anglia Sacra, I). His life of St.Swithin (in Bollandists, Acta SS., July) is also of some importance, but the majority of his writings have not much value at the present day. His method seems to have been usually to take some older writer as his basis and to reproduce his work, in a somewhat inflated style, with additions of his own, but critics are agreed that no very great reliance can be placed on these latter. According to William of Malmesbury, Goscelin was also a skilledmusician .References
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*worldcat id|lccn-n95-13707
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