ABSTRACT
Leofric would have read words such as these from one of Ælfric’s Easter homilies to the people and priests of his see of Exeter. This solemn responsibility of the bishop to be God’s protector of his people against the devil was to be undertaken by Leofric in the most convincing and exemplary manner. That his elevation to a bishopric in the late Anglo-Saxon church was not simply the natural progression from his close working relationship with Edward the Confessor,2 but a just reward for a talented and energetic ecclesiastic can be witnessed by the actions he took first as bishop of Crediton and then of the unified see of Exeter in 1050-72, and by the products of his prelacy, among them one of the most coherent and revealing collections of manuscripts produced in the very late Anglo-Saxon period.3
