ABSTRACT
In the period comprised between the late ninth and the late eleventh centuries, the history of the church of Worcester was characterized by a number of very significant developments, such as the monastic reform promoted by St Oswald (961-92) and the division of the mensa between bishop and cathedral community, which began in the tenth century and was only completed in the twelfth. Several of the bishops who held the diocese over that period were involved in some of the most important national and international affairs of the time. Bishop Wærferth (869x872/73-907x915) ruled the bishopric of Worcester during the time when the main centre of political power in England moved from Mercia to Wessex; he also took part in the cultural programme promoted by King Alfred. Later on, in 929, Bishop Cenwald (928x929-958) led an expedition to Germany on behalf of King Æthelstan, and his visits to several Continental monasteries appear to have been significant for later developments in English monasticism. In the early eleventh century the bishopric was held by one of the principal political and literary figures in Anglo-Saxon history – Archbishop Wulfstan (1002-16), whose legislative, normative and homiletic works survive in a number of manuscripts that were written in the Worcester scriptorium. In the later eleventh century the diocese was held by further important men, including Bishop Ealdred (1046-62), who was entrusted with several key diplomatic tasks, and St Wulfstan (1062-95), the last English bishop of Worcester, who ruled the diocese through the troubled times of the Norman Conquest and outlived both the Conquest and the Conqueror.1
