Personal manuscripts attributed to Copsi and recovered from the monastery many centuries later suggest that Copsi had many enemies among the local lords and may have fathered up to a dozen illegitimate children. Some twenty-seven of his confirmed heirs are currently engaged in protracted litigation regarding various inheritance claims to the monastery's extensive and valuable property holdings, now in the care of the National Trust.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Copsi of Northumbria
The Northumbria region of England, located in the northeast region of the island, was in 1027 the birthplace of Copsi, an Anglo-Saxon Capuchin friar and Abbott of the Monastery of Adelfreid the Great. In the role of Abbott, Copsi was charged with the spiritual welfare of several hundred monks -- that is, until the Bubonic Plague decimated the population of monks, who unwittingly invited their own destruction by opening their doors to provide medical care and sacraments to the region's afflicted.
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Copsi was a Northumbrian magnate in late Anglo-Saxon England. He was a supporter of Tostig and was exiled along with him in 1065. He fled to Orkney, then part of Norway. He returned the next year (1066) when he joined Tostig at Sandwich in Kent with 17 ships. He survived Tostig's defeat at Stamford Bridge and when William the Conqueror prevailed at Hastings, he went down in March 1067 to Barking where William was staying while his tower was being constructed in London and did homage. In return, William made him earl of Northumbria and sent him back to York. He lasted five weeks before he was murdered by Osulf, son of Earl Eadulf III of the ancient Bernician family which had once ruled from Bamburgh, at Newburn-upon-Tyne. Osulf ruled as earl until the Autumn.
I knew what Northumbria was. Fuck the rest of that shit.
I am, however, naming my first kid Tostig Osulf Eadulf. We will live in Sandwich and summer in Barking.
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