Spearhafoc

Spearhafoc
Bishop of London-elect
Appointed	1051
Term ended	1052
Predecessor	Robert of Jumièges
Successor	William the Norman
Orders
Consecration	never consecrated
Personal details
Denomination	Christian

Spearhafoc, a name meaning "sparrowhawk" in Old English (Speraver in Latin), was an eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon artist and Benedictine monk, whose artistic talent was apparently the cause of his rapid elevation to Abbot of Abingdon in 1047–48 and Bishop-Elect of London in 1051. After his consecration as bishop was thwarted, he vanished with the gold and jewels he had been given to make into a crown for King Edward the Confessor, and was never seen again. He was also famous for a miracle, on which his end perhaps casts a different light.

Spearhafoc was a monk at Bury St Edmunds Abbey, who according to several sources, including the Norman chronicler Goscelin, who knew him personally, "was outstanding in painting, gold-engraving and goldsmithery", the painting very likely mainly in illuminated manuscripts. It was probably his artistic work which brought into contact with the royal family and the Godwins. King Edward the Confessor imposed him as Abbot of Abingdon following the death of Æthelstan on 29 March of either 1047 or 1048. In 1051 Edward promoted him to Bishop of London, but upon the return of the previous Bishop of London, Robert of Jumièges, newly elevated to Archbishop of Canterbury, from his trip to Rome to receive his pallium, Robert refused to consecrate Spearhafoc, claiming that Pope Leo IX had forbidden it. After a stalemate "all that summer and autumn", with an unconsecrated Spearhafoc in possession of the see, the fall of Earl Godwin in September 1051, with whom Spearhafoc seems to have been allied, precipitated matters. Spearhafoc was expelled from London, and fled abroad, taking with him the gold and gems intended for King Edward's crown, as well as treasure from the London diocesan stores, stuffed into "very many bags":

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