the reputed author of the Historia Monasterii Croylandensis, or History of the Monastery of Croyland, or as the place is now called Crowland, in Lincolnshire. The genuineness of this work was for several centuries undisputed; but the researches of modern antiquarians, and especially of Sir Francis Palgrave, have proved it to be a mere monkish invention of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, and in point of authenticity little better than a historical novel. The last portion of the work is occupied with an autobiography of the author. From it we learn that Ingulphus was born of English parents in the city of London. Educated at Westminster, he prosecuted his studies at Oxford, and surpassed all his fellow-students in his knowledge of the Aristotelic philosophy, and the rhetoric of Cicero. This distinction seems to have turned his head; for, according to his own account, he began from this time to despise the humble roof of his father, and afflicting the palaces of kings or princes, to be invested and clothed in soft and splendid raiment. In the year 1051 William of Normandy came over to England on Inhibition, a visit to the Confessor, and Ingulphus, who had been for many years past a special favourite of the Queen Editha, contrived to have himself introduced by her to her noble guest. The monk completely gained the favour of the Norman duke, who took him over in his train to France, and made him his secretary. His influence at the court of the Conqueror soon became unbounded, and Ingulphus confesses that he did not always use it discreetly. For several years his smiles were sought and his frowns dreaded by the courtiers. At the end of that time a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was proposed by the Archbishop of Mentz, and Ingulphus with thirty others of the Norman court determined to take part in it. Though the pilgrims arrived in safety at Constantinople, and were afterwards received with great kindness by the Patriarch Sophronius at Jerusalem, yet the expedition turned out in the end a very disastrous one. Ingulphus was only too glad to return in safety to Normandy, where he became a monk in the abbey of Fontenelle. In this quiet retreat he remained till 1075, when he was invited over to his own country by his former benefactor (who had by this time established himself on the throne of England), and was instituted as Abbot of Croyland, where he remained till his death, December 19th, 1109. His influence with the Conqueror enabled him to secure for that abbey many valuable privileges and immunities, besides the reconstruction and enlargement of the building itself, which had been destroyed in the year 870 by the Danes.

The Historia Monasterii Croylandensis, was first published in an imperfect form by Sir Henry Savile in his Scriptores Rerum Anglicarum post Bedam, Lond, 1596. The MS. from which he printed was an incomplete copy, breaking off at the place where the French text of the laws of William the Conqueror is introduced. The history and fate of this MS. are quite unknown. Ingulphus' autograph was, after the dissolution of the monasteries, kept in the church of Croyland, where it was guarded with great care in a chest locked with three keys, which were entrusted to the churchwardens of the parish. Selden endeavoured, but in vain, to get access to the treasure, and when Fulman made inquiries for it, he learned that it was not to be found. Of the three copies of the autograph which once existed, the first was that imperfect one used by Sir Henry Savile; the second was the property of Marsham, and was the basis of Fulman's edition; the third, from which Selden published the laws of the Conqueror, belonged to the Cottonian Library, and perished in the fire which destroyed so many other valuable MSS. Of these three the most complete was Marsham's, which was printed entire along with the continuation by Peter of Blois in the Rerum Anglicarum Scriptorium veterum Tomus Primus, Oxford, 1684. Ingulphus' work, as its name implies, is a history of the Abbey of Croyland from the year 664 to 1089; while the continuation brings it down to 1117. In addition to the simple annals of the monks, however, it is in some sort a political history of the time, and contains many long and important charters of Edgar and his successors. The many curious anecdotes, incidents, and episodes, too, which it embodies, combined to make it one of the most interesting relics of the middle ages. Its authenticity, however, has been fairly disproved, and the continuation by Peter of Blois, must also be given up as the monkish figment of a later date. The demonstration, both from internal and external evidence of the forgery, as given by Sir F. Palgrave, is too minute and detailed to be quoted. It is given in full in his article on Anglo-Saxon History in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiv., to which we are indebted for many of the details in the foregoing notice.