Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/349

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Gundulf
341
Gunn

have been liked by Rufus, who gave him the manor of Lambeth to make up for the expense brought upon him by the siege of Rochester Castle during the rebellion of 1088 (Vita). When Rufus had recovered from his severe sickness in 1093, the bishop one day while talking familiarly with him expressed a hope that he would lead a better life, to which the king replied with a strange piece of blasphemy. In the council held at Rockingham in March on the questions at issue between the king and Anselm, Gundulf was the only bishop who abstained from disowning the primate (S. Anselmi Vita II., iii. 24). He was present at the dedication of Gloucester Abbey on 15 July 1100. His name appears in attestation of the charter which Henry I published at the beginning of his reign. Henry treated him with marked respect, and his queen, Matilda, liked to talk with him, and caused him to baptise her son William. He is said to have remonstrated with the lords who rebelled against Henry, and to have convinced some among them of the evil of their conduct. In 1102 he assisted Gilbert, abbot of Westminster, to examine the body of the Confessor, and from pious motives tried to possess himself of a hair of the royal saint's beard, but found that he could not pull it out (Ailred, col.408). He was attended in his last illness by Anselm and Ralph, abbot of Seez, who succeeded him in his bishopric and afterwards became archbishop of Canterbury. He died on 7 March 1108 at the age of eighty-four, and was buried by Anselm in his cathedral church. The tomb said to be his, on the south side of the choir, near the altar, is composed of rough slabs of stone with neither inscription nor moulding to mark its age, but may perhaps contain his body (Bloxam, Gent. Mag. 1863, ii. 689). Gundulf's Bible, formerly at Amsterdam, and more recently in Sir Thomas Phillipps's collection, contains the inscription 'prima pars bibliæ per bonæ memoriæ Gundulphum Roffensem episcopum' (Hist. Lit. de la France, ix. 374). His holiness of character is generally recognised, and is amply proved by his long friendship with Anselm. He appears in the legend of Bishop Wulfstan's appeal to the Confessor as endeavouring at Lanfranc's order to pull the bishop's staff from the king's tomb (Ailred, col. 406), and in a story about the death of Rufus. The king has a dream; the bishop explains it to him, exhorts him to mend his ways, and gives him absolution (Benoit de Ste. More, l.40523 sqq.; Giraldus, De Instructione Principum, p. 174).

[Vita Gundulfi, Anglia Sacra, ii. 273 sqq. and Migne's Patrologia Lat. vol. clix. col. 813 sqq., by a contemporary monk of Rochester; Ernulf's Hist. Roffen. in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 336 sqq.; Thorpe's Registrum Roffense, p. 31; Epistolæ S. Anselmi, Eadmer, Vita S. Anselmi, Historia Novorum, Migne's Patrologia Lat. vols. clviii. clix.; for Gundulf's buildings, Clark in Old London, Archæological Institute, vol. 1866, p. 97; Clark's Mediæval Military Architecture, ii. 252, 291; Parker in Gent. Mag. 1863, ii. 255, and Freeman; Epp. Lanfranci, Chron. Beccenes, Vita Lanfranci, Giles's Patres Eccl. Anglic.; Ailred of Rievaulx. cols. 406, 408, in Twysden's Scriptores Decem; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, pp. 136, 137, Anglo Saxon Chron. App., Gervase of Canterbury, i. 367, ii. 376 (all Ro ls Ser.); Giraldus, De Instructione Principum, Anglia-Christiana Society; Benoit de Ste. More, ed. Fr. Michel; Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. iv. passim, and William Rufus, vols. i. and ii. passim.]

W. H.

GUNN, BARNABAS (d. 1753), organist and composer, was organist at Gloucester Cathedral, 1732 to 1740; and held a like office at St. Philip's and St. Martin's churches, Birmingham, probably from 1740 until 1753; while from about 1750 until 1753 he seems to have held a similar post at Chelsea Hospital. One Barnabas Gunn died, according to the books of Chelsea Hospital, early in 1753, and a Barnabas Gunn was buried at Birmingham 11 Feb. the same year. In the following April a new organist was appointed at St. Martin's, Birmingham. A Barnabas, son of Barnabas Gunn, buried at Birmingham in 1742, was probably a son of the organist. In Grove's 'Dictionary' two organists, named respectively Barnabas and Barnaby Gunn, appear, but there seems little doubt that these names are merely variations of the name of one person.

Gunn was a subscriber to Galliard's ‘Hymn of Adam and Eve,’ 1728. He published at Gloucester, 1736, a thin quarto volume, ‘Two Cantatas and Six Songs,’ prefaced by a poetical address, ‘to all lovers of musick,’ and a list of 464 subscribers, including the name of Handel and other musicians, and members of the choirs of Gloucester and Worcester. At Birmingham, in 1745, he brought out ‘Six Solos for Violin and Violoncello,’ and the musical setting of a hymn by Dr. Watts. In London he published ‘Six Setts of Lessons for the Harpsichord,’ and ‘Twelve English Songs, Serious and Humourous,’ written in a less pedantic vein than his instrumental music.

[Information kindly given by Dr. C. Lee Williams, Gloucester, the Rev. H. B. Bowlby, Birmingham, and the secretary to Chelsea Hospital; Bunce's Hist. of Old St. Martin's; Rimbault's notes to Lysons's Meetings of the Three Choirs, p. 37; British Museum Music Library; P. C. C. Admon. Act Book, 1753; Groves Dict. i. 611.]

L. M. M.