King Ethelred's time--that is, not
later than 1016. Wharton gives 1019 as the date. Possibly the unsettled
state of the kingdom may have caused the abbey to be vacant for three
years.

At the Battle of Assendun, 1016, some of the monks of Ely, as well as
Ednod, Bishop of Dorchester, and the Abbot of Ramsey, were slain. The
Ely monks took with them to the camp the relics of S. Wendreda, which
were there lost and never recovered. Canute is thought to have acquired
them, and to have bestowed them upon the Church of Canterbury. The body
of Bishop Ednod was brought to Ely, with the intention of taking it on
to Ramsey, where he had been abbot, for interment. But when the body
arrived at Ely it was buried privately by night in the church.

Of #Leofwin#, called also Oschitel (1019?-1022), who is given in the
lists as the third abbot, nothing whatever is known, except that he was
deposed by the monks, and reinstated, after a journey to Rome, by the
pope.

His successor, #Leofric# (1022-1029), who had been prior, is
remembered only as being abbot when Archbishop Wulstan of York and
Bishop Alfwin of Elmham were buried at Ely, and when divers possessions
were acquired by gift or bequest of a certain Countess Godiva.

#Leofsin# (1029-1045), like his predecessor, was appointed by King
Canute. Canute was much in the eastern counties; and he is said to have
made a point, when possible, of keeping the Feast of the Purification at
Ely, that being the date on which the abbot's turn as chancellor
commenced. It was on one of these occasions, while coming by water with
his queen and nobles, that the remarkable incident occurred of his
hearing the monks singing in the distance, and breaking out himself into
verse. Four lines of his song have been preserved.[9] The Latin of
them, as given in the "Liber Eliensis," runs thus:

"Dulce cantaverunt monachi in Ely
Dum Canutus rex navigaret prope ibi,
Nunc milites navigate propius ad terram,
Et simul audiamus monachorum harmoniam."

The incident has attracted many writers, and not a few poems have been
written upon it. Wordsworth's sonnet on the subject commences:

"A pleasant music floats along the mere.
From monks in Ely chanting service high,
While as Canute the king is rowing by:
'My oarsmen,' quoth the mighty king, 'draw near,
That we the sweet song of the monks may hear.'"

And in a ballad upon Chelsea, a quarter of New York where the General
Theological Seminary o