Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford / A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See

by A. Hugh Fisher

He obtained a decree in his favour from Pope Martin IV., but died on the homeward journey on August 25th, 1282.[pg 011] He was buried in the church of St. Severus, near Florence; but his bones having been divided from the flesh by boiling, were later carried to England and solemnly placed in the Lady Chapel of the cathedral. It is said that the Earl of Gloucester, with whom Bishop Cantilupe had had the dispute about the chace, attended the ceremony, and that blood began to flow from the bones when he approached the casket containing them; upon which the Earl immediately restored the property he had taken unjustly from the church.

Forty years later Bishop Cantilupe was canonised. It is said, amongst other evidences of his saintliness, that he never allowed his sister to kiss him. Three hundred sick people are said to have been cured at the place of his interment, and so many candles were presented by the crowds of visitors that Luke de Bray, the treasurer of the cathedral, had a dispute with the prebendaries as to the value of the wax, two-thirds being finally assigned to the treasurer and one-third to the prebendaries.

After five years Bishop Cantilupe's bones were removed to the Chapel of St. Katherine, in the north-west transept, on Maundy Thursday, April 6th, 1287, in presence of King Edward I. They were again twice moved in the sixteenth century to the Lady Chapel and back again to the north-west transept.

The building of the chapter-house may have spread over some part of Cantilupe's episcopate, and probably part of the cloisters were erected about this time.

The miracles said to have been wrought at the shrine of St. Cantilupe are both many and various. More than sixty-six dead people are said to have been restored to life. The saint's intervention appears to have been extended even to animals, as we find that King Edward I. twice sent sick falcons to be cured at this tomb. So great was the reverence for the saint that the See of Hereford was allowed by the Crown to change its armorial bearings for the arms of Cantilupe, which all its bishops have since borne.

Bishop Cantilupe was succeeded by his devoted chaplain, Richard Swinfield, an excellent preacher and a man of agreeable manners. Bishop Swinfield, like his predecessor, stoutly vindicated the rights and discipline of his diocese, once against a layman for taking forcible possession of a vacant benefice,[pg 012] another time against a lady for imprisoning a young clergyman in her castle on a false charge, and also against the people of Ludlow for violating the right of sanctuary, and in many cases against abuses of all sorts. On one occasion Pontius de Cors, a nephew of Bishop Aquablanca, who had obtained from the Pope the provision of the prebend of Hinton, interrupted the installation of Robert de Shelving appointed by Bishop Swinfield, gained admission to the cathedral with an accomplice, and was formally installed by him in spite of the remonstrance of the Chapter. He held his place by force of arms during that day and the next, but later submitted to the Bishop.

Bishop Swinfield was probably the builder of the nave-aisles and of the two easternmost transepts. This amounted to a remodelling of the work of De Vere. The bases of his piers and responds were retained and may still be seen, and upon the former octagonal columns were erected to carry the vaulting. The windows were altered throughout. It was in his time that the "Mappa Mundi," the curious map of the world designed by Richard of Haldingham of Battle in Sussex, a prebendary of Hereford in 1305, now preserved in the cathedral, came into possession of the Chapter.

Richard Haldingham was a great friend of Bishop Swinfield, and when it was necessary for him to send representatives to a provincial Council in London, A.D. 1313, Haldingham was deputed to attend with Adam of Orleton, a place belonging to the Mortimers of Wigmore in the north-east of Herefordshire.

Three years later (1316), on the death of Bishop Swinfield at his chief residence, Bosbury, Adam of Orleton succeeded him in the bishopric.

King Edward II. was not jubilant over the appointment of a friend of Roger Mortimer to this important position, and, failing to persuade Adam to decline the bishopric, he appealed to the Pope, begging him to cancel the appointment, but with no more success. The fortunes of the Bishop of Hereford became identified with the Queen, whom he joined on her return from France with her eldest son. It was at Hereford that this youth, then fourteen years of age, was appointed guardian of the kingdom under the direction of his mother.