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

by C. H. B. Quennell

Herbert was a prelate of a type that in the early days helped to build up the Church and give her stability. His nature must have been curiously complex; on the one hand, a man of action and with great capability of administration, often justifying his means by the end he had in view, and not being debarred from realising his schemes by any delicate scruples, he yet, on the other hand, presents in his letters a chastened spirituality that is not compatible with the methods he pursued when thinking only of the temporal advantages which might accrue on any certain line of action. But it may be said that his letters appear to date from the later period of his life, and after he had founded the cathedral as an expiation of that sin of simony he appears to have so deeply repented.

Yet in the earlier period, which we shall note, he was emphatically the man of action, the typical administrator, who, mixing freely in the political life of the times, was strengthening the position of the Church, and gradually leading her up to that position, which she ultimately gained, of Arbitress of Kings and Empires.

He had also a morbid belief in the power of money—he probably would have agreed that "every man has his price," and his simoniacal dealings with William Rufus, which procured his preferment to Norwich, afford evidence of this weak trait in his character.

Herbert's birthplace is disputed, and, as Dean Goulburn remarked, this is but natural: a man so justly celebrated would not, or, rather, historians will not be content with one; so that though he cannot rival Homer in that seven cities desired to be accredited each as his birthplace, yet Herbert falls not far short, and this fact alone will perhaps give some idea of his popularity during his life, and the interest then aroused which has lasted down to our own times. From a small pamphlet issued by the dean and chapter in 1896, and containing extracts from the Registrum Primum, we learn that "In primis Ecclesiam prefatam fundavit piae memoriae Herbertus Episcopus, qui Normanniae in pago Oximensi natus." First Herbert, the bishop, of pious memory, who was born in Normandy, in the district of Oximin (or Exmes).

This seems very credible, and the old monkish chronicler who was responsible for the Registrum Primum and its rugged Latin, may have had authentic proof of the truth of his assertion. The manuscript dates from the thirteenth century, and no considerable period, historically considered, had then passed since Herbert had been one of the prime movers of the religious and political life of the day.

Blomefield, the antiquary, attributed to him a Suffolk extraction, and then again spoke of his Norman descent: thus agreeing in some measure with the Registrum Primum. And again, another idea is that he was born in the hundred of Hoxne, where he possessed property, and his father before him.

Herbert had, we know, received his education in Normandy, and had taken his vows at, and ultimately had risen to be prior of, the Abbey of Fécamp in Normandy; and it was while vigorously administering this office that he received an invitation from William Rufus to come to England, being offered as an inducement the appointment of Abbot of Ramsey.

And no doubt from this period the spiritual side of his duties must of necessity have been somewhat neglected. From the position of prior of Fécamp, his circle of power limited to the neighbourhood of his priory, and his duties rounded by the due observance of the rules of his order, he was given at once the administration of what was one of the richest abbeys in England, and attained at once the power of a great feudal lord. He was Sewer to William Rufus as well, an office endowed with fees and perquisites, and so to Herbert came the temptation of accumulating wealth for his own ambitious ends. It was not, however, the sin of a small man: he introduced no personal element into his greed, but rather thought of his party and his Church, although, of necessity, an environment so purely temporal told on the spiritual side of his character. It might be best to connect the links of the East Anglian bishoprics here, although in the notes on the diocese the matter is gone into at more length.

Herbert de Losinga was the first bishop of Norwich, to which town the see was transferred in compliance with a decree of Lanfranc's Synod, held in 1075, that all sees should be fixed at the principal towns in their dioceses.

Felix was the first bishop of East Anglia, and fixed his see at Dunwich in 630.