The Early Life of Randolf Flambard.
I quoted some of the passages bearing on the early life of Randolf Flambard in N. C. vol. iv. p. 521. I mentioned there that he had a brother named Osbern, who appears in the Abingdon History. He had another brother Fulcher, of whom we shall hear again. See Ord. Vit. 788 D, and vol. ii. p. 416. He had also a son Thomas. I do not feel quite so sure as I did then, or as Dr. Stubbs seems to be (Const. Hist. i. 348), that he really did hold lands in England T. R. E. The entry which looks like it is the second of the three in Domesday, 51, which stands thus in full;
“Isdem Ranulfus tenuit in ipsa villa i. hidam, et pro tanto se defendebat T. R. E. modo est tota in foresta exceptis iiii. acris prati terra fuit iiii. carucatarum. Hæ duæ terræ valebant iiii. libras.”
It appears then that Flambard lost the arable part of this hide at the making of the New Forest, as he also lost another hide, with the same exception of four acres of meadow, which had been held T. R. E. by one Alwold. A third hide, of which it is said that “duo alodiarii tenuerunt,” he kept, as well as his holdings in Oxford and Oxfordshire. Dr. Stubbs suggests that these lands were “possibly acquired in the service of the Norman Bishop William of London.” Sir F. Palgrave (England and Normandy, iv. 52) makes the most of this despoiling of a Norman holder. But I am not clear that the words of the entry which I have given in full necessarily imply that the land was held by Flambard himself T. R. E. And, if we need not suppose this, his story becomes a great deal simpler. Above all, we need no longer suppose that a man who lived till 1128, and whose mother was living in 1100 (see [vol. ii. p. 398]), had made himself of importance enough to receive grants of land at some time before 1066.
The account of Flambard which is given by Orderic (678 C) would certainly not suggest that he had been in England in the time of Eadward;
“Hic de obscura satis et paupere parentela prodiit, et multum ultra natales suos ad multorum detrimentum sublimatus intumuit. Turstini cujusdum plebeii presbyteri de pago Bajocensi filius fuit, et a puerilibus annis inter pedissequos curiales cum vilibus parasitis educatus crevit, callidisque tergiversationibus et argutis verborum machinationibus plusquam arti literatoriæ studuit. Et quia semetipsum in curia magni regis Guillermi arroganter illustribus præferre ardebat, nesciente non jussus, multa inchoabat, infestus in aula regis plures procaciter accusabat, temereque majoribus quasi regia vi fultus imperabat.”
It is not easy to reconcile this with the version which makes Flambard pass into the King’s service from that of Bishop Maurice, who did not become bishop till Christmas, 1085. The story of his service with Maurice appears in the account of him which is printed in Anglia Sacra (i. 705), and also along with Simeon (249 ed. Bedford, and X Scriptt. 59). It is much more likely that the name of the bishop should be wrongly given than that his service with some bishop of London should be mere invention. If so, he may have passed into the service of the Conqueror at almost any time of his reign, while still so young that it becomes an easy exaggeration on the part of Orderic to say that he was in the King’s service from his childhood. The passage in the Life which continues Simeon stands thus;
“Fuerat autem primo cum Mauritio Lundoniensi episcopo; sed propter decaniam sibi ablatam orto discidio, spe altioris loci se transtulit ad regem.”
This must surely refer to something which really happened; and in the Register of Christchurch Twinham (Mon. Angl. vi. 303) we distinctly read of Flambard, “qui Randulphus antea fuerat decanus in ecclesia Christi de Twynham.” But this is directly followed by another extract from the same register which denies that the heads of the church of Twinham ever bore the title of dean, and which connects Flambard with Twinham in quite another way. According to this story, there were at Twinham in the time of William Rufus twenty-four canons under a chief named Godric (“Hunc Godricum sui tunc temporis clerici, non pro decano, quasi nominis ignorantes, sed pro seniore ac patrono venerabantur”). Flambard, already bishop of Durham, obtains a grant of Twinham and its church from William Rufus (“Randulfus episcopus hanc ecclesiam cum villa a rege Willielmo impetravit”). If I rightly understand a very corrupt text, Flambard enriches the church and designs to rebuild it, and then to put in monks instead of canons; meanwhile he keeps the prebends vacant as they fall in. This Godric opposes; but in the end Flambard rebuilds the church, and keeps the prebends in his own hands till there are only thirteen left. Then comes his own banishment, and the grant of the church to one Gilbert de Dousgunels, after which Flambard seems to have had nothing more to do with it.
It is odd that so many prebends should have become vacant in the single year during which Flambard held the bishopric for the first time, and one would not have expected him to have been a favourer of monks. But I can get no other meaning out of the words “cupiens et disponens … præfatam ecclesiam … funditus eruere, et meliorem decentioremque cuilibet ædificare religioni.” What comes after seems plainer still;