In a letter to Pope Paschal (Epp. iv. 2) Anselm seems quite carried out of his usual mildness of speech by the thought of Flambard, especially by the thought of his being made a bishop. The letter must have been written just after Paschal and Flambard had received their several promotions. We get the same derivation of the name as in our other extracts; “Quando de Anglia exivi, erat ibi quidem professione sacerdos [see p. 330], non solum publicanus, sed etiam publicanorum princeps infamissimus, nomine Ranulphus, propter crudelitatem similem flammæ comburenti, promine Flambardus; cujus flamma qualis sit, non in Anglia solum, sed in exteris regnis longe lateque innotuit.”

Lappenberg, in the passage quoted above, refers to Thierry’s wonderful account of Flambard (ii. 141);

“Renouf Flambard, évêque de Lincoln, autrefois valet de pied chez les ducs de Normandie, commettait, dans son diocèse, de tels brigandages, que les habitants souhaitaient de mourir, dit un ancien historien, plutôt que de vivre sous sa puissance.”

I cannot find that Thierry speaks of Flambard anywhere else. The “valet de pied” must come from the bit in Orderic about the “pedissequi curiales.” The rest, including the wonderful confusion which makes him bishop of Lincoln, comes, as Lappenberg points out, from a passage in the Winchester Annals, 1092 (cf. 1097), which I shall presently have to refer to. But it is really amazing that Flambard’s loss of property in the New Forest did not cause him to be brought in at some stage or other as an oppressed Saxon.

NOTE T. Vol. i. p. 333.

The Official Position of Randolf Flambard.

The exact formal position held by Flambard under William Rufus has in some measure to be guessed at, as the rhetoric of our authorities sometimes veils such matters in rather vague language. Thus his biographer (Anglia Sacra, i. 706) describes him;

“Admixtus enim causis regaliorum negotiorum, cum esset acrioris ingenii et promptioris linguæ, brevi in tantum excrevit ut adepta apud regem familiaritas totius Angliæ potentes et natu quoque nobiliores illum superferret. Totius namque regni procurator constitutus, interdum insolentius accepta abutens potestate, cum negotiis regis pertinacius insisteret, plures offendere parvi pendebat. Quæ res multorum ei invidiam et odium contraxerat. Crebris accusationibus serenum animi regalis ei obnubilare, et locum familiaritatis conabantur interrumpere.”

Here we have a vague description of a position of great influence, without the bestowal of any official title whatever. Orderic (678 B), in first introducing him, comes somewhat nearer to a formal description;

“His temporibus quidam clericus nomine Rannulfus familiaritatem Rufi regis adeptus est, et super omnes regios officiales ingeniosis accusationibus et multifariis adulationibus magistratum a rege consecutus est.”