William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the Kings of England / From the earliest period to the reign of King Stephen

by of Malmesbury William

[A.D. 1139.] COUNCIL AT OXFORD.

A great assembly of the nobles being held at Oxford about the eighth before the kalends of July, the prelates above-mentioned also repaired thither. The bishop of Salisbury set out on this expedition with great reluctance; for I heard him speaking to the following purport: “By my lady St. Mary, I know not why, but my heart revolts at this journey: this I am sure of, that I shall be of much the same service at court, as a foal is in battle:” thus did his mind forbode future evils. Here, as though fortune would seem subservient to the king’s wishes, a quarrel arose between the servants of the bishops and those of Alan, earl of Brittany, about a right to quarters, which had a melancholy termination; as the bishop of Salisbury’s retainers, then sitting at table, left their meal unfinished and rushed to the contest. At first, they contended with reproaches, afterwards with swords. The domestics of Alan were put to flight, and his nephew nearly killed: nor was the victory gained without bloodshed on the bishops’ side; for many were wounded, and one knight[555] even slain. The king, eagerly seizing the opportunity, ordered the bishops to be convened by his old instigators, that they might make satisfaction to his court, as their people had infringed his peace: that this satisfaction should be, the delivery of the keys of their castles, as pledges of their fidelity. Though prepared to make compensation, they hesitated at the surrender of their fortresses; and in consequence, lest they should depart, he ordered them into close confinement. He therefore conducted bishop Roger, unfettered, but the chancellor, the nephew, or as it was reported, more than the nephew,[556] of the bishop, in chains, to Devizes; a castle, erected at great and almost incalculable expense, not, as the prelate himself used to say, for the ornament, but as the real fact is, to the detriment of the church. At the first summons, the castles of Salisbury, Sherborne, and Malmesbury were yielded to the king. Devizes also surrendered at the end of three days, after the bishop had voluntarily enjoined himself abstinence from all food, that, by his personal sufferings, he might subdue the spirit of the bishop of Ely, who had taken possession[557] of it. Nor did the bishop of Lincoln act more perseveringly; for he purchased his liberty by the surrender of his castles of Newark and Sleaford.

This transaction of the king’s gave rise to the expression of many different opinions. Some observed, that the bishops were justly dispossessed of their castles, as they had built them in opposition to the injunction of the canons: they ought to be glad preachers of peace, not builders of houses which might be a refuge for the contrivers of evil. Such was the doctrine enforced with ampler reasons and discourses, by Hugo, archbishop of Rouen: as far as his eloquence extended, the strenuous champion of the king. Others took the opposite side of the question. This party was espoused by Henry, bishop of Winchester, legate of England from the papal see, and brother to king Stephen, as I have said before, whom no fraternal affection, no fear of danger, could turn aside from the path of truth. He spake to this effect: “If the bishops had in anything overpassed the bounds of justice, the judging them did not pertain to the king, but to the ecclesiastical canons: that they ought not to be deprived of any possession but by a public and ecclesiastical council: that the king had not acted from zealous regard to right, but with a view to his own advantage; as he had not restored the castles to the churches, at whose expense, and on whose land they were built, but had delivered them to laymen, and those by no means of religious character.” Though the legate made these declarations not only privately, but publicly also before the king, and urged him to the liberation and restitution of the bishops, yet, being entirely disregarded, he lost his labour. In consequence, deeming it proper to resort to canonical power, he summoned his brother, without delay, to be present at a council he intended to hold at Winchester, on the fourth before the kalends of September.

[A.D. 1139.] COUNCIL AT WINCHESTER.

On the appointed day, almost all the bishops of England, with Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, who had succeeded William, came to Winchester. Thurstan, archbishop of York, excused himself, on account of the malady with which he was afflicted; for he was so enfeebled, as to be hardly able to guide his steps: the others apologized for their absence, by letter, on account of the war. The bull of pope Innocent was first read in the council, whereby, even from the kalends of March, if I rightly remember, he had enjoined the administration of his anxious charge to the lord bishop of Winchester, as legate in England. This was received with much good-will, as the bishop had shown his forbearance by the lapse of time, and had not proclaimed himself legate with precipitate vanity. Next followed, in the council, his address, in the Latin tongue, directed to the learned, on the disgraceful detention of the bishops: “of whom the bishop of Salisbury had been seized in a chamber of the palace, Lincoln in his lodgings, and Ely, fearing a similar treatment, had escaped the calamity by a hasty retreat to Devizes:” he observed, “that it was a dreadful crime, that the king should be so led away by sinister persons, as to have ordered violent hands to be laid on his subjects, more especially bishops, in the security of his court: that, to the king’s disgrace was to be added the offence against God, in despoiling the churches of their possessions, under pretext of the criminality of the prelates: that, the king’s outrage against the law of God, was matter of such pain to him, that he had rather himself suffer grievous injury, both in person and property, than have the episcopal dignity so basely humiliated; moreover, that the king, being repeatedly admonished to amend his fault, had, at last, not refused that the council should be summoned: that therefore, the archbishop and the rest should deliberate what was proper to be done; and he would not be wanting to execute the sentence of the council, either through regard to the friendship of the king, who was his brother, or loss of property, or even danger of life.”

When he had gradually expatiated on these matters, the king, not distrusting his cause, sent certain[558]earls into the council to demand wherefore he was summoned. The legate briefly replied, “that, when he recollected he was in subjection to the faith of Christ, he ought not to be displeased, if, when guilty of a crime, such as the present age had never witnessed, he was required, by the ministers of Christ, to make satisfaction: that it was the act of heathen nations to imprison bishops, and divest them of their possessions: that they should tell his brother, therefore, that if he would deign a patient assent to his advice, he would give him such, by the authority of God, as neither the church of Rome, nor the French king’s court, nor even earl Theobald, their common brother, a man of surpassing sense and piety, could reasonably oppose; but such as they ought favourably to embrace: that, at present, the king would act advisedly, if he would either account for his conduct, or submit to canonical judgment: it was, moreover, a debt he owed, to favour the church, by whose fostering care, not by military force, he had been promoted to the kingdom.” The earls retiring after this speech, returned shortly with an answer prepared. They were accompanied by one Alberic de Ver, a man deeply versed in legal affairs. He related the king’s answer, and aggravated as much as possible the case of bishop Roger, for bishop Alexander had departed; but this he did with moderation, and without using opprobrious language, though some of the earls, standing by, repeatedly interrupted his harangue by casting reproaches on the bishop.

The sum of what Alberic had to allege, was as follows: “That bishop Roger had greatly injured king Stephen; that he seldom came to court, but his people, presuming on his power, excited tumults; that they had, frequently at other places and very lately at Oxford, attacked the attendants, and even the very nephew of earl Alan, as well as the servants of Hervey de Lyons, a man of such high nobility, and so extremely haughty, that he had never deigned to visit England though king Henry had invited him; that the injury, therefore, of such violence having been offered him, doubly recoiled on king Stephen, through respect to whom he had come hither; that the bishop of Lincoln had been the author of the tumult excited by his followers from ancient enmity to Alan; that the bishop of Salisbury secretly favoured the king’s enemies, though he disguised his subtlety for the moment; that the king had discovered this beyond all doubt, from many circumstances, more especially, however, from the said bishop’s having refused permission to Roger de Mortimer with the king’s soldiers whom he was conducting, when under the greatest apprehensions from the garrison of Bristol, to continue even a single night at Malmesbury; that it was in every person’s mouth, that, as soon as the empress should arrive, he would join her party, with his nephews and their castles; that Roger, in consequence, was made captive, not as a bishop but as the king’s servant who had administered his affairs and received his wages; that the king had not taken their castles by violence, but that both bishops had surrendered them voluntarily to escape the punishment due to the disturbance they had excited in the court; that the king had found some trifling sums of money in the castles which must lawfully belong to himself, as bishop Roger had collected it from the revenues of the exchequer in the times of his uncle and predecessor king Henry; that the bishop had readily relinquished this money as well as the castles through consciousness of his offences, of which the king did not want for witnesses; that, therefore, he was willing that the conditions entered into by himself and the bishops should remain in force.”

It was rejoined by bishop Roger, in opposition to the speech of Alberic, that he had never been the minister of king Stephen; nor had he received his wages. This spirited man, too, who blushed at being cast down by adversity, threatened, that if he could not have justice for the property which had been wrested from him, in that council, he would seek it in the audience of a higher court. The legate mildly, as usual, observed that every allegation against the bishops ought to be made and the truth of it inquired into in an ecclesiastical court, before passing sentence, contrary to the canons, on innocent persons; that the king ought therefore to do as was incumbent in civil courts, that is, re-invest the bishops with their own property, otherwise, being disseized, by the law of nations, they will not plead.

Many arguments of this kind being used on both sides, the cause, at the king’s request, was adjourned to the next day; then, on the morrow, prolonged still a day farther till the arrival of the archbishop of Rouen.

When he came, while all were anxious to hear what he had to allege, he said he was willing to allow the bishops their castles if they could prove by the canons that they ought justly to possess them; but as they were not able to do this it was the height of impudence to contend against the canons. “And admitting,” said he, “that it be just for them to possess castles, yet most assuredly, as the times are eventful, all chiefs, after the custom of other nations, ought to deliver up the keys of their fortifications to the will of the king, who is bound to wage war for the common security.” Thus the whole plea of the bishops was shaken: for, either according to the decrees of the canons, it was unjust for them to have castles, or, if that were allowed by the king’s indulgence, they ought to yield to the emergency of the times, and give up the keys.