By the charter which incorporated the chapter of Wells, Robert also settled portions of the estate, or prebends, on the twenty-two canons, and founded the offices of dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, sub-dean, provost, and sub-chanter, all of which, except the two last, still exist.
After an interval of eight years, Reginald de Bohun or Fitz-Jocelin, the Archdeacon of Sarum, was consecrated Bishop of Bath (1174-1191). Immediately afterwards he induced the monk who was soon to become famous as St. Hugh of Lincoln, to leave the Grande Chartreuse, and to come to England as prior of the first English charter-house. He built the greater part of the present nave transepts and choir; for this end he made large gifts to the fabric fund, and collected gifts from others. He also extended the privileges of the town, and increased both the endowment and the number of the prebends.
Savaric, Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury (1192-1205), a relation of the Emperor Henry VI. In 1191 he started with Richard I. for the Holy Land. At Messina, though not yet in priest's orders, he obtained private letters from the king sanctioning his appointment to any bishopric to which he might be elected. Bishop Reginald was a kinsman of his, and, on his election to Canterbury, he obtained the vote of the convent of Bath for Savaric. The Justiciar gave at once the royal sanction, in spite of the protests of the canons of Wells, who had not been consulted. Savaric had meanwhile wisely established himself at Rome, and was able to obtain the Pope's consent. He was consecrated priest one day and bishop the next, but he still remained abroad.
Savaric, supported by the authority of King John, broke into Glastonbury with soldiers, starved and beat the monks, and, with great violence, established himself in possession.
His biography was compressed in a clever epigram:—
"Hospes erat mundo per mundum semper eundo,
Sic suprema dies fit sibi prima quies,"
admirably translated by Canon Bernard:
"Through the world travelling, all the world's guest,
His last day of life was his first day of rest."
Yet he was the first to institute the daily mass of Our Lady, as well as that for the faithful departed, in Wells Cathedral.
Jocelin Troteman de Welles, Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, and after 1219 Bishop of Bath (1206-1242), is, after Ken, the most famous of Wells worthies. He came from a local stock, and spent all his time and money on the cathedral church, first as canon, then as bishop for thirty-six years. In 1208, when Pope Innocent III. laid England under an interdict, the bishop published it in his own diocese, and then fled the country, leaving his estates to be seized by John. On John's submission to the Pope in 1213, he returned, and two years later stood by Stephen Langton at Runnymede, putting his name as Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury to Magna Charta. When John was dead it was Jocelin who administered the oath to Henry III. at his coronation.