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I. The Norman Episcopate before the Norman Conquest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

David Douglas
David Douglas
Affiliation:
Professor of History, University of Bristol
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Extract

The quality of the Norman impact upon England in the eleventh century has occupied the attention of generations of historians. Nevertheless it is hoped that some adequate apology may be found for the subject of this paper. Certainly, however, the topic I have chosen calls for strict delimitation. No attempt is made here to reopen the time honoured comparison between the Norman and Old English Churches in the earlier half of the eleventh century. Indeed I wish wholly to avoid that controversial theme—and for a particular reason. Most of those who have been concerned to emphasize the importance of the Norman Church at this period have concentrated their attention—and obviously rightly—on the monastic revival which swept through the Norman Duchy at this time. Perhaps, however, the Norman bishops of this period also merit some particular attention. For these men, put properly into the shade by their monastic contemporaries, have had a very bad press from historians. Doubtless, they deserved it. Nevertheless, it might be to the advantage of Anglo-Norman studies if the Norman episcopate between 1035 and 1066 were to be studied a little more fully for its own sake. At all events, these bishops and their work form the restricted subject of this very tentative discourse.

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Articles
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Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , 1957 , pp. 101 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1957

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References

1 Cf. Douglas, D., Norman Conquest and British Historian (Glasgow, 1946).Google Scholar

2 Cf. Knowles, Dom D., The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge, 1949), esp. ch. v.Google Scholar

3 Gall[ia] Christ[iana], XI (1874), passim.

4 Cf. de Glanville, L., Hist[oire du Prieuré de] Saint-Lô [de Rouen], I (Rouen, 1890), 212–24.Google Scholar

5 Gall. Christ. XI, cols. 474, 629, 735; Chesnel, P., Le Cotentin et l'Avranchin sous les ducs de Normandie (911–1204) (Caen, 1912), 181.Google Scholar

6 Willftam of] Jumieges, Gesta Normannorum ducum (ed. Marx, J., Soc[iété de l'] Hist[oire de] Norm[andie], 1914).Google Scholar

7 Particularly in respect of the succession at Éivreux, and the date of the accession of Archbishop Maurilius.

8 Cf. David Douglas, Rise of Normandy (British Academy, Proceedings, XXXIII, 17–22).

9 Robert and Mauger.

10 Gall. Christ, XI, col. 766.

11 Ibid. cols. 352–6.

12 Ibid. cols. 475–76.

13 Ibid. cols. 870–2.

14 Ibid. cols. 680–2.

15 Ibid. col. 571. Gerard Flaitel himself became a monk at Saint-Wandrille between 1038 and 1047, when in extreme old age (Lot, F., Études critiques sur l'abbaye de] Saint-Wandrille, (Paris, 1913), no. 22).Google Scholar Cf. also Wulframni, Inientto S. (Soc[iété de l'] Hist[oire de] Norm[andie], Melanges, XIV (1938), 46).Google Scholar

16 Information bearing on the problem of the relationship between Radbod, bishop of Seez (occ. 1025, 1032), William, bishop of Évreux (c. 1043–66) and William ‘Bonne-Âme’, archbishop of Rouen (1079–1110), will be found in Brasseur, Le, Histoire civile et ecclésiastique du Comte d'Éireux (Paris, 1722), 90Google Scholar; Gurney, D., Record of the House of Gournay, I (London, 1845), 54, 55Google Scholar, and Prévost, A. Le, Mémoires et notes pour servir à l'histoire du département de l'Eure, III (Évreux, 1869), 106.Google Scholar

17 Cf. G H. White,’ The First House of Bellême’ in Royal Historical Society Transactions, 4th series, XII, 81.

18 J. H. Le Patourel, ‘Geoffrey of Montbray, Bishop of Coutances’ in E[nghsh] H[istorical] R[eview], LIX, 129ff.

19 He was born about 1029 (Douglas, D. C., The Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church Canterbury (London, 1944), 33).Google Scholar

20 Ordencus Vitalis interp. Will. Jumièges (ed. Marx), 170.

21 Guillaume de Poitiers, Histoire de Guillaume-le-Conquérant (ed. Foreville, Paris, 1952), 138.Google Scholar

22 Prentout, H., Histoire de Guillaume-le-Conquérant (Caen, 1936), 37.Google Scholar

23 Ord[ericus] Vit[alis], III, 263, Farrer, W., An outline itinerary of Henry I (London, 1919), no. 381.Google Scholar

24 Ord. Vit. III, 32–5.

25 “Ord. Vit. II, 367.

26 Gall. Christ, XI, col. 37.

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28 Gall. Christ, XI, Instr[umenta], col. 218.

29 Guillaume de Poitiers, op. cit. ed. R. Foreville, 138.

30 Will. Jumièges, op. cit. ed. Marx, 100, 102.

31 Ord. Vit. interp. Will. Jumièges, ed. Marx, 167.

32 Bessin, G., Concilia [Rotomagensis Provinciae] (Rouen, 1717), 46.Google Scholar

33 Ord. Vit. III, 406.

34 Lobineau, A., Histoire de Bretagne (Paris, 1707), 92.Google Scholar

35 Will. Jumièges, op. cit. ed. Marx, 87.

36 Guillaume de Poitiers, op. cit. ed. Foreville, 130.

37 Bessin, Concilia, 40.

38 Cf. Le Patourel, E.H.R. LIX, 129ff.

39 Ord. Vit. III, 265.

40 Ibid, and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘E‘, s.a. 1083.

41 Liber Vitae of Durham (Surtees Society, vol. 13), p. 139.

42 On the family see C. T. Clay, Yorkshire Archaelogical Journal, XXXI, 1–2.

43 Ord. Vit. II, 222: ‘Permixta, ni fallor, in hoc viro vitia erant cum virtutibus’.

44 Cart[ulaire de] S. Vincent du Mans, ed. Charles, R. and d'Elbenne, S. Menjot (Mamers, 1886), no. 834.Google Scholar

45 Ord. Vit. II, 71, 72.

46 Milo Crispin, Vita Lanfranci (Migne, Pat[rologia] Lat[ina], CL, col. 29).

47 Ord. Vit. II, 310.

48 Ed. Foreville, 136–42

49 Cf. Delamare, R., Le ‘De Officiis Ecclesiasticis de jean d' Avranches’ (Paris, 1923), p xxxiii.Google Scholar

50 Cf. Ord. Vit. II, 71–2, Gall. Christ, XI, Instr. cols. 217–29, Faucon, Essai historique sur le prieure de S. Vigor-le-Grand (Bayeux, 1861), 56–74.Google Scholar

51 The chief authority for Maunhus is the text known as Acta Archiepiscoporum Rotomagensium, which is printed in Migne, Pat. Lat. CXLVII, cols. 273–80, and in M Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, XI, 70–2. See also Vacandard in Revue catholique de Normandie, 1893, and 1903. He showed that the portion relating to Maurilius is a nearly contemporary text, whilst subsequent parts were added later by a monk of St Ouen.

52 Bodleian MS. Lat. 843.

53 Delamare, op. cit. xlix. The authorship of Maurilius is asserted in the MS.

54 Op. cit. LII.

55 The Abbé Sauvage doubted the attribution, and it would have been in keeping with a later writer to assign the origin of existing offices to a famous archbishop. The dignitaries cited are more in keeping with the later nomenclature of the Rouen chapter than with earlier practice (see below, pp. 112, 113). The matter may be left in suspense.

56 These were fully elucidated in the magisterial edition by Longnon, A.,—Pouillés [de la Province de Rouen] (Paris, 1903)—being part of the 4to continuation of ‘Dom Bouquet’.Google Scholar

57 Longnon, op. cit. passim.

58 Thompson, A. Hamilton, ‘Diocesan Organization in the Middle Ages’ (British Academy, Proceedings, XXIX (1943), 159).Google Scholar

59 Cart[ulaire de l'abbaye de] S. Père [de] Chartres, ed. Guérard, B. E. C. (Paris, 1840) 145–6Google Scholar; Cart[ulaire de l'abbaye de] S. Martin de Pontoise, ed. Depoin, J. (Pontoise, 1895–1901), 74Google Scholar, 98, 139; Lot, Saint-Wandrille, 125, 133 (nos. 70, 73); D. F. Pommeraye, [Sanctae] Rotomagensis Ecclesiae Concilia (Rouen, 1677), 131–3

60 The Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, ed. Barlow, F. (Camden 3rd Series, London, 1939), 178Google Scholar; De Glanville, op. cit. II, 340, Cartulary of Lisieux Cathedral printed in Études Lexoiiennes, III (1928), 328–9.Google Scholar

61 Antiq[uus] Cart[ularius Ecclesiae] Baioc[ensis], ed , Bournenne (Soc. Hist. Norm. 1902–1903), nos 52, 117; Bournenne, Philippe de Harcourt (1930), App. nos. 3 and 8.Google Scholar

62 Gall. Christ, XI, Instr. col. 76; Antiq. Cart. Baioc. nos. 22, 23.

63 Haskins, C. H., Norman Institutions (Cambridge, Mass 1918), 68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 Deville, E., Analyse d'un [ancien] Cartulaire de [l'abbaye de] St Etienne de Caen (Évreux, 1905). 36, 37Google Scholar

65 Le Patourel, op. cit. 142.

66 Gall. Christ, XI, col. 766.

67 Ibid col 766.

68 Pouillés, ed. Longnon, xlix.

69 Cart. S. Vincent du Mans, no. 845 in sancto sinodo Sagiensi, testibus archidiaconis Bauduino videlicet filio Etvaldi, et Rogeno Mauritaniensi, et Lamberto de Belismo, et Hermerio, et Fulcoio.

70 Pouillés, ed. Longnon, XXXVII; Antiq. Cart. Baioc. no. 22.

71 Pouillés, ed. Longnon, X, XI.

72 Lot, Saint-Wandrille, nos. 70, 73.

73 Pommeraye, Histoire ..Saint Ouen (Rouen, 1662), 426.

74 Longnon, op. cit. X, XI; Hamilton Thompson, op. cit. 162.

75 Cart. S. Père Chartres, 177.

76 Ibid. 176.

77 Gall. Christ, XI, Instr. col. 13. Hugh the archdeacon who there attests is independently recorded in the contemporary Inventio S. Wulframni (Soc. Hist. Norm. Mélanges, XIV, 58–9). Cf. also Pommeraye, Histoire de l'église cathédrale de Rouen (Rouen, 1686), 363.

78 Cart. S. Père Chartres, 116.

79 In what follows respecting the Norman chapters, and particularly those of Rouen and Bayeux, I am much indebted to the teaching of the late Mr L. C. Loyd, and to certain notes bequeathed by him to me. These notes were directed towards a criticism of Bradshaw's view of the influence of Bayeux on English cathedral chapters. I here altogether prescind that question, which has been further ventilated by reference to the same notes by Miss K. Edwards in her valuable The English Secular Cathedrals in the Middle Ages (Manchester, 1949), 14–19.Google Scholar

80 Gall. Christ, XI, 3, and cols. 346, 466, 564, 674, 863; de Formeville, H., Histoire de l'ancien Evêché-Comté de Lisieux (Lisieux, 1873), I, clxxxi–ccviii.Google Scholar

81 Gall. Christ, XI, Instr. col. 112.

82 Ibid. col. 113.

83 Cartulaires de la Manche: abbaye de Mont-Morel, ed. Dubosc, M. (Saint-Lô, 1878), 7.Google Scholar

84 Gall. Christ. XI, Instr. col. 112.

85 Gall. Christ, XI, Instr. col. 220.

86 The Coutances chapter, headed by the cantor and not a dean, was unique in Normandy, though it has its parallels in Brittany, notably at Dol, Tréguier and Léon.

87 Cantorem, quoque et succentorem, et rectorem scholarum…constituit.

88 O d. Vit. II, 397.

89 Gall. Christ, XI, col. 682; Hommey, L., Histoire générale…du Diocèse de Séez (Alençon, 1890–1900), II, 152.Google Scholar

90 Cartulary of Lisieux Cathedral (Études Lexoviennes, III, 345). Another charter of the same year (Cartulaires de S. Ymer-en-Auge et de Bricquebec, ed. Bréard, C., Soc. Hist. Norm. 1908, 6) mentions the treasurer and the capicerius.Google Scholar

91 The Medieval Latin Word-List… (ed. Baxter, J. H. and Johnson, C., Oxford, 1934), translates capicerius as treasurer. At Lisieux he was the sacrist and there was also a thesaurarius.Google Scholar

92 Cartulary of Lisieux Cathedral (Études Lexoviennes, III, 328–9).

93 Ord. Vit. II, 312.

94 Antiq. Cart. Baioc. ed. Bourrienne, no. 22.

95 Ibid. no. 23.

96 Raoul Langevin, Brevis Tractatus de Consuetudinibus et Statutis (Chevalier, U., Ordinaire et Coutumier…de Bayeux, Paris, 1902), 300, 319.Google Scholar

97 Cit. Gleason, S. E`, An Ecclesiastical Barony of the Middle Ages. The bishopric of Baveux 1066–1204 (Cambridge, Mass. 1936), 14. I have been privileged, through the courtesy of my former pupil Mr P. L. Hull, to see a photograph of one of these charters. It commands confidence.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

98 Cart. S. Père Chartres, 116.

99 Ibid. 177.

100 Ibid. 177.

101 Both Nicholas and Ralf who succeeded him about this time in the office use both titles, though the former preferred sacrista and the latter thesaurarius. See the sequence revealed in the charters printed in Cart. S. Martin Pontoise, ed. J. Depoin, 98, 132, 145, 146, L. de Glanville, Hist. Saint-Lô, 301; Lot, Saint-Wandrille, 150, no. 84; Chacheux, R. P. Le, Chartes du Pneuré de Longueville (Soc. Hist. Norm. Rouen, 1934), no. 13; Chartres S. Victoren-Caux, ed. Beaurepaire (Soc. Hist. Norm.), Mélanges, V, 400. After Ralf's time the title of ‘treasurer’ was established for this office.Google Scholar

102 Haskins, Norman Institutions, 68.

103 Pommeraye, Rothomagensis Ecclestae Concilia, 129.

104 As late as May 1263, Archbishop Eudes Rigaud equated the two offices (Registrum…Eudes Rigaud, ed. Bonnin, 460). The time of the change in title can be determined. Laurence who appears as magister scholarum in 1140, 1142, and 1146–7 (Lot, Saint-Wandrille, nos. 70, 73 and Cart. Antiq. Baioc. no. 101) is the same who attests in 1151 as cancellarius (Cart. S. Martin Pontoise, 98). After this time the title cancellarius is established.

105 Haskins, Norman Institutions, 68.

106 E. Deville, Analyse d'un cartulaire de St Éttenne de Caen, 37.

107 A charter of Archbishop Mauger for Chartres (Cart. S. Père Chartres, 176) is inscribed with the sign of S. Fulberti cancellarii, and this fact certainly calls for comment. Yet there seems nothing in the charter to cause suspicion, and the cartulary of S. Père is of the highest repute. Further, in respect of another of the witnesses to this charter, namely Hugh the archdeacon, independent confirmation is available from the Inventio S. Wulframni (see above, p. 110 n. 79) If Fulbert was in fact the cathedral, and not the bishop's, chancellor he was the predecessor of the later magister scholarum, and the still later cancellarius.

108 The date of this synod at Caen which lasted two days has been much debated. The dating limits are fixed by the statement of Hugh of Flavigny (Mon. Germ. Hist. SS. VIII, 403), that up to 1042 the Truce had been rejected in Normandy, and by the fact that Abbot Gradulf of Saint-Wandrille was alive when the synod was held (Gall. Christ. XI, cols. 201, 202). The death of Gradulf, traditionally placed at 8 March 1047 (J. Mabillon, Annales O.S.B. IV, 484) has been shown by H. Prentout to have possibly occurred 8 March 1048 (Études sur quelques points d'histoire, Nouvelle Série, 1929). His further conclusion from this hypothesis that the synod must have been after the battle of Val-ès-Dunes would appear to be pure conjecture. Bessin (Concilia, 39) places the synod in 1042; Haskins (Norman Institutions, 37) suggests a date ‘probably of 1042 or 1043’, whilst Tardif in his magisterial ‘Études sur les sources de l'ancien Droit normand’ inclines to 1043–6 (Congrès du Millénaire de la Normandie. Compte rendu (Rouen, 1912), I, 595–6).Google Scholar

109 The most interesting account of the circumstances in which the synod was held comes somewhat surprisingly from the Vita Sancti Audoeni which was apparently written by Fulbert, a monk of Jumieges, about 1080 (Acta Sanctorum, August, IV (1739), 834, 835).

110 Bessin, Concilia, 39–40; Vita Audoeni, loc. cit.

111 Bessin, Concilia, loc. cit. Note the address ‘Fratres in Domino carissimi’ and then the phrase ‘in hoc episcopatu’

112 Bessin, Concilia, loc. cit.

113 Gall. Christ. XI, Instr. cols. 201–2.

114 Vita S. Audoeni, loc. cit.: Gaudent omnes et maxime agricolae.