II. CHAP. ness inculcated in the Mosaic law, was not held a disqualification for the episcopal office; but Bishop Hugh seems not to have been deposed. He died bishop, A.D. 1085. Bishop MAURITIUS, chaplain and chancellor to the Having been ap pointed at Christmas 1085, he was consecrated at Winchester, in the year 1086. On Maurice, as he may have beheld the conflagration, devolved the restoration or rebuilding of the fallen cathedral. Bishop Maurice set about his work with Norman boldness and true prelatic magnificence of design. The new Cathedral must be worthy of the capital city of the kingdom; and the munificence of Maurice kept pace with his architectural ambition. The fabric designed by Maurice commanded the admiration of his age, as among the noblest churches, not of England only but of Christendom. Many of his contemporaries, such as our authority, William of Malmesbury, must have seen the splendid buildings erected in Normandy, at Rouen, and, by the Conqueror, at Caen. Yet, writes the historian, such was the magnificence of its beauty, that it may be accounted among the most famous buildings. So vast the extent of the crypt, such the capaciousness of the upper structure, that it could contain the utmost conceivable multitude of worshippers.3 In the spacious crypt, Bishop Maurice duly deposited the precious remains of S. Erkenwald. It was on Bishop Maurice that the Conqueror bestowed (it must have been a last bequest, for he died on Sep. 9, 1087) the castle of Bishop Stortford. 6 3 Tanta est decoris magnificentia, ut merito inter præclara numeretur ædificia; tanta cryptæ laxitas, tanta 'superioris ædis capacitas, ut cuilibet populi multitudini videatur posse 'sufficere.'-W. Malmesb. De Gestis Pontificum. The gift is attributed by Stowe to the Conqueror; it may have been that of his successor. II. The King-the Conqueror-(this too must, if the Con- CHAP. queror's, have been almost his last act) contributed to the building of the Cathedral, the stone of an ancient tower, called the Palatine Tower, on the site where, in after days, stood the Dominican monastery of the Blackfriars. This tower defended the entrance of the river Fleet. The importance attached to this gift may seem to imply, that not only the roof of timber, as recorded, but that other parts of the old building, even the walls, were of less durable, of more combustible, materials.5 There can be no doubt that the design of the new Cathedral would be, and was, according to the rules of what is commonly called Norman architecture, which combined, to some extent, the massy strength of a fortress with the aspiring height of a cathedral. Its models would be sought in the kindred Norman cities." The episcopate of Bishop Maurice, though it lasted twenty years,7 saw hardly more than the foundations and the commencement of the great edifice. His successor, RICHARD DE BELMEIS (he also ruled for twenty years ) is said to have devoted the whole of his revenues to the holy work, and to have lived on his private means. The Bishops, it should seem, assumed, and deserved the fame, as they willingly bore the cost, of the splendid fabric. Of the property of the Church, or the capitular estates, as contributing to the building, nothing is said. The King's donations in these times were chiefly privileges and exemptions. Under the first Norman sovereigns, especially Rufus, Winchester rather than London was the 5 On these materials from the Palatine Tower, see the Parentalia, pp. 272, 273. They were, Wren thought, small Yorkshire freestone, Kentish ashler, and Kentish rag from Maidstone. Sir C. Wren found great fault with the irregularity of the measure- 8 1108-1128. II. taxes were pay CHAP. capital of England. William Rufus, no devout churchman, granted an exemption of all the Bishop of London's lands from certain taxes; but those able, not to the crown, but to the city. Henry I. (he was crowned by Maurice, Bishop of London) granted exemption from toll or customs to all vessels laden with stone for the Cathedral, which entered the river Fleet. Henry also made an important grant to Bishop de Belmeis to enlarge the area on which the church stood, part of the estate belonging to the Palatine Tower. A wall was built with a walk alongside of it, enclosing the churchyard. Bishop Belmeis, at great expense, cleared the whole of the area of mean buildings inhabited by laymen. This spacious precinct was within its wall, which ran along Carter Lane to Creed Lane. Dugdale had seen part of this wall." The precincts of S. Paul's, however, did not obtain or claim the questionable privilege of sanctuary. Widowed queens, fallen statesmen, bold poets, and baser criminals. must take refuge under the shadow of Westminster Abbey. S. Paul's did not protect, or give dangerous hospitality to such guests. De Belmeis was a munificent prelate. He gave for the service of the altar the rents of his wharf on the Thames (Paul's Wharf); and 'fearing the "wrath of God,' he restored to the Canons, a wood, which he had wrongfully enclosed within his park at Chadentone; and also the oblations on the altars of S. Peter and S. Paul on the days on which those Canons should officiate. These oblations, as should seem, were then at the disposal of the Bishop. To the school of S. Paul's he gave a site, called the House of Durandus, at the corner of Bell Court. De Belmeis was an ambitious prelate. He aspired to obtain an archiepiscopal pall for the see of London, whether • Dugdale, p. 6. BISHOP GILBERT THE UNIVERSAL. 25 25 to supplant or to rival Canterbury. S. Anselm wrote to the Pope, to urge him not to consent to the audacious act of usurpation.1 But De Belmeis, in the later years of his life, either grew weary of business, or was under the brooding influence of coming paralysis, which seized him before his death; he withdrew from the cares of his diocese, and only thought about the foundation of a monastery of regular canons at S. Osyth in Essex. He meditated the resignation of his bishopric and retirement as one of those canons. But the fatal palsy seized him: for four years he lingered, and in the year 1127 died and was buried at S. Osyth. The successor of De Belmeis was neither Norman nor Saxon. How Gilbert, with the magniloquent title of the Universal, became Bishop of London, appears not. He was a stranger and a foreigner, a canon of Lyons, and head of the famous School of Nevers. His title, the Universal, no doubt arose from his vast and all comprehensive learning. But, as bishop, he bore an evil name; he was charged with covetousness; a charge which, justly or unjustly, might be made against a recluse scholar as contrasted with his splendid predecessors. He exacted much, gave little. At all events, he did not distribute his riches in his diocese. On his death,2 enormous wealth was found in his treasury, which the Crown seized. The Bishop's boots, full of gold and silver, were carried to the exchequer. 'Wherefore, a man of consummate knowledge was held by 'the people as the greatest of fools.' So wrote his contemporary, Henry of Huntingdon. But against this charge must be set the high authority of no less a man than S. Bernard, the oracle of his times. It might seem that the glowing language of the saint was intended to excul 1 Extract from Anselm's letter.Wharton, p. 49. 2 Aug. 10, 1134. 3 Quoted in Wharton. CHAP. II. 26 CONTESTED ELECTION OF BISHOP OF LONDON. 11. CHAP. pate Gilbert from the imputation of avarice. • All know 'that thou art truly wise, and hast trampled on the great'est enemy of wisdom, in a way worthy of your priestly 'rank and of your name, that of true wisdom which de'spiseth base lucre. It was not wonderful that Master 'Gilbert should be a bishop, but that the Bishop of 'London should live like a poor man, that is magnificent. . . . What then hast thou dispensed and given to the 'poor? Money only? But what is money compared with 'that for which thou hast exchanged it, righteousness 'which remains for ever and ever.' 4 Bishop Gilbert died on his way to Rome in 1134. In the anarchy which ensued on the death of Henry I. (December, 1135), as there was a contest for the throne, so there was, about the same time, a contest for the bishopric of London. Some of the Canons of S. Paul's elected as bishop, Anselm, Abbot of S. Edmund's, nephew of the great Archbishop Anselm. Those Canons had gone to Rome well furnished with gold, which then, as ever, was thought irresistible at that Court, had obtained the papal sanction for the election, and proceeded (in 1137) to enthrone Anselm as Bishop of London. But the Dean and the other Canons had protested against the election. They appealed to the Pope (Innocent II.), and with arguments more weighty, no doubt of the same colour, they obtained the abrogation of the election. The Pope decreed that an election, without the suffrage of the Dean, was null and void; that the Chapter were bound to wait till the Dean had given his vote. The Dean and William de Belmeis, nephew of Bishop Richard, were, it should seem, of the party of the Empress Maude. It was after a court, held by Stephen at Westminster (Easter, 1136) that the rebellious Canons hurried on their election. But their Bishop, Cf. Bernardi Opera, epist. xxiv. |