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William of Corbeil and the Canterbury York Dispute

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Denis Bethell
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Medieval History, University College, Dublin

Extract

The immediate purpose of this article is narrative, in particular its aim is to draw attention to two little-known incidents in the early life of William of Corbeil, archbishop of Canterbury (1123–36) and to a rearrangement of the chronology of the Canterbury-York dispute in the 1120s, and, in general, to tell part of the story of that dispute again. The story is worth telling because it is colourful and dramatic and crowded with incident, because it is almost all that we know of a remote and thinly-documented period of English Church history, and because it marks an entirely new interest in English affairs on the part of the popes, who took part in the dispute with an energy and effect unparallelled since the seventh century. Despite (or perhaps because of) the excellence of the sources—Eadmer, monk of Canterbury, and Hugh, precentor of York—the story has only once been told at all fully for its most important period, that from 14 August 1114 to 9 December 1128—by Mr. Nicholl, in his recently published ‘Life’ of Thurstan, archbishop of York (1114–40). Naturally, he concentrated on Thurstan, the greater man of the two, the man with the better case, the victor in the dispute, of whom much more is known. This article is intended to give a brief synopsis of the early life of the loser, to tell of his early introduction to the dispute and his eventual part in it.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

page 145 note 1 The following abbreviations have been used in this article:

Eadmer, Eadmeri Historia Novorum, ed. Rule, M., Rolls Series no. 81, 1884.Google Scholar

E.H.R.—English Historical Review.

Hist. York—Historians of the Church of York, ed. Raine, J., Rolls Series no. 71, 1879–94, 3 vols.Google Scholar

Jaffé—Jaffé, P., Regesta pontificum Romanorum, 2nd ed. by G. Wattenbach, S. Löwenfeld, F. Kaltenbrunner, and P. Ewald, Leipzig 1885–8, 2 vols.Google Scholar

Johnson, Hugh the Chanter: the History of the Church of York, 1066–1127, ed. Johnson, C. (Nelson's Medieval Texts) Edinburgh-London 1961.Google Scholar

Nicholl—Nicholl, Donald, Thurstan, Archbishop of York (1114–1140), York 1964.Google Scholar

PapsturkundenHoltzmann, W., Papsturkunden in England (Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen), 3 vols., 1930, 1935, 1953.Google Scholar

page 145 note 2 He is always referred to as ‘of Corbeil’, that is ‘Corboiliensis’ or ‘de Corbuil’ or ‘Curbuil’, and is occasionally found referred to as ‘de Turbine’ as well, e.g., in Ralph, of Diceto, , Historia de Archiepiscopis Cantuariensibus, ed. Wharton, H. in Anglia Sacra, London 1691, ii. 689Google Scholar. But this is because Wharton was using B.M. MS. Arundel 220, a fourteenth century MS. He does not appear as ‘de Turbine’ in MS. Corpus Christi Cambridge 76, which Stubbs thought was the presentation copy to archbishop Hubert Walter. ‘C’ naturally changes to ‘T’, and there is a likely confusion with William Turbe, bishop of Norwich (1146–74). By a kind of contagion archbishop Ralph of Escures (1114–22) is also sometimes called ‘de Turbine’, and in that character figures in the Public Record Office catalogues, but there is no real reason to assign the name to either archbishop.

page 146 note 1 P.R.O. Duchy of Lancaster 25/L105 (Ranulf) and P.R.O. Duchy of Lancaster 25/L106 (Helgot). Both originals.

page 146 note 2 For this brother see the foundation account of the Holy Trinity, Aldgate, in Guillelmi Neubrigensis Historia sive Chronica, ed. Hearne, T., Oxford 1719, iii. 608Google Scholar; for the charter see du Boulay, F. R. H., ‘Bexley Church: some early documents’, Archaelogia Cantiana, lxxii (1958), 50 (with facsimile).Google Scholar

page 146 note 3 For accounts of the translation, see Battiscombe, C. F., The Relics of St. Cuthbert, Oxford 1956, 3 n. 1.Google Scholar

page 146 note 4 Our authority is that curious document the De Miraculis Sanctae Mariae Laudunensis Ecclesiae in P.L., clvi. 962: ‘We came to Canterbury’, say the fund-raising canons of Laon, ‘where the lord William was then archbishop, a man very well known to us, since he had once come to Laon to hear the teaching of Master Anselm, and had stayed many days in the bishop's house, and had there taught the sons of Radulf, the chancellor of the king of the English’. Tatlock, J. S. P. (‘The English Journey of the Laon Canons’, Speculum, viii (1933), 454–65)CrossRefGoogle Scholar dates this journey to 1113 and regards the mention of William as an anomaly. This may be so. Herman of Laon however is not likely to have been entirely wrong. Either, therefore, (a) the canons did not meet William and his name was added as that of a distinguished ex-pupil of Master Anselm who might have met them, or (b) he did meet them but was not then as yet archbishop, or, (c) Mr. Tatlock is wrong. The children could not be those of Flambard but of Ralph the chancellor, who figures with his son as a benefactor of Abbey, Reading in Joannis Lelandi de Rebus Britamicis Collectanea, ed. Hearne, T., Oxford 1715, i. 69Google Scholar, although in no known surviving document of the house. (See Dr. B. Kemp's so-far-unpublished thesis on the endowment of the abbey, Reading 1966). Flambard had at least 5 sons: Thomas, canon of Lincoln, and for a short time bishop of Lisieux; Elias, canon of Lincoln and St. Paul's; Ralph, canon of St. Paul's and St. Martin's Dover; William; and Payn. For Flambard's liaison with Alveva, aunt of Christina of Markyate, see The Life of Christina of Markyate, ed. Talbot, C. H., Oxford 1959, 40Google Scholar; cf. H. C. Maxwell-Lyte, ‘Calendar of the charters of St. Paul's Cathedral’, 9th Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, pt. i, 1883, Appendix, 66: ‘Terra Episcopi Dunelmensis quam tenet Helyas et Alveva uxor Edwardi Caeci’.

page 146 note 5 It was Archer, T. A. (‘The Children of Ranulf FlambardE.H.R., ii (1877), 103Google Scholar) who first brought the Laon story to notice and argued that the children must be Flambard's from William's presence at Durham in 1104, and that the visit was in 1097–8. The objection to this is that Flambard's eldest son Thomas was only 12 in 1103 (scarcely 12 years old, says Ivo of Chartres, furiously, to Paschal II: Ep., clvii (P.L., clxii, 162). As ‘sons’ are mentioned he would have been accompanied by a still younger brother, far too young for Master Anselm's teaching in 1098. The most likely bishop of Laon is Waldric (1107–12), at one time chancellor to Henry I. Archer objects that he was a ‘murderer, a liar, an extortioner and a thief’, and ‘he was the very last person to whose house young boys would be sent to acquire a clerical education’. How far such objections would have moved Flambard it is hard to say, but Waldric did not show himself a murderer till 31 December 1109, and, in other ways, his conversation running on dogs and horses, his negro servant, his capture of duke Robert at Tenchebrai, he seems to have been a picturesque and affable man, (See ‘Galdric’, by T. A. Archer, Dictionary of National Biography, vii. 812; Davis, H. W. C., ‘Waldric, the Chancellor of Henry I’, E.H.R., xxxvi (1911), 85Google Scholar; C. Johnson, ibid., li (1936), 103). The whole argument is very uncertain, but the stay cannot have been after the bishop's murder by the mob on 25 April 1112, and is unlikely to have been after the disturbances of 1109; in 1110–11 Waldric was in England. The visit is unlikely to have been before Flambard's exile, or the end of young Thomas's intrusion at Lisieux. It may be suggested, then, that it was between 1106 and 1109—at a guess, after March 1107, when Paschal II recognised Waldric as bishop.

page 147 note 1 E.g., Alexander (Lincoln 1123–48), Nigel (Ely 1133–69), Algar (Coutances 1132–51), Robert (Hereford 1131–48), Robert (Exeter 1138–55). All these were men with highly placed clerical connexions.

page 147 note 2 Poole, R. L., The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, Oxford 1912, 53–6.Google Scholar

page 147 note 3 Merlet, Lucien, ‘Lettres d'Ives de Chartres et d'autres personnages de son temps’, Bibliothéque de l'Ecole des Chartres, 4th series, 1 (1855), no. 27, 466.Google Scholar

page 147 note 4 The Dicta Anselmiana consists of a number of stories about St. Anselm and his circle written by Alexander, a monk of Canterbury, now to be found in MS. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 457. The text is being edited by Professor Southern and Dom Schmitt. The story here given in translation begins on fol. 113v. For Alexander, see Southern, R. W., St. Anselm and his Biographer, Cambridge 1963, 200Google Scholar; for the Dicta, ibid., 220–1, where there are full references.

page 147 note 5 A votive Mass is one offered for a special, private intention, and is not related to the Office of the day. At this date priests, unless saying an official (capitular) high Mass, seem normally to have said votive Masses whenever they celebrated. It would, therefore, be possible to observe the personal idiosyncrasies of devotion in those so celebrating.

page 148 note 1 The Little Office of Our Lady made its first appearance in the middle of the eighth century. It became extremely popular in England as a result of the tenth-century reform; its recitation was obligatory for the Austin canons in the twelfth century and from them seems to have passed to the secular clergy, for whom its recitation was obligatory until 1568. See Dewick, E. S., Facsimiles of Horae de Beata Maria Virgine from English MSS. of the Eleventh Century, Henry Bradshaw Society, London 1902.Google Scholar

page 149 note 1 St. Michael the Archangel was of course a saint to whom the Normans were devoted, but there was also a considerable cult in pre-Conquest England. Later, as archbishop, William was to dedicate the infirmary chapel at Bury St. Edmund's to St. Michael. See M. R. James, On the Abbey of St. Edmund at Bury, Cambridge Antiquarian Society Octavo Publications no. 28, 1895, 162, briefly summarising from B.M. MS. Harley 1005 fol. 218–218v, which speaks of Anselm (abbot 1121–48): ‘Ipse condidit ecclesiam Sancti Jacobi et eius peticione earn dedicavit Willelmus Curbius Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis et sequenti dedicationis eiusdem die capellam domus infirmorum monasterii ab ipso summi archangeli Michaelis consecrata est’. This detail would seem to help to clear up the doubts which have been expressed as to whether it was archbishop William or William Turbe, bishop of Norwich (1146–74); for which see The Letters of Osbert of Clare, ed. Williamson, E. W., Oxford 1929, 197 n.5.Google Scholar

page 149 note 2 Ezek. xxvii. 13.

page 149 note 3 I Cor. ii. 9.

page 149 note 4 Symeoni Dunelmensis Opera, ed. T. Arnold, Rolls Series no. 75, 1885, ii. 269: ‘With the holy and venerable archbishop Anselm he spoke familiarly and frequently’. Unfortunately, this is as much as Symeon has to say on the subject.

page 150 note 1 Leclercq, Dom Jean, ‘Les Ecrits Spirituels d'Elmer de Canterbéry’, Analecta Monastica 2nd series, Studia Anselmiana fasc. 23, Rome 1953, 88, 99Google Scholar; see also the article ‘Elmer’ in Dictiomaire de Spiritualité, iv. 602.

page 150 note 2 See Southern, R. W., ‘The English Origins of the “Miracles of the Virgin”’, Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, iv (1958), 176217Google Scholar. Stories of the sort told of William of Corbeil are not uncommon. A very similar story is told of Thomas, one of his canons at St. Osyth's, who subsequently became prior of St. Bartholomew's Smithfield (1144–74), in Capgrave's ‘Life’ of St. Osyth., (Nova Legenda Sanctorum Angliae, ed. Horstmann, C., Oxford 1901, 236Google Scholar; Acta Sanctorum Octobris, iii. 943 = B.H.L.6353). There, however, the story is told not of Our Lady and the angels, but of St. Osyth.

page 150 note 3 For a possible appearance at Durham after 1109, see the appendix.

page 150 note 4 Mr. Johnson translates Hugh the Chanter's Durovernensis, correctly, as ‘Canterbury’. I do not think, though, that this is what Hugh meant, (a) At no other point does he use this form for Canterbury. He consistently uses Cantuaria, and once, Cantorberia (Johnson, 128). (b) The forms Doverensis, Doverrensis are so near as to make confusion highly probable (for these see, e.g., Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. A. Saltman, 307, 316). (c) At this this date there were no canonries at Canterbury. It is true that archbishop Lanfranc's foundation charter at St. Gregory's directs that its priests should live in common and canonically, but we do not find talk of canons there before William Of Corbeil himself introduced them as canons regular from Merton. For this introduction see Dickinson, J. C., The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England, London 1950, 105Google Scholar and 118n. 5. MissWoodcock's, A. M. attempt to cross swords with him on this (The Cartulary of the Priory of St. Gregory Canterbury, Camden Society, 3rd series, 88, 1956, xGoogle Scholar) is in my judgment unsuccessful, since the plain words of archbishop Theobald's charter are against it: ‘Ecclesiam… fundatam canonicis regularibus quos ibidem Willelm us Archiepiscopus aggregavit’, (ibid., 10= Saltman, no. 59, 285).

page 150 note 5 Hist. York, ii. 143 (Johnson, 50).

page 151 note 1 The king gave St. Martin's to the archbishop at the September council in 1131, and confirmed the gift on 29 April 1132 (Regesta, ii, no. 1736). The archbishop proceeded to build a church, to endow it with a quarry at Caen and with the prebend of Deal, and to introduce an abbot and ten canons from Merton (some sources say St. Osyth's). This introduction was resisted by the monks of Christchurch (though not by prior Elmer) and according to Gervase of Canterbury it was the anger brought on by this which caused the archbishop's death (21 November 1136), after which the monks seized Dover, and with some difficulty, kept it. See Haines, C. R., Dover Priory, Cambridge 1930Google Scholar; Gervase of Canterbury, Opera, ed. Stubbs, W., Rolls Series no. 73, 1879–80, i. 96–101Google Scholar; see also the imprinted Dover Priory Chronicle, Lambeth MS. 241 fol. 4, B.M. MS. Cotton Vespasian B XI fols. 72–5.

Flambard was Dean of the ancient collegiate church of St. Martin's (see SirCraster, E., ‘A Contemporary Record of the Pontificate of Ranulf Flambard’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th series, 8, 1930, 47Google Scholar; Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum ii, ed. Johnson, C. and Cronne, H. A., Oxford 1956, no. 562)Google Scholar. His son Ralph inherited a very valuable interest in St. Martin's, a sum of £70 a year, which may represent the value of a canonry. (The Letters of John of Salisbury, i, ed. Millor, W.S.J., , and Butler, H. E., revised by C. N. L. Brooke, Nelsons Medieval Texts, 1955, 100.Google Scholar) At the time of Domesday there were twenty-two canonries, some hereditary, one held by St. Augustine's Canterbury, thirteen which seem to have been filled by Odo of Bayeux, one held by the archdeacon of Canterbury, and one by a royal chaplain (Haines, Dover Priory, 34–5). However it was obtained, a canonry there was a valuable gift.

page 151 note 2 His father was Ansgar, canon of St. Paul's; his mother was called Popelina (Nicholl, 7). Their joint appearance in the Liber Vitae of Durham (ed. Stevenson, J., Surtees Society, 13, 1841, 139)Google Scholar is an interesting indication of the respectability of clerical marriage at this time.

page 151 note 3 Hist. York, ii. 129 (Johnson, 34).

page 151 note 4 Ibid., ii. 137 (Johnson, 112): ‘nor may any of your kin remain in all his lands’.

page 151 note 5 Eadmer, 239, actually pretends that this journey was only to combat this legation. ‘It pleased all that the archbishop should go to the king and having shown him what the ancient custom and liberty of the kingdom was, should, if he advised it, go to Rome and utterly get rid of these new notions’.

page 152 note 1 Eadmer, 141.

page 152 note 2 Hist. York, ii. 138 (Johnson, 44), not in Jaffé.

page 152 note 3 Ibid., ii. 135 (ibid., 40), not in Jaffé.

page 152 note 4 Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Thorpe, B., for the Society the History of the Church in England, London 1849, ii. 70.Google Scholar

page 152 note 5 Eadmer, 239.

page 152 note 6 Ward, H. D. L., Catalogue of Romances… in the British Museum, London 1893, 622–3Google Scholar, and references there cited.

page 152 note 7 von Knonau, G. Meyer, Jahrbucher der Deutschen Geschichte, v (1116–25), 1909, 28Google Scholar, gives sources for this. Pavia, Parma, Milan, Verona, Trent and Venice were all affected. Milan Cathedral fell down. This earthquake receives mention in nearly all contemporary chronicles. ‘Florence of Worcester’ (ed. cit., ii. 70) speaks as if he had met witnesses: ‘Testati sunt qui novere’.

page 152 note 8 Hist. York, ii. 114 (Johnson, 50); Eadmer, 241–2.

page 152 note 9 Gervase of Canterbury, Opera, ed. W. Stubbs, Rolls Series no. 73, 1880, ii. 378.

page 153 note 1 Eadmer, 242.

page 153 note 2 Hist. York, ii. 144 (Johnson, 50).

page 153 note 3 Jaffé, no. 6547.

page 153 note 4 Eadmer, 243.

page 153 note 5 Maurice, archbishop of Braga in Portugal, had been sent to the emperor as ambassador by Paschal in late 1116. He accompanied Henry V to Rome and there solemnly crowned him at his Easter ‘crownwearing’. The emperor had extorted his formal coronation from Paschal on 13 April iiii. Maurice had usurped a papal prerogative, and had gone too far in recognising Henry and was, therefore, excommunicated. He did not become antipope till after Paschal's death, when he was elected in Rome as ‘Gregory VIII’ on 8 March 1118. See David, Pierre, ‘L'énigme de Maurice Bourdin’, Etudes Historiques sur la Galice et le Portugal du VIe au XIIe siècle, Paris 1947, 441501. I owe this reference to Mr. Richard Fletcher.Google Scholar

page 153 note 6 De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls Series no. 52, 1870, 131.

page 153 note 7 Meyer von Knonau, op. cit., v. 29.

page 153 note 8 Jaffié, 1765, dated there to April 1117. Eadmer, 246, mentions this excommunication.

page 153 note 9 See the anonymous life of Anselm of St. Saba's, abbot of Bury, printed in translation from B.M. MS. Harley 1005 fol. 217 by H. Thurston S.J., ‘Abbot Anselm of Bury and the Immaculate Conception The Month, 1904, 13: ‘having procured from the same Pope [Paschal II] the pallium for Ralph, archbishop of Canterbury, who had been unable to procure it for himself, seeing that he had made common cause with the Emperor Henry who was under a ban.’

page 153 note 10 ‘Veridici relatores’, 224.

page 154 note 1 Jaffié, nos. 6552, 6553, both dated 5 April 1118 (Hist. York, ii. 147–9, Johnson, 54–6).

page 154 note 2 For all this see Nicholl, chapter iii.

page 154 note 3 The house of the Holy Trinity Aldgate was very fashionable and in high favour with the court (see J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, 108 ff.). I hope shortly to publish an edition of the early lives of St. Osyth and the early charters of the house.

page 154 note 4 Orderici Vitalis Historiae Ecclesiastici Libri Tredecim, ed. Le Prévost, A., Société de l'Histoire de France, Paris 1852, iv. 430.Google Scholar

page 155 note 5 A good account of the election will be found in Leyser, K. J., ‘England and the Empire in the early Twelfth Century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, x (1960), 6183, with references.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 155 note 1 Hist. York, ii. 268 (Johnson, 108–9).

page 156 note 2 The chroniclers differ as to who consecrated, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says it was William Giffard. So also does Ralph of Diceto, and since the bishop of London was ex officio dean of the Southern province, Ralph as dean of St. Paul's is unlikely to have admitted it, unless it were true. The then bishop of London, Richard de Belmeis, was. paralysed. (Historia de Archiepiscopis Cantuariensibus, ed. Wharton, H., in Anglia Sacra, London 1691, ii. 687).Google Scholar

page 156 note 1 For all this, see Nicholl, chapter iv.

page 156 note 2 Hist. York, ii. 10 (Johnson, 121); not in Jaffé

page 156 note 3 Jaffé, no. 7284 ‘Sponsa Christi’, dates this to 25 January 1127, but this dating is quite arbitrary, and is not justified by the MSS. (Cotton Claudius E V, fol. 255; Cotton Cleopatra E I, fol. 32v; Lambeth 482, fol. 84; Dean and Chapter, Canterbury, Register A, fol. 10). Since we have Hugh the Chanter's word for it that ‘the archbishop went home with his legation’ in 1126, it seems proper to date this letter then, where it fits among other English letters of the same date (Papsturkunden, ii. 141, 145, 142; iii. 137; Hist. York, iii. 47; ii. 216 (Johnson, 128); Jaffé, nos. 7240, 7396, 7232 (see Papsturkunden, ii. 143, where Holtzmann redates this from 1125 to 1126), 7241).

page 157 note 1 Hist. York, ii. 218 (Johnson, 130); not in Jaffé.

page 157 note 2 Papsturkunden, ii. 147, where he prints the dating clause and witness list. Nicholl, 109, note 102 says ‘Holtzmann dates the first of these to 1128 instead of to 1125, as does Jaffé; there is little to be said in favour of his revised date beyond the fact that the Registrum Magnum album gives it, but this source is frequently unreliable as to dating’. This note is an extraordinary lapse in a very excellent and vivid account, (a) Jaffé dates this bull to 1125 (=Jaffé no. 7227). (b) B.M. Lansdowne 402, another fourteenth century MS. from York, also gives the dating clause and witness list, (c) These are singularly clear and full. Among the witnesses are John, cardinal bishop of Ostia (1126) and Conrad, cardinal bishop of Sabina (1126). Their appearance alone makes it clear that this bull cannot belong to 1125. Given the very full dating clause, not only to the year, but to the papal year (the fourth year of Honorius II) and to the indiction, only very strong reasons could justify any challenge to Holtzmann's dating, and that given in the two MSS. which are our only authorities for the text and which are careful copies. Since, therefore, Jaffé 7227 must be dated to 1128, it follows that Jaffé nos. 7223, 7224, 7225, 7226, 7228, 7230, must also be redated. A much fuller discussion of papal letters to England in this period would be necessary, but briefly: (a) their dating goes by its dating; (b) the letters of Honorius II to England occur in very close groups or bunches. There is no other December group to York dated from the Lateran; (c) Holtzmann recognised this for nos. 7224, 7225, 7226, 7228, 7230 (Papsturkunden, ii. 105), but omitted 7223, and 7230 (to Geoffrey, abbot of Savigny, and to Nicholas, abbot of Whitby, both at Thurstan's request, both dated 9 December, from the Lateran); (d) Jaffé no. 7226 is addressed to archbishop William as legate, and must, therefore, be after 1126; (e) no. 7226 deals precisely with the question of crossbearing which both Hugh the Chanter and ‘Florence of Worcester’ tell us rose in 1126–7, as is confirmed by Honorius II's fierce letter of 15 March 1127 (not in Jaffé, Johnson, 130); (f) in default of further evidence it would be possible but perverse to date 7223, 7224, 7225, 7228, 7230 to any other year than 1128. 7227 must be 1128, and 7226 must be after December 1126. For the Canterbury-York question these are the two bulls which are important. Mr. Nicholl's itinerary (Nicholl, viii-x) shows that Thurstan was in Normandy at some time in 1128 and in Rouen before June 1129. This gap leaves ample time for the journey, and the redating does clear up difficulties which arise as a result of placing these privileges in 1125, e.g., in the case of the (appropriately entitled) ‘Saepe per Apostolica’ to John, bishop of Glasgow (by 1118–47). Jaffé, no. 7228 (cf. Nicholl, 98, ‘Would seem to have been superfluous since John was present in Rome’).