Roger de Pont L'Évêque (or Robert of Bishop's Bridge;
c. 1115–1181) was
Archbishop of York
The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers ...
from 1154 to 1181. Born in
Normandy
Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
, he preceded
Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), was an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then ...
as
Archdeacon of Canterbury, and together with Becket served
Theobald of Bec
Theobald of Bec ( c. 1090 – 18 April 1161) was a Norman archbishop of Canterbury from 1139 to 1161. His exact birth date is unknown. Some time in the late 11th or early 12th century Theobald became a monk at the Abbey of Bec, risin ...
while Theobald was
Archbishop of Canterbury. While in Theobald's service, Roger was alleged to have committed a crime which Becket helped to cover up. Roger succeeded
William FitzHerbert as archbishop in 1154, and while at York rebuilt
York Minster
The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York, commonly known as York Minster, is the cathedral of York, North Yorkshire, England, and is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The minster is the seat of the Archb ...
, which had been damaged by fire.
Roger did not become deeply involved in the dispute between King
Henry II of England
Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (french: link=no, Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress, or Henry Plantagenet, was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189, and as such, was the first Angevin king ...
and Becket until 1170, when the King had Roger preside at the coronation of the king's son
Henry the Young King
Henry the Young King (28 February 1155 – 11 June 1183) was the eldest son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine to survive childhood. Beginning in 1170, he was titular King of England, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou and M ...
, a function that would normally have been performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In retaliation Becket excommunicated Roger in late 1170, and some have seen this excommunication as one reason for King Henry's anger at Becket which led to Becket's murder. After being suspended from office by the pope for his supposed role in Becket's death, Roger was eventually restored to office in late 1171, and died in 1181. The see of York remained vacant after his death until 1189.
Early life
Roger was probably born around 1115 and was a native of
Pont-l'Évêque in
Normandy
Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
. His only known relative was a nephew, Geoffrey, to whom Roger gave the offices of
provost of Beverley Minster and archdeacon of York.
[Barlow "Pont l'Évêque, Roger de" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''] Roger was a clerk of Archbishop Theobald's before being named Archdeacon of Canterbury, some time after March 1148.
[Greenway "Archdeacons of Canterbury" ''Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300'': Volume 2: Monastic Cathedrals (Northern and Southern Provinces)] When Becket joined Theobald's household, their contemporary
William fitzStephen recorded that Roger disliked the new clerk, and twice drove Thomas away before the archbishop's brother Walter arranged Thomas' return.
[
According to ]John of Salisbury
John of Salisbury (late 1110s – 25 October 1180), who described himself as Johannes Parvus ("John the Little"), was an English author, philosopher, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres.
Early life and education
Born at Salisbury, ...
, who first reported this story in 1172 after the death of Thomas Becket, as a young clerk Roger was involved in a scandal involving a homosexual relationship with a boy named Walter. After Walter made the relationship public, Roger reacted by embroiling Walter in judicial case that ended with Walter's eyes being gouged out. When Walter then accused Roger of this crime, Roger persuaded a judge to condemn Walter to death by hanging. Becket supposedly was involved in the cover-up afterwards, by arranging with Hilary of Chichester
Hilary ( c. 1110–1169) was a medieval bishop of Chichester in England. English by birth, he studied canon law and worked in Rome as a papal clerk. During his time there, he became acquainted with a number of ecclesiastics, including the f ...
and John of Coutances for Roger to swear an oath that he was innocent. According to John of Salisbury, Roger then went to Rome in 1152 and was cleared of involvement by Pope Eugene III. John of Salisbury further alleges that it was only after bribery that the pope cleared Roger. Frank Barlow, a medieval historian and Becket's biographer, points out in his biography of Becket that while Roger was accused of these crimes, and may even have been guilty of some sort of criminal homosexuality, John of Salisbury's motives for bringing up this story in 1172 were almost certainly to defame Roger. Such a story would naturally have put Roger in the worst possible light.[Barlow ''Thomas Becket'' pp. 33–34]
It was while Roger was Theobald's clerk that he made lasting friendships with Gilbert Foliot and Hugh de Puiset.[ Roger attended the Council of Reims in 1148 with Theobald, John of Salisbury, and possibly Thomas Becket. This council condemned some of ]Gilbert de la Porrée
Gilbert de la Porrée (after 1085 – 4 September 1154), also known as Gilbert of Poitiers, Gilbertus Porretanus or Pictaviensis, was a scholastic logician and theologian and Bishop of Poitiers.
Life
He was born in Poitiers, and completed hi ...
's teachings, and consecrated Foliot as Bishop of Hereford.[Barlow ''Thomas Becket'' p. 35] While it was later recalled that Roger and Becket did not get along, there is no evidence of hatred between the two before the Becket crisis happened.[
]
Archbishop
Roger was consecrated Archbishop of York on 10 October 1154.[Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 264] When he went north to York, the legal scholar Vacarius, who had been part of Theobald's household, followed Roger and spent the next 50 years in the north.[Barlow ''English Church'' p. 255] Vacarius was responsible for introducing Roman civil law into England, and did so under the patronage of Roger. He wrote a standard textbook on the civil law, the ''Liber pauperum'', and was an important advisor for Roger.[Stein "Vacarius" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'']
Roger attended the Council of Tours in 1163, along with a number of other English bishops.[Duggan "From the Conquest to the Death of John" ''English Church and the Papacy'' p. 88] Pope Alexander III named Roger a papal legate
300px, A woodcut showing Henry II of England greeting the pope's legate.
A papal legate or apostolic legate (from the ancient Roman title ''legatus'') is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic ...
in February 1164, but his powers did not include the city of Canterbury or anything to do with Archbishop Becket.[Greenway "Archbishops" ''Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300'': Volume 6: York] They did, however, include Scotland.[Duggan "From the Conquest to the Death of John" ''English Church and the Papacy'' p. 104]
In late 1164 Roger led a deputation from Henry II that visited the papal court, or curia
Curia (Latin plural curiae) in ancient Rome referred to one of the original groupings of the citizenry, eventually numbering 30, and later every Roman citizen was presumed to belong to one. While they originally likely had wider powers, they came ...
, to try to persuade Alexander III that any decision on the deposition of Becket should take place in England under a papal legate, rather than in Rome.[Warren ''Henry II'' p. 490] While Becket was in exile, Roger also managed to secure papal permission for archbishops of York to carry their cross in front of them anywhere in England, a right that had long been a bone of contention between Canterbury and York. Later, the pope rescinded the permission, but consistently refused to give primacy to either Canterbury or York in their struggles.[Warren ''Henry II'' p. 503]
Roger did not like monks, and William of Newburgh
William of Newburgh or Newbury ( la, Guilelmus Neubrigensis, ''Wilhelmus Neubrigensis'', or ''Willelmus de Novoburgo''. 1136 – 1198), also known as William Parvus, was a 12th-century English historian and Augustinian canon of Anglo-Saxon d ...
said that he often referred to the foundation of Fountains Abbey
Fountains Abbey is one of the largest and best preserved ruined Cistercian monasteries in England. It is located approximately south-west of Ripon in North Yorkshire, near to the village of Aldfield. Founded in 1132, the abbey operated for 40 ...
as the worst mistake of Archbishop Thurstan
:''This page is about Thurstan of Bayeux (1070 – 1140) who became Archbishop of York. Thurstan of Caen became the first Norman Abbot of Glastonbury in circa 1077.''
Thurstan or Turstin of Bayeux ( – 6 February 1140) was a medi ...
's episcopate.[Knowles ''Monastic Order'' p. 316] Roger also was accused of avarice, and of making unworthy clerical appointments. However, he also started the rebuilding of York Minster, which had been damaged by fire in 1137, built the Archbishop's Palace, York
The Archbishop's Palace was the residence of the Archbishop of York during the later Middle Ages. It lay immediately north of York Minster, and its grounds are now known as Dean's Park.
Construction
York Minster was severely damaged by a f ...
, and helped with the building of a church at Ripon
Ripon () is a cathedral city in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the cit ...
. He also endowed the school at York with an annual income of 100 shillings.[
]
Controversy with Becket
Roger got drawn into the controversy with Becket because Henry II wanted to have his eldest living son crowned as king during Henry's lifetime.(Traditionally, the ceremony is performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury) This was a new practice for England, but was a custom of the Capetian kings of France, which Henry decided to imitate.[Warren ''Henry II'' pp. 110–111] Henry II insisted that his son, Henry be crowned at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
on 14 June 1170 by Archbishop Roger of York.[ Also present at the coronation were the bishops of London, Salisbury, Exeter, Chester, Rochester, St Aspah, Llandaff, Durham, Bayeux, Évreux and Sées. The only English bishops absent seem to have been Winchester, Norwich, Worcester, and of course Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was in exile. The remaining English sees were vacant.][Barlow ''Thomas Becket'' pp. 206–207] This overstepped a long tradition which reserved coronations to the Archbishop of Canterbury, a reservation confirmed as recently as 1166 by Pope Alexander III. In 1170, however, Henry II received papal permission to have Roger crown the younger Henry, a permission which Alexander later revoked.[Powell and Wallis ''House of Lords'' pp. 84–85][Warren ''Henry II'' pp. 501–502]
Before Becket returned to England, on 1 December 1170, he excommunicated Roger, as well as Gilbert Foliot the Bishop of London
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or offic ...
and Josceline de Bohon the Bishop of Salisbury
The Bishop of Salisbury is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Salisbury in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers much of the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset. The see is in the City of Salisbury where the bishop's se ...
. After Becket landed in England the three excommunicates went to Becket and asked for absolution, but while Becket was willing to absolve Gilbert and Josceline, he insisted that only the pope could absolve an archbishop. Roger persuaded the others that they should stick together, and all three went to King Henry in Normandy, to secure the king's permission for their appeals to Rome.[Warren ''Henry II'' pp. 507–508]
Roger's and his fellow-bishops' stories to Henry are often cited as the spark that touched off the king's anger at Becket and led to his martyrdom. However, it was more probably the stories of Becket's behaviour upon arrival in England that caused Henry's anger, and which indirectly led to the death of Becket.[ Roger was suspended by Pope Alexander III because he was implicated in Becket's death, but was restored to office on 16 December 1171.]