Abstract
It was a generally accepted proposition in the twelfth century that kings had their place in the church and that bishops had their place in the royal government and that one institution could not do without the other. Just what that place was, of course, depended on the personal and political exigencies of the time. Although he has been neglected in the historical literature, since no contemporary biographies or personal letters have come to light, and lacking the notoriety of a man like Hubert Walter or Thomas Becket, which resulted from the participation in enterprises of great moment, Henry of Bayeux, nevertheless, illustrates so well the way in which a devoted and responsible prelate and patron could distinguish himself in diocesan affairs, while at the same time serve as a loyal and useful servant of the king, that it is worthwhile to look briefly at both aspects of his achievement.
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Notes
He was the second Henry in the Norman line of bishops after a tenth-century Henry. Hence he is sometimes cited as Henry II of Bayeux. A sampling of the authors who identify him as “Henry de Beaumont” includes Thomas Stapleton, ed., Magni rotuli scaccarii normanniae sub regibus angliae, ed., 2 vols. (London: 1840–1844), I, p. cliii;
William Stubbs, ed., Gervase of Canterbury, The Historical Works, 2 vols., RS-73 (London: 1879–1880), II, p. 459;
William Henry Jones, Fasti ecclesiae Sarisberiensis (Salisbury: Brown & Co., 1879), p. 309;
Sarell E. Gleason, An Ecclesiastical Barony of the Middle Ages. The Bishopric of Bayeux: 1066–1204 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1936), pp. 31–32;
Raymonde Foreville, L’église et la royauté en Angleterre sous Henri II Plantagenét (Paris: 1943), index, p. 595;
I.P. Shaw, “The Ecclesiastical Policy of Henry on the Continent,” Church Quarterly Review 151 (1951): 151–154;
C.N.L. Brooke and Adrian Morey, The Letters and Charters of Gllbert Foliot, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 530;
W.L. Warren, Henry II (London: Eyre Methuen, 1973), p. 536);
David S. Spear, “The Norman Empire and the Secular Clergy: 1066–1204,” JBS 21 (1982): 6;
Stanley Chodorow and Charles Duggan, eds., Decretales ineditae saeculi XII, from the Papers of the Late Walther Holtzmann (Città del Vaticano: 1982), #21, 23;
Frank Barlow, Thomas Becket (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986; 3d ed. 1997), pp. 139, 254, 326;
Christopher Harper-Bill, “John of Oxford, Diplomat and Bishop,” Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy Owen (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1995) p. 86; English Episcopal Acta (London: Oxford University Press, 1980—), 18 and 19, p. 34;
The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anne J. Duggan, ed., 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), I, p. 54, n. 2; p. 689, n. 6);
Julia Barrow, “Origins and Careers of Cathedral Canons in Twelfth-Century England,” Medieval Prosopography 21 (2000): 31, n. 30;
Daniel J. Power, The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 135. But the editors of the Gallia refer to him simply as “Henry of Bayeux, the bishop” and D. Greenway, while she lists him as Beaumont (“The Influence of the Norman Cathedrals on the Secular Cathedrals in England in the Anglo-Norman Period: 1066–1204,”
Chapitres et cathédrales en Normandie, Sylvette Lemagnen and Philippe Manneville, eds. (Caen: Musée de Normandie, 1997), p. 277) also notes that although the bishop may be Henry de Beaumont there was no connection with Beaumont-le-Roger,
see Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, Diana E. Greenway et al., eds., 9 vols. (London: IHR, 1968–2003), IV, p. 9. Lindy Grant eschews the Beaumont name altogether, see Architecture and Society in Normandy, pp. 21, 28.
V. Gazeau, “Le patrimoine d’Hugues de Bayeux,” in Les Evéques normands du XIe siècle (Caen: Université, 1995), p. 141.
D. Crouch, The Beaumont Twins. The Roots and Branches of Power in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), chapter 1.
Lewis C. Loyd, The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, Charles T. Clay and David C. Douglas, eds. (Leeds: Harleian Society, 1951), p. 13.
Joseph Avril, Le Gouvernement des évêques et la vie religieuse dans le diocèse d’Angers: 1148–1240, 2 vols. (Lille: Université, 1984), I, pp. 379–380.
René F.-N. Sauvage, L’Abbaye de Saint-Martin de Troarn au diocèse de Bayeux des origines au seizième siècle (Caen: Henri Delesques, 1911), p. 81, n. 2.
Edmond de Laheudrie, Bayeux capitale du Bessin des origines â la fin de la monarchie (Bayeux: Colas, 1945), II, p. 22.
OV, VI, p. 202. V. Bourrienne, Un grand bdtisseur, Philippe de Harcourt, év@que de Bayeux: 1142–1163 (Paris: Jean Naert, 1930), appendix 2, p. 136.
Geoffrey H. White, “The Career of Waleran, Count of Melun and Earl of Worcester: 1104–1166,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser, 17 (1934): 30.
Papsturkunden in Frankreich, Bd. II, Normandie, Johannes Ramackers, ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1937), #211. Rotuli litterarum patentium, 1201–1216, T.D. Hardy, ed. (London: Record Commission, 1835), p. 58.
The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot, Adrian Morey and C.N.L. Brooke, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), #468.
Westminster Abbey Charters:1066—c.1214, Emma Mason, ed., London Record Society 25 (London: 1988), #210, 300.
For the attestations, see EEA 2, #62–64, 68, 80–82, 85, 89, 90–92, 98, 112–113, 117, 131–132, 144, 146, 162–163, 173–174, 193, 198–199, 202, 213, 220–222, 226, 228, 232. For the three Henrys, see D&B II, pp. 251–252; The Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church, Canterbury, David Douglas, ed. (London: RHS, 1944), p. 109, n. 6, and as witnesses to the same charter, Henry, the archdeacon of Bayeux, Henry of Bayeux, and Henry, the bishop of Bayeux (ibid., p. 45, n. 4).
Robert de Torigni, RS-82, IV, p. 225. Livre Noir I, p. lix. GFLC, p. 530; but see The Letters ofJohn of Salisbury, W.J. Millor, H.E. Butler, and C.N.L. Brooke, eds., 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979–1986), II, p. xxv, where the editor is more cautious: “At some date in 1164–1165, Henry de Beaumont 1-sic], dean of Sallsbury, became bishop of Bayeux.” D&B I, pp. 37, 381. The entry in the Gallia hedges between the two years.
P. Chaplais, “Henry II’s Reissue of the Canons of the Council of Lillebonne in Whitsun 1080 (February 25, 1162?),” Journal of the Society of Archivistes 4 (1973): 627–633. OV, III, pp. 24–35.
Charles H. Haskins, Norman Institutions (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1918; Rp. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1960), pp. 170–171. Warren, Henry II, pp. 95–96.
PUF, #143, 163, 282. Livre Noir I, pp. 207–208, 251. Marcel Pacaut, Alexandre III. Etude sur la conception du pouvoir pontifical dans sa pensée et dans son oeuvre (Paris: J. Vrin, 1956), p. 289.
John R.H. Moorman, Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945), p. 172.
Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, James C. Robertson et al., eds., 7 vols., RS-67 (London: 1875–1885), II, pp. 53–54.
The Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, Frank Barlow, ed. (London: RHS, 1939), #18.
Livre Noir I, pp. 141, 168–170. Dupuy, Recueil, #220–223. Charters of the AngloNorman Earls of Chester, Geoffrey Barraclough, ed. (Gloucester: 1988), #319.
François Neveux, La Normandie des ducs au rois, Xe-XIIe siécle (Rennes: Editions Ouest-France, 1998), p. 392.
Jean Fournée, “Les chanoines réguliers dans l’ancien diocèse de Bayeux,” Recueil d’études en hommage â Lucien Musset (Caen: Musée de Normandie, 1990), pp. 255–280.
Dupuy, Recueil, #67–68, 209, 260. D&B I, pp. 154, 179. Des clercs au service de la réforme. Etudes et documents sur les chanoines réguliers de la province de Rouen, Mathieu Arnoux, ed. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), p. 128.
The village of Cahagnes lies about thirty kilometers southwest of Caen between Aunay-sur-Odon and Balleroy. The identification as the “church of Kaanes (Caen)” by Alfred Heales in The Records of Merton Priory in the County of Surrey (London: Henry Frowde, 1898), pp. 55–57)
and by C.W. Foster and Kathleen Major in Registrum Antiquissimum of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln (Hereford: LRS, 1931–1973) I, p. 245 seems a stretch of the evidence.
EEA 4, #167. PUF, #191. Rot. Chart., p. 36. Donald Matthew, The Norman Monasteries and Their English Possessions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 99.
Carolyn P. Schriber, The Dilemma of Arnulf of Lisieux. New Ideas versus Old Ideals (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. x, 122.
Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, J.-P. Migne, ed., 221 vols. (Paris: 1844–1864), 207: #50.
The Peterborough Chronicle, Cecily Clark, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958), RS-49, I, pp. 271–272.
PUF, #139, 144, 171, 188. Livre Noir, p. clxiii. Foreville, L’Eglise et la royauté, pp. 458–459. Guillame Mollat, “Le droit de patronage en Normandie du XIe au XVe siècle.” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastiaue 33 (1937): 478–479.
Robert Somerville, Pope Alexander III and the Council of Tours (1163). A Study of Ecclesiastical Politics and Institutions in the Twelfth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 7.
His colleagues were the archbishop of York and Rouen, and the bishops of Hereford, London, and Worcester, Mary Cheney, Roger, Bishop of Worcester: 1164–1179 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 28.
JSL I, #137–138, 190–191. Beryl Smalley, The Becket Conflict and the Schools. A Study of Intellectuals in Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 65–69.
Anne Heshn, “The Coronation of the Young King in 1170,” Studies in Church History 2 (1968): 165–178.
Materials, RS -67, IV, p. 206. Robert W. Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary of King Henry II (London: Taylor & Co., 1878; Rp. Hildesheim: Olms, 1974), p. 156
GFLC, #220, p. 294. C&S I, ii, pp. 956–965. Henry Mayr-Harting, “Henry II and the Papacy,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 16 (1965): 39–53.
Quoted in Walter F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, 2d ed. (London: R. Bentley, 1860–1876), II, p. 512.
Charles Duggan, Twelfth-Century Decretal Collections and Their Importance in English History (London: Athlone, 1963), p. 149.
Gesta regis Henrici secundi (Benedict of Peterborough), William Stubbs, ed., 2 vols., RS-49 (London: 1867), I, p. 167. Eyton noted an apparent discrepancy between two references to Henry of Bayeux, one of which placed him at Caen in January 1177, and the other which had him in Sicily in February. The date of the assize at Caen, however, is unconfirmed. It is possible that Henry may have gone no further than his diocese.
Marcel Pacaut, Louis VII et les élections épiscopales dans le royaume de France (Paris: J. Vrin, 1957), 101–102. Warren, Henry II, pp. 561–563.
EEA 4, #295. Diceto, RS-68, II, pp. 10, 96. John T. Appleby, England without Richard: 1189–1199 (Ithaca: Cornell, 1965), p. 71 (although “Henricus Bajocensis” was misread as “Henry of Bayonne”).
These figures are based on the Dupuy corpus but the number varies depending on who is doing the counting. D&B list 67 royal acta with Henry as witness but this is certainly too low. In a qualified survey, Keefe listed Henry as number 40, in last place, among witnesses in the years 1189–1190 with only six appearances. Heiser’s base is much smaller and his variants less important (D&B, Introduction, p. 37; Thomas K. Keefe, “Counting Those Who Count. A Computer-Assisted Analysis of Charter Witness Lists and the Itinerant Court in the First Year of the Reign of Richard I,” Haskins Society Journal 1 (1989): 137;
Richard R. Heiser, “The Royal Familiares of King Richard I,” Medieval Prosography 10 (1989): 25–50.
Acta of Henry II and Richard I, vol. I, J.C. Holt and R. Mortimer, eds., List & Index Society (Kew: 1986); vol. II, N. Vincent, ed., List & Index Society (Kew: 1996); vol. 27, #235.
Henry and John: Dupuy, Recueil, #251. Gilbert (“consanguineus … episcopi”) ibid., #220. I.P. Shaw, “The Ecclesiastical Policy of Henry II on the Continent,” Church Quarterly Review 151 (1951) p. 151.
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Crosby, E.U. (2013). The King’s Bishop. In: The King’s Bishops. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137352125_8
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