Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal SeeQuennell, C. H. B. (Charles Henry Bourne)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See
Quennell, C. H. B. (Charles Henry Bourne)
Norwich Cathedral (Norwich, England)
Archbishop Anselm had refused to acknowledge that the king had the right
to exercise a suzerainty over the Church, and declined to consent to lay
investitures. An embassy was sent to Rome, and Herbert, who went there a
second time about 1116, represented the king. It, however, was in no way
satisfactory; the Pope did not want to offend the king, and he wished to
retain to himself the right of investiture, so, while congratulating the
Archbishop's representatives, he sympathised also with those of the
king. The exertion told on Herbert, and at Placentia, on the return
journey, he fell sick, and stopped there until he became sufficiently
convalescent to journey by short and easy stages to his own cathedral
city. He lived to complete much important business, but his days of
administration were drawing to a close. He had been Prior of Fecamp,
Abbot of Ramsey, Sewer to William Rufus, had governed the East Anglian
bishopric first from the episcopal see at Thetford, had transferred it
to Norwich, and founded the Cathedral Priory, and if this were not
sufficient, he founded and endowed many other churches and monasteries
in the East Country. His repentance had been sincere, and in one of his
letters he refers to "my past life, which, alas! is darkened by many
foul sins." Dean Goulburn credits him with a third journey to Rome, and
says that it was at Placentia, on the outward journey, that he
contracted so grievous a sickness that he "lay ten successive days
without taking food and without uttering a word"; in fact, never
reaching Rome, but waiting for and rejoining his brother ambassadors on
their return. This journey was undertaken with the view of adjusting the
differences that had arisen between the new Primates, Ralph and
Thurston. The embassy was not successful, the Pope declining to commit
himself to any but the most general statements.
One of the last public acts of Herbert's life was to attend the funeral
of Queen Matilda on May-day, 1118. He died on the 22nd of July 1119 in
the twenty-seventh year of his episcopate, and was buried before the
high altar of his cathedral church.
#Eborard# (1121-1145), who succeeded Herbert, a son by second marriage
of Roger de Montgomery, first Earl of Arundel, was consecrated in 1121.
During his episcopate Eborard had parted with the towns of Blickling and
Cressingham, which pertained to his see, to two of the more powerful
barons, in the hope of securing the rest of the episcopal property, and
possibly with the idea of regaining possession of the same when the
troubled times should have passed.
He was deposed in 1145, and it may possibly be that he had favoured the
cause of Maude in the civil wars of the period, and that it was Stephen
who compelled him to relinquish his see and spend the rest of his life
in exile. He had in 1139 laid the foundation of an abbey at Fontenay, in
the south of France, and thither he repaired. He died in 1149.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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