Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/39

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Baldwin
33
Baldwin

raise a great collegiate church, in which he might provide for men of learning such as his nephew, Joseph the poet. The monks believed that he intended to supersede their cause. Of the famous quarrel which arose in this matter a full and interesting account has been given by Dr. Stubbs in his introduction to the volume of Canterbury letters, which record each stage in the proceedings. The year after his enthronement Baldwin seized certain offerings (xenia) paid to the convent. He decided on building a college for secular priests at Hakington, about half a mile from Canterbury. The monks appealed to Rome, and begged the kings of England and France uphold their cause. Before long most of the princes, cardinals, bishops, and great monasteries of western Europe took one side or the other in the quarrel. The archbishop was upheld by Henry. He suspended the appellant monks, and refused to obey the papal orders commanding him to restore the prior, to discontinue his building, and to give the property of the convent. When the pope issued a second mandate, Ranulf Glanvill, the justiciar, forbade its execution. On the death of Urban the king openly adopted the cause of Baldwin. In 1188 two monks were sent to the archbishop, who had just come to England from Normandy to offer him the usual welcome on his return. Without admitting them to his presence he excommunicated them and seized their horses. The convent stopped the services of the church, and sent letters to Henry the Lion and Philip of Flanders, asking their help. On the other hand, Henry wrote to Pope Clement, declaring that 'he Would rather lay down his crown than allow the monks to get the better of the archbishop.' The convent was kept in a state of blockade for eighty-two weeks. On the death of Henry II Baldwin tried to effect a reconciliation. He failed, and broke out into violent threats against the subprior. In order to reduce the convent to submission, he appointed to succeed the prior, who had died abroad, one Roger Norreys, who was wholly unfit for the post. King Richard visited Canterbury in November 1189, and effected a compromise of the dispute. Baldwin gave up his college at Hakington, and deposed his new prior. On the other hand it was declared that the archbishop had a right to build a church where he liked, and to appoint the prior of the convent, and the monks made submission to him. In virtue of this agreement he acquired by exchange from the church of Rochester twenty-four acres of the demesne of the manor of Lambeth, and there laid the foundation of a new college.

Meanwhile, in 1187, Baldwin made a legatine visitation in Wales, a part of their province which none of the archbishops of Canterburv had yet visited. The tidings having arrived of the loss of Jerusalem and of the holy cross, Henry II held a great council at Geddington for the purposes of a crusade. There, 11 Feb. 1188, Baldwin took the cross, and preached for the cause with great effect. In the Lent of that year the archbishop, accompanied by Ranulf Glanvill and by Giraldus, the archdeacon of St. David's, made a tour through Wales, preaching the crusade. Entering Wales by Hereford, he spent about a month in the southern and a week in the northern principality. At Radnor the crusading party was joined by Rhys ap Gruffydd and other noble Welshmen. The archbishop made this progress a means of asserting his metropolitan authority in Wales, for he performed mass in each of the cathedral churches 'as a mark of a kind of investiture' (Itin. Kamb. ii. 1; see also Introd. by Mr. Dimock to Giraldus Cambrensis, vi., R.S.). Vast crowds of Welshmen took the cross. A history of the expedition was written by Giraldus. The crusade was delayed by the quarrel of Richard with his father. Soon after his return from Wales Baldwin was sent by the king to pacify Philip of France, but was unsuccessful in his mission. He was with the king during his last illness. He seems to have had considerable influence with Henry. In 1185 he prevailed on him to release his queen. He now strongly exhorted him to confession. He forbade the marriage of John with the heiress of the Earl of Gloucester on the ground of their kinship, but his prohibition was disregarded. In 1189 he officiated at the coronation of Richard, and attended the council which the king held at Pipewell in that year. At this council Geoffrey, the king's brother, was appointed to the archbishopric of York. Baldwin asserted the rights of his see by claiming that the new archbishop should not receive ordination from any one save from himself, and appealed to the pope to uphold his claim.

In March 1190 Baldwin set out on the crusade in company with Hubert, bishop of Salisbury, and Ranulf Glanvill. They parted with the king at Marseilles, as they went straight on to the Holy Land. They arrived at Tyre on 16 Sept., and at Acre on 12 Oct. During the illness of the patriarch, Baldwin, as his vicegerent, opposed the adulterous marriage of Isabel, the heiress of the kingdom, the wife of Henfrid of Turon, and Conrad, the marquis of Montferrat, and excommunicated the contracting and assenting parties. The crusading army made an attack,