The change made wholly by the civil authority.
Power of bishops.
Dislike to the change on the part of the canons of Wells
and the monks of Bath.
Buildings of John of Tours. 1088-1122.
That so great an ecclesiastical change should be
wrought by the authority of the King and his Witan—perhaps
in the first instance by the King's authority
only—shows clearly how strong an ecclesiastical supremacy
the new king had inherited from his father
and his father's English predecessors. By the authority
of the Great Council of the realm, but without any
licence from Pope or synod, an ancient ecclesiastical
office was abolished, the constitution of one church was
altered, and another was degraded from its rank as an
episcopal see. The change was made, so says the Red
King's charter, for the good of the Red King's soul,
and for the profit of his kingdom and people. It is
more certain that it was eminently distasteful to both
the ecclesiastical bodies which were immediately concerned.
The treatment which they met with illustrates
the absolute power which the bishops of the eleventh
century exercised over their monks and canons, but
which so largely passed away from them in the course
of the twelfth. To the canons of Wells Bishop John
was as stern a master or conqueror as Bishop Robert
was to the monks of Coventry. They were deprived
of their revenues, deprived of the common buildings
which had been built for them by Gisa, and left to live
how they might in the little town which had sprung
up at the bishop's gate.[1] To the English monks of Offa's
house at Bath the new bishop was hardly gentler; he
deemed them dolts and barbarians, and cut short their revenues
and allowances. It was not till he was surrounded
by a more enlightened company of monks of his own
choosing that he began to restore something for the relief
of their poor estate.[2] But in his architectural works
he was magnificent. His long reign of thirty-four years
