Gerard Bishop of Hereford, Archbishop of York 1100. brother of Archbishop Thomas of York. The influence of the Northern Primate may perhaps be seen in the appointment of his kinsman to a see so closely connected with his own. Samson was one of the school of learned men with whom Odo—it was his one redeeming merit—had filled his church of Bayeux.[1] He was as yet only in deacon's orders, and he was possibly married, at least he is said to have been the father of the second archbishop Thomas of York.[2] He seems to have been one of those prelates, who, without any claim to special saintship, went through their course at least decently. He was bountiful to all; to the monks of Worcester he did no harm—some harm seems to have been looked for from a secular—beyond suppressing their dependent monastery of Westbury.[3] Of the new Bishop of Hereford we know more. He was that Gerard who had helped to bring Cardinal Walter to England, one of the King's clerks, not even in deacon's orders, and a thorough time-server.[4] We cannot help*
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 340. He appears in the Gesta Pontificum, 289, as "Samson, canonicus Baiocensis, non parvæ literaturæ vir nec contemnendæ facundiæ. Antiquorum homo morum, ipse liberaliter vesci, et aliis dapsiliter largiri." But this last description is substituted for an amazing account of his appetite, specially in the way of fowls and swine's flesh (cf. the account of King Æthelred in N. C. vol. i. p. 658), and how he died of fat. He fed however three hundred poor men daily.
- ↑ His kindred to the elder and the younger Thomas appears in the suppressed passage of William of Malmesbury. Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 35) says of the two bishops-elect, "Qui cum in summum promovendi sacerdotium ad Anselmum pro more venissent, necdum omnes inferiores ordines habuissent, ordinavit eos pro instanti necessitate, ad diaconatum et presbyteratum unum, et alium ad presbyteratum." The canon of Bayeux would be more likely than the King's clerk to have the higher degree.
- ↑ Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 290. But the first and second versions are worth comparing. It has a curiously modern sound when we read, "Quotiens Lundonia rediret, aliquid pretiosum afferret, quod esset ornamento ecclesiæ." But it is a witness to the growing importance of London.
- ↑ William of Malmesbury has a first and a second edition (Gest. Pont. 259) in the case of Gerard also. According to rumour, "multorum criminum et maxime libidini obnoxius erat." He was suspected of magic, from his
