Chronicles of the Crusades/Chapter 1/Sect. 10-13
Sect. 10. Godfrey, son of that renowned Richard de Luci, Richard (Fitz Neale) the treasurer, Hubert Walter, and William de Longchamp, four men of no small virtue, and of no mean praise, were elected at Pippewelle to the four vacant sees, viz. Winchester, London, Salisbury, and Ely. They all obtained sufficient canonical nomination, and especially the elect of Winchester, who obtained his nomination to the dignity on the seventeenth of the kalends of October (Sept. 15), while the election of the other three was delayed till the morrow, the king consenting and the archbishop confirming what was done, although at the first he would rather have had it somewhat otherwise: concerning which it wonderfully happened that he, who had been nominated to one of the sees by the archbishop's means, died that very day. William, bishop elect of Ely, retained the king's seal on the payment of three thousand pounds of silver, although Reginald the Italian had bid one thousand more. The bishops elect of Winchester and Salisbury were consecrated at Westminster, by Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, on the eleventh of the kalends of November (Oct. 22). On that day, Hugh de Nonante, bishop of Coventry, laid his complaint before the archbishop and bishops assembled at the consecration of the bishops elect, against his monks of Coventry, for having laid violent hands on him and drawn his blood before the altar. He had also expelled the greater part of the congregation before his complaint, nor did he cease from his importunity until he had obtained the sanction of all the bishops in attestation to the pope against the monks.
Sect. 11. Godfrey, bishop of Winchester, mindful of his profession, suing for the restoration of the possessions of his church, which had been taken away, as no one had any right of replevin against the church of Winchester with respect to its two manors, namely Meones and Weregrave, recovered them by judicial decree, three thousand pounds of silver being privately given to the king. Nor did the considerate man omit at the same time to pay a fine to the king for the indemnity of the church's treasure, for his patrimony, for the county of Hampshire and for the custody of the castles of Winchester and Porchester. And because the time for the payment of so much money was nigh at hand, as he could not pass over the day fixed for the payment without detriment to the whole business, and he could find no nearer resource under heaven, although against his will, he laid his hand on the treasure of his church, to restore which, however, he obliged himself and his successors, providing security to the convent by the testimony of a sealed bond. A man of such courtesy and moderation, who not even when angry ever did any thing to those who were under him, but what savoured of mildness; truly of his family, and one of his familiars, of whom it is said, under whom to live is to reign.
Sect. 12. The king readily disburthened all, whose money was a burthen to them, such powers and possessions as they chose being given to anybody at pleasure; wherewith also on a time an old acquaintance in the company joking him, he broke off with this evasion, "I would sell London if I could find a chapman." Many a one might have been forewarned by that expression, had it been uttered sooner, not to learn to be a wise merchant, after the English proverb, "by buying for a dozen, and selling for one and a half."
in the year of the lord mcxc.
Sect. 13. In the year from the incarnation of the Lord 1190,[1] the king crossed the Channel to Neustria (Normandy), the care of the whole kingdom being committed to the chancellor.
Richard, bishop elect of London, and William of Ely, were consecrated by Archbishop Baldwin at Westminster, the second of the kalends of January (Dec. 31, 1189). William de Mandeville, earl of Albemarle, being seized with delirium in an acute semitertian fever, died at Gisorz; whose relict, a woman almost a man, who was deficient in nothing masculine but manhood, William de Fortibus, a knight a thousand times approved in arms, received to wife by King Richard's gift, together with all the honours of her former husband.
- ↑ December 12, 1189.