Church since the time and passage of the Gospel, together with an example of the offspring of the same. London, by Henry Denham for Lucas Harryson.’ On the title-page is an engraving of the bear and ragged staff, and the book is dedicated to the Earl of Leicester, who is described as a ‘speciall Mecaenas to euery student,’ and ‘so fauorable and zelous a friend to the ministrie.’ Some Latin hexameters and sapphics by graduates of Cambridge, addressed to the reader, preface the volume. The work was prepared as a reply to the ‘Hatchet of Heresies’ (Antwerp, 1565), an anti-Lutheran pamphlet, translated by Richard Shacklock, of Trinity College, Cambridge, from the ‘De Origine Hæresium nostri temporis’ of Cardinal Stanislaw Hozyusz (Hosius), Bishop of Culm and Warmia. Barthlet, scandalised by Shacklock's contempt for the doctrines of the Reformation, tried to show that all Roman catholic doctrines were tainted by heresies traceable to either Judas Iscariot or Simon Magus. His table of heretics is of appalling length, and includes such obscure sects as ‘Visiblers,’ ‘Quantitiners,’ ‘Metamorphistes,’ and ‘Mice-feeders.’ A letter from a John Bartelot to Thomas Cromwell, dated 1535, revealing a scandalous passage in the life of the prior of Crutched Friars in London, is printed from the Cottonian MS. (Cleopat. E. iv. f. 134) in Wright's ‘Letters relating to the Suppression of Monasteries,’ p. 59 (Camden Soc.) A John Bartlet was vicar of Stortford, Essex, from 23 Feb. 1555–6 until 5 March 1560–1 (Newcourt's Repertorie of London, i. 896). ‘One Barthlett, a divinity lecturer of St. Giles', Cripplegate,’ was suspended by Bishop Grindal on 4 May 1566 (Cal. State Papers, 1547–1580, p. 271). It is probable that these notices refer to the author of the ‘Pedegrewe,’ whose name was very variously spelt.
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
BARTHOLOMEW (d. 1184), bishop of Exeter, was a native of Brittany. He was for some time archdeacon of Exeter. His appointment to the bishopric was due to the influence of Archbishop Theobald, who shortly before his death wrote a most urgent letter recommending him to the notice of Henry II and his chancellor, Becket (1161). While bishop he is said to have ordained Baldwin, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, to the priesthood, and in later times to have made him archdeacon. Bartholomew comes into prominence in connection with Becket. He was one of the two bishops appointed by Henry II to secure the election of his great chancellor to the see of Canterbury. In 1164 he consented to the Constitutions of Clarendon. He was also present at the council of Northampton in the same year, and when Becket asked advice of the assembled bishops as to how he should meet the king's demand for the accounts of his chancellorship, Bartholomew gave his metropolitan the blunt recommendation that it was better for one head to be endangered than for the whole church to be in peril. Later he threw himself at Becket's feet repeating similar words, and received the harsh reproach that he was a coward and not wise in the things that belonged to God. In the long Becket controversy he seems to have steered a middle course, and to have succeeded in offending neither party. In 1164 he was one of the five bishops sent with Henry's appeal to Alexander III at Sens, and, being the last of them to speak, exhorted the pope to settle the dispute without delay by sending legates. The next year (1165) Gilbert Foliot wrote to the pope that he had not received the full share of Peter pence due from Bartholomew's diocese, and added that, when he represented this deficiency to the bishop, Bartholomew replied by taking back the sum he had already brought. However, he managed to explain his conduct in this matter to Alexander's satisfaction. Though apparently keeping on good terms with the king, Bartholomew was yet in communication with the other party. John of Salisbury advises his brother to prefer this bishop's advice to his own, and, in sending him a summons to be present at a council in Becket's name, gives him the fullest power of evading it if he thought well (1166); and indeed Bartholomew deserved this trust, for he had about the same time refused to join in an appeal to the pope against Becket. A desperate effort seems to have been made by his brother bishops in 1167 to force Bartholomew to declare himself on one side, but apparently without success. Alexander III, who was accustomed to call him and the bishop of Worcester the two candlesticks of the English church, in 1169 gave him, in concert with the archbishop of Rouen, the power of absolving the excommunicated bishops. When Gilbert Foliot was excommunicated in his own cathedral, he crossed over the sea, and received absolution at the hands of these two prelates. Next year Bartholomew took part in the coronation of the young Henry, and was the only bishop who escaped excommunication for his share in that ceremony. On Becket's death the see of Canterbury was left vacant for more than two years, and in this interval Bartholomew seems to have been very active in ecclesiastical matters. He appears to have been appointed to investigate
