Orleans in honour of St. Edmund. At last he returned to England, and became vicar of Deal and rector of Charing (Bliss, Cal. Papal Letters, i. 215). Boniface of Savoy, St. Edmund's successor, prevailed upon him, in 1245, once more to become chancellor of Canterbury (Capgrave, p. 279).
On the death of Bishop Ralph Neville in 1244, the canons of Chichester had elected to the vacant see Robert Passelewe [q. v.], archdeacon of Chichester, and an ardent supporter of the king. Boniface, already archbishop-elect, held a synod of his suffragans on 3 June 1244, and quashed the election. Richard de Wyche was now recommended to the chapter and immediately elected, Boniface urging his choice and confirming the election (Ann. Waverley, p. 333; Ann. Worcester, p. 436; Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, iv. 358, 401; Bocking, p. 288). Henry III was enraged, and refused to surrender the temporalities of the see. Richard had an interview with him, but, as it proved useless, he took his case to the pope, Innocent IV, who consecrated him at Lyons on 5 March 1245 (Ann. Worcester, p. 436; Ann. Waverley, p. 335).
On his return to England Richard found the temporalities of the see shamefully misused and wasted by the king's officials. A second interview with the king proved of no avail (Bocking, p. 289). Richard was homeless in his own diocese, ‘like a stranger in a foreign land’ (ib. p. 289). He was dependent on the hospitality of his clergy, especially on that of a poor priest of Tarring, Simon by name, who shared with Richard what little he possessed. After two years, in 1246, the king was induced by papal threats of excommunication to restore the temporalities (Ann. Worcester, p. 437). Richard continued to lead the life of a primitive apostle, spending little on his own needs and giving alms freely. He rigidly maintained ecclesiastical discipline. A body of statutes was compiled by him, with the aid of his chapter, with a view to removing abuses in the church; it throws much light on the general condition of the clergy. Clergy living in concubinage within his diocese were to be deprived of their benefices; all candidates for ordination were to take a vow of chastity; the unworthy were to be excluded from ordination; charity and hospitality were enjoined on rectors; tithes were to be paid regularly; detainers of tithes were to be severely punished (cf. Ann. Tewkesbury, pp. 148, 149); vicars were to be priests and hold only one cure; non-residence was condemned; deacons were forbidden to hear confessions, impose penances, or baptise, save in emergencies; confirmation was to follow one year after baptism. That Richard set much store on seemliness of form and beauty of ritual is evident from his regulations that priests were to celebrate mass in clean white robes; to use a chalice of silver or gold; the altar linen was to be spotless, the cross was to be held by the priest in front of the celebrant, the bread to be of the finest wheaten flour, the wine mixed with water. To the sick the elements were to be reverently carried. Clerical exactions were suppressed; archdeacons were to administer justice at fair fees, and were to visit the churches regularly; priests whose articulation was careless and hurried were to be suspended; the sale of church offices was forbidden; four times a year the names of excommunicated persons were to be read in the parish church. All incendiaries, usurers, sacrilegious obstructors to the execution of wills, and false informers were to be punished by excommunication. Jews were forbidden to erect new synagogues. A copy of these statutes was to be kept by every priest in the diocese, and be brought by him to the episcopal synod (Wilkins, Concilia, i. 688–93).
Richard was sensitive in all matters of church privilege. He compelled, for example, the violators of a church in Lewes, who had driven out and hanged a thief in sanctuary there, to take down the corpse when it was already decaying, and bury it within the church. In 1252 Richard agreed with Grosseteste in refusing the king's demand of a tenth (Matt. Paris, v. 326), and in the same year he joined Boniface in excommunicating the authors of an outrage on the archbishop's official, Eustace of Lynn (ib. p. 351). In his care for his cathedral, he instituted what was later known as ‘St. Richard's pence’—contributions offered each Easter day or Whitsunday by the parishioners of each church in the diocese. With the same object he induced the archbishop of Canterbury and various bishops to recommend pilgrimages and offerings to Chichester Cathedral, with relaxation of penance as reward. He was a great patron of the mendicant friars, especially the Dominicans, who largely expanded their work in Sussex during his episcopate. His confessor, Ralph Bocking [q. v.], who wrote his biography, was a Dominican.
Richard's activity was far from being confined to his own diocese. He meddled little in politics, and was reproached with loving the pope better than the king. He was an ardent advocate of crusades. In 1250 he was one of the collectors of the crusading subsidy (Bliss, Cal. Papal Letters,
