1178 he was with the court at Winchester (Eyton, p. 224). He went over sea shortly afterwards to attend the Lateran council (Ann. Monast. i. 52), which was summoned for 5 March 1179; on the journey back he died on 9 Aug. at Tours, and there he was buried (ib. i. 52, ii. 241; Gesta Hen. i. 243; R. Diceto, i. 432).
Like St. Thomas, Roger never bestowed benefices or revenues on his own kinsfolk (Gir. Cambr. vii. 66); and he refused to assist Archbishop Richard in a consecration which he regarded as uncanonical (Anglo-Norm. Satir. Poets, i. 198), just as decidedly as he had protested to the king against a coronation which he held to be illegal. He was a great favourite with Alexander III, who called him and Bishop Bartholomew of Exeter ‘the two great lights of the English church,’ and usually employed them as his delegates for ecclesiastical causes in England (Gir. Cambr. vii. 57). The fearlessness which he displayed in his relations with the king showed itself in another way when the western tower of a great church in which he was celebrating mass crumbled suddenly to the ground, and amid a blinding dust and the rush of the terrified congregation he alone stood unmoved, and as if utterly unconscious that anything had happened (ib. p. 64). The church is said by Giraldus to have been Gloucester Abbey, but it was more probably Worcester Cathedral (cf. Mr. Dimock's note, l.c., with Ann. Monast. iv. 383 and 415). Roger's bold, independent character and his ready wit had at least as great a share as his high birth in enabling him to go his own way amid the troubles of the time, and yet to win the esteem of all parties, both in church and state.
[Materials for History of Becket, Annales Monastici, Thomas Saga, Gervase of Canterbury, Ralph de Diceto, Gesta Henrici, Giraldus Cambrensis, Anglo-Norman Satirical Poets (all in Rolls Ser.); Eyton's Itinerary of Henry II.]
ROGER of Pont l'Evêque (d. 1181), archbishop of York, a ‘Neustrian’ scholar, was brought up in the court of Theobald [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury (Brompton, ed. Twysden, col. 1057). His surname, ‘De Ponte-Episcopi’ (sometimes translated Bishop's-bridge), was probably derived from Pont l'Evêque in Normandy. He was an able student, but by temperament ambitious and masterful; and he soon fell out with young Thomas of London, afterwards Archbishop Becket. ‘He was not only consumed internally by envy, but would often break out openly into contumely and unseemly language, so that he would often call Thomas clerk Baillehache; for so was named the clerk with whom he first came to the palace’ (Materials for the Life of Archbishop Thomas Becket, iv. 9). Twice he procured the dismissal of Thomas (ib. iii. 16, cf. ii. 362); but Walter, archdeacon of Canterbury, the archbishop's brother, procured Thomas's restoration to favour. On the consecration of the archdeacon, Walter, to the see of Rochester, 14 March 1148, Roger was made archdeacon of Canterbury (Gervase of Canterbury, ed. Stubbs, Rolls Ser. i. 133). He shortly afterwards became one of the king's chaplains. He was present at the council held at Rheims by Eugenius III in the same year (1148; Historia Pontificalis, ed. Pertz, xx. 523). He was also involved in controversy about his rights as archdeacon, and sought the intervention of Gilbert Foliot [q. v.], bishop of Hereford (Epistolæ G. Foliot, i. 30, 124). In 1152 he was sent by King Stephen to Rome to procure a reversal of the papal prohibition of the crowning of Eustace (letter of Becket to Boso, Materials, vi. 58). He was unsuccessful, but is asserted to have endeavoured to foment discord between the king and Archbishop Theobald (ib.) Probably he received about the same time the provostship of Beverley (ib. iv. 10, 11; but Raine, Archbishops of York, i. 234 n., denies this). On the death of William, archbishop of York, Archbishop Theobald, with the assistance of the dean, Robert, and the archdeacon, Osbert, procured the election of Roger as William's successor (Will. Newb. Rolls Ser. i. 81–2). He was consecrated by Theobald, at the request of the chapter of York (see Walt. Hem. i. 79), on 10 Oct. 1154 in Westminster Abbey, in the presence of eight bishops. He then went to Rome and received the pall. He was present at the coronation of Henry II.
On the election of Becket to the see of Canterbury, Roger of York claimed ex officio the right of consecrating him (Gervase, i. 170), but his claim was rejected. He obtained a few weeks afterwards authority from the pope to carry his cross and to crown kings (13 July 1162; Materials, v. 21). Becket protested and appealed (ib. pp. 44–6), and the right was temporarily withdrawn (ib. pp. 67–8). Eventually he was ordered not to carry his cross in the southern province (ib. pp. 68–9). He was present with Becket at the council of Tours, Whitsuntide 1163, where he sat on the pope's left hand (Ralph de Diceto).
During the earlier stages of the controversy concerning criminous clerks, Roger, in whose diocese a case submitted to the king had arisen in 1158, asserted the privilege of
