monastery in the diocese of Lincoln. The Archdeacon, seeing an opportunity of weakening the almost pontifical dignity of this Abbot, cited him before his court. Taking advantage of a technical blunder of the Archdeacon's, the Abbot refused to appear. The Archdeacon corrected his mistake, but the Abbot still refused to appear. Then the Archdeacon complained to the Bishop, Grosseteste summoned the Abbot to appear before him, and when the Abbot declined to do so, excommunicated him as contumacious. The Abbot took this very quietly, which made Grosseteste still more indignant, and he threatened to take severer steps. He sent lay visitors to bring the Abbot to submission, but the monks shut the doors in their faces and the porters drove them away. The visitors returned to Grosseteste and complained of the treatment they had received. Finding that matters were getting serious, the Abbot lodged an appeal which in the ordinary course of affairs would have gone to the archbishop of the province. But, at this time, the archbishopric was vacant, and the Abbot actually carried his appeal to the monks of Canterbury as being custodians of the temporalities of the see during the vacancy. It was an absurd thing to do, of course, but it answered the Abbot's purpose. Grosseteste was in great wrath, and solemnly deposed the Abbot of Bardney. Thereupon the monks of Canterbury, summoning fifty priests of the province, excommunicated Grosseteste and sent him a solemn letter signed with the archiepiscopal seal. When the Bishop received these documents he tore them in pieces, threw them upon the ground, and stamped on them, to
