to the contrary can be produced, we must believe that Peter of Blois was still holding the archdeaconry of Bath at the end of 1205 or the beginning of 1206.
When we come to examine the succession of the archdeacons of London, we find that Le Neve's list is for this period peculiarly misleading. It runs as follows:
1192Peter of Blois
1197Walter FitzWalter[1]
1204Alard de Burnham (made dean c. 1204)
… Walter FitzWalter
1214Gilbert de Plesseto.
This list may with reasonable probability be reconstituted thus:
1192Peter (not of Blois)
c. 1197–c. 1204Alard (afterwards dean)
c. 1206–12Peter of Blois
1212Walter FitzWalter[2]
c. 1214Gilbert de Plesseto.
We have no trace of another archdeacon between Alard and Peter of Blois; and therefore we should naturally incline to place Alard's accession to the deanery a little later than 1204.
There is a passage of Giraldus Cambrensis which, when isolated from its context, seems to prove that Peter obtained the archdeaconry of London in the lifetime of Hubert Walter.[3] In order to show the archbishop's scandalous ignorance of the elements of Christian theology, he retails a story of the remark made by him to Peter of Blois, archdeacon of London, after he had preached before him on a certain Trinity Sunday. The latest possible date for this sermon would be Trinity Sunday 1205. But the context suggests that it was the Trinity Sunday which immediately followed the death of K. Richard, namely 13 July 1199: and this is made certain by the fact that Giraldus says that he referred to the incident in his suit at Rome; for to engage in this suit he had left England in August of that year. It is therefore plain that the title 'archdeacon of London' is an anachronism on the part of Giraldus; and its employment only serves to show that his book De invectionibus (or our
- ↑ Le Neve was misled by a statement, which seems ultimately to depend upon Leland, that the first stone of St Mary Spital was laid in 1197 by Walter archdeacon of London in the time of Bishop William. But as William of St Mere l'Eglise was not consecrated until 1199, the date given is plainly wrong.
- ↑ Cf . Cal. of Papal Letters, April 1213.
- ↑ Gir. Cambr. (Rolls S.), iii. 31.
