seem to have been a subordinate office, and to have been unendowed until the church of Shoreditch was given to it by K. John, 26 March 1204. It had apparently been held by one of the canons, who supported himself by his prebend.
If we read the story aright, Bishop William of St Mere l'Eglise made a new departure in appointing to the precentorship Master Benedict de Sansetun, who was not already a member of the chapter. Master Benedict was a young man of considerable pretensions, who rose in time to a leading position among the king's justices and ultimately became bishop of Rochester. Already in 1191 we find him in the service of K. John;[1] and at the close of that year he was excommunicated by the fallen chancellor William Longchamp. for presuming to bear the king's seal.[2] It was perhaps his influence with K. John that secured the church of Shoreditch for the precentorship. His earlier quarrel with Longchamp would certainly not commend Master Benedict to Peter: and now the old archdeacon and the young precentor found themselves in direct conflict. The bishop of London had obtained from the pope a grant by which the precentor was to have a like dignity to that which other cathedral precentors enjoyed. Master Benedict accordingly claimed the archdeacon of London's stall, and at the same time deprived him of some portion of his revenues.
This claim drew from Peter two of his most doleful epistles. In Ep. 149 he appeals to J. and P., two friends at court, to get justice done for him against 'the youth' who has robbed him of the whole honour of his archdeaconry. As in the salutation Peter is made to describe himself as archdeacon of Bath, this letter has hitherto been referred to a much earlier period; and it has accordingly been supposed that he was deprived of the archdeaconry of Bath at some time in Bishop Reginald's episcopate. But the occurrence in the MSS of the titles of archdeacon of Bath and archdeacon of London can never be depended on for the dating of Peter's letters; and exactly the same language of complaint as he uses here is also found in the letter in which he appeals to Innocent III to defend him against ' B.' the new precentor of St Paul's. In this letter (Ep. 217) he declares that the pope's grant was obtained by false representations, and he demands a full investigation. Moreover according to the pope's own words the rights of others were to be duly respected, and this has not been done. He asserts that for three years the bishop had held back the papal grant, knowing full well the storm it would arouse: at last, however, Master Benedict had forced his hand.
