later the pope gave relaxation so far as the monasteries were concerned, the Cistercians alone found themselves excluded from the boon.
But how far was the interdict observed apart from the monasteries? The monastic annalists inform us that the laity were indifferent: the pressure of taxation suddenly ceased, for the king had ample resources in the confiscated wealth of the Church, and 'there was a full abundance of victuals'.[1] The lay-folk appear to have stood by the king, who championed the rights of the English crown against a foreign ecclesiastical potentate. Those of the clergy who took the same line, and indeed there must have been many, are not to be hastily condemned.[2] The pope was far away, the king was near; and on paper at least the king's cause was as good as the pope's. For he had offered to receive the archbishop and do everything short of surrendering the ancient rights of his predecessors.
What of Bishop Jocelin at this moment? We must be careful not to draw any conclusion from the appointment of a bailiff for his diocese a week before the interdict was proclaimed: for even the diocese of Winchester, whose bishop, Peter des Roches, consistently supported the king, was not exempted from this measure, as we incidentally learn from a writ which restored him his rights on 5 April. Five days after this Jocelin's diocese was similarly restored to him. Hugh his brother was still at the court, transacting the king's business as usual. On one of the two days on which the letters patent to the dioceses were being issued, the burgesses of Yarmouth got a charter from the king at Marlborough ' given by the hand of Hugh de Welles, archdeacon of Wells, on the 18th day of March '. This charter is witnessed by three bishops: Peter des Roches, the bishop of Winchester; John bishop of Norwich, the king's unlucky candidate for the archbishopric; and Herbert Poore, the bishop of Salisbury, who never seems to have crossed the sea at all. Jocelin's name is not there: he may perhaps have withdrawn for the moment to consider what his course was to be.
But on 16 Sept. we find the king at Wells, issuing orders as to his ships at Portsmouth; a week later Jocelin and Hugh are with him at Taunton, and on 28 Sept. Jocelin attests a royal charter at Blackmore. And both the brothers spent Christmas with the king at Bristol.
At the beginning of the new year the pope made another move in
