at Winchester; he had also employed him in the affairs of Glastonbury. Stephen was wholly in Bishop Henry's hands when he came to claim the crown of England, and there can be no doubt that Robert's election to the see of Bath was brought about by this powerful patron. At K. Stephen's Easter court of 1136 the bishopric was granted to Robert, who had already been canonically elected.[1]
Bishop Robert's first years were full of storm and stress. A considerable part of Somerset was ravaged by K. Stephen's enemies, and in the spring of 1138 the bishop was himself captured while defending the king's interests near Bath. Moreover in the preceding year a fire had broken out in Bath and had destroyed the monastery, seriously damaging the great church which had only just been completed. Accordingly it was probable that some time would elapse before the new bishop could turn his attention to Wells. Whilst he was at Glastonbury, indeed, he must have heard the bitter cry of the misused canons; and we may well believe that on becoming bishop he at once laid his plans, if he could do no more, for the reconstitution of the cathedral church on the new system which York, Lincoln, and Salisbury had already borrowed with excellent results from the great churches of Normandy.
It has been assumed, on the authority of a note appended to the Ordinance in which Bishop Robert records the outlines of his new constitution,[2] that the abolition of the provostship, the appointment of a dean, the recovery of the estates and their distribution into prebends, all took place within the first year of his episcopate. The note indeed plainly states that 'this was transacted in the presence of Henry bishop of Winchester, and afterwards confirmed by the witnesses following; namely, the archbishops, William of Canterbury and Thurstan of York, and the bishops, Roger of Salisbury, William of Exeter, Simon of Worcester, and others'. The archbishop of Canterbury died, as is well known, within a year of his crowning of K. Stephen, on 21 Nov. 1136. William Warelwast, the bishop of Exeter, survived till 27 Sept. 1137; but he was blind for some time before his death, and he was not present at K. Stephen's great Easter court of 1136.
To accept this note as giving the true date of the Ordinance would
- ↑ 'Canonica prius electione precedente' (Bath Chartul. i. 60). As much stress has been laid by historians on this clause in Bishop Robert's grant, it may be worth while to call attention to a similar statement in a charter of Bishop Godfrey (ibid. i. 57), in which he speaks gratefully of K. Henry, 'qui mihi gratuita munificentia sua post canonicam electionem episcopatum dedit.'
- ↑ Wells Registers, R. i. 36, R. iii. 9 (with further witnesses). It is printed by Canon Church, Early History of the Church of Wells, App. A, p. 352.
