beginning of 1182: and it would seem that Bishop Reginald's confirmation was itself confirmed by Archbishop Richard who died in Feb. 1184. We thus get 1182–3 as the date of this reference to Thomas de Erlegh as Bishop Reginald's kinsman and archdeacon. (4) Br. 123 is a confirmation of Bishop Reginald's attested by 'Thomas de Erleia, &c.' We cannot be sure whether the word 'archdeacon' was added in the original or not.
The Buckland chartulary will show us that William de Erlegh had an uncle Thomas who was an archdeacon; and to that source we must now turn. A priory of canons was founded at Buckland by William de Erlegh at some date subsequent to the coronation of the young Henry (14 June 1170). The founder speaks in his charter of introducing 'religionem canonicam' by the hand of Thomas the archdeacon, his uncle. In consequence of a scandal which occurred in the lifetime of the founder, it was decided that the foundation should be changed into a house of sisters of the Order of St John at Jerusalem. William of Erlegh died, as we gather from the Pipe Rolls, in or before the year 1177. The transfer was not formally completed until 1186. At this latter date the Buckland charters mention 'Thomas the archdeacon ' several times (Buckl. 11, 330, 331). It is natural to think that the Thomas here spoken of as archdeacon is Thomas de Erlegh, though he is never so named in the Buckland chartulary.
We find 'Thomas de Erlega clerk' in an Athelney charter (no. 65) which is earlier than 1159: so that his clerical career in Somerset had begun long before the episcopate of his kinsman Bishop Reginald. He may well have become archdeacon in 1169. As William de Erlegh claimed in virtue of his fee to be the king's chamberlain,[1] his family would be known at court, and his uncle might come at an early age under the royal notice and thus obtain the archdeaconry during the vacancy of the see.
On the whole it appears reasonable to identify Thomas of Erlegh with Thomas the archdeacon of Wells whom we have traced from 1169 to c. 1195. We must now retrace our steps and return to the beginning of Bishop Reginald's episcopate; for our investigation of Thomas the archdeacon of Wells has carried us over more than twenty- five years. Reginald, the son of Bishop Joscelin of Salisbury, was elected in May 1173, consecrated abroad on 23 June 1174, and then enthroned at Bath on 24 November. Who were his archdeacons?
It is now plain that one of them was Thomas archdeacon of Wells.
- ↑ See Buckland Chartulary, p. xix: from the Red Book of the Exchequer, A.D. 1166.
