Gerard (archbishop of York)

Early life and career

Gerard was the nephew of Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester, and Simon, Abbot of Ely. His parents were Osbert and Anna, and his brother Peter was also a royal clerk. The places and times of his birth and upbringing are unknown; he is documented as cantor of Rouen Cathedral, He served in the royal chancery under successive kings of England, William I and William II.

Bishop of Hereford

Gerard was appointed Lord Chancellor of England in 1085, and was present at William I's deathbed in 1087. He continued as Chancellor to William Rufus until 1092; what precipitated his loss of office is unclear. He retained the king's trust, for Rufus employed him in 1095 along with William Warelwast on a diplomatic mission to Pope Urban II regarding Archbishop Anselm receiving the pallium, the sign of an archbishop's authority. Rufus offered to recognise Urban as pope rather than the antipope Clement III in return for Anselm's deposition and the delivery of Anselm's pallium into Rufus' custody, to dispose of as he saw fit. The mission departed for Rome in February 1095 and returned by Whitsun with a papal legate, Walter the Cardinal Bishop of Albano, who had Anselm's pallium. The legate secured Rufus' recognition of Urban, but subsequently refused to consider Anselm's deposition. Rufus resigned himself to Anselm's position as archbishop, and at the king's court at Windsor he consented to Anselm being given the pallium.

Although not yet ordained, Gerard was rewarded with the Bishopric of Hereford, his ordination as a deacon and priest had taken place the previous day. He assisted at the consecration of St Paul's Cathedral in London on 9 June 1096. Gerard was present at Henry's coronation that same day, along with Maurice, Bishop of London. Henry was probably crowned by Maurice, but the medieval chronicler Walter Map states that Gerard crowned Henry in return for a promise of the first vacant archbishopric. Gerard may have assisted Maurice in the coronation ceremony.

Archbishop

Gerard became Archbishop of York in December 1100. No source mentions him being invested by the king, but as Anselm urged Pope Paschal II to give Gerard his pallium, which he would have been unlikely to do if Gerard had been invested by Henry, that possibility seems remote. At Whitsun in 1101 King Henry I, with Anselm's support, deprived Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, of the lands of the see of Durham, because Ranulf had defected to Henry's elder brother Robert Curthose, who also claimed the English throne. Gerard then deposed Ranulf from his bishopric. Soon after his translation to York, Gerard began a long dispute with Anselm, claiming equal primacy with the Archbishop of Canterbury and refusing to make a profession of canonical obedience to Anselm, part of the long Canterbury–York dispute. At the 1102 Council of Westminster, Gerard reportedly kicked over the smaller chair provided for him as Archbishop of York, and refused to be seated until he was provided with one as large as Anselm's. He travelled to Rome in 1102 to receive his pallium from the pope, The pope decided against the king, but Gerard and two other bishops reported that the pope had assured them that the various papal decrees against the lay investiture of bishops would not be enforced. Their claim was denied by Anselm's representatives and the pope, who excommunicated Gerard until he recanted.

Gerard secured papal recognition of York's metropolitan see for the Scots. He subsequently consecrated Roger as Bishop of Orkney, but refused to consecrate Thurgot to the see of St Andrews because Thurgot would not recognise the primacy of York. Gerard gave generously to the monasteries of his diocese; the medieval chronicler Hugh the Chantor stated that Thomas II, Gerard's successor, accused Gerard of having dissipated the diocese's endowment.

During the first four years of Henry's reign Gerard was one of the king's chief advisors, along with Robert of Meulan, Count of Meulan in Normandy and later Earl of Leicester. Gerard was one of Henry's greatest supporters among the bishops during the Investiture Crisis. In 1101 Gerard witnessed a treaty between Henry and Robert, the Count of Flanders, which sought as far as possible to distance Robert from any future conflict between Henry and his elder brother Robert Curthose, or between Henry and King Philip I of France. After Gerard's return from Rome he restored Ranulf Flambard to the see of Durham. From 1105 onwards Gerard slowly began to embrace the papal position on investiture of bishops, which opposed laymen investing bishops with the symbols of episcopal authority. As part of his change of position, Gerard withdrew from court to care for his diocese. Towards the end of 1105 Gerard attempted to join Bohemond of Antioch, who was assembling a crusading force in France, but it appears that King Henry prevented Gerard's departure. At about the same time, Gerard was working to find a mutually acceptable resolution to the Investiture Crisis, writing a number of letters and other works supporting Anselm's and the pope's position. By 1107 King Henry and Anselm had reached an agreement settling the dispute.

Gerard agreed to a compromise on the matter of obedience to Anselm. King Henry proposed that Anselm accept a witnessed oath from Gerard that he would remain bound by the profession he made to Anselm on his consecration as Bishop of Hereford. Gerard made this oath at the Council of Westminster in 1107. It was a victory for Canterbury, but not a complete one, as Gerard avoided making a written profession, and it was specific to Gerard, not to his office. Gerard continued to oppose Anselm's attempts to assert Canterbury's primacy, but the two were reconciled before Gerard's death.

Gerard also had an uneasy relationship with his cathedral chapter, Nor was it required that all cathedral clergy be ordained priests, they could have only taken vows for one of the lower orders of the clergy, such as the subdeaconate or deaconate.}} He wrote to Anselm in 1103 complaining of the intransigence of his clergy and envying Anselm's better relations with Canterbury's chapter, which was composed of monks instead of the secular canons who made up York Minster's chapter. In this correspondence, Gerard complained that some of the York canons refused to be ordained as priests, thereby hoping to avoid taking the vow of celibacy. He also accused them of accepting prebends but refusing to live or work at the cathedral, and of focusing on a narrow legal definition of celibacy without actually being celibate. The canons' argument was that they were only required not to maintain women in their own houses, but they were not forbidden to visit or entertain women in houses belonging to others. It was not only Gerard who complained about the relationship between himself and his canons; the latter accused Gerard of impoverishing York by making gifts of lands to others.

Death and legacy

Gerard was an associate of the anonymous author of the Quadripartitus and the Leges Henrici Primi, two 12th-century law books. The medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury charged Gerard with immorality, avarice and the practice of magic. Gerard encouraged at least one of his clergy to study Hebrew, a language not normally studied at the time. Some chroniclers considered his ownership of a Hebrew psalter to be disturbing, seeing it as a sign of heresy or secret Judaism. Among the sins that Malmesbury imputed to him was the study of Julius Firmicus Maternus, a late Roman astrologer, every morning, which to Malmesbury meant that Gerard was a sorcerer. Malmesbury further claimed that Gerard was "lewd and lustful". as part of manuscript Cotton Titus D.xxiv. A collection of his letters circulated in the mid-12th century, part of a bequest made to Bec Abbey in 1164 by Philip de Harcourt, the Bishop of Bayeux, but it is now lost.

Gerard died suddenly on 21 May 1108, at Southwell, on his way to London to attend a council. His body was found in an orchard, next to a book of "curious arts", his copy of Julius Firmicus. His canons refused to allow his burial within his cathedral, but their hostility probably owed more to Gerard's attempts to reform their lifestyle than to his alleged interest in sorcery. Gerard was at first buried beside the porch at York Minster, but his successor, Thomas, moved the remains inside the cathedral church.

Notes

Citations

References

References

1. Greenway "Archbishops" ''Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300'': Volume 6: York
2. Burton "Gerard" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''
3. Barlow ''William Rufus'' p. 409
4. and [[precentor]] of the same cathedral, although the dates of his appointments to either office are unrecorded. By 1091 he had become [[archdeacon]] of Rouen.Barrow "Bishops" ''Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300'': Volume 8: Hereford
5. Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 83
6. Douglas ''William the Conqueror'' p. 359
7. Barlow ''William Rufus'' p. 96
8. Southern ''Western Society and the Church'' p. 155
9. Vaughn ''Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan'' pp. 186–189
10. Bartlett ''England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings'' p. 378
11. Cantor ''Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture'' pp. 135–136
12. Green ''Henry I'' p. 43
13. Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 281
14. Vaughn ''Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan'' p. 222 footnote 36
15. Hollister ''Henry I'' pp. 135–136
16. Barlow ''English Church 1066–1154'' p. 43
17. to whom he presented the king's side against Anselm in the controversy surrounding [[investiture]]s.Vaughn ''Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan'' p. 239
18. Barlow ''English Church 1066–1154'' p. 301
19. Broun "Church of St. Andrews" ''Kings, Clerics and Chronicles in Scotland'' p. 113
20. Cantor ''Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture'' pp. 238–249
21. Green ''Henry I'' pp. 61–62
22. In 1106 Gerard wrote to Bohemond that he was still preparing to go on crusade, but he never did.Nicholl ''Thurstan'' p. 26
23. Vaughn ''Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan'' pp. 334–336
24. after attempting to reform his cathedral clergy by forcing them to give up their wives and concubines and become ordained priests.{{efn|Priestly celibacy was not enforced with any rigour until the 12th century; most clergy of the 11th century would have been sons of priests.Hamilton ''Religion in the Medieval West'' p. 40
25. Hamilton ''Religion in the Medieval West'' p. 34
26. Nicholl ''Thurstan'' pp. 43–44
27. Nicholl ''Thurstan'' p. 114
28. Barlow ''English Church 1066–1154'' p. 247
29. Barlow ''English Church 1066–1154'' p. 259
30. Staff "Full Description: Cotton Titus D.xxiv" ''Manuscripts Catalogue''
31. Mozley "Collection of Mediaeval Latin Verse" ''Medium Aevum'' p. 1
32. Mozley "Collection of Mediaeval Latin Verse" ''Medium Aevum'' pp. 8–9