Thomas Becket: Family Background and Youth
Foremost among those scholars stood Thomas, son of Gilbert Becket, ex-port-reeve of London.…
Thomas Becket in London and in Service to the Primate
Reduced to straitened means, Thomas took a situation as clerk in the counting-house of his wealthy kinsman Osbern Huitdeniers (“Eightpenny”), who at the outbreak of civil war seem…
The Dispute over the Archbishopric of York
Theobald had secured Thomas’s services at the right moment, for the long-pending crisis between primate and legate was now fast approaching.…
KAPITEL VII.
The chapter traces the collapse of Henry of Winchester’s legatine authority following the death of Pope Innocent II, as his successor Celestine II—described as “a favourer of the Angevins”—transferred the commission to Archbishop Theobald, and even the change to Pope Lucius II l…
Henry’s Last Triumph and the Fall of His Legation
Henry of Winchester won his final political victory on the very day his patron Pope Innocent II died, being succeeded by Celestine II.…
The Religious Movement Under Stephen
With the civil war raging, the religious life of England flourished as never before. Augustinian canons directed schools and hospitals; the Black Canons, Premonstratensians (estab…
The Cistercians as Spiritual Leaders
While other orders served as the working ranks of the spiritual army, the Cistercians functioned as its sentinels, guides and commanders, providing leadership through their abbot…
The Story of S. Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order
Gilbert, son of a Norman landholder in Lincolnshire and an Old-English mother, ran away from school to France, repented, pursued learning zealously, and came home to open a school…
Bernard of Clairvaux and the Election of Eugene III
Bernard of Clairvaux came to wield the “care of all the churches” unbidden, so that his contemporaries regarded him as a divinely appointed Moses of whom pope and hierarchy were m…
The Preaching of the Second Crusade
The Second Crusade failed completely in its direct object, yet it may have delivered many western souls from the bondage of sin and it inspired individual Englishmen to renounce t…
The Independent Squadron and the Conquest of Lisbon
The Second Crusade’s one success was won by a squadron of one hundred and sixty-four ships which sailed from Dartmouth on 23 May 1147, six days before Ascension Day, carrying Germ…
KAPITEL VII.
CHAPTER VII. traces the intertwined ecclesiastical and political crisis in England during the late Anarchy, focusing on the struggle over the archbishopric of York, the clash between Stephen and Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, and the broadening of the dispute into a trial of…
The need for a competent leader in England
A spontaneous muster of poor yeomen, common sailors, and obscure citizens demonstrated that the middle and lower classes of England still possessed the spirit needed to lift the c…
S. Bernard’s vision for the English Church
S. Bernard, observing the English Church through his Cistercian brethren at Fountains and Rievaux, judged that no such leader could be found in King Stephen or in Henry of Winches…
Cistercian opposition to William of York’s appointment
Acting on Bernard’s view, the whole Cistercian order in England opposed William Fitz-Herbert’s elevation to the see of York as a manoeuvre by king and legate to override the right…
Bernard on the defiance of Winchester and York
Bernard summed up the conflict in a letter to Pope Eugene III., complaining that the bishop of Winchester and the archbishop of York pursued their own course in opposition to the…
The disputed oath of William of Durham
Bernard protested to the Pope that the saving clause allowing William of Durham to swear by proxy on behalf of William Fitz-Herbert had been fraudulently interpolated into the pap…
Cardinal-legate Hicmar and the pall for York
In 1144 the cardinal-legate Hicmar arrived in England carrying a pall for William of York; he assured Bernard that he would not deliver it until he had personally received the oat…
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