Gundulf of Rochester

Gundulf (or Gundulph) (c. 1024^[1] - 1108) was a Norman monk who went to England following the Norman Conquest. He was appointed Bishop of Rochester and Prior of the Cathedral Priory there. He built several castles, including Rochester, Colchester and the White Tower of the Tower of London, and the Priory and Cathedral Church of Rochester.

Life

Gundulf was a monk of

In 1075 at Lanfranc's instigation, King William I agreed to the appointment of Gundulf as Bishop of Rochester and Gundulf was consecrated on 19 March 1077.^[3] Earlier that year Lanfranc had recovered much of the lands once belonging to St. Andrews Church at Rochester from the king's half-brother Odo and when Gundulf was enthroned Lanfranc endowed much of this property back to the church. This restored income enabled Gundulf to start reconstruction work on the almost derelict church building in 1080.

In 1078 King William used Gundulf's skill in the construction of the White Tower: the keep of the Tower of London, he was described as "competent and skilled at building in stone and was the principle overseer and surveyor of the White Tower of London";

In 1083 the Cathedral Priory of St. Andrew the Apostle was founded at Rochester with Gundulf as Prior. He personally purchased a great deal of property for his house and also acquired other properties as the Priory found continued favour with the Norman kings. Together with Archbishop Lanfranc he began the construction of the monastery buildings and continued work on the church. Later Gundulf had the relics of St. Paulinus, a previous Bishop of Rochester, housed in a silver shrine at the church.^[7] By the time of Gundulf's death on 7 March 1108^[3] the nave and western front of the church had been completed.

King's Engineers and the Corps of Royal Engineers

Bishop Gundulf's talent for architecture had been spotted by

• 
  White Tower, Tower of London
• 
  White Tower, Tower of London, showing apse of chapel
• 
  Chapel of St. John, White Tower, Tower of London
• 
  Colchester Castle, showing apse of chapel, the two upper floors were demolished in the 18th century
• 
  The vestiges of Gundulf's work at Rochester Castle
• 
  Rochester Cathedral
• 
  Rochester Cathedral from the Castle
• 
  St Leonard's Tower, West Malling

Citations

References

• British History Online Bishops of Rochester accessed on 30 October 2007
• Burton, Janet (1994). Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain: 1000–1300. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 0-521-37797-8
  .
• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 0-521-56350-X
  .
• Greenwood, E.J. (c. 1962), The Hospital of St Bartholomew Rochester, The Author
• Porter, Whitworth (1889), History of the Corps of Royal Engineers, London{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Palmer, G.H. (1897), The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A description of its fabric and a brief history of the Episcopal See, Bell's Cathedrals, George Bell & Sons, retrieved 31 January 2012

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gundulf of Rochester.

• Official website of Rochester Cathedral
• The Corps of Royal Engineers
• Royal Engineers Museum and Library

Further reading

• Smith, R. A. L. (1943). "The Place of Gundulf in the Anglo-Norman Church".
  JSTOR 554339
  .

Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Arnost	Bishop of Rochester 1077–1108	Succeeded by Ralph d'Escures

11th and 12th-century Bishop of Rochester