Richard Barre

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Richard Barre
Archdeacon of Ely
Two towers rise above a stone building on a wooded hill
Ely Cathedral
ChurchCatholic
Other post(s)Archdeacon of Lisieux
Personal details
Bornc. 1130
Diedc. 1202
EducationUniversity of Bologna

Richard Barre (

Chancellor of England
.

Early life

Whether Barre was a native of England or of Normandy is unknown, but his surname appears to derive from the Norman village of

Archdeacon of Huntingdon; the main evidence for this is that Barre witnessed charters for both men from 1160 to 1164. By 1165, Barre had joined the household of King Henry II of England.[1]

Service to King Henry

Barre served King Henry during the king's quarrel with

Becket dispute.[6][b] In September 1169, Barre was sent along with two other clerks to Rome to complain about the behaviour of papal envoys during negotiations with Becket held at the beginning of September. The papal negotiators at first agreed to a compromise, but the next day claimed that the proposal was unacceptable. With the failure of the negotiations, Becket restored the sentences of excommunication on a number of royal officials, but Barre was not included among those specifically named even though many of his colleagues were. The historian Frank Barlow argues that Barre was not specifically named in the restoration of excommunications, as Becket considered him already excommunicated because of his association with those under the church's ban.[7]

During January and February 1170 the king sent Barre on a diplomatic mission to the pope in Rome, on a matter related to the king's dispute with Becket.[5] The mission attempted to secure the rescinding of the excommunication of those whom Becket had placed under clerical ban, but it was unsuccessful;[2] rumours circulated that the mission sought and secured papal permission for the coronation of King Henry's eldest living son by someone other than Becket. When Becket protested to Pope Alexander III over this usurpation of the right of the archbishop to crown English kings, Alexander not only stated that no such permission had been granted but threatened to suspend or depose any bishop who crowned Henry's heir.[8] Barlow thinks it possible that Barre received a verbal agreement from the pope in January to allow the coronation, but there is no written evidence that Alexander agreed to allow the coronation in 1170.[9][c]

After Becket's murder in December 1170

interdict, or ban on clerical rites, on England or to excommunicate the king.[5][11] Shortly afterwards Barre was granted the office of Archdeacon of Lisieux, probably as a reward for his efforts in Rome in 1171.[5] In September he was named a royal justice.[12] He was named chancellor to King Henry's eldest living son Henry for a brief period in 1172 and 1173, but when the younger Henry rebelled against his father and sought refuge at the French royal court, Barre refused to join him in exile and returned to the king's service. Barre took with him the younger Henry's seal.[5]

In addition to the Lisieux archdeaconry, Barre held the

prebend of Hurstborne and Burbage in the Diocese of Salisbury from 1177[13] and the prebend of Moreton and Whaddon in the Diocese of Hereford from 1180 through 1184.[14] He continued to hold the archdeaconry at Lisieux until 1188,[15] and was at Lisieux for most of the late 1170s and 1180s.[16] In 1179 he was at Rouen for the display of the body of Saint Romanus and was one of the witnesses to the event. While holding his Norman archdeaconry, he gave land to the abbey of St-Pierre-sur-Dives along with Ralph, Bishop of Lisieux.[17] In February or March 1198, King Henry sent Barre on a diplomatic mission to the continent with letters to Frederick Barbarossa, the German Emperor; Béla II, the King of Hungary; and Isaac II Angelos, the Emperor at Constantinople,[18] seeking assistance for his projected crusade.[19] Barre carried letters to the three rulers requesting passage through their lands and the right to procure supplies.[18][d] Nothing came of this mission, as Henry died in 1189 before the crusade could set off.[20]

Later years and death

After the death of King Henry, Barre joined the service of William Longchamp, the Bishop of Ely, who was justiciar and Lord Chancellor. Longchamp named Barre as

Archdeacon of Ely,[21] with the appointment occurring before 4 July 1190.[15] Longchamp sent Barre as a royal justice to the counties near Ely in 1190. However, Longchamp was driven into exile in late 1191 owing to the hostility of the English nobility and Richard's brother Prince John during Richard's absence on the Third Crusade.[22] Longchamp's exile meant that Barre did not serve as a royal justice again until King Richard I returned to England in 1194.[21] Although Longchamp eventually returned to England, he did not return to his diocese, and much of the administration of Ely would have devolved on Barre during Longchamp's absence.[23][e]

Barre was one of the main royal justices between 1194 and 1199.

Eustace,[16] who was elected in August 1197.[26] But Barre had incurred the hostility of the king's younger brother Prince John, and when John succeeded Richard as king in 1199, Barre ceased to be employed as a royal justice, instead returning to Ely and business in his clerical office. His last sure mention in the historical record is on 9 August 1202,[27] when he was serving as a judge-delegate for Pope Innocent III,[16] but he may have been alive as late as 1213, as he was part of a papal panel deciding a case that can only be securely dated to between 1198 and 1213.[27] Barre maintained his friendship with Stephen of Tournai, who corresponded with him later in their lives.[28]

Literary work

Barre wrote a work on the Bible entitled Compendium de veteri et novo testamento, which he dedicated to Longchamp. The work arranged passages from the Bible under topics, and then annotated the passages with marginal notations such as were done with

Harley 3255, and Lambeth Palace MS 105.[2] The Harley manuscript is shorter than the Lambeth manuscript. Richard Sharpe, a modern historian who studied both works, stated that the Harley manuscript "provides [a] well structured and systematic (though not complete) coverage of the whole Bible." Because of the dedication to William Longchamp as "bishop, legate, and chancellor", it is likely that the work was composed between January 1190 and October 1191, as Longchamp only held those three offices together during that period.[23] The prologue to the work describes it as something to be used privately, and thus Sharpe feels that it was not intended to be a publicly published work; instead Barre may have intended it for Longchamp's private use in preparing sermons.[29]

A third copy of Barre's Compendium may have existed at

Justinian's Codex, glossed copies of the Psalter and some of the Epistles of Paul, as well as Peter Lombard's Sentences. Also, another Leicester Abbey manuscript records some satirical verses that were said to have been written by Barre.[29]

Notes

  1. ^ The Sifrewast family was from Normandy, near the place called now Chiffrevast at Tamerville near Valognes.[2]
  2. excommunicate.[6]
  3. ^ Alexander had earlier given permission for the coronation, likely in June 1161, but in 1166 Alexander revoked the permission at the instigation of Becket.[8]
  4. Ralph of Diceto's works.[18]
  5. Green Children of Woolpit, argues that Barre married Agnes, one of the mysterious children, and had at least one child by her.[24] No other reference mentions any marriage or children for Barre.[2][15][25]

Citations

  1. ^ a b c Turner "Richard Barre and Michael Belet" Judges, Administrators and the Common Law pp. 182–185
  2. ^ a b c d e f Rigg "Barre, Richard" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  3. ^ Quoted and translated in Duggan "Roman, Canon, and Common Law" Historical Research p. 26
  4. ^ a b Huscroft Ruling England pp. 192–195
  5. ^ a b c d e Turner "Richard Barre and Michael Belet" Judges, Administrators and the Common Law pp. 186–187
  6. ^ a b Barlow Thomas Becket p. 189
  7. ^ Barlow Thomas Becket pp. 190–192
  8. ^ a b Warren Henry II pp. 501–502
  9. ^ Barlow Thomas Becket p. 204
  10. ^ Warren Henry II p. 305
  11. ^ Coredon Dictionary of Medieval Terms & Phrases p. 164
  12. ^ Sharpe "Richard Barre's Compedium" Journal of Medieval Latin p. 128
  13. ^ Greenway "Prebendaries of Hurstborne and Burbage" Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 4: Salisbury
  14. ^ Barrow "Prebendaries of Moreton and Whaddon" Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 8: Hereford
  15. ^ a b c Greenway "Ely: Archdeacons of Ely" Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 2: Monastic Cathedrals (Northern and Southern Provinces)
  16. ^ a b c Sharpe "Richard Barre's Compendium" Journal of Medieval Latin p. 129
  17. ^ Spear Personnel of the Norman Cathedrals pp. 176–177
  18. ^ a b c Neocleous "Byzantines and Saladin" Al-Masaq p. 214
  19. ^ Warren Henry II p. 607
  20. ^ Bartlett England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings p. 113
  21. ^ a b c Turner "Richard Barre and Michael Belet" Judges, Administrators and the Common Law pp. 188–189
  22. ^ Barlow Feudal Kingdom of England pp. 373–376
  23. ^ a b Sharpe "Richard Barre's Compendium" Journal of Medieval Latin p. 134
  24. ^ Lunan "Children from the Sky" Analog pp. 49–51
  25. ^ Turner "Richard Barre and Michael Belet" Judges, Administrators and the Common Law
  26. ^ Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 244
  27. ^ a b Turner "Richard Barre and Michael Belet" Judges, Administrators and the Common Law p. 190
  28. ^ a b Turner "Richard Barre and Michael Belet" Judges, Administrators and the Common Law p. 196
  29. ^ a b Sharpe "Richard Barre's Compendium" Journal of Medieval Latin pp. 135–138

References

Further reading

External links

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