Thurstan
- This page is about Thurstan of Bayeux (1070 – 1140) who became Archbishop of York. Thurstan of Caen became the first Norman Abbot of Glastonbury in circa 1077.
Thurstan | |
|---|---|
| Archbishop of York | |
| Elected | August 1114 |
| Term ended | 21 January 1140 (res.) |
| Predecessor | Thomas II |
| Successor | Waltheof of Melrose |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 6 June 1115 by Ranulf Flambard |
| Consecration | 19 October 1119 by Pope Callixtus II |
| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 1070 |
| Died | 6 February 1140 (aged c. 69) Pontefract, Yorkshire, England |
| Buried | Pontefract |
| Parents | Anger and Popelina |
Thurstan
Early life
Thurstan was the son of a
Early in his career, Thurstan held the prebendary of
Controversy and exile
The
Over the next three years, the new popes, Gelasius II and Calixtus II, championed Thurstan's case, and on 19 October 1119 he was consecrated by Calixtus at Reims.[8][15] Calixtus had earlier promised Henry that he would not consecrate Thurstan without the king's permission, which had still not been granted.[15] Enraged at this, the king refused to allow the newly consecrated archbishop to enter England, and Thurstan remained for some time on the continent in the company of the pope.[12] While he was travelling with the pope, he also visited Adela of Blois, King Henry's sister, who was also Thurstan's spiritual daughter. At about this same time, Calixtus issued two bulls in Thurstan's favor: one released York from Canterbury's supremacy forever, and the other demanded the king allow Thurstan to return to York. The pope threatened an interdict on England as a punishment if the papal bull was not obeyed.[15] At length, Thurstan's friends, including Adela, succeeded in reconciling him with Henry, and he rejoined the king in Normandy.[14] At Easter 1120, he escorted Adela to the monastery of Marcigny, where she retired from active secular affairs.[16] He was recalled to England in early 1121.[14]
Archbishop
One of the main weaknesses of the
Thurstan refused to accept that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, William de Corbeil, was his superior, and did not help with William's consecration. The dispute between the two continued, and both archbishops carried their complaints in person to Rome twice. In 1126, Pope Honorius II ruled in favour of York.[19] The pope based his decision on the fact that Canterbury's supporting documents had been forged.[20]
Thurstan supported King Stephen after Henry I's death in 1135, and appeared at Stephen's first court at Easter held at Westminster.[21] Thurstan negotiated a truce at Roxburgh in 1138 between England and Scotland. It was Thurstan who mustered the army which defeated the Scots at the Battle of the Standard on 22 August 1138 near Northallerton, Yorkshire.[22][23] Thurstan did not take direct part in the battle., but he created the standard that gave the battle its name, by putting a ship's mast in a cart and hanging the banners of Saint Peter of York, Saint John of Beverley, and Saint Wilfrid of Ripon on the mast. The Scots had invaded, attempting to aid the Empress Matilda, the daughter of Henry I and Stephen's rival for the throne.[24] On 21 January 1140 Thurstan resigned his see and entered the order of the Cluniacs at Pontefract[8] and he died there on 6 February 1140.[10] He was buried in the church at Pontefract.[6]
Saint
In 2024 evidence emerged that Thurstan had been acclaimed as a saint: his name was found, associated with a feast day of 6 February, in an ancient catalogue of saints' days at Pontefract Priory. At the time the pope's approval was not needed for sainthood; the monks at Pontefract exhumed his body two years after his death and, finding it well-preserved, acclaimed him as a saint. This detail was lost in the destruction of monasteries' possessions during the Reformation.[25]
Legacy
Thurstan gave land to many of the churches of his
Thurstan is described by the historian Edmund King as "a bishop like no other. Thurstan and the baronage of Yorkshire had been partners in a common enterprise, their security in this world and their salvation in the next, and to all aspects of his role he had shown a complete commitment." His death occurred during The Anarchy of the civil war between Stephen and Matilda and led to a breakdown in order.[32]
Thurstan's nephew was Osbert de Bayeux, who became an archdeacon at York, and in 1154 was accused of the murder of William of York, one of Thurstan's successors at York.[33]
Notes
Citations
- ^ Greenway Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300: Volume 1: St. Paul's, London: Prebendaries: Cantlers
- ^ a b Hollister Henry I p. 242–244
- ^ Spear "Norman Empire and the Secular Clergy" Journal of British Studies p. 5
- ^ a b Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants p. 151
- ^ Nicholl Thurstan p. iv
- ^ a b c d e f Burton "Thurstan" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ Greenway "Prebendaries: Consumpta-per-Mare" Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300: Volume 1: St. Paul's, London
- ^ a b c d e Greenway "Archbishops" British History Online Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300: Volume 6: York
- ^ Barlow English Church p. 83
- ^ a b Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 281
- ^ Mason "Flambard, Ranulf" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ a b c Bartlett England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings p. 394
- ^ Barlow English Church pp. 39–44
- ^ a b c Cantor Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture pp. 305–309
- ^ a b c Hollister Henry I pp. 269–273
- ^ LoPrete "Anglo-Norman Card" Albion p. 588
- ^ a b Rose "Cumbrian Society" Studies in Church History p. 124
- ^ Barlow English Church pp. 40–41
- ^ Duggan "From the Conquest to the Death of John" English Church and the Papacy p. 98
- ^ Poole Domesday to Magna Carta p. 184
- ^ Powell and Wallis House of Lords p. 64
- ^ Barlow Feudal Kingdom p. 211
- ^ Huscroft Ruling England p. 73
- ^ Davis King Stephen pp. 36–37
- ^ Tapper "'Unambiguous proof'" The Guardian
- ^ Bartlett England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings p. 438
- ^ Dawtry "Benedictine Revival" Studies in Church History 18 p. 91
- ^ Burton Monastic and Religious Orders p. 70
- ^ Barlow English Church p. 203
- ^ Burton Monastic and Religious Orders p. 48
- ^ a b Appleby Troubled Reign pp. 106–107
- ^ King, King Stephen, p. 126
- ^ Greenway "Archdeacons: Richmond" Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 6: York
References
- Appleby, John T. (1995). The Troubled Reign of King Stephen 1135–1154. New York: Barnes & Noble. ISBN 1-56619-848-8.
- ISBN 0-582-50236-5.
- ISBN 0-582-49504-0.
- ISBN 0-19-822741-8.
- Burton, Janet (1994). Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain: 1000–1300. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37797-8.
- Burton, Janet (2004). "Thurstan (c.1070–1140)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27411. Retrieved 11 November 2007. (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- OCLC 186158828.
- ISBN 0-582-04000-0.
- Dawtry, Anne (1982). "The Benedictine Revival in the North: The Last Bulwark of Anglo-Saxon Monasticism". In Mews, Stuart (ed.). Studies in Church History 18: Religion and National Identity. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. pp. 87–98.
- Duggan, Charles (1965). "From the Conquest to the Death of John". In Lawrence, C. H. (ed.). The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages (1999 Reprint ed.). Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing. pp. 63–116. ISBN 0-7509-1947-7.
- 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.
- Greenway, Diana E. (1968). "Prebendaries: Cantlers". Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300. Vol. 1: St. Paul's, London. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 14 September 2007.
- Greenway, Diana E. (1968). "Prebendaries: Consumpta-per-Mare". Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300. Vol. 1: St. Paul's, London. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 14 September 2007.
- Greenway, Diana E. (1999). "Archbishops". Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300. Vol. 6: York. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 14 September 2007.
- Greenway, Diana E. (1999). "Archdeacons: Richmond". Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300. Vol. 6: York. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 6 August 2014.
- ISBN 0-300-08858-2.
- Huscroft, Richard (2005). Ruling England 1042–1217. London: Pearson/Longman. ISBN 0-582-84882-2.
- ISBN 0-85115-863-3.
- King, Edmund (2010). King Stephen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11223-8.
- Lawrence, C. H. (1965). "The Thirteenth Century". In Lawrence, C. H. (ed.). The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages (1999 reprint ed.). Stroud: Sutton Publishing. pp. 117–156. ISBN 0-7509-1947-7.
- LoPrete, Kimberly A. (Winter 1990). "The Anglo-Norman Card of Adela of Blois". JSTOR 4051390.
- Mason, J. F. A. (2004). "Flambard, Ranulf (c.1060–1128)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. required)
- Nicholl, Donald (1964). Thurstan: Archbishop of York (1114 - 1140). York: Stonegate Press. OCLC 871673.
- ISBN 0-19-821707-2.
- Powell, J. Enoch; Wallis, Keith (1968). The House of Lords in the Middle Ages: A History of the English House of Lords to 1540. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
- Rose, R. K. (1982). "Cumbrian Society and the Anglo-Norman Church". S2CID 183905987.
- Richardson, H. G.; Sayles, G. O. (1963). The Governance of Mediaeval England. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
- Spear, David S. (Spring 1982). "The Norman Empire and the Secular Clergy, 1066-1204". S2CID 153511298.
- Tapper, James (3 February 2024). "'Unambiguous Proof': Medieval Archbishop Revealed as Lost English Saint". The Guardian.
Further reading
- Baker, L. G. D. (1969). "The Genesis of English Cistercian Chronicles: The Foundation-history of Fountains Abbey I". Analecta Cisterciensia. 25: 14–41.
- Baker, L. G. D. (1975). "The Genesis of English Cistercian Chronicles: The Foundation-history of Fountains Abbey II". Analecta Cisterciensia. 31: 179–212.
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