Simon Sudbury

The Sudbury assassination, mistakenly in the Tower. Illumination created between 1460 and 1480.

Simon Sudbury (also Simon Theobald or Thebaud ) (* around 1316 in East Dereham , England , † June 14, 1381 in London ) was an English clergyman. From 1361 to 1375 he was Bishop of London , from 1375 until his death Archbishop of Canterbury and from 1380 Chancellor . He was murdered during the Peasants' Revolt .

Origin and education

Simon was born to Nigel Theobald (or Thebaud ) and his wife Elizabeth. His father was a wealthy merchant who dealt in wool and fur clothing and held a fiefdom from Elizabeth de Clare . His older brother John was elected to Parliament for Essex in 1360 and 1362. Simon was later named after the town of Sudbury in Suffolk, where his father owned a house, but nothing is known about his youth or education. 1344 he is referred to as a doctor, since he later made foundations in favor of the University of Cambridge , he had probably studied at Cambridge Civil Law .

Career as a clergyman

1344 Sudbury received the office of Rector of Wickhambrook in Suffolk , a little later he received a benefice from the Abbot of Bury St Edmunds in Herringswell in Suffolk. Before 1345 he had entered the service of Bishop William Bateman of Norwich. He was quickly drawn into the bitter dispute between the Abbot of Bury St Edmunds and Bishop Bateman, in which the bishop excommunicated a representative of the abbot . Thereupon King Edward III. Arrest both Bateman and the abbot, as well as Bateman's followers who announced the excommunication. Sudbury was able to escape arrest and fled to the papal court in Avignon in the early summer of 1346 , where he continued to stand up for Bateman. Presumably Sudbury had studied canon law since 1344 , for which he successfully passed the exam before 1348. Because of his good performance in this area, he was from Pope Clement VI. Appointed Auditor of the Rota before July 1349 , a position he held for more than ten years. For this he received numerous other benefices in England from the Pope, including canon positions in Lincoln and Hereford and in 1353 the office of Chancellor of the Diocese of Salisbury . With these benefices Sudbury received an annual income of up to 160 marks , but this papal sponsorship made him unpopular with the English clergy.

The English government took no action against the appointment of Sudbury, as he had never been officially charged or ostracized for the offenses committed by Bateman. In 1356 he was fully rehabilitated when he was commissioned by Pope Innocent VI. traveled to England to meet King Edward III during the Hundred Years War . to press for peace with France. Sudbury was unsuccessful, but the king asked him to stand up for English issues at the papal court. In 1357 he appointed him a lawyer who should impose ecclesiastical sanctions for violations of the Treaty of Berwick , which ended the Second Scottish War of Independence .

Bishop of London

Sudbury's services to the king paid off when the Pope rejected the election of the royal treasurer Simon Langham as Bishop of London in 1361 . Sudbury was proposed and elected as a new candidate. On October 22, 1361, the King approved the election, and on March 20, 1362, Sudbury was ordained bishop in St Paul's Cathedral . However , the king withheld the temporalities until Sudbury personally swore allegiance to him on May 15, 1362.

For the next ten years, Sudbury mostly cared about his diocese. He was considered a popular bishop who did numerous tasks himself and only left minor decisions to his representatives and officials. Concerned about spiritual discipline, he made sure that the clergy performed their offices and did not neglect their duties without permission. Nevertheless, he mostly had a good relationship with the clergy in his diocese, even with the otherwise stubborn cathedral chapter of St Paul's Cathedral. When Pope Urban V wanted to transfer Sudbury to the Diocese of Worcester in 1363 because he had not given Bishop William Lynn of Chichester sufficient support in his dispute with the Earl of Arundel , the citizens of the City of London campaigned for Sudbury, who was a good cleric Was a shepherd and led an exemplary way of life. This led to Sudbury remaining Bishop of London.

In addition to his spiritual duties, Sudbury continued to take over duties for the king. From 1365 he occasionally took part in royal council meetings. To this end, Edward III sent him. between July 1364 and November 1365 three times as an envoy to Calais and the Netherlands to negotiate the marriage of the king's son Edmund von Langley with Margaret of Flanders , heiress of the county of Flanders . The marriage finally failed at the insistence of the French king on the objection of the Pope, but Sudbury had earned a good reputation as a diplomat with the royal administration. In the early 1370s, Sudbury rose to be the king's leading spiritual advisor in place of Archbishop William Whittlesey of Canterbury. It was Sudbury who was able to calm the House of Commons , which had been raised by high papal taxes and were anti-spiritual , and who in April 1371 and December 1373 wrested the promise of further financial support for the church. The fact that Sudbury addressed the Parliamentary Assembly in English rather than Latin to explain the need for assistance certainly helped. In addition, Sudbury witnessed numerous royal documents again from 1371 and served several times as envoy, especially at the initiative of Pope Gregory XI. peace negotiations taking place with France, which took place in February 1372 and January 1373 in Calais and in February 1375 in Bruges .

Archbishop of Canterbury

Election as archbishop

When Archbishop Whittlesey died in June 1374, Sudbury was considered the most promising candidate for the office of head of the Church of England. Nevertheless, the cathedral chapter initially elected Cardinal Simon Langham as the new archbishop, but this election was rejected by the Pope. After Sudbury was elected as the new Archbishop, Gregory XI hesitated. the confirmation issued to obtain the approval of the English government for a new high taxation of the English clergy by the Pope. Finally, on May 4, 1375, the Pope confirmed Sudbury as the new Archbishop.

Close ties to the government

At the beginning of his tenure as Archbishop Sudbury held back politically. After he again belonged to the English delegation between October 1375 and April 1376, which led unsuccessful peace negotiations with France in Bruges, after his return to England he was immediately embroiled in the political crisis that arose from the resolutions of the Good Parliament of June 1376. Sudbury, who had been appointed one of the nine members of the Royal Council during Parliament, initially played only a minor role in government. Above all, he served the government as a convincing spokesman, as his speeches to the parliaments in June 1376 and October 1377 showed. On July 16, 1377 he crowned Edward III's grandson, the young Richard II, as the new king.

Internal church conflicts

Sudbury carried out his duties as primate of the Church of England diligently and accurately. In 1378 he called two meetings of the clergy in his ecclesiastical province , in which he demanded compliance with spiritual discipline. He made several visits to the most important monasteries within the Archdiocese of Canterbury. By his order Effrenata generis he tried in October 1378 to regulate the salaries of the parish priests . When in 1378 the sanctuary of Westminster was injured, he reiterated to the authorities, the privileges of the Church. His taxation of the clergy was generally successful and met the minimum government requirements. On the other hand, Sudbury quickly became embroiled in a violent legal battle with Bishop William Courtenay of London. When, in the spring of 1377, he accepted the king's decision to expel Bishop William Wykeham of Winchester from parliamentary assemblies, this led to violent charges against Sudbury for being too supportive of the king. His claim to leadership over the English Church was called into question, and finally Sudbury had to allow meetings again in the face of protests from the clergy, especially from Bishop Courtenay and Bishop Henry Despenser of Norwich Wykeham. Another bone of contention between Sudbury and other bishops, notably Courtenay, was his relative indulgence for the reformer John Wycliffe . Although he published the papal bull condemning Wyclif's doctrine in December 1377 and interrogated him personally at Lambeth Palace in May 1378 , he did not obey Gregory XI's instructions to throw Wyclif in prison. He justified this by considering Wyclif's assertions to be defective but nevertheless true.

Canterbury West Gate, the construction of which was financed by Sudbury

Expansion of Canterbury Cathedral and other buildings and foundations

Sudbury made a significant contribution to the renovation of Canterbury Cathedral . He began the new construction of the main nave of the cathedral, which he sponsored with at least £ 2000 from his own funds. He also paid for the rebuilding of Canterbury's West Gate and helped finance the renovation of the city wall. He also supported the expansion of Trinity Hall in Cambridge. Together with his brother John Sudbury he founded the collegiate church of St Gregory's in Sudbury in 1375 , to which he gave property with an annual income of 40 marks. To this end, he founded Simon's College in Sudbury for the formation of priests for the diocese of London .

Chancellor of England

On Easter 1379, the barons appointed Sudbury a member of the committee to examine the work of the government, and following the resignation of Chancellor Sir Richard Scrope , Sudbury was appointed new Chancellor in January 1380 , possibly against his own will. Sudbury assumed his new office with his own conscientiousness. In November 1380, the House of Commons approved the further exercise of office by him and the other Great Officers of State . As Chancellor, Sudbury was officially responsible for collecting the poll tax , which Parliament had approved in Northampton in November 1380 . This made it one of the main targets of the Peasants Revolt of 1381. On June 10, 1381, insurgent peasants from Kent stormed Canterbury Cathedral and asked the monks of the cathedral chapter to elect a new archbishop. Sudbury, on the other hand, should be executed as a traitor for his misdeeds. When the revolt reached London, Sudbury withdrew with the young Richard II and other high officials to the Tower of London , where they were besieged by the rebels. Allegedly Sudbury was against any concessions to the rebels. When the king faced the rebels at Mile End on June 14 , he promised them that he would take action against all traitors around him. Thereupon a group of the rebels penetrated into the Tower, seized Sudbury together with the Treasurer Robert Hales and beheaded both on the Tower Hill . Sudbury's body remained unburied for two days, while a bishop's miter was nailed to his severed skull and the skull was then impaled on a lance on display over London Bridge . After the revolt was put down, his body was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, while his head was buried in the College Church of Sudbury, which he donated.

In May 2011, his skull underwent a CT scan to reconstruct his face . Using the results, forensic staff at the University of Dundee created a computer model of his head and appearance.

rating

Sudbury was a conscientious bishop. As Archbishop of Canterbury, he ensured that the Church's special privileges were observed, and otherwise worked closely with the government. This close collaboration was criticized early on, particularly by the chronicler Thomas Walsingham . On the other hand, he succeeded in maintaining the position of the church despite the anti-church mood in England in the 1370s. His willingness to compromise, however, did not help to resolve the political and social tensions of his time. He underestimated the effect of the teachings of John Wyclif. Through his indulgence, Wyclif's teachings could be spread and his followers rallied until they formed a sect, the Lollards . Domestically inexperienced, Sudbury also underestimated the effects of the poll tax that led to the serious revolt of 1381 and his assassination.

Memorial stone on Tower Hill

literature

• Wilfred Lewis Warren: Simon Sudbury, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury. Dissertation, University of Oxford, Oxford 1956.

Web links

Commons : Simon Sudbury  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Simon Walker: Sudbury, Simon (c.1316-1381). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
• Sudbury History Society

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sudbury History Society: Simon's College. Retrieved August 21, 2016 . 
2. ↑ St Gregory's Church: History. Retrieved August 21, 2016 . 
3. ^ Sudbury History Society: Simon's College. Retrieved August 21, 2016 . 
4. ^ Skull scan for Archbishop of Canterbury Simon Theobald. BBC, May 17, 2011, accessed July 13, 2012 . 
5. ↑ Face of Simon of Sudbury revealed by forensic artist. September 13, 2011, accessed July 13, 2012 . 
6. ^ Simon Walker: Sudbury, Simon (c.1316-1381). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

predecessor	Office	successor
Richard Scrope	Lord Chancellor of England 1380–1381	Hugh Seagrave
William Whittlesey	Archbishop of Canterbury 1375–1381	William Courtenay
Michael Northburgh	Bishop of London 1361-1375	William Courtenay