Henry Woodlock

Henry Woodlock OSB (* around 1250 in Marwell ; † June 29, 1316 in Farnham Castle ) was an English religious. As the sole prior of the Winchester Cathedral Priory , he rose to be Bishop of Winchester in 1304 or 1305 .

Origin and advancement as a monk

Henry Woodlock came from a free peasant family from Hampshire , by the since the 11th century their lands bishops of Winchester had leased. It is believed that Henry entered the Winchester Cathedral Priory as a young man , where his older relative Nicholas of Marwell , who was probably his uncle, was a monk. Woodlock is first mentioned in October 1293 when he represented the prior and the chapter in a lawsuit against the rector of Chilcombe in Hampshire as a lawyer . After the death of the Prior William of Basing , Woodlock was designated by the Chapter on June 6, 1295 as one of the seven monks who were allowed to elect the new prior. On the same day he was elected prior of the cathedral priory.

Prior of Winchester

In order to raise the costs of a war with France , King Edward I imposed high taxes on the income of the clergy . He had these passed in 1295 and 1297 by parliaments to which Woodlock was also appointed as prior. The taxes also weighed heavily on the income of Winchester Cathedral Priory, which had been in dire financial straits even before Woodlock took office as Prior. In addition, Woodlock served as one of the three administrators of the Diocese of Winchester when Bishop John de Pontoise served as the king's envoy abroad from 1296 to 1298. In 1299, Bishop Pontoise transferred the income of the rectorate of Wootton St Lawrence , Hampshire, to the priory so that the prior could pay for the lighting of the cathedral and for entertaining guests. In return, the monks should celebrate a daily mass for the salvation of the bishop's soul.

Bishop of Winchester

Election to bishop

After the death of Bishop Pontoise in December 1304, with whom Woodlock apparently had a good relationship, the monks of the cathedral priory were able to elect a new bishop in a truly free election. As the papal chair was vacant and King Edward I was bound by the war with Scotland in the north of England, as an exception neither Pope nor King intervened in the election of the bishop of the rich diocese of Winchester. Woodlock was elected quickly and apparently without resistance in an election between December 23, 1304 and January 29, 1305 as the new bishop. On March 10th, the election of Archbishop Winchelsey was confirmed, on March 12th the temporalities of the diocese were given to Woodlock and on May 30th he was ordained bishop in Canterbury .

As a bishop, Woodlock quickly got on good terms with King Edward I. He was invited to almost all parliaments. In April and the beginning of 1306 Edward I and Queen Margarethe were guests in Wolvesey , the bishop's palace. Woodlock also read the Gospel during the King's funeral in Westminster Abbey in October 1307 . Since Archbishop Winchelsey was still in exile, he commissioned him to crown Edward II as the new king in February 1308 . After that, however, Woodlock was only rarely a guest at the court of the son and successor of Edward I and testified relatively little of his documents. However, he was also not one of the Lords Ordainer , who were appointed under pressure from a nobility opposition in 1310 to work out a reform program for the rule of the king. In August 1311 he traveled to France to take part in the Council of Vienne . In July 1312 he returned to England. In his absence, the royal favorite Piers Gaveston had been murdered by some members of the aristocratic opposition. Woodlock was on good terms with Gaveston's family and apparently assisted the king in subsequent negotiations that resulted in a compromise between him and the barons. As one of only five bishops, he took part on January 3, 1315 at the final solemn burial of Gaveston in Kings Langley . In 1313 Edward II asked him for advice on the situation in the king's Gascony , and in July 1314 the king confirmed that he owed Woodlock and the monks of the cathedral priory £ 400.

Bishop's Ring by Henry Woodlock

Act as a bishop

For several weeks a year Woodlock stayed at his estate in Marwell, where he received friends or hunted. While it is not possible to determine exactly how much Woodlock took care of the administration of his diocese himself, in general he appeared to have acted responsibly. A number of austerity measures were taken during his tenure to restore the diocese's finances. He prevented the amalgamation, but also the fragmentation of leases, but also ensured that the bishop's lands were leased. During his tenure, employees on the episcopal estates received a fixed payment instead of the previous delivery of bread grain, several officials were dismissed and the episcopal forests were managed more economically. Sheep keeping on the episcopal estates was intensified when wool prices rose, but considerable sums were also invested in the maintenance of the estates. In a trial against the bailiffs of Southampton , which lasted from November 1312 to May 1316, Woodlock was able to successfully enforce that his tenants remained exempt from city duties and that the city had to pay damages. Through all of these measures, the diocese generated revenues in excess of £ 6,000 a year several times during Woodlock's tenure.

Woodlock personally participated in several ordinations. He made visitations to numerous monasteries in his diocese , and to this end he issued numerous rules and regulations for the clergy. On the other hand, he consistently supported his family. He gave several benefits to members of his family, some of which even held several benefices . In 1314 he made sure that his nephew Sir Roger Woodlock received a lucrative guardianship administration. He leased free lands of the episcopal estate of Marwell to members of his family, who were able to expand this property so that it was first referred to as Marwell Woodlock in 1365 .

Because of his poor health, Woodlock was regularly represented as bishop from the beginning of 1315. After his death he was buried in Winchester Cathedral, for which he also had new choir stalls made. Before 1809, the elaborately crafted bishop's ring , which contains a blue sapphire set in gold and is exhibited in the Winchester Cathedral Museum , was removed from his grave .

Web links

• Mark Page: Woodlock, Henry (c.1250? –1316). 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

Individual evidence

1. ^ K. Edwards: The social origins and provenance of the English bishops during the reign of Edward II . In: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , 9 (1959), p. 60.
2. ^ Mark Page: The technology of medieval sheep farming: some evidence from Crawley, Hampshire, 1208-1349 . In: Agricultural History Review, 51 (2003), p. 138
3. ^ Mark Page: The technology of medieval sheep farming: some evidence from Crawley, Hampshire, 1208-1349 . In: Agricultural History Review , 51 (2003), p. 151
4. ↑ Stan Waight: Marwell Woodlock: the creation of the manor and its descent, c.1300-1920 . In: Hampshire Studies, 53 (1998), p. 202
5. ^ C. Tracy: The 14th-century choir stalls . In: John Crook: Winchester Cathedral: nine hundred years, 1093-1993 . Phillimore, Chichester 1993, p. 194
6. ^ John Milner: An historical and critical account of Winchester cathedral . James Robbins, Winchester 1809, p. 73

predecessor	Office	successor
John de Pontoise	Bishop of Winchester 1304 / 05-1316	John sandal