Henry of Sandford

Henry of Sandford († February 24 or 25, 1235 ) was an English clergyman. From 1226 he was Bishop of Rochester .

origin

The origin of Henry of Sandford is unclear and nothing is known about his youth. But since he was considered an important scholar in Rochester and was also a close friend of Archbishop Stephen Langton , he could have been the unknown Master H., who had made comments on Langton's writings at the University of Paris in the 1190s . According to this, Sandford could already have known Benedict of Sawston , his predecessor as bishop, in Paris . Sandford was first mentioned with certainty in 1208 as a canon in Salisbury . At Salisbury, other Sandfords also had beneficesinside. If he were related to these, he was probably, like this one, from the village of Sandford-on-Thames in Oxfordshire .

Advancement as a clergyman

In February 1208, Sandford, as envoy of King John Ohneland, led together with the Abbot of Bindon Abbey Simon Langton , the brother of Archbishop Stephen Langton, from Flanders for negotiations to England. The election of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury led to a break between the King and Pope Innocent III. came what Langton had to live on in exile. The king might have chosen Sandford as ambassador because Langton knew and trusted him from Paris. The negotiations between Johann Ohneland and Simon Langton in March 1208 were unsuccessful, whereupon the Pope imposed the interdict on England . Sandford then became a canon in Salisbury, before Stephen Langton, after his arrival in England but before he took office as archbishop, appointed him archdeacon of Canterbury before May 31, 1213 . The monks of Coventry Abbey asked him, along with the Dean of Lichfield Cathedral and Bishop Richard Poore of Salisbury in the dispute over the right to elect the bishop of the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield to convey. This right was not only from Coventry, but also by the cathedral chapter claimed by Lichfield. The dispute continued when Sandford was elected bishop. Nevertheless, the mediators could not reach an agreement, whereupon the dispute was referred back to the Pope in Rome in October 1227.

Bishop of Rochester

Election to bishop

After the death of Bishop Benedict of Sawston on December 18, 1226, the monks of the Rochester Cathedral Priory immediately turned to Archbishop Langton to elect a new bishop. Sandford was unanimously elected as the new bishop on December 26th. It is true that the monks of the cathedral priory of Canterbury complained because, according to an old custom, the crosier of the deceased bishop should first be brought to Canterbury before a new bishop could be elected. Archbishop Langton decided, however, that this dispute could be settled later and consecrated Sandford on May 9, 1227 in the chapel of his palace in Canterbury as the new bishop.

Political activity

After Langton's death in 1228, Sandford was one of the Archbishop's five executors, and he also played a leading role in the dispute over the choice of a successor. On behalf of King Heinrich III. he traveled to Rome in the autumn of 1228 with Bishop Alexander of Coventry and Lichfield, where they appealed to the Pope against the election of Walter of Eynsham , a monk of the cathedral priory. Instead, they proposed Richard Grant , Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln, as the new archbishop. Pope Gregory IX accepted this proposal . Beginning of 1229. Subsequently, both the king and the Pope entrusted Sandford with difficult missions on several occasions, and the powerful magnate Gilbert de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford, appointed him to be one of his executors after his death in 1230.

After the fall of the powerful justiciary Hubert de Burgh in September 1232, Sandford again played an important role. In July 1233 he negotiated a new armistice with France in Abbeville . In late 1233, however, Richard Marshal, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, rebelled against the new English government, which was dominated by Peter des Roches . Marshal was assisted by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth , the Welsh prince of Gwynned . By order of Edmund of Abingdon , the newly elected Archbishop of Canterbury, Sandford, together with Bishop Alexander of Coventry and Lichfield, negotiated a truce with the Welsh at Brockton in the spring of 1234 , which the King finally approved. On April 2, Sandford took part in the enthronement of Edmund as archbishop, but then he brokered a truce between the king and the rebels together with the archbishop and bishop Alexander until July 1234. In January 1235 the king planned to send Sandford to France for new negotiations, but Sandford died before he left. According to later information, he was buried in Rochester Cathedral.

Web links

• Martin Brett: Sandford, Henry of (d. 1235). 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
Benedict of Sawston	Bishop of Rochester 1226-1235	Richard Wendene