Hugh Foliot

Hugh Foliot Coat of Arms

Hugh Foliot (* between 1150 and 1160; † August 7, 1234 ) was a bishop of the English diocese of Hereford .

Origin and career as a clergyman

Hugh Foliot was probably a son of Roger Foliot and his wife Roheise. His father was a vassal of William de Wahull of Horton in Northamptonshire . Hugh is first mentioned between 1180 and 1183 in the wake of Bishop Robert Foliot of Hereford, who is related to him , so that he was probably born between 1150 and 1160. It is believed that Hugh first became a canon at Hereford Cathedral before his relative appointed him Archdeacon of Shropshire before 1186 . As archdeacon he frequently testified to documents and from 1212 he was entrusted three times as papal judge with church disputes.

Bishop of Hereford

Election to bishop

In January 1215, King John Ohneland proposed him as bishop of the Welsh diocese of Saint David’s , probably trying to prevent the election of a Welsh bishop. Foliot's candidacy failed and the Welsh Iorwerth was elected bishop in his place . However, in February 1216, the King gave Foliot control of the Church of Colwall in Herefordshire after the Diocese of Hereford fell under royal administration following the death of Bishop Giles de Briouze . After the death of Bishop Hugh de Mapenore on April 16, 1219, Foliot was one of the three representatives that the Hereford Cathedral Chapter sent to the royal court to seek permission to elect a new bishop. Foliot was elected bishop in June, the temporalities were given to him on July 2, and he was ordained bishop on October 27, 1219 in Canterbury . With the acceptance of this office, he resigned his previous spiritual offices.

Bishop in the service of the king

In mid-April 1221, Foliot and Bishop Peter des Roches of Winchester went on a pilgrimage. The exact destination of their pilgrimage is not known, but they probably visited Santiago de Compostela . After his return, Foliot served the government occasionally. He negotiated several times with Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and other Welsh princes. After the rebellion of the Earl of Chester and other barons, he took over the administration of the royal Hereford Castle on December 30, 1223 at short notice instead of Justiciars Hubert de Burgh . In 1225 and 1227, Foliot testified that the Magna Carta was again recognized by King Henry III. After the Forest Charter was also recognized in 1225, he checked with the expansion of the royal forests in Gloucestershire , ruling that parts of it were not under royal control. In September 1229 he was appointed judge at the Assize Court .

Spiritual work

As archdeacon, Foliot had already promoted the spiritual career of Robert Grosseteste , who had belonged to his entourage and with whom he remained in contact. Probably through contact with Grosseteste, Foliot also got to know Ralph of Maidstone , who was Chancellor of Oxford University in 1231 , but then before the beginning of 1232 became Dean of Hereford Cathedral and later Foliot's successor as Bishop. As a bishop, Foliot ran a large household in which he employed a number of studied clergy. As the first bishop of Hereford, he appointed an official to carry out his official duties. In the 1220s, he made his younger brother Thomas the post of Precentor of Hereford Cathedral and around 1230 the office of treasurer of the diocese. It is possible that he issued the Constitutiones cuiusdam episcopi as diocesan statutes at the end of the 1220s , but these rules cannot be assigned to any individual diocese.

St Katherine's Hospital in Ledbury founded by Foliot

Foliot is considered an early patron of the Franciscan Order in England. As early as the mid-1220s he is said to have supported the establishment of the Franciscan settlement in Hereford . Shortly before 1225, Canon Elias of Bristol founded St Ethelbert's Hospital in Hereford, presumably with the assistance of Foliot. This foundation probably inspired Foliot to found his own hospital St Katherine's in Ledbury in the late 1220s, which he handed over to the Cathedral Chapter of Hereford in 1233. In addition, Foliot supported the establishment of the Grammontenser Priory in Alberbury and the Grammontenser Priory in Craswall at the beginning of the 1220s . Foliot increased the income from the benefit of his cathedral priory through reorganization , stipulating that up to a year after the death of a canon, the income could be used to pay off his debts. Apparently, in the spring of 1234, Foliot was seriously ill because he did not attend the ordination of Edmund of Abingdon as Archbishop of Canterbury on April 2 . After his death he was buried in Hereford Cathedral.

Web links

• Julia Barrow : Foliot, Hugh (d. 1234). 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. ^ David Carpenter: The minority of Henry III . University of California Press, Berkeley 1990. ISBN 0-520-07239-1 , p. 327

predecessor	Office	successor
Hugh de Mapenore	Bishop of Hereford 1219–1234	Ralph of Maidstone