John Burghill

John Burghill OP (also Burghull ) (* around 1330; † before May 20, 1414 ) was an English religious. From 1396 he was Bishop of Llandaff , from 1398 Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield .

origin

Little is known about the origins of John Burghill. He came from a family of the lower gentry and was a son of Thomas Burghill and his wife Sibylla. Apparently his father came from a family Burghill from Castle Hill in Herefordshire , his mother believed the family Peverel from Leicestershire . He had at least two brothers, William and Thomas, and probably a sister.

Rise to Bishop of Llandaff

Burghill probably joined the Dominican Order in Hereford before March 1350 . In September 1354 he was ordained a priest by Bishop Trilleck . He became a close confidante of Thomas Rushook , who became head of the Dominican branch in Hereford in the 1350s. When Rushook became King Richard II's confessor , Burghill probably followed him as his chaplain to the royal court. A dispute broke out between 1388 and 1392 over one of Burghill's benefices in Gloucester , but otherwise he apparently survived the politically troubled reign of Richard II without harm, while his former mentor Rushook had to leave the royal court and go into exile in Ireland in 1388. In 1394 Burghill became the king's new confessor. In the same year he took part in Richard II's first campaign to Ireland. On April 12, 1396 he was appointed bishop of the Welsh diocese of Llandaff . and ordained bishop in Rome.

Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield

Elected Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield

When Richard le Scrope , Bishop of the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield , became Archbishop of York in early 1398 , John Buckingham , the previous Bishop of Lincoln, was to become the new Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. Buckingham gave up his office as Bishop of Lincoln but died a few months later. Burghill was then proposed as the new Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. The main reason for this was apparently Burghill's status as confidante of the king, but apparently the king was not pursuing any further political goal. Burghill was elected bishop on July 2, 1398, and the king loaned him 1,000 marks so that he could pay the fees for changing diocese at the curia . In the presence of Richard II, several nobles and the Archbishops Richard le Scrope of York, Thomas Arundel of Canterbury and Thomas Cranley of Dublin, Burghill was enthroned on September 8, 1398 in Lichfield . After that, however, Burghill was often part of the king's entourage and also took part in his second campaign to Ireland in 1399. During this campaign, the exiled Henry Bolingbroke returned to England, overthrew Richard II and, as Henry IV, became the new King of England.

Act as a bishop

After the fall of Richard II, Burghill retired to his diocese, which he then rarely left. He also no longer took part in the parliaments of Henry IV, although not only the events of 1399 but also his advanced age contributed to this. Initially, Burghill resided in Eccleshall Castle , later in Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire . Burghill tried to preserve the memory of the deposed and then probably murdered Richard II. As the only bishop he attended the funeral of the former king on March 14, 1400 in Kings Langley . Nevertheless, he was not involved in any of the conspiracies with which supporters of Richard II wanted to overthrow Henry IV.

As bishop, Burghill sponsored his diocese's two cathedrals, Lichfield and Coventry . In Coventry he promoted the worship of St. Osberga , who was buried in the cathedral priory . He donated chasubles for Lichfield Cathedral and promoted the cathedral choir. His grave near the high altar in Lichfield was completed before August 1409, where he was buried after his death in 1414. In his will, drawn up on June 21, 1412, he bequeathed the majority of his property to several monasteries. He also considered his two brothers and two nephews, presumably the sons of his presumed sister.

literature

• HE Savage: Bishop John Burghull: an address given on the festival of St Chad, 1924 . In: Collection of twelve addresses by The Very Rev. HE Savage on Lichfield Cathedral and other related topics , Lomax's Successors, Lichfield 1925

Web links

• RN Swanson: Burghill, John (c.1330-1414). 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
Andrew Barret	Bishop of Llandaff 1396–1398	Thomas Peverel
Richard le Scrope	Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield 1398-1414	John Catterick