John Langton

John Langton († before July 19, 1337 ) was an English clergyman. In 1286 he was named the first official as Keeper of the Rolls . From 1292 to 1302 and from 1307 to 1310 he served as royal chancellor . From 1305 he was Bishop of Chichester .

Origin and education

John Langton was believed to have come from a gentry family who owned the West Langton estate in Leicestershire . It is unlikely that he was related to Walter Langton, who was royal treasurer from 1295 to 1307 and 1312 . There is no evidence of any study by Langton, except that he is described as a valued colleague in a letter from the Chancellor of Oxford University written between 1307 and 1310 .

Rise to royal chancellor

In June 1278 Langton became the acolyte rector of Castle Sowerby in Cumberland . It is possible that he had already entered the king's service before March 1280. At the latest since May 1286 he served as an official in the royal chancellery when he was titled Keeper of the Rolls . In December 1292 King Edward I appointed him the successor to the late long-time Chancellor Robert Burnell . According to some chroniclers, this appointment came as a surprise, as Langton had previously only been a relatively low-ranking official. Since the king subsequently used the privy seal more often instead of the large seal carried by the chancellor, Langton initially did not have the political influence of his predecessor. The Worcester Annalist noted, however, that Langton held quite different positions on the king's policy until the beginning of the Franco-English War in 1294 . During the Parliament of Lincoln in 1301 were by Archbishop Winchelsey complaints brought against him, but in 1302 he was able to agree with the Archbishop. Then, in August 1302, Langton was dismissed as Chancellor for unknown reasons. Probably a quarrel with the king, without any direct political connection, was the reason for his dismissal.

Rise to Bishop of Chichester

In gratitude for his services, King Edward I had procured numerous benefits for Langton , which Langton , however, did not do himself because of his services to the king. Because of this accumulation of offices, Langton applied for a papal dispensation at the request of the king in February 1291 . Among other things, he was treasurer of Wells Cathedral before 1294 and in 1296 as the successor of his alleged relative Walter Langton canon at York Minster . In 1298 the king attempted to have Langton elected bishop of the wealthy Diocese of Ely , but only a minority of the cathedral priory monks supported Langton's election. Archbishop Winchelsey also firmly rejected Langton's election. Although Langton himself traveled to the papal curia between February and June 1299 , Pope Boniface VIII also refused to confirm the election in June 1299 . As compensation, King Langton procured further benefits, including the office of Archdeacon of Canterbury . After all, Langton held a total of 16 ecclesiastical offices, through which he had annual income of over £ 1000. This led to a further dispute with Archbishop Winchelsey, who demanded that Langton should renounce the lucrative office of Rector of Reculver . Langton had held this office since 1293 and was eventually forced to resign in 1302 under pressure from the archbishop. Despite this dispute, Langton loyally supported the Archbishop in his dispute with St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. Three years after his release as royal chancellor, he was elected Bishop of the Diocese of Chichester on April 5, 1305 and consecrated in Canterbury on September 19, 1305.

Renewed service as royal chancellor

Shortly after his episcopal ordination, Langton traveled together with the Earl of Lincoln to Lyon in October 1305 in order to obtain the suspension of Archbishop Winchelsey from the new Pope Clement V. Indeed, the Pope complied and deposed Winchelsey as Archbishop in February 1306. In August 1307 the new King Edward II reappointed Langton as Chancellor. Still in exile, Wichelsey commissioned Langton and other bishops to crown the new king. From 1309 Langton was a regular member of the Privy Council. In July 1309 he took part in Parliament at Stamford , where the exile of the royal favorite Piers Gaveston was lifted. After apparently supporting the king's policies, he was elected in March 1310 as one of five bishops to be one of the Lords Ordainers who were to work out a program of reforms for the king's rule. This probably led to his dismissal as Chancellor on May 11th. It was not until almost two months later, on July 6th, that the King appointed Walter Reynolds as his successor.

Further political activity

In the summer of 1311 Langton took part in the Templar trial in London , in which the English members of the dissolved Knights Templar were sentenced. In March 1315 Langton passed a case against the Earl of Surrey to Archbishop Walter Reynolds. In 1316 Langton belonged to the parliament in Lincoln , where he decided on petitions and was again a member of the Privy Council. The Earl of Lancaster , the king's main domestic political opponent, urged Langton to re-indict the Earl of Surrey for adultery with Lancaster's wife Alice . It is unclear whether Langton actually excommunicated the Earl of Surrey because of this , as is whether the Earl attacked Langtons official. Langton played a major role in the negotiations that led to the Leake Treaty in 1318 and thus to the interim settlement between Edward II and Lancaster. He was also a member of the newly formed permanent royal council that was formed under the Treaty of Leake. During the Parliament of Westminster in October 1320, he again accepted petitions from England and Wales. When there was an open rebellion against the king led by Lancaster in the summer of 1321 , Langton mediated with other bishops between the rebels and the king. The king was able to put down the rebellion militarily in the spring of 1322 and subsequently reigned unchallenged until he was overthrown in the autumn of 1326. In July 1327, Langton was a member of a committee that was supposed to implement compensation and reimbursements for the victims of the arbitrary expropriations that Hugh le Despenser , a favorite of the overthrown king, had enforced. However, due to his age, Langton increasingly withdrew from politics.

Act as a bishop

As a bishop, Langton vigorously opposed the attempts of Edward II to convert the collegiate monasteries of Hastings and Bosham into exemte royal chapels, which would have made them no longer under the bishops of Chichester. In 1314 he annulled rules that the Dean and the Cathedral Chapter of Chichester had made without his permission. One of the rules that he did not recognize was a ban on the cathedral vicars from accepting more than one benefice. For Chichester Cathedral he donated the stately sum of £ 341 for a new window in the south aisle, where he was buried after his death. He also donated a further £ 100 for the further expansion of the cathedral as well as funds for the upkeep of well-deserved lecturers at the University of Oxford. He died shortly before July 19, 1337.

Web links

• MC Buck: Langton, John (d. 1337). 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. ^ J. Hughes: Walter Langton and his family . In: Nottingham Medieval Studies , 35 (1991), pp. 75-76
2. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 528

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Master of the Rolls 1286-1295	Adam Osgodby
Robert Burnell	Lord Chancellor 1292-1302	William Greenfield
Ralph Baldock	Lord Chancellor 1307-1310	Walter Reynolds
Gilbert of St. Leonard	Bishop of Chichester 1305-1337	Robert de Stratford