Richard Grant (Archbishop)

Richard Grant (also Richard le Grand , Richard Magnus or Richard Wethershed ) († August 3, 1231 in San Gemini , Umbria ) was an English archbishop of Canterbury .

origin

Richard was probably from Nazeing , Essex . He had at least one brother, Walter, and a sister, Agnes, to whom he, as archbishop, granted an annual pension of £ 10. He got his nickname because of his physical size, which is also mentioned by the chronicler Matthew Paris . In the 14th century the chronicler Ranulf Higden called him Richard Wethershed, but this designation is otherwise not proven.

Career as a clergyman and election to archbishop

Little certain facts are known about Richard's early spiritual career; he probably attended a university, probably the one in Paris . It was only on 16 December 1220, is the successor of Stephen Langton as Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln and head of the cathedral school of Lincoln mentioned proven. After the Pope in 1228 at the request of King Heinrich III. had rejected the election of Walter of Eynsham , who had been elected by the monks of the Canterbury Cathedral Chapter , the Rome-based bishops Alexander Stavensby of Coventry and Lichfield and Henry of Sandford of Rochford, representing the suffragan bishops of Canterbury, elected Richard as the new archbishop . The two bishops recommended Richard for his erudition to Pope Gregory IX. who confirmed the election on January 29, 1229. The king also accepted this choice and on March 24, 1229 gave Richard the temporalia. On June 10, 1229, Richard was ordained archbishop in Canterbury Cathedral by Bishop Sandford, and on November 23, in the presence of the king and the suffragan bishops, he celebrated the reception of the pallium sent by the Pope in the cathedral .

Archbishop of Canterbury

Conflicts with the government and the king

As archbishop and scholar, Richard continued the work of his predecessor Stephen Langton . He endeavored to reform the church, to combat abuses and to preserve the church's freedoms vis-à-vis the king's government. To assist, he called upon several learned clergymen who had served under Langton, including Thomas of Freckenham , Elias of Dereham, and Richard of Wallingford , who became his representative. When the king raised a shield money of three marks from his barons in early 1230 to finance his French campaign , Richard opposed the levying of this tax on behalf of the English bishops. According to his argument, this tax was not binding on the English clergy, since only an assembly of secular barons had decided on it. In doing so, he challenged the king's right to tax the clergy, which in the further course of the 13th century repeatedly led to disputes between the king and clergy. In addition, Richard became involved in a dispute with the royal justiciar Hubert de Burgh over the archbishop's possessions in 1230 . After the death of Gilbert de Clare, 1st Earl of Gloucester , de Burgh took over the administration of de Clare's estates, including Tonbridge Castle in Kent. De Clare had held the castle as a fiefdom of the archbishop, which is why Richard claimed the administration during the minority of the heir of de Clare. De Burgh opposed the surrender of the castle on the grounds that the king would have priority in managing all fiefs. Thereupon Richard excommunicated everyone involved in the process, with the exception of the king.

Journey to Rome and death

To get support for his plans to reform the English Church, Richard set out on a trip to the papal court in Rome in the spring of 1231. One of the abuses that he wanted to stop was the exercise of secular offices by clergymen and their participation in the royal courts. This would mean that the clergy would neglect their pastoral work. To this end, he wanted to combat the accumulation of offices, which was particularly widespread among clergymen who served as royal officials. Although this accumulation of offices was forbidden, the royal officials mostly received a papal dispensation for it without difficulty . Richard was received benevolently at the papal court. According to the Chronicle of Matthew Paris , the Pope generally consented to his complaints, although the King's lawyers objected. Richard could not pursue his reform plans, however, because he died on the journey home in Italy, possibly of malaria . He was buried in the Franciscan church of the place where he died, San Gemini .

Aftermath

Nothing of Richard's writings has survived except for a sermon collected by the University of Paris. The diocesan statutes ascribed to him in the 15th century by Bishop William Lyndwood in the Provinciale actually come from Archbishop Richard of Dover , who was Archbishop from 1173 to 1184. Occasionally Richard Grant is also identified as the theologian Richard of Wetheringsett , the author of the Summa Qui bene presunt . However, there is no reliable evidence for this thesis.

Web links

• CH Lawrence: Grant, Richard (d. 1231). 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
Stephen Langton	Archbishop of Canterbury 1229–1231	Edmund of Abingdon