Richard of Dover

Richard of Dover († February 16, 1184 in Halling ) was an Anglo-Norman clergyman. From 1173 he was Archbishop of Canterbury .

origin

Richard of Dover came from Normandy . He was taught the liberal arts but did not appear to attend university. As a young man he became a Benedictine monk in the Kathedralpriorat of Canterbury one. There he became chaplain to Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury and in 1157 prior of St Martin's in Dover .

Elected Archbishop of Canterbury

After Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered by the knight of King Henry II of England at the end of 1170, the search for a successor was initially difficult. The bloody act weighed heavily on relations between the Crown and the Church. The king's candidates for a new head of the English Church, Bishop Henri of Bayeux , Abbot Roger of Bec and Abbot Martin of Cérisy did not get the approval of the monks of the cathedral priory, who had to elect the archbishop. The monks' proposal to elect their prior Odo as archbishop was not approved by the king and the bishops. Odo eventually became abbot of Battle Abbey . These circumstances contributed to Bishop Gilbert Foliot's proposal, on behalf of the bishops and the king, that Richard of Dover be elected. As a monk with no aristocratic background or no university teaching activity, his election on June 3, 1173 in St Katherine's Chapel in Westminster was clearly a compromise solution. The justiciar Richard de Luci immediately confirmed the choice, whereupon Richard King Henry II swore allegiance.

Richard officially entered Canterbury on June 8, 1173, but his ordination was delayed because of the beginning rebellion of the young King Henry . The young Henry rejected not only the election of Richard, but also that of four other bishops, because he had not been involved in the elections and because the elections would not have been in accordance with canon law . He was supported by the French King Louis VII . The decision on the validity of the elections was then left to the Pope. Richard made his own way to Rome with Reginald Fitz Jocelin , the elected Bishop of Bath. Richard was accused of simony , an invalid oath of allegiance and an alleged illegitimate birth. These accusations he could before Pope Alexander III. successfully reject. Thereupon the Pope confirmed the election on April 2, 1274 and consecrated him on April 7 in Anagni as bishop. He presented him with the pallium , appointed him papal legate and confirmed the primacy of the Archdiocese of Canterbury over the other English bishops. With this decision by the Pope, Richard was the undisputed head of the English Church.

On May 26, Richard traveled from Ostia by sea to Genoa , from where they moved on by land. Together with Archbishop Peter von Tarentaise he consecrated his fellow traveler Reginald fitz Jocelin as Bishop of Bath on June 23, 1174 in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne . From there they traveled on to Normandy, where they met the king in Barfleur in early August . The king paid them homage, and afterwards they crossed over to England. Their trip to London, which they reached on September 3rd, was a triumphal procession. Richard's return home was marred by the fire that destroyed the choir of Canterbury Cathedral on September 5th. However, since he initially stayed in London on behalf of the Pope, he did not reach Canterbury until October 5, 1174. There he was solemnly enthroned on October 6th, consecrating four new bishops: Richard of Winchester , Robert of Hereford , Geoffrey of Ely and John of Chichester .

Activity as archbishop

Relationship with King Heinrich II.

Unlike his predecessor, Richard supported the king's church policy. In 1175 he approved that the king deposed the abbot of Peterborough Abbey and presumably installed twelve new abbots in other monasteries. He also allowed the king to choose candidates for bishopric positions that became vacant. Even Pope Alexander III. once reprimanded him because the bishops' elections would not take place in the chapter houses of the cathedrals, but in the king's apartments. Richard himself was often part of the king's entourage. In May 1175 he was with Henry II in Westminster and Canterbury. In July 1175 he attended the royal council at Woodstock and in 1176 at the council at Northampton . At Easter 1176 he was at the royal court in Winchester and on August 15, 1176 he attended the council meeting in Winchester. On March 13th 1177 he again attended the council of Westminster and on May 22nd he was in Amesbury Abbey , where the nuns from Fontevrault were introduced to the abbey. In 1178 he was at the royal court in Winchester for Christmas and in the summer of 1181 with the king in Nottingham . At Christmas 1182 he was with the king in Caen in Normandy and on May 26, 1183 in Poitiers , where he excommunicated those who endangered the peace between the king and his sons on behalf of the king . On June 24, 1183 he was in Le Mans , where the body of the young King Heinrich was exhumed so that he could be transferred to Rouen for his final burial . He served the king on diplomatic missions at least twice. In the first mission, from September to November 1176, he accompanied the king's daughter Johanna , who was traveling to her wedding with King Wilhelm II of Sicily, to Saint-Gilles in Provence. He then represented Henry II in January and February 1177 with Count Philip I of Flanders .

As Archbishop, Richard did not contradict the compromise that the papal legate Cardinal Uguccione Pierleoni had negotiated with the king on the immunity of clergy in 1175 and 1176. The chronicler Roger von Hoveden criticized this agreement because it placed clergymen under royal forest sovereignty. Richard also did not oppose when the king made ecclesiastical patronage rights subject to royal jurisdiction. He did not take part in the third Lateran Council in 1179 either , but was represented by his Chancellor Petrus von Blois .

Conflicts with monasteries and the Archbishop of York

Immediately after his enthronement, Richard made a visit to his ecclesiastical province as primate and legate . This measure met with considerable opposition. The monasteries complained about Richard's interference with their affairs and the high cost of his stay. His attempt to visit St Oswald Priory in Gloucester was prevented by the clergy and officials of Archbishop Roger de Pont l'Évêque of York, who defended his jurisdiction over the priory. When Richard subsequently suspended the clergy, an open dispute broke out again between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Archbishop Roger turned to the Pope. In November 1175 Richard had to give up his claim to St Oswald under pressure from King Henry II and Cardinal Uguccione Pierleoni and reinstate the dismissed officials and clergy. However, despite the efforts of the king and Cardinal Pierleoni, Richard and Archbishop Roger remained unreconciled. The conflict was heightened when Archbishop Roger claimed the right to have an archbishop's cross carried in front of him when traveling in the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury. He claimed further rights in 1175 for the dioceses of Chester , Worcester and Hereford , and in January 1176 suzerainty over the Scottish dioceses of Glasgow and Whithorne . Ultimately, during a church council meeting in Westminster in March 1176, he denied the precedence of Canterbury over the other English dioceses. Thereupon the king imposed a five-year peace obligation for the two arguing archbishops at the council meeting in August 1176.

The Synod of Westminster in 1175 and Richard as canon lawyer

Although Richard apparently had no legal training, his tenure became formative of canon law in England. His household included several well-trained clergy officials, including Master Gerard Pucelle , Petrus of Blois, and Henry Pium of Northampton . With their support, many serious questions could be resolved that arose during his first Provincial Synod , which he held in Westminster from May 11th to 18th, 1175. During the Synod, 19 rules were attacked, 13 of which dealt with the conduct of clergy. This included the question of the marriage of clergy, visiting inns, behavior during criminal negotiations, the question of tonsure , ordination, holding secular events in cemeteries or in churches, the prohibition of simony, the carrying of weapons and payment of fees in processes. The other six rules dealt with the validity of secret marriages and the marriage of children. These rules were promulgated and adopted in the presence of the king. However, they were only part of the at least 37 issues to be discussed at the Synod. Twenty-two of these concerns were discussed at the synod, and of the other concerns Richard sent seven or eight to the Pope. These concerns included the handling of inheritances, the possession of churches and patrons by the Cistercian order , the handling of church property that were in the possession of Jews, the handling of men who had left their wives, the legality of monetary payments for the award of offices repayment of pledges and treatment of lepers . The Pope then proclaimed these rules by decree as papal rules for England. With the rules passed at the Synod of Westminster, Richard, as Primus of England, had taken the initiative and made an important contribution to the reform of the Church of England.

According to the existing documents, as archbishop he had a considerable share in ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England. Like the suffragan bishops Bartholomew of Exeter and Roger of Worcester , he was appointed papal judge in difficult disputes. He made fewer compromises and made clear judgments. In his opinion, ecclesiastical jurisprudence could complement the judgments of the royal judges. His decisions, along with the concerns he had sent to the Pope after the Synod of Westminster in 1175, had a major impact on canon law. They found their expression in the collections of ecclesiastical jurisprudence, u. a. in the Compilatio prima , which was created after 1188 by Bernhard von Pavia in Bologna , and in the Liber Extra of 1234 written by Ramon de Penyafort .

The north aisle of Canterbury Cathedral, where Richard of Dover was buried in 1184

Conflict with St Augustine's Abbey and death

Richard had inherited yet another old point of conflict when he took office with the abbot's duty of obedience to St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. Richard rejected the newly elected Roger as abbot, who then turned to Pope Alexander III. turned. This confirmed both the election and the independence of the abbot from the archbishop on the basis of privileges presented by Roger. The authenticity of the privileges was later questioned, but eventually Bishop Roger of Worcester was appointed to appoint Abbot Roger to his office. Richard tried to prevent this and traveled to the monastery himself in 1178, but the abbot was intentionally absent. Thereupon Richard turned to the Pope with the support of the King, whereupon Abbot Roger again accused the Curia. There he accused the archbishop of disobedience to the Pope's instructions. The Pope blessed the abbot in February 1179, so the abbot's victory seemed complete. In 1180 the Pope sent letters to the Archbishop and the King urging the future Archbishops of Canterbury to appoint the Abbots of St Augustine's to their office without further notice. Richard nevertheless rejected the abbot's claims. In 1183 he successfully refuted the authenticity of the abbot's documents, but it was only under pressure from the king that Abbot Roger made an acceptable peace with him. To get the king's support in this dispute, Richard had to follow the king to France in 1182 and 1183. Richard was not back in Canterbury until August and September 1183. On 14 February 1184 he suffered in Halling in Kent a colic , died of there two days later. He was buried in Canterbury Cathedral on February 18, 1184.

rating

In view of the crisis in which the relationship between the Church and the Crown had found itself after the assassination of Becket, it had been Richard's primary task to improve the relationship again. As head of the English Church at that time, one of his most important tasks was to advise the king not only on ecclesiastical questions. Many contemporaries, however, found his good relationship with the king negative. Richard was often viewed as a weak and ambivalent personality subject to the king. Bishop Richard of Ilchester accused him of destroying Becket's work. The unknown author who first collected Becket's letters considered him unworthy of the office of archbishop. Personally, Richard was considered mild and sociable, but his non-aristocratic parentage and lack of education certainly influenced the rather negative image that many contemporaries had of him.

Less well known than his good relationship with the king is his considerable influence as an ecclesiastical judge on the canon law of the entire Roman Catholic Church. Through his cooperation with the crown he had succeeded in strengthening the ecclesiastical jurisprudence in such a way that it could work again with the royal judiciary after the break during Becket's tenure.

Web links

• Charles Duggan: Richard (d.1184). 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
Thomas Becket	Archbishop of Canterbury 1173–1184	Baldwin of Exeter