Robert de Limesey

Robert de Limesey († uncertain: September 1, 1117 in Chester ) was an Anglo-Norman clergyman. From 1086 he was Bishop of Lichfield . He moved the bishopric to Coventry in 1102 .

origin

Robert de Limesey was the son of Raynerius , a knight who owned land in North Mimms , Hertfordshire . Possibly he was a nephew of Ralph, a baron mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, who came from Limésy in Normandy .

Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry

Robert de Limesey served as a royal official, for which he was canon at St Paul's Cathedral in London before 1085 . At Christmas 1085 King William the Conqueror named him as a candidate for the diocese of Lichfield , whose seat had been moved to Chester by Bishop Peter ten years earlier . The chronicler William of Malmesbury accused Bishop Robert of neglecting the education of the monks of his cathedral priory. Even food for the monks was scarce. On the other hand, he praised him as a sociable man who had started extensive construction in Lichfield . However, only a few documents have been preserved for his diocese from his term of office. In a charter dated 1107, he defends priory ownership before the Royal Court in Portsmouth . Nevertheless, after a long legal battle, Kilbsy in Northamptonshire lost to Bishop Robert Blouet of Lincoln. Robert de Limesey apparently stayed at the royal court often. Six documents from the reign of Wilhelm II and twenty documents from the reign of Heinrich I have survived, to which Robert also attested. In 1101 Heinrich I sent him to Pope Paschal II in Rome to defend the right of the king to invest clergy. He had probably planned to move the diocese to Coventry for some time. During his stay in Rome on April 18, 1102, he received a bull with the Pope's permission. In 1114 the king commissioned him to enthrone Thurstan as the new Archbishop of York. On his deathbed in Chester in 1117, he wished he would be buried in Coventry.

progeny

Although he was a clergyman, Robert de Limesey left several children behind. But these were probably born before he became a bishop. His daughter Celestria later founded Ronton Priory in Staffordshire . A second daughter, whose name is not known, married Ralph de la Mare and later founded a priory in Fillongley , Warwickshire . The mother of his son Richard received property as Wittum at Frankton in Warwickshire.

Web links

• MJ Franklin: Limesey, Robert de (d. 1117). 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
Peter	Bishop of Lichfield-Coventry 1086–1117	Robert Peche