Robert of Bingham

Funerary monument to Robert of Bingham in Salisbury Cathedral

Robert of Bingham († uncertain: November 3, 1246 ) was an English clergyman. From 1228 he was Bishop of Salisbury .

Origin and advancement as a theologian

Robert of Bingham may have come from the Bingham family of Sutton Bingham in Somerset or a branch of the family from Melcombe Bingham in Dorset . He probably attended a university, because in July 1211 he was designated as a master . Bingham is first mentioned in 1210 as an assistant to the Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk . Possibly he was part of the household of Bishop John de Gray of Norwich at the time. Before March 1218, Bingham was a doctor of theology and lived in Oxford, where he presumably taught at Oxford University. In Oxford he was commissioned by the papal legate Guala to settle a dispute over St Bartholomew's Hospital in the city. It was in Oxford that Richard Poore , who had been Bishop of Salisbury since 1217, became aware of Bingham. As a renowned theologian, Poore gave Bingham a position as a canon at the new Salisbury Cathedral before 1219 . Bingham lived at least temporarily in Salisbury, where he took part in the consecration of the cathedral's altars in September 1225. On August 15, 1226, however, he failed to attend an important chapter meeting and during Lent 1227 he did not live in Salisbury. After Richard Poore was elected the new Bishop of Durham in the summer of 1228, the Cathedral Chapter elected Bingham as the new Bishop of Salisbury on September 9th. A little later, the king confirmed the choice, and so did Pope Gregory IX. recognized the election on December 16, 1228 in Perugia . However, since the office of Archbishop of Canterbury was vacant , Bingham's episcopal ordination took place on May 27, 1229. The consecration of Bingham was finally carried out by the Bishops of Jocelin of Bath and William of Worcester in Wilton , because he was too sick to travel to Canterbury was.

Bishop of Salisbury

Bingham was apparently sick more often. On October 19, 1233 he did not take part in a meeting of his cathedral chapter, at which the further construction of the cathedral was discussed. In the 1240s he was seriously ill several times, which is why he made the ordination of four abbots between December 1242 and April 1246 in his bishop's residence instead of in Salisbury Cathedral. In November 1245 he could not investigate the serious complaints of the monks of Abingdon Abbey against their abbot because of an illness . Still, Bingham conscientiously performed his office as bishop. He spent most of his tenure in his diocese. In 1239 he expanded the diocesan statutes issued by his predecessor Richard Poore, which now comprised 60 sections and regulated the services and pastoral care of his diocese. On April 2, 1234 he took part in the ordination of Edmund of Abingdon as Archbishop of Canterbury and, together with his cathedral chapter in 1241, wrote a letter to the Pope for his canonization . Together with seven other bishops, he supported the claims of the monks of the cathedral priory of Canterbury during a sedis vacancy of the archdiocese in 1243.

Little political importance

Politically, Bingham played only a minor role. When in 1233 the former justiciar Hubert de Burgh fled his custody to the sanctuary of a church in Devizes , his persecutors forcibly dragged him out of the church. Bingham protested vigorously against this violation of the rights of the Church and , with the approval of most of the other English bishops, excommunicated de Burgh's persecutors. On January 28, 1237 he testified in Westminster the renewed recognition of the Magna Carta and the Forest Charter by King Henry III. In Salisbury he re-established St Nicholas's Hospital south of the cathedral, and probably as early as 1231 he had a stone bridge built over the River Avon , which made access to the city much easier from the south-west.

An act by Bingham is documented for the last time on October 31, 1246. He was buried in Salisbury Cathedral. Shortly after his death, a splendid grave monument made of Purbeck marble was erected for him .

Web links

• BR Kemp: Bingham, Robert of (d. 1246). 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
Richard Poore	Bishop of Salisbury 1228-1246	William of York