Roger of Salisbury

Roger le Poer († December 11, 1139 in Salisbury ) was Bishop of Salisbury and one of the most powerful men in England in the time of King Henry I and at the beginning of the reign of his successor Stephen .

Life

The tomb of Roger of Salisbury in Salisbury Cathedral.

He was a priest in a small chapel near Caen when the future King Henry I of England heard a mass he was reading one day - and was so impressed by the speed with which he completed the ceremony that he accepted him into his service .

In 1101 , a short time after his accession to the throne, Henry I made him his Lord Chancellor , a little later, in 1102 , he became Bishop of Salisbury. During the investiture controversy , he managed to win the favor of both the king and Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury : he devoted himself to reforming the administration, which was completely transformed due to his activities. He created the office of Exchequer, of which he, and after him members of his family, served for more than a century, and used the position to amass power and wealth. In addition to the office of Chancellor, he was in fact, if not in terms of title, the highest judge in the country ( Justiciar). This made him the most powerful man in England after the king.

He ruled England while the king was in Normandy . He managed to get his protégé Wilhelm von Corbeil the title of Archbishop of Canterbury . The king's son, Robert of Normandy , appears to have been given into his care after the battle of Tinchebray ( 1106 ).

Although Roger Matilda , the daughter of Heinrich I, swore loyalty to him, after Heinrich's death ( 1135 ) he went to the camp of his successor Stephan (taking the state treasure with him) because he disliked Matilda's Angevin connections. King Stephen relied on him and his nephews, the Bishops of Ely and the Bishops of Lincoln , as well as his son Roger, who also became treasurer.

Although Stephan declared that he would give half the kingdom to Roger if he asked, he was annoyed at the same time about the unlimited power of the civil servants who represented Roger. Roger had built one of the greatest castles of the time at Devizes . He and his nephews also appear to have built a number of castles outside their dioceses, and Roger acted as if he were equal to the king. At the council meeting he held in June 1139 , Stephan found an excuse to ask him to hand over their castles - and had Roger and his nephew arrested when they refused. After a brief dispute, all of Rogers' larger fortresses were confiscated, but Heinrich von Blois , Bishop of Winchester and brother of the king, now sided with the bishops and demanded the restoration of the former state, since he saw Stephen's actions as an attack on the church.

Stephan resisted this request and the question remained unanswered. The confrontation with the Church, the immediate result of Matilda coming to England and the clergy to take her side, had serious implications for Stephen's fate.

Roger of Salisbury did not live long enough to see his position enforced. He died in Salisbury in December 1139. He had a son, Roger Le Poer who later also became Lord Chancellor.

literature

• Edward J. Kealey: Roger of Salisbury, Viceroy of England . University Press, Berkeley, Calif. 1972, ISBN 0-520-01985-7 .
• James Henry Ramsay: Foundations of England. Or, Twelve centuries of British history, BC 55-AD 1154 . 2 volumes. Swan Sunshine & Co., London 1898, Vol. 2.
• John Horace Round: Geoffrey de Mandeville (Burt Franklin research & source works series; vol. 11). Franklin, New York, NY 1960 (reprinted from London 1892 edition).

predecessor	Office	successor
Osmund de Sees	Bishop of Salisbury 1102–1139	Jocelin de Bohun
William Giffard	Lord Chancellor of England 1101–1102	Waldric
-	Chief Justiciar of England ? –1139	Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester from 1154, together with Richard de Luci