Stephen Bersted

Stephen Bersted (* before 1220; † October 21, 1287 ) was an English clergyman. From 1262 he was Bishop of Chichester . During the Second Barons' War he was one of the leading clergymen who supported the nobility opposition to the king.

Origin and education

Stephen's family was named after the village of Bersted in Sussex , not far from Chichester , that belonged to Pagham , an estate of the Archbishops of Canterbury. Nothing is known about his parents. Stephen became a clergyman and was a canon in Chichester by 1247 . In 1254 he studied theology at Oxford University .

Promotion to bishop and role in the war of the barons

As a chaplain in the service of Bishop Richard Wyche , Bersted saw how resentful King Henry III. was opposite to the bishop when he refused to acknowledge his election. From 1258, a noble opposition rebelled against the king, which temporarily gained the government of England. This helped that Bersted, despite being the poorest of the Chichester canons, was elected as the new bishop as a critic of the king in May or June 1262. He was ordained bishop on September 24th by Archbishop Boniface of Canterbury . Together with the bishops Walter de Cantilupe of Worcester and Richard of Gravesend of Lincoln, he supported Bishop John Gervase of Winchester in May 1263 when he consecrated Henry of Sandwich as Bishop of London. Stephen Bersted, like John Gervasce and most of the other bishops, was certain that the Oxford Provisions issued by the rebel barons would make for a better government of England. As a result, he supported the nobility opposition to the king. In March 1264, Bersted, along with Bishops Walter de Cantilupe, Henry of Sandwich and John Gervase, were representatives of the barons in negotiations with the king, which took place at Brackley and Oxford . In doing so, they promised that the barons would accept the rejection of the Provisions of Oxford by the Mise of Amiens , if in return the king would only award government offices to the English. When this compromise proposal failed, Bersted was among the clergy who excommunicated opponents of the provisions in the Dominican office of Oxford . When it came to the open Second War of the barons against the king a little later , Bersted tried on May 12, 1264, shortly before the Battle of Lewes , together with some Dominicans to persuade the king to give in again. When King Henry III. Suffering a heavy defeat at the Battle of Lewes and falling into the power of the aristocratic opposition, Bersted became one of the leaders of the new government of the barons. Together with Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester and Gilbert de Clare, 3rd Earl of Gloucester , he was authorized in June to elect the new nine-member Council of State. With that he drew the hostility of Pope Urban IV , who continued to support the king. Bersted opposed the order of the papal legate Cardinal Gui Foucois to answer before him in Boulogne . Nor did he comply with the legate's request to announce the excommunication of the supporters of Montfort. In January 1265 he took part in De Montfort's Parliament , and presumably he was one of the bishops who excommunicated opponents of the Magna Carta and the new government in March 1265 . Apparently the dispute between Montfort and Clare led to Bersted increasingly withdrawing from the government. In August 1265 Montfort and his supporters were decisively defeated by the supporters of the king at the Battle of Evesham . After that, Bersted had to answer to the king for why he had supported his enemies. The new papal legate Cardinal Ottobono suspended him from his office as bishop in April 1266 and referred him to Pope Clement IV , the former legate Gui Foucois, who should judge him. Bersted traveled to the papal court in Italy, but it was not until November 26, 1272 that the new Pope Gregory X forgave him . This made Bersted the last bishop among the supporters of Montfort to be awarded. Then he returned to England and took over the administration of his diocese again.

Act as a bishop

Presumably Bersted took part in a church council meeting in London in January 1278, which settled on the interference of Pope Nicholas III. complained in matters of the Church of England. From July to August 1279 he took part in the first church council meeting, which Archbishop John Pecham had called to Reading and at which important canon law rules were passed. Bersted apparently enjoyed the favor of the new King Edward I , who attended the reburial of the bones of the canonized Bishop Richard Wyche on June 16, 1276. Together with Archbishop Robert Kilwardby , Bersted presided over the sumptuous ceremony in Chichester Cathedral .

No register of documents has survived from Bersted's tenure . To give Chichester access to the sea, he founded a town in Wardur near Sidlesham , which existed only for a short time. Blinded in his final years, he died in 1287.

Web links

• Clive H. Knowles: Bersted, Stephen (b. Before 1220, d. 1287). 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
John of Climping	Bishop of Chichester 1262–1287	Gilbert de Sancto Leonardo