Thomas de Blundeville

Thomas de Blundeville († August 16, 1236 ) was a bishop of the English diocese of Norwich .

origin

Blundeville came from a Norfolk gentry family who owned small estates in Deopham and Newton Flotman within the Honor of Hockering . Blundeville was a nephew of Justiciars Hubert de Burgh and Bishop Geoffrey de Burgh . His older brother William served as the constable of Corfe Castle .

In the service of the king and ascent to bishop

Blundeville himself served under King Henry III. as an official of the Treasury. Before 1225 he was appointed Constable of the Tower of London. In September 1226 he was appointed dean of the Royal Free Chapel of Tettenhall in Staffordshire , but a month later he was appointed administrator of the vacant diocese of Norwich by his uncle Hubert de Burgh . In October he was finally elected the new bishop and on November 21st the temporalities were given to him . He was ordained a priest on December 19 and bishop the following day. In September 1227 he was a member of the English embassy, ​​which negotiated with envoys of the Roman-German Emperor Frederick II in Antwerp , but after that he was apparently only rarely in the service of the crown. As in January 1236, he took part in large council meetings and took on local offices in East Anglia , for example until September 1228 that of the administrator of Norwich Castle .

Why Blundeville retired from the service of the king is uncertain. This may also have something to do with his uncle Hubert de Burgh, who from 1229 increasingly lost the king's favor and was overthrown in 1232. It is possible that Blundeville was also influenced by the other English bishops, who were predominantly opponents of the Justiciars. On the other hand, Hubert de Burgh fled after his disempowerment to Terling in Essex (according to other information according to Brentwood ) that his nephew Blundeville belonged to. There he was dragged from the altar of the chapel and arrested in September 1232.

Act as a bishop

Numerous documents and files have been preserved from his tenure as bishop, which give a picture of his activity. From Heinrich III. the diocese received various gifts and privileges, and Blundeville himself was generous to the cathedral priory, whose monks praised him as their benefactor. After the Pope had given the English bishops the right to visit their diocese, Blundeville undertook such a visit in 1233. Pope Gregory IX commissioned him several times. to decide as a judge in church questions.

Blundeville supported the small new Augustinian branches of Kersey in Suffolk and Spinney in Cambridgeshire . On the other hand, he insisted that secular clerics should also be installed in parish churches that were owned by religious orders . He also tried to ensure that the bishops of Norwich were granted the right to choose clergy in these parish churches. The monasteries that owned these parish churches should only have the formal right to propose the clergy. In return, Blundeville made financial concessions to the monasteries.

With the citizens of Bishop's Lynn , who had often been in dispute with the bishops, he got into an argument in 1234 over the election of a mayor. He had further conflicts with the priors of the Benedictine monasteries Binham and Wymondham over their duty of obedience, which they owed him as bishop. The priors, whose monasteries were founded by daughters of the great St Albans Abbey , contested. A dispute with the priors about his rights as bishop in their parish churches was amicably settled by a judge commissioned by the Pope. There were also conflicts with the royal courts, as they accused the bishop of interference in secular jurisdiction.

Personally, Blundeville was apparently a devout Christian. He was buried in Norwich Cathedral.

Web links

• Christopher Harper-Bill: Blundeville, Thomas de (d. 1236). 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
Pandulf	Bishop of Norwich 1226–1236	Simon of Elmham