Walter Maidstone

Walter Maidstone (also Walter of Maidstone ) († March 28, 1317 ) was an English clergyman. From 1313 he was Bishop of Worcester .

Origin and education

Walter Maidstone's origins and family are unknown. Presumably he came from Maidstone , Kent , where he served as director of the Hospital of St Peter and St Paul in 1306 . 1312 Pope appointed him Clement V to the rector of the hospital. He was believed to have studied at Oxford and graduated with a master's degree before 1309 .

Advancement as a clergyman

Maidstone was probably Master Walter de Maidstone , who belonged to Archbishop Robert Winchelsey's household in 1301 . On October 14, 1301, Maidstone received the king's permission to travel to Rome with Walter Langton , Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. He was allowed to travel to Rome again on January 20, 1303. In Rome he won the favor of Bertrand de Got , then Archbishop of Bordeaux and later Pope Clement V. Maidstone had received the parish of Bucknall in Staffordshire as the first benefice , but before 1306 he held six rectorates, although he was not yet had been ordained a priest. When he was to be made rector of Reculver in Kent, there was a trial before the curia , as Archbishop Simon of Faversham preferred as rector. After a lengthy process, Maidstone had to waive its claim to Reculver. In 1310 Maidstone was in the service of John Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings , who served as Seneschal of Gascony . This relationship or the favor of Clement V explain why Maidstone received a benefice in Auch in the south of France . In 1310 his employer, Baron Hastings, asked that Maidstone should get an office as canon at York Minster . But although the Pope agreed to this accumulation of offices, Maidstone never became a canon in York or at any other English cathedral. In 1311 Maidstone served as a royal official and is said to have proclaimed the so-called ordinances in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London on September 27, 1311 . Together with Stephen Bigod , King Edward II sent him to the Curia in Avignon in March 1312 . In January 1313 he traveled again with Sir John Cromwell to Avignon to stand up for the cleric John Sandale , who was appointed royal chancellor a little later .

Bishop of Worcester

Appointed Bishop of Worcester

After the death of Archbishop Winchelsey in 1313, the king was able to get his candidate Walter Reynolds , the previous Bishop of Worcester, appointed by Pope Clement V as the new Archbishop of Canterbury on October 1, 1313. Maidstone, who had campaigned for Reynolds at the Curia on behalf of the king, was appointed the new bishop of the Diocese of Worcester that same day . He was ordained bishop on October 7th in Avignon. In February 1314 Maidstone returned to England, where he brought the papal pallium for Archbishop Reynolds and permission to be represented in his diocese for three years. At Canterbury, he swore obedience to the Archbishop, and on February 17th the temporalities of the Diocese of Worcester were given to him .

Act as a bishop

As a bishop, Maidstone began a visitation of his diocese, which he had in part carried out by representatives. This visitation was interrupted in May 1314 when the king briefly called him to London. At the end of May he continued the visitation. On behalf of the Pope, Maidstone was to mediate in 1314 in the dispute between the Dominican Order in Oxford and the University of Oxford, which concerned the right to admission to final theological examinations. Despite Maidstone's efforts, the Dominicans refused to recognize a settlement in favor of the university that had been agreed in early 1314, so the dispute dragged on until 1320. Only then could the Dominicans be forced to recognize the rights of the university. In May 1314, Maidstone sealed with a letter from several bishops to John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey . Warenne tried to have his marriage to Joan de Bar annulled, but the bishops instead urged him to end his relationship with his long-time mistress Maud Nereford . On September 1, 1314 Maidstone set out for York , where Edward II had retired after the devastating defeat in the Battle of Bannockburn . In October he returned to his diocese, whereupon the king entrusted him with various tasks. In the spring and summer of 1315 Maidstone made a visitation of the monasteries in his diocese and consecrated over 40 churches that had not received an official consecration before. In the same year he was embroiled in a dispute between Archbishops Walter Reynolds of Canterbury and William Greenfield of York. Greenfield claimed that as a sign of his status as Metropolitan of York, a cross could be carried in front of him in the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury . When Greenfield wanted to travel to the estate of Churchdown in Gloucestershire that belonged to him in the summer of 1315 , he wanted to cross the area of ​​the diocese of Worcester, which belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury, with the cross carried forward. Archbishop Reynolds protested sharply and allowed Maidstone to impose church sentences on Greenfield or his entourage. With considerable effort Maidstone followed the march of the popular Greenfield, where he actually imposed church sentences on those who had received the blessing of the archbishop on the way.

During his stays in Avignon, Maidstone had to borrow 3,000 florins . As bishop he commissioned Adam Murimuth and the merchant Andrea Sapiti from Florence, who served him as representative in Avignon, to pay 500 florins to the papal curia. These high debts meant that, as a bishop, he was constantly in financial distress and had to borrow additional money from his alleged relative Robert Maidstone , a canon from Chichester , and from a merchant in London to manage his estates . In early 1317, the king sent him abroad as an envoy, which is why Maidstone appointed three vicars general as his representatives on January 17th . During this trip he died in an unknown location.

rating

Maidstone was described in an unusually negative way by the chroniclers. Adam Murimuth claimed that Maidstone was notorious across England for his immoral behavior and improper familiarity with Pope Clement V. This slander cannot only be explained with envy, for Murimuth was in the service of Maidstone for several years, had also been in Avignon for a long time and in September 1315 had received an annual pension of 5 marks from Maidstone as a thank you . The writer of Westminster Flores also accuses Maidstone of immoral behavior. Pope Clement V actually promoted friends and acquaintances, but because of an illness he also lived in seclusion and false rumors were often spread about him.

Web links

• Roy Martin Haines: Maidstone, Walter (d.1317). 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
• Dedication 1315: Bishop Walter Maidstone

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rose Graham : Sidelights on the Rectors and Parishioniers of Reculver from the Register of Archbishop Winchelsey . In: Archaeologia Cantiana , 57 (1944), p. 3
2. ↑ Dedication 1315. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 20, 2017 ; accessed on May 7, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

predecessor	Office	successor
Walter Reynolds	Bishop of Worcester 1313-1317	Thomas Cobham