Walter de Cantilupe

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Walter de Cantilupe (* around 1195, † February 12, 1266 in Blockley , Gloucestershire ) was a bishop of the English diocese of Worcester . He was the spiritual mentor of the aristocratic opposition against King Henry III. and is considered one of the most important spiritual leaders of his generation.

Origin and ecclesiastical career

Walter was the second son of the Anglo-Norman nobleman William de Cantilupe , who lived under King John Ohneland and his son Heinrich III. served as steward of the household . Walter's older brother William also held this position under Henry III. inside. Walter's nephew was Thomas de Cantilupe , a son of his brother William. Thomas, like his uncle Walter, who became his guardian, was slated for a spiritual career and later became Bishop of Hereford. Walter de Cantilupe entered the service of the Crown around 1208 after attending school, possibly in Oxford , and received a number of benefices until 1231 . As a so-called beneficiary collector, he defended this practice during a church council in 1237, as it enabled him to live an honorable and befitting life. At the same time, he could be such a generous host and almsgiver. In Cantilupe's view, the one benefit per person restriction, as demanded by church reformers, would drive him and many other clergy into poverty.

In 1227 he was the king's lawyer at the Curia in Rome, where he vehemently represented the interests of the crown in a trial. He was part of the delegation that brought the pallium from Rome to Archbishop Richard de Grant of Canterbury in the autumn of 1229 . In January 1235 he was one of three English envoys who traveled to France to negotiate new armistice. King Henry III thanked his trusted diplomat by proposing Cantilupe as bishop for the vacant diocese of Worcester . In fact, the cathedral chapter elected Cantilupe as its new bishop on August 30, 1236. On September 9, Heinrich III confirmed. the election, and on September 27th, Cantilupe received the temporalities . As elected bishop and ambassador of the king, he traveled again to the Pope in January 1237. Gregory IX. consecrated him on May 3, 1237 in Viterbo as bishop, after he had previously ordained him as a deacon and priest. Back in England, Cantilupe was installed in Worcester on October 13, 1237, in the presence of the King, Queen, Archbishop Edmund Rich of Canterbury and the papal legate Cardinal Oddone di Tonengo as bishop.

Serving as the Bishop of Worcester

As a bishop, Cantilupe was a serious pastor and conscientiously carried out his duties. Together with Bishop Grosseteste von Lincoln, he devoted himself to church reforms in order to end abuses and to improve pastoral care in the parishes. In 1240 he promulgated new synodal statutes for the diocese of Worcester, which, often changed and renewed, served as a model for the statutes of several other dioceses. Cantilupes statutes prescribed, among other things, the pastors how they should accept the confession, in addition they contained a short version of the church moral theology . In 1240 Cantilupe received the Pope's permission to remove married clergymen and pastors who had inherited their offices from their fathers. To this end, he paid frequent visitations to the monasteries in his diocese , where he also deposed negligent monasteries. His claim to be allowed to appoint monastic officials, and his insistence that the monasteries in his diocese should also adopt established rules, brought him into conflict with the abbot of Gloucester Abbey and with the monks of his own cathedral priory.

Political activity

Administrator of the Diocese of Worcester

With the same energy as Cantilupe took care of pastoral care in his diocese, he campaigned for the preservation and expansion of the secular and spiritual rights of his diocese. He successfully claimed sovereignty over Dudley against the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield . A protracted dispute between the bishops of Worcester and the abbots of Evesham Abbey over jurisdiction in the Vale of Evesham was decided in 1248 by papal judges in favor of the abbey. Cantilupe achieved, however, that the Diocese of Worcester received the patronage rights over three other churches for the waiver of its claims. When William Beauchamp , the sheriff of Worcester, intervened in the administration of several estates of the diocese, Cantilupe threatened him with excommunication . To the annoyance of the king, the Pope confirmed the legitimacy of this threat. In 1255 he began to fortify the episcopal residence of Hartlebury Castle .

Diplomat on behalf of the Pope

Cantilupe served several times as the Pope's agent or as a delegated papal judge. Together with Bishop Peter D'Aigueblanche of Hereford and the Archdeacon of Canterbury, he urged the king in 1244 on behalf of Innocent IV, under threat of the imposition of an interdict , that he should recognize William Raleigh as the new Bishop of Winchester. Together with other English prelates, he took part in the Council of Lyon in 1245 . In 1247 he was commissioned to preach in England for a crusade and to collect funds for it. Following the example of the king, he himself made a vow of crusade in 1250. The Pope allowed him to use funds raised in his diocese to pay the costs of the planned crusade, but Cantilupe, like the king, never went on a crusade.

Supporter of the aristocratic opposition

Cantilupe was a friend of Bishop Grosseteste , Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, and Franciscan Adam Marsh . Through her, Cantilupe became an active member of a group of educated and idealistic clergy who followed the politics of Henry III. were critical. In 1244 he was elected by magnates and bishops as a member of a committee that wanted to reach an agreement with the king. The magnates and bishops wanted to control the use of a tax that Parliament had recently approved to the king, but ultimately they were unable to reach an agreement with the king. Together with Grosseteste, Cantilupe was a bitter opponent of the tithe that the Pope had granted the king on the income of the clergy to finance a crusade. When Simon de Montfort had to answer to the king in 1252 for his office as Seneschal of Gascony , Cantilupe defended Montfort against the accusations of the king. From 1255 he became the leader of the bishops who rejected the Sicilian adventure through which the king wanted to conquer Sicily for his younger son Edmund . In 1257 Cantilupe belonged to the English legation that was supposed to negotiate a peace treaty with France.

Role in the Second War of the Barons

As an obvious opponent of the government of Henry III. Cantilupe played a leading role in the 1258 Rebellion that eventually led to the Second War of the Barons . Cantilupes nephew Peter de Montfort , a son of one of his sisters, was one of the seven barons who initiated the rebellion in April 1258. At the Parliamentary Assembly in Oxford in June 1258, Cantilupe was elected by the aristocratic opposition as the only clergyman to the Committee of 24 that worked out the Provisions of Oxford . After the king recognized the commission, Cantilupe was elected as one of the members of the new Council of State, which was supposed to advise the king and which de facto largely disempowered the king. In January 1259 Cantilupe was one of the leaders of the delegation, along with the Earl of Winchester , that traveled to Saint-Omer to meet Richard of Cornwall , the king's brother and crowned Roman-German king . The delegation forbade him to travel to England until he recognized the Provisions of Oxford. When Heinrich III. traveled to France in the fall of 1259, Cantilupe was appointed one of the councilors to rule in the king's absence. When Heinrich III. Regaining power in 1261 and denying the validity of the Provisions of Oxford, Cantilupe remained a loyal supporter of Montfort and an advocate of the Provisions. When Archbishop Boniface of Canterbury went into exile in 1262, Cantilupe became leader of the English bishops, partly because of his long tenure. He signed with the letters in which the aristocratic opposition expressed their position in front of the French King Louis IX, who was called upon as arbitrator . explained. His nephew Thomas de Cantilupe was a member of the delegation of the aristocratic opposition that traveled to Amiens to meet the French king .

When the French king in the Mise of Amiens declared the Provisions of Oxford to be invalid and now an open civil war threatened in England, Cantilupe tried several times unsuccessfully, Simon de Montfort with Henry III. to reconcile. In March 1264 he negotiated with the bishops of Winchester, London and Chichester at Brackley and with the royal ambassadors at Oxford. As a compromise, he offered the barons to accept the Mise of Amiens, if in return the king would ban his foreign favorites from the court and the State Council could propose the ministers to the government. Together with Henry of Sandwich , Bishop of London, he accompanied Montfort's army when they marched against the king's troops in May 1264. On the evening before the Battle of Lewes , he made one last attempt to mediate between Montfort and the king. When this attempt failed, too, Cantilupe admonished the troops of Montfort to make confession, gave them absolution and blessed them.

The legitimacy of the Montfort government, which had taken over after the victory over the king, was contested by the papal legate, Cardinal Gui Foucois . With the support of the French king and under threat of excommunication , he asked the Montfort government to withdraw the commission. Together with the bishops of Winchester and London, Cantilupe traveled to Boulogne , where the legate was staying. Although they vehemently supported the view of the Montfort government, the Legate did not change its position and sent the bishops back to England with the request to carry out the excommunication of Montfort and his allies. According to the chronicle of Thomas Wykes , the citizens of the Cinque Ports took the letters from the episcopal delegation on their arrival in England and threw them into the sea. Cantilupe remained a supporter of Montfort until the end. He tried unsuccessfully to settle the dispute between Montfort and Gilbert de Clare, 3rd Earl of Gloucester , which decisively weakened the camp of the aristocratic opposition. The night before the decisive Battle of Evesham, Montfort stayed at Cantilupes Gut in Kempsey . On the morning of August 4, 1265, Cantilupe celebrated mass again for his friend, who was then killed in the following battle. After this triumph, the king wanted to take legal action against the bishops who had supported Montfort. Cantilupe was removed from office by the papal legate Cardinal Ottobono, along with four other bishops . He was to travel to Rome to receive the Pope's judgment there. Cantilupe, however, disappointed and disaffected after the defeat of Evesham, withdrew to his estate in Blockley in Gloucestershire . He died there in February 1266, before his fate had been decided. He was buried in Worcester Cathedral.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gabriel Alington: St Thomas of Hereford Gracewing, Leominster 2001. ISBN 0-85244-525-3 , p. 15
  2. BBC: The history of Hartlebury Castle - once a Bishop's home. Retrieved March 17, 2016 .
  3. ^ The Magna Carta Project: The Witness Lists to Magna Carta, 1215-1265. Retrieved March 16, 2016 .
predecessor Office successor
William de Blois Bishop of Worcester
1237-1266
Nicholas of Ely