William Button (Bishop, † 1264)

William Button (also William Button I ; William Bitton or William of Bitton ) († April 3, 1264 ) was an English clergyman. From 1247 he was Bishop of Bath and Wells . He should not be confused with his nephew of the same name, William Button , who was also Bishop of the Diocese of Bath and Wells from 1267 to 1274 .

Origin and promotion to bishop

William Button probably came from the village Bitton in Gloucestershire , after which he was named. His nephew Thomas Bitton had a chapel built in the village in 1299. Several clergymen came from his family who rose to high church offices in south-west England. Bitton himself promoted numerous relatives as a bishop. His nephew William, he rose to the Archdeacon of Wells , while his brother John Button († around 1273) provost of Wells Cathedral was.

Before 1231, Button became an official , the most senior ecclesiastical officer of Bishop Jocelin of Wells . In addition, he served as a royal judge, where he distinguished himself through prudent judgments. Before 1235 he was sub- dean of Wells Cathedral and before 1237 archdeacon of Wells. He managed to discipline the vicars of the cathedral. This not only improved choral music , but also made Wells the spiritual center of the diocese at Bath's expense . To do this, he achieved that the cathedral chapter of Wells was again involved in the episcopal elections, so that Wells instead of Bath became the center of the diocese. In 1244 the Bath Abbey monks elected Roger of Salisbury as their new bishop. Since, contrary to the agreements, the Cathedral Chapter of Wells was not involved in the election, the election was highly controversial. Button has now become a dedicated supporter of the Wells Cathedral Chapter. He took his position before the Curia in Rome and was finally able to reach a compromise by which the Cathedral Chapter of Wells was better involved in future elections. This compromise was first used on February 24, 1247, when the monks of Bath Abbey and the canons of the cathedral chapter of Wells Button in Bath elected the new bishop. On June 14, 1247 he was ordained bishop in Lyon by Pope Innocent IV .

Bishop of Bath and Wells

Activity as a politician

As a bishop, Button was also politically active. In 1251, during parliament , he sealed the threat from the bishops that violations of the Magna Carta would be punished with excommunication . He traveled abroad several times as the king's envoy, including to Castile in 1253 . From there he escorted Eleanor of Castile , the wife of the heir to the throne, Lord Edward , to England. However, he also supported the other English bishops who had the influence of King Henry III. sought to limit ecclesiastical questions and protested in 1257 against the king's policy. Ultimately, he did not succeed in gaining greater political influence. On the contrary, in Button's long-running dispute with the abbots of Glastonbury Abbey , which his predecessors Savaric and Jocelin of Wells had already led, the king sided with Glastonbury. Although Button tried through visitations and trials to bring the abbey under his spiritual supervision, deposed Abbot Roger Forde and imposed the interdict on the monasteries that supported him , he ultimately lost the dispute with the abbey. Button traveled to Rome himself, but the Pope also supported Glastonbury and finally released the monastery completely from the spiritual supervision of the bishops of Bath and Wells. Button also lost an argument with his cathedral chapter, to whom he had to leave the income of the Church of Congresbury . In 1258 he took part in the consecration of Salisbury Cathedral , but in the conflict that began in the spring between the king and a noble opposition , which eventually led to the barons' open war against the king, Button no longer played a role.

Act as a bishop

Ultimately, Button was more concerned with the administration of his diocese. He had the diocesan statutes supplemented in accordance with the resolutions of the fourth Lateran Council of 1215. Among other things, he formulated the rules for the dispensation of the sacraments by clergy more precisely, the rules should increase the discipline of his clergy. Together with Bishop Giles of Salisbury he consecrated Robert de Chaury as Bishop of Carlisle in 1258 . Probably this contact led to Robert de Chaury taking the diocesan statutes of Wells as a model for the statutes of the Diocese of Carlisle . After his death in 1264, Button was buried in the Lady Chapel of Wells Cathedral, but his funerary memorial was removed before the 18th century.

literature

• William Hunt: Button, William (d.1264) , in: Dictionary of National Biography . Volume VIII . Macmillan, Smith, Elder & Co., London and New York 1886, pp. 100-101

Web links

• David Gary Shaw: Button, William (d. 1264). 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
Roger of Salisbury	Bishop of Bath and Wells 1247–1264	Walter Giffard