William of Northolt

William of Northolt († May 3, 1190 ) was an English clergyman. From 1186 he was Bishop of Worcester .

Ascent to bishop

William of Northolt got its name from the village of Northolt in Middlesex , where the cathedral chapter of London's St Paul's Cathedral owned land. Nothing is known about his origin or his education. He probably didn't go to university because he was never called a master's degree . As a young man he was part of the retinue of Theobald von Bec , who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1138. From this he acquired real estate in London between 1145 and 1150. Around 1163 he became a canon at St Paul's Cathedral. To this end he was pastor of Hanwell near Ealing , which belonged to the property of the Bishop of London, before 1177 . In 1181 he administered the West Drayton estate , which belonged to the Cathedral Chapter of St Paul's. When Thomas Becket became archbishop in 1162, Northolt did not change his service. However, when Becket went into exile in 1164, he asked Northolt for financial assistance. It is not known whether Northolt granted him this. On Ascension Day 1169, Northolt took part in the service in St Paul's Cathedral during which Becket's excommunication of the London Bishop Gilbert Foliot was announced. Probably shortly after August 1174, when the new Archbishop Richard of Dover returned to England, Northolt entered his service and became his Seneschal . After Richard's death in 1184 he remained in the service of his successor Baldwin . As early as 1177 he had become archdeacon of Gloucester , perhaps thanks to the intercession of Gilbert Foliot with Bishop Roger of Worcester . However, Northolt rarely held this office. Instead, he served King Henry II as administrator of the vacant Diocese of Rochester from 1184 to 1185 and as administrator of the Diocese of Worcester in 1185 . About May 25, 1186 Northolt was elected the new Bishop of Worcester, resigning from his other offices. He was ordained bishop on September 21, 1186 in Westminster .

Bishop of Worcester

As a bishop, Northolt enjoyed the trust of King Henry II as well as that of his former employer Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury. When the latter came into violent conflict with the Canterbury Cathedral Chapter over the construction of a new collegiate church to be consecrated to the canonized Thomas Becket, Northolt was one of three bishops who were to negotiate a settlement with the Cathedral Chapter . However, the monks also distrusted Northolt, and the chronicler Gervasius of Canterbury even referred to him as a serpent. Nevertheless, Northolt belonged again in 1188 to a delegation that negotiated in vain with the monks.

As Bishop of Worcester, Northolt led a legal dispute with Bishop William de Vere of Hereford over the estate of Inkberrow in Worcestershire. Probably in March 1188 the case in Kempsey , an estate of the Bishop of Hereford, was submitted to the king for decision, whereupon William de Vere finally withdrew his claims. According to the Chronicle of Gerald of Wales , Northolt banned the singing of a love song in churches after a priest sang the chorus of the song. This is considered an early example of the ban on dancing, playing and singing secular songs in churches and churchyards, which was often prohibited in synodal statutes from around 1214 onwards.

Web links

• MG Cheney: Northolt, William of (d. 1190). 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
Baldwin of Exeter	Bishop of Worcester 1186–1190	Robert Fitzralph