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Thurstan
Archbishop of York
ProvinceYork
DioceseDiocese of York
SeeArchbishop of York
Installedunknown
Term ended21 January 1140
resigned
PredecessorThomas II
SuccessorWaltheof
Orders
Consecration19 October 1119
Personal details
Born
Thurstan

circa 1070
Normandy
Died6 February 1140
Pontefract
BuriedPontefract
ParentsAnger

Thurstan[notes 1] or Turstin of Bayeux (c. 1070 – 6 February 1140) was a medieval Archbishop of York, the son of a priest. He served kings William II of England and Henry I of England before his election to the see of York in 1114. Once elected, his consecration was delayed for five years while he fought attempts by the Archbishop of Canterbury to assert primacy over York. Eventually, he was consecrated by the pope instead and allowed to return to England. While archbishop, he secured two new suffragan bishops for his province. When Henry I died, Thurstan supported Henry's nephew Stephen of Blois as king. Thurstan also defended the northern part of England from invasion by the Scots, taking a leading part in organizing the English forces at the Battle of the Standard (1138). Shortly before his death, Thurstan resigned from his see and took the habit of a Cluniac monk.

Early life

Thurstan was the son of a canon of St Paul's in London named Anger, Auger or Ansgar,[notes 2] who held the prebend of Cantlers. Another son of Anger, Audoen, was later Bishop of Évreux.[1][2][3][4] Thurstan's mother was named Popelina.[4] Thurstan was born sometime about 1070 in the Bessin region of Normandy. Before 1104 the father was given the prebend of Cantlers by Maurice, Bishop of London, and the family moved to England.[5]

The Abbey of Cluny, where Thurstan visited and vowed to become a monk at some point in his life.

Early in his career, Thurstan held the prebendary of Consumpta in the diocese of London,[6] and served both William Rufus and Henry I as a royal clerk.[7] At some point in Thurstan's early career, he visited Cluny, where he vowed to become a Cluniac monk later in his life.[5] Thurstan also served Henry as almoner,[8] and it was Henry who obtained Thurstan's election as Archbishop of York in August 1114.[9] He was ordained a deacon in December of 1114 and ordained a priest on 6 June 1115[7] by Ranulf Flambard, who was Bishop of Durham.[10]

Controversy and exile

Henry I of England, from Cassell's History of England c. 1902

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Ralph d'Escures, refused to consecrate Thurstan unless the archbishop-elect made a profession of obedience to the southern see.[11] This was part of the long-running Canterbury-York dispute, which started in 1070.[12] Thurstan refused to make such a profession,[11] and asked the king for permission to go to Rome to consult Pope Paschal II. Henry I refused to allow him to make the journey, but even without a personal appeal from Thurstan, Paschal decided against Canterbury. At the Council of Salisbury in 1116 the English king ordered Thurstan to submit to Canterbury, but instead Thurstan publicly resigned the archibishopric.[13] On his way to the Council, Thurstan had received letters from Paschal II that supported York and commanded that he should be consecrated without a profession. Similar letters had gone to Ralph d'Escures from the pope, ordering Ralph, as Archbishop of Canterbury, to consecrate Thurstan. After the news of the letters became public, Thurstan's resignation was ignored, and he continued to be considered the archbishop-elect.[2]

Over the next three years, the new popes, Gelasius II and Calixtus II, championed Thurstan's case, and on 19 October 1119 he was consecrated by Calixtus at Reims.[7][14] Calixtus had earlier promised Henry that he would not consecrate Thurstan without the king's permission, which had still not been granted.[14] Enraged at this, the king refused to allow the newly consecrated archbishop to enter England, and Thurstan remained for some time on the continent in the company of the pope.[11] While he was traveling with the pope, he also visited Adela of Blois, King Henry's sister, who was also Thurstan's spiritual daughter. At about this same time, Calixtus issued two bulls in Thurstan's favor: one released York from Canterbury's supremacy forever, and the other demanded the king allow Thurstan to return to York. The pope threatened an interdict on England as a punishment if the papal bull was not obeyed.[14] At length, Thurstan's friends, including Adela, succeeded in reconciling him with Henry, and he rejoined the king in Normandy.[13] At Easter 1120, he escorted Adela to the monastery of Marcigny, where she retired from active secular affairs.[15] He was recalled to England in early 1121.[13]

Archbishop

One of the main weaknesses of the see of York was its lack of suffragan bishops.[16] Thurstan managed to secure the resurrection of the Diocese of Galloway,[5] or Whithorn, in 1125.[16] It is possible that he compromised with Fergus of Galloway, who was the lord or sub-king of Galloway, in what is now Scotland. In this Thurstan secured another suffragan, and Fergus gained a bishop in his lordship, where previously ecclesiastical matters in his subkingdom had been handled by Scottish bishops. The first bishop was the native Galwegian – Gilla Aldan.[5] This provoked the wrath of Wimund, Bishop of the Isles, who had previously had jurisdiction over Galloway; but the new bishopric survived, and York had a new suffragan, an important step in the battle between York and Canterbury over the primacy, which was mainly a battle over the prestige of their respective sees. The number of bishops subject to either archbishop was an important factor in the reputation of each.[17] In 1133, Thurstan, who had received papal permission to found an entirely new diocese, consecrated Æthelwold as the first bishop of the new see of Carlisle.[5]

Thurstan refused to accept that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, William de Corbeil, was his superior, and did not help with William's consecration. The dispute between the two continued, and both archbishops carried their complaints in person to Rome twice. In 1126, Pope Honorius II ruled in favor of York.[18] The pope based his decision on the fact that Canterbury's supporting documents had been forged.[19]

A monument at the site of the Battle of the Standard, where the troops Thurstan defeated the Scots.

Thurstan supported King Stephen after Henry I's death in 1135, and appeared at Stephen's first court at Easter held at Westminster.[20] Thurstan negotiated a truce at Roxburgh in 1138 between England and Scotland. It was Thurstan who mustered the army which defeated the Scots at the Battle of the Standard on 22 August 1138 near Northallerton, Yorkshire.[21][22] Thurstan did not take direct part in the battle., but he created the standard that gave the battle its name, by putting a ship's mast in a cart and hanging the banners of Saint Peter of York, Saint John of Beverley, and Saint Wilfrid of Ripon on the mast. The Scots had invaded attempting to aid the Empress Matilda, the daughter of Henry I and Stephen's rival for the throne.[23] On 21 January 1140 Thurstan resigned his see and entered the order of the Cluniacs at Pontefract[7] and he died there on 6 February 1140.[9] He was buried in the church at Pontefract.[5]

Legacy

Thurstan gave land to many of the churches of his diocese and founded several religious houses. He founded the first nunnery in Yorkshire when he founded St Clement's between 1125 and 1133.[24] He obtained for Whitby Abbey a papal privilege of protection as well as giving his own privilege to the abbey.[25] He also helped found the Cistercian Abbey of Fountains,[7] by giving the site to monks who had been expelled from the Abbey of St. Mary's, York.[26] Thurstan helped the hermitess Christina of Markyate at several points in her career, and tried to persuade her to become the first prioress of his foundation of St. Clement's.[27] He was a patron to the Augustinian Hexham Priory, founded by his predecessor at York, as well as helping the foundation of Bridlington Priory, another Augustinian house.[28] He was a sincere reformer, and opposed to the election of unfit men to the episocpacy. When Pope Innocent II asked Thurstan's opinion on the elevation of Anselm of St Saba, who was Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds, to become Bishop of London, Thurstan replied "If we consider his life and reputation, it would be much more fitting to remove him from his abbacy than to promote him to be bishop of London."[29] Anselm was not confirmed as bishop.[29]

Thurstan's nephew was Osbert de Bayeux, who became an archdeacon at York, and in 1154 was accused of the murder of William of York, one of Thurstan's successor's at York.[30]

Notes

  1. ^ This name was basically the old Norse name Thorsteinn, meaning 'Thor's stone'; there are different spellings of it : Toustain, Tostain, Toutain, still existing today as Norman surnames. Thurstan is its anglicized version.
  2. ^ Anger or Auger former Norman first name, today surname Auger, Anger (without /s/), from Àsgeir, Norse name, the same as Oscar or Ōs-gār

Citations

  1. ^ British History Online Prebendary of Cantlers accessed on 14 September 2007
  2. ^ a b Hollister Henry I p. 242–244
  3. ^ Spear "The Norman Empire and the Secular Clergy" Journal of British Studies p. 5
  4. ^ a b Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants p. 151
  5. ^ a b c d e f Burton "Thurstan (c.1070–1140)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online Edition accessed 11 November 2007
  6. ^ British History Online Prebendary of Consumpta accessed on 14 September 2007
  7. ^ a b c d e British History Online Archbishops of York accessed on 14 September 2007
  8. ^ Barlow, Frank, The English Church 1066–1154 p. 83
  9. ^ a b Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 281
  10. ^ Mason "Flambard, Ranulf (c.1060–1128)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  11. ^ a b c Bartlett England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings p. 394
  12. ^ Barlow English Church 1066–1154 pp. 39–44
  13. ^ a b c Cantor Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture p. 305–309
  14. ^ a b c Hollister Henry I p. 269–273
  15. ^ LoPrete "Anglo-Norman Card of Adela of Blois" Albion p. 588
  16. ^ a b Rose "Cumbrian Society" Studies in Church History p. 124
  17. ^ Barlow The English Church 1066–1154 p. 40–41
  18. ^ Duggan "From the Conquest to the Death of John" in Lawrence The English Church & the Papacy in the Middle Ages p. 98
  19. ^ Poole Domesday to Magna Carta p. 184
  20. ^ Powell The House of Lords p. 64
  21. ^ Barlow The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042–1216 p. 211
  22. ^ Huscroft Ruling England 1042–1217 p. 73
  23. ^ Davis King Stephen p. 36–37
  24. ^ Bartlett England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings p. 438
  25. ^ Dawtry "Benedictine Revival in the North" Studies in Church History 18 p. 91
  26. ^ Burton Monastic and Religious Orders p. 70
  27. ^ Barlow The English Church 1066–1154 p. 203
  28. ^ Burton Monastic and Religious Orders p. 48
  29. ^ a b Appleby The Troubled Reign of King Stephen p. 106–107
  30. ^ Greenway Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 6: York: Archdeacons: Richmond

References

  • Appleby, John T. (1995). The Troubled Reign of King Stephen 1135–1154. New York: Barnes & Noble. ISBN 1-56619-848-8. OCLC 32684204.
  • Barlow, Frank (1979). The English Church 1066–1154: A History of the Anglo-Norman Church. New York: Longman. ISBN 0-582-50236-5. OCLC 185371515.
  • Barlow, Frank (1988). The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042–1216 (Fourth ed.). New York: Longman. ISBN 0-582-49504-0. OCLC 16578834.
  • Bartlett, Robert C. (2000). England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings: 1075–1225. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-822741-8. OCLC 173856018.
  • British History Online Archbishops of York accessed on 14 September 2007
  • British History Online Prebendary of Cantlers accessed on 14 September 2007
  • British History Online Prebendary of Consumpta accessed on 14 September 2007
  • Burton, Janet (1994). Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain: 1000–1300. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37797-8. OCLC 185319315.
  • Burton, Janet "Thurstan (c.1070–1140)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press, 2004 [1], accessed 11 November 2007
  • Cantor, Norman F. (1958). Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture in England 1089–1135. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Davis, R. H. C. (1990). King Stephen 1135–1154 (Third ed.). New York: Longman. ISBN 0-582-04000-0.
  • Dawtry, Anne (1982). "The Benedictine Revival in the North: The Last Bulwark of Anglo-Saxon Monasticism". In Stuart Mews (ed.). Studies in Church History 18: Religion and National Identity. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. pp. 87–98.
  • Duggan, Charles "From the Conquest to the Death of John" in Lawrence, C. H. ed. The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages Stroud: Sutton Publishing reprint 1999 ISBN 0-7509-1947-7
  • Fryde, E. B. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third Edition, revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X. OCLC 183920684. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Greenway, Diana E. (1999). Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 6: York: Archdeacons: Richmond. Institute for Historical Research.
  • Hollister, C. Warren (2001). Henry I. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08858-2. OCLC 186413165. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Huscroft, Huscroft (2005). Ruling England 1042–1217. London: Pearson/Longman. ISBN 0-582-84882-2. OCLC 223968971.
  • Keats-Rohan, K. S. B. (1999). Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents, 1066–1166: Pipe Rolls to Cartae Baronum. Ipswich, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-863-3.
  • Lawrence, C. H. ed. The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages Stroud: Sutton Publishing reprint 1999 ISBN 0-7509-1947-7
  • LoPrete, Kimberly A. (1990). "The Anglo-Norman Card of Adela of Blois". Albion. 22 (4): 569–589. doi:10.2307/4051390. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Mason, J. F. A. "Flambard, Ranulf (c.1060–1128)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press 2004 Online Edition accessed 21 January 2008
  • Poole, Austin Lane (1955). From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087–1216 (Second ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-821707-2. OCLC 233685139.
  • Powell, J. Enoch (1968). The House of Lords in the Middle Ages: A History of the English House of Lords to 1540. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Rose, R. K. (1982). "Cumbrian Society and the Anglo-Norman Church". Studies in Church History. 18: 119–135.
  • Richardson, H. G. (1963). The Governance of Mediaeval England. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Spear, David S. (1982). "The Norman Empire and the Secular Clergy, 1066–1204" (fee required). Journal of British Studies. XXI (2): 1–10. doi:10.1086/385787. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Archbishop of York
1119–1140 		Succeeded by

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