188 Bishops of Old Sarnm. 
old age and infirmity and labouring under the effects of disease,” 
and the bishops were directed not to require his attendance but 
themselves to convey to him personally, or by approved messengers, 
the absolution of the Pope.? 
There is also to be seen in the bishop’s registry an interesting 
document from the Pope, signed by a foreign cardinal, to the effect 
that Bishop Jocelin had purged himself from any participation in the 
death of Thomas & Becket. It was likely enough, that, on account of 
the active part taken by himself and his son against Becket, suspicion 
should fall on them ; but they were both innocent of any such charge. 
In the year 1174 Bishop Jocelin saw his son Reginald Fitz- 
Jocelin, who had been Archdeacon of Sarum, promoted to the 
bishopric of Bath and Wells. He had been one of the foremost of 
the champions of Henry II. against Becket, and had been openly 
stigmatised by the archbishop in one of his more truculent letters 
as a“ bastard.”? But as Bishop Jocelin commenced life as a layman 
it was far more likely that he was born previously to his taking 
orders, and therefore was legitimate. This fact may be assumed, I 
1In Wilkins’ Concilia all these documents are given. Thus at i., 459, we 
have ‘‘Letters of excommunication from Pope Alexander III. of Bishop Joce- 
lin,” &c. (ex Reg. Cantuar. A fol. 14 a);—at p 460, ‘Letters inflicting 
penances on Bishop Jocelin for crowning King Henry III. without the Arch- 
bishop’s consent;”—~and at p 473 ‘Letters of Absolution, addressed to the 
Archbishop of Bourges and the Bishop of Nivernais, for the absolution of the 
Bishop of Sarum.” See Hoveden, sub anno 1172. 
2 Selden in his “ Titles of Honour,” (i., p. 217, ed. 1726,) gives the following 
anecdote, which he states as having been recorded by Walter de Mapes, a con- 
temporary annalist :—‘‘ Jocelin, Bishop of Salisbury, when his son Reginald, 
who was by corrupt means chosen Bishop of Bath and Wells, complained to him 
that the Archbishop of Canterbury would not consecrate him, advised him thus: 
“ Stulte, velox ad Papam evola securus, nihil hesitando; ipsique bursa grandt 
para bonam alapam, et vacillabit quocunque volueris,” Ivit ergo ; percussit 
Lic, vacillavit ille:—cecidit Papa, surrexit Pontifex: scripsitque statim in 
dominum mentiens, in omnium brevium suorum principiis. Nam ubi debuesset 
scribi ‘ burs gratia’ dixit ‘ Det gratia,’” &c. Though there mizht be nothing 
antecedently improbable in such a tale at a time when high offices in the church 
were too often bought and sold, and the court of Rome no doubt was fairly 
amenable to such influences, yet literally true it certainly cannot be. For at 
the time of Reginald Fitz-Jocelin’s nomination to the see of Bath, the see of 
Canterbury was vacant. King Henry II., in 1174, contrary to the wishes 
of his son, nominated Richard, Prior of Dover, to the see of Canterbury, and at 
