Earliest Episcopal Lords of the Manor. 255 



episcopal residence at Potterne, or that the Bishop often honoured 

 his tenants with a visit. Bishops, in the eleventh and following 

 centuries, were so often engaged in h'gh offices of state, as really 

 to have had little time for their especial duties, and many 

 of these were performed by means of Suffragans who were, so to 

 speak, Bishops in " sole charge/^ The number of such Suffragan 

 Bishops employed in Wiltshire from time to time was larger than 

 is commonly imagined. Of some of these we may hereafter have 

 occasion to say a few words. 



(A.D. 1100-1200).— Bishop Koger, who succeeded St. Osmund 

 at Sarum in 1107, must have had quite enough upon his hands, in 

 his successive offices of Lord Chief Justice, Lord Treasurer, and 

 Lord Chancellor, to give him much spare time for his diocese. 

 It was he that as a priest at Caen in Normandy attracted the 

 notice of Prince Henry (afterwards Henry I.), the son of the 

 Conqueror, by the speed with which he sung mass. Charmed with 

 the priest's rapid monotone, he made him his chaplain. Promotion 

 rapidly followed, and never was there a favourite more loaded with 

 benefactions. 



Amongst other accomplishments Bishop Roger seems to have 

 been one of the best architects of his day, and so, to gratify alike 

 his taste and his ambition, he built castles on fotir different estates 

 belonging to his see, viz., at Old Sarum, at Sherborne, at Malmes- 

 bury, and at Devizes. It was on this last that he lavished great 

 and almost incalculable sums. Ordericus Vitalis tells us that there 

 was not a more splendid fortress in Europe. 



In order to obtain a site for this last-named castle. Bishop Roger 

 took a slice out of each of the two large manors that belonged to 

 him (the eastern portion from Cannings, and the toestern from 

 Potterne), and it so happening that the King's manor of Rowde 

 met the other two at about the same jjoint, the castle which he built 

 was called " Castrum ad Divisas," i.e., the castle at the " points of 

 boundary." ^ This is why this place in which we are now assembled 

 was ordinarily called, till a comparatively recent period, " The 



» See Wilts Mag., ix., 41. 



