A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



founded Sherburn Hospital, built the church of St. Giles, and at Darlington 

 built the collegiate church of St. Cuthbert, and augmented its foundation.''* His 

 grants to lay tenants were numerous. The great importance of the famous 

 Boldon Book is set out at large in another article." 



To the episcopate of Pudsey (1153-95) there succeeded a long interval 

 before the next really great bishop. Yet those who followed, if men in- 

 ferior to Flambard and Pudsey in strength of character, held firmly to the 

 regaUty which was clearly recognized.*" Our authorities now begin to 

 increase, and in the information supplied by patent and other rolls we obtain 

 frequent mention of bishop, and the various bishopric officers.*^ Incidentally 

 during the vacancy of the see we are able to trace in the Pipe Rolls, &c., the 

 accounts of the revenue, the names of the chief tenants, and the regular suc- 

 cession to prebendal estates at Auckland, Norton, and elsewhere in the king's 

 gift during vacancy. The general history of the diocese during the greater 

 part of the thirteenth century is not attractive, as it consists mainly of disputes 

 between the bishop and the monastery, or the bishop and the archbishop of 

 York, with more than enough of personal crime and violence on the part of 

 the chief actors. Glancing briefly at the bishops in question we first notice 

 Philip of Poitou (i 197-1208), a friend of King John, who gave him a new 

 grant of a mint at Durham.*^ His appointment of a nephew, Aimeric, as 

 archdeacon of Durham, led to a long feud with the monastery, in which the 

 nephew urged his uncle to a series of attacks upon the independence of the 

 monks, and scenes of disgraceful violence were enacted. It is to his episcopate 

 that the well-known description of Geoffrey of Coldingham refers, in which 

 he says that 'Jesus was thought to be asleep whilst the little bark of the 

 Church was tossing in the midst of the sea.'*^ One of several prolonged 

 vacancies followed the death of Bishop Philip, during which regular returns 

 of the episcopal revenue in the king's hands were made by the royal officers. 

 At last, in 1 2 17, Richard Marsh was elected, a man of more than 

 doubtful past history,** who carried on the dispute with the monastery. The 

 feud was so bitter that Bishop Richard appealed to Rome, and perhaps by his 

 influence the suit was protracted without definite sentence. He died leaving 

 the appeal unfinished and the diocese in debt. After another interval of 

 three years, Bishop le Poor followed, and by his excellence atoned for the 

 personal demerit of his immediate predecessors. His fame rests not only on 

 the fact that he added the eastern transept of the nine altars to the cathedral, 

 but on his termination of the embittered strife between bishop and monastery. 

 The convenit, as it is usually called, was drawn up in 1229 as a solution of all 

 the outstanding disputes, and though it was criticized by the monastic element 

 as scarcely fair to prior and convent, it formed a good modus vivendi between 



'* LongstafFe, Hut. of Darlington, 213. 



" Pudsey's inventory {}VUh and Inventories, Surtees Soc. ii, 3), gives an interesting list of books, some 

 still preserved at Durham. 



™ The claim as to the southern end of the bridge over Tweed in 1199 is an instance in point. 

 Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 229, from Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.). At least as early as 1255 there is mention 

 in so many words of the bishop's regality between Tyne and Tees' ; Close R. 39 Hen. Ill, m. 7 d. 



*' The Attestationes testium in Feodarium (Surtees Soc), 220-300, give incidentally the names of a large 

 number of officers in the first half of the thirteenth century. 



'- Noble's Two Dissertations is the chief authority on the mint. 



^ Tres Scriptores (Surtees Soc), 21. 



" Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 531. 



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