ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



When the question of a successor to Aymer came before the 

 chapter of the monks of St. Swithun, fifty-four votes were recorded for 

 their old and misused prior, William of Taunton, whilst seven voted for 

 Andrew of London, who was nominated by the remnant of the foreign 

 party. The pope refused to ratify the election of either, and consecrated 

 John Gervais, Chancellor of York, who was then at Rome. On reach- 

 ing Winchester, Bishop John ejected the rival Prior Andrew of London, 

 and placed him in confinement in the abbey of Hyde. Thence he 

 escaped, and put about the tale that he had been miraculously delivered 

 by St. Thomas of Canterbury. He hung up his fetters by the shrine at 

 Canterbury, where they remained duly inscribed for many a generation, 

 but the Winton annalist states that they were kept there in sport as no 

 one believed a word of his tale. Meanwhile Winchester, and conse- 

 quently the diocese, was in a miserable plight through the civil strife, 

 the bishop being the warm partisan of Simon de Montfort the younger. 

 In September, 1265, soon after the battle of Evesham, the king came in 

 triumph to Winchester, and there summoned a parliament. The 

 cathedral church and eventually the city were laid under an interdict, 

 and Ottoboni, the papal legate, suspended Bishop John on account of his 

 popular sympathies, together with his brother prelates of London and 

 Chichester. The three bishops crossed the sea to appeal to Rome. 

 The Bishop of Winchester died at Viterbo in January, 1268, and the 

 pope, as he had died at the court of Rome, claimed the canonical right 

 to appoint his successor. 



Setting aside the election by the chapter, Clement's choice fell 

 upon Nicholas of Ely, Bishop of Worcester, who had been Chancellor of 

 England in 1260 and in 1263. Nicholas, though an avowed sym- 

 pathizer with the barons, was a man of moderation and peace, and was 

 one of the six selected by the king at Kenilworth, in 1266, to arrange 

 terms with the disinherited nobles. At last Hampshire and the rest of 

 the diocese enjoyed a certain time of peace, and Nicholas in the second 

 week of Lent, 1271, began a complete and sorely needed visitation of his 

 spiritual inheritance. On Monday he visited the cathedral church and 

 priory of St. Swithun, on Tuesday the abbey of Hyde, and on Wednes- 

 day the nunnery of St. Mary. On the following day the parochial 

 visitation of the archdeaconry of Winchester was begun. When Henry 

 died Nicholas was one of the magnates who wrote to Edward to tell him 

 of his peaceful succession, and in the following year he went with the 

 Bishop of Exeter to meet Edward I. at Paris on his return from the 

 Holy Land. His episcopate was however much marred by a long and 

 obstinate dispute with the chapter of St. Swithun. 



Bishop Nicholas died in 1 279, and the pope again, after much strife 

 with the chapter, contrived to secure the appointment. The papal 

 choice was however a good one, John of Pontoise, who had been 

 Chancellor of Oxford and was at that time Professor of Civil Law at 

 Modena, being consecrated Bishop of Winchester at Orvieto on 14 June, 

 1282. He made a good beginning when he reached his diocese by 



19 



