A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



themselves, they did as they pleased. One incidental proof of this is afforded 

 by the numerous instances which occur of the marriage of the beneficed 

 clergy in Norfolk during the twelfth and late into the thirteenth century.^ 



Bishop William de Raleigh, as has been said, was admitted to the 

 bishopric of Winchester in April, 1244.' His successor received the royal 

 consent to his election as bishop of Norwich on 9 July, and was consecrated 

 at the church of the nunnery of Carrow near Norwich on 19 February 

 foUowino-.* The new bishop was a Norfolk man, Walter of Suffield, or 

 Walter Calthorp, for he is called indifferently by either surname. A man of 

 unblemished character, a scion of an old Norfolk house, whose ancestors had 

 enjoyed large possessions in East Anglia, he had spent some time at the 

 University of Paris, probably too at Oxford, where he appears to have come 

 under the influence of Grossetete and the Franciscans. A man of large 

 private resources, he was one of the most munificent prelates of his genera- 

 tion, and the city of Norwich to this day enjoys the benefit of at least one of 

 his splendid foundations with its ample endowments. 



In 1254 we find the bishop commissioned by Pope Innocent IV to draw 

 up an assessment of all the ecclesiastical property in England, for adjusting the 

 taxation levied by the pope. The Norwich Taxation, as it was called, con- 

 tinued in force as the accepted rating, both for the clergy and reUgious houses, 

 until a new assessment was made under the orders of Pope Nicholas IV, 

 which came into operation in 1291. Bishop Walter's activity in his diocese 

 was exhibited during the last three or four years of his episcopate in many 

 other ways. He seems to have revived or thrown a new life into the diocesan 

 synod, and to have drawn up a new body of statutes, to which his successor 

 made some additions.* 



Bishop Walter's will has come down to us. It is a noble and suggestive 

 document. The bulk of his large Ubrary he bequeathed to his nephew 

 Walter de Calthorp ; but to four of his close friends he leaves each a bible, 

 and to another his psalter. Little was left to the Norwich priory. To the 

 friars, on the other hand, he was graciously liberal, the number of bequests of 

 all kinds to friends, dependants, and servants was very large, and among them 

 was the cup out of which the poor children drank (meaning thereby the poor 

 scholars of the grammar school), which he left to the hospital of St. Giles. 



The bishop died at Colchester on 19 May, 1257, and was buried in the 

 Lady Chapel, which he built as an appendix to the cathedral. Shortly after 



' See a paper in the 'Norf. Arch, ix, 187. To instances there given may be added the curious case of 

 Seaming, where, according to Blomefield, op. cit. x, 44, five generations of married rectors of the 

 benefice succeeded one another far into the thirteenth century. Blyth in his Hut. of Fincham gives 

 an instance of Hugh (rural) dean of Fincham, who had a son Samson, p. 69, N. 3. In the Hundred R. (Rec. 

 Com.), I, 481, we find that in 1273 ' Radulfus Rector Ecclesie de Topcroft' was thrown into prison 

 with his three sons, and had to pay heavily for the release of two of them, though the third had actually 

 died oi duritiam fruonis. In Farmer's notes under Tatterset St. Andrews, William de Hales (rector there 

 in the episcopate of William Middleton, 1278-88), ' habuit sororem . . . Rogeri de Tateshall cleric in 

 uxorem.' In a letter of Gregory IX addressed to Bp. William de Raleigh the pope seems to be aware that in 

 the Norwich diocese there would be married clergy, but that they must be checked in their attempts to hand 

 down their benefices from father to son. Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 1 90 ; Opera, ' Radulfus de Diceto ' (Rolls 

 Ser.), Pref. p. xiii. 



' On his relations with Bp. Grossetete, see Letters of Grossetete (Rolls Ser.), 63, 67, and F. S. 

 Stevenson, Life of Grosseteste. 



' Le Neve, Fasti and Reg. Sacr. Angl. 



' Wilkins in his Concilia printed some portion of these statutes (i, 731-6) from a MS. now in the 

 Bodleian Library, Digby MSS. No. 99, p. 113. 



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