A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



a protest against the creation of the bishopric is significant. As soon as 

 Stephen had seized the throne, Pope Innocent II reminded him of the 

 project of raising ' the place of Carlisle to the rank of episcopal dignity 

 which Henry his royal predecessor had laboured to accomplish till his 

 decease,' at the same time urging the King to supply what was lacking 

 in the original foundation. 1 Whatever may have been the obstacles in 

 the way of completing the formation of the see they were surmounted 

 in 1138 when Alberic, the papal legate, held a provincial council of 

 Scottish bishops at Carlisle. David, king of Scotland, was present with 

 the bishops, abbots and barons of his kingdom. The council was also 

 attended by Robert, bishop of Hereford, and Adelulf, bishop of Carlisle, 

 who formed the legate's suite as he journeyed through England. By 

 this synod John, bishop of Glasgow, was ordered to leave his retirement 

 and return to his cure, and Adelulf was admitted to the favour of King 

 David and established in his diocese. 2 



When the diocese had become finally absorbed into the English 

 kingdom in 1157 the ecclesiastical sympathies of the local magnates 

 upon whom the church depended for the support of its ministrations 

 were not completely diverted into English channels. The church in the 

 twelfth century was not insular or national, belonging to one race or one 

 kingdom : it claimed an universal sovereignty over all nations. For 

 this reason no doubt the political frontier which marked off the English 

 from the Scottish kingdom was scarcely recognized at the outset among 

 the benevolent landowners who first endowed religious institutions in 

 this part of the country. But apart from religious considerations there 

 was a community of feeling as well as an identity of aim among the 

 people on both sides of the national boundary. By ties of property, in- 

 termarriage and old associations, the inhabitants of ancient Cumbria 

 remained practically one people for a long period after they had become 

 politically separated. The needs of the church knew no political 

 barriers. Religious houses in Scotland received grants from the lords of 

 Cumberland after the severance of the diocese from Scottish rule. 

 National prejudice did not hinder Scottish laymen from extending their 

 benevolence to institutions on the English side of the Border. Turgis 

 de Russedale, the baron of Liddel, appropriated the church of Kirkan- 



1 The Priory of Hexkam (Surtees Soc.) i., Appendix No. viii. This letter of Pope Innocent II to 

 King Stephen, taken from the Great White Register of York, is dated at Pisa on 22 April, and as the Pope 

 was there on that day in 1136, and apparently not in that month of any later year, Haddan and Stubbs 

 say that 1 1 36 is almost certainly the date (Councils and Eccles. Documents, ii. 30). In this letter Innocent 

 reminded Stephen that the see had been created ' ex dispensatione Apostolica.' Prynne had overlooked 

 this fact when he took the formation of the diocese of Carlisle as the basis of his argument to show that 

 the King had an inherent power without the Pope to create new bishoprics, alter dioceses, and curtail 

 the privileges of archbishops, bishops, and archdeacons, so as to bind their successors thereby (Chrono- 

 logical Vindication, ii. 232). 



2 The two Hexham historians, Richard and John, give identical accounts of this provincial council 

 of Scottish bishops under Alberic the legate in 1138, John adding that ' Aldulf ' the bishop was received 

 to the favour of King David and admitted to his bishopric by the intercession of the legate (The 

 Priory of Hexham, i. 96-100, 121). The chronicle of Melrose, under date 1138, mentions Alberic's 

 visit to David at Carlisle. 



