A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



after the death of Bishop Godfrey. Ralph Luffa, the next bishop, was 

 consecrated in 1091 by Thomas, archbishop of York, the see of Canterbury 

 being still vacant. He was a man of commanding presence and courageous 

 spirit, and supported the cause of his primate, Anselm, against Rufus with 

 intrepidity. When Henry I put forward his claim to be allowed to exact 

 fines from married priests Bishop Ralph boldly resisted his demands, and 

 even went so far as to close all the churches in the diocese until the king 

 yielded. His courage was appreciated by Henry, who not only released the 

 diocese from the tax, but assisted in the rebuilding of the cathedral, which 

 had been damaged by fire in 1114. Ralph displayed equal energy in the 

 performance of his pastoral duties, making a circuit of his diocese thrice 

 in the year, preaching and reforming abuses, and died like a good Christian in 

 1123, causing all his goods to be distributed to the poor. His successor 

 Seffrid I, nicknamed Pelochin, was abbot of Glastonbury at the time of his 

 election to Chichester, over which see he ruled till 1145, when he was 

 deposed and retired to his former home at Glastonbury. 



Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen and bishop of Winchester, had 

 made an endeavour while at Rome in 1143 to have his see of Winchester 

 raised to the rank of an archbishopric, and to have Chichester subjected 

 thereto. 83 This had come to nothing, but it was probably through Henry's 

 influence that the bishopric was bestowed in 1147 upon Hilary, a man of 

 considerable learning and a fiery eloquence, and devoted to the crown. 

 During his episcopate the struggle between the abbey of Battle and the 

 cathedral of Chichester, which had begun under Stigand, but had been 

 adjusted by Ralph Luffa's good sense and tact only to revive under Seffrid, 

 reached its crisis. A prolonged and undignified wrangle ended in the 

 complete victory of the abbot, who established the exemption of his church 

 from episcopal control beyond challenge. 34 A more important contest in 

 which Hilary played a leading part was that between Henry II and Becket. 

 At the Council of Westminster in 1163 Hilary alone of the bishops urged the 

 acceptance of the king's proposal for dealing with criminal clergy by the 

 secular power ; he was also one of the leading men by whose influence 

 Becket was induced to agree to the Constitutions of the Council at Clarendon 

 in i 164. In October of this latter year the archbishop was cited before the 

 council at Northampton for the secular offence of not paying certain dues to 

 John the Marshall, arising from his Sussex manor of Pagham. Becket, 

 in violation of the Constitutions which he had signed at Clarendon, inhibited 

 the bishops from proceeding against him, whereupon Hilary as spokesman 

 for all declared him perjured, and refused to yield him obedience. 



The outcome of this suit in connexion with the manor of Pagham was 

 the murder of Becket before the altar of his cathedral church in 1170, 

 followed by his beatification and promotion to the position of practically the 

 patron saint of England ; nor was this the limit of his promotion, if we may 

 believe the story of a monk of Lewes Priory, to whom a brother who had 

 recently died appeared in a vision, and declared that the archbishop had been 

 exalted above all other martyrs to the ranks of the Apostles, because the 

 others had died for their own cause, and at the hands of pagans, but he for 



a Ann. Man. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 53. 



" See Chrm. of Battle Abbey, trans, by M. A. Lower, passim. 

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