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[Note 55-63 ManxSoc vol 22]
The name " Jerewos " seems to be a corruption of " Jernemuthe," Yarmouth.1
1 [Jerewos is said to be Jervaux the Cistercian house in Yorkshire, primarily called Yorevalle. Jarrow has also been suggested ; and by Keith, Jurby, in the Isle of Man. Keith, and Hardy’s Le Neve, and Cumming, give as the date of John’s accession 1226. Stubbs gives 1219, and refers to him the letter of Pope Horiorius III. , published in the Appendix, No. 11, and another letter dated May 15, 1224 (Oliver’s Mon. ii. 67), exonerating him from his episcopate, and says that he witnessed a deed of bishop Walter de Gray, September 25, 1230. This he gives on the authority of Le Neve.]
We learn from the Icelandic annals that Simon was consecrated in the year 1226, and. as his consecration is mentioned together with that of Arne, Bishop of Bergen, Orm of Oslo, and Askel of Stavanger, it is to be inferred that they were consecrated all four on one day by Archbishop Peter of Nidaros, who had just arrived from Rome with the pallium, at the close of the preceding year.4 The Saga of King Hácon relates that in the autumn of 1226, Bishop Simon, John, Earl of Orkney, and the Abbot of Iona, met King Hácon in Bergen, and treated of some important affairs with him ; the archbishop having been there a little before the king’s arrival ; it is therefore very likely that the consecration of Simon had been celebrated while the archbishop made his stay in Bergen 5 There can be no doubt that Simon, whose promotion happened shortly after the victory of Olaf, in 1224, was a protege of this king, and that accounts very well for his being consecrated in Norway, although he was an Argyle-man ; since it was the policy of Olaf and his followers always to look for support from Norway against the party of Reginald, and consequently to maintain the Norwegian interests and the rights of the Norwegian crown in Man and the Isles. The important affairs of which Simon and the Abbot of Iona had to treat, were perhaps the defection of the Manxmen from Reginald in 1226, and their homage to Olaf as sole monarch.
It is mentioned here, as well as above, p. 100, that Simon built the church of St. German, i.e., the cathedral of Man and the Isles at Holm Peel. And immediately afterwards, p. 100, the first mention is made of a chapter with the right of election, and an archdeacon. As it is certain that no chapter existed before, it is evident that this important institution was founded by Simon, and closely connected with the erection of the new cathedral.6 It was no doubt the intention of Simon to consolidate the diocese, and to prevent, for times to come, either the detaching of the Northern Isles, or the interference of the monks of Furness or of the Archbishop of York in the election and consecration of the future bishops.7 In so far this arrangement was quite in the interest of Norway, and may therefore have been suggested during his stay there at his consecration. Indeed, the metropolitan jurisdiction of the Nidrosian archbishop appears now to have been thoroughly established and acknowledged in Man, no doubt through the exertions of King Olaf and his party ; the most remarkable evidence of that fact being this, that even the Abbot of Icolmkill, who niight have claimed exemption at least from the supremacy of the bishop, repaired to Norway in 1226, thereby practically acknowledging his dependency, and afterwards, as we shall see next (we do not know whether it was the same or his successor), when appearing at the papal court, must have acknowledged himself to have come " ex partibus Norwegiæ." 7
In the beginning of the year 1244, when Simon perhaps was already expected soon to die, the monks of Furness, as we learn from the papal letter of February 16, 1244, printed in the Appendix,8 made one last attempt to obtain from the recently elected Pope, Innocent IV., a confirmation of their pretended right to elect the bishop from themselves, but evidently not with the expected or wished for success. In their remonstrances with the pope, of which the letter gives the contents, they used, as we see, a great deal of cunning and sophistry, blending true assertions with false ones, and especially taking care not to characterise the See with any other name than with that of Man, hoping, no doubt, thereby, and by carefully avoiding that of the Sudreys (ecclesia Sodorensis), to make the Pope believe that the See in question was another than the latter, and that he might confirm their claim without contradicting former regulations. The Pontiff, however, although maybe not aware of the identity of the ecclesia Mannensis with the ecciesia Sodorensis, was too wary to grant the request unconditionally ; it is even not unlikely that he had been warned by the intriguing abbot Bjòrn of Holm, in Norway, who happened to be in Rome at that time. We learn that he granted their request, which purposed to secure not only to themselves the right of electing, but also to the Archbishop of York the right of consecrating, the bishop, on condition, however, that matters were really as they alleged, and that the Nor-wegian archbishop had no objection, about which a letter was simultaneously directed to that prelate. The result is not expressly told, but as there cannot be the least doubt that the Archbishop of Nidaros objected to it,9 and protested with all his might, the whole matter had necessarily to be dropt, nor is there any sign of its having ever been revived.10
It is said, p. 100, that Bishop Simon died in 1247, which agrees very well with the statement, p. 116, that the See was vacant after his death for about six years ; it being quite certain from the Saga, as well as the papal letter, printed in the Appendix, No. 23, that his successor was inaugurated in 1253. It is, however, added immediately afterwards, p. 100, that Simon died in the eighteenth year of his episcopate, which does not agree with his being consecrated in 1226, twenty-one years before 1247. If then the number is not a mere blunder, we cannot explain this apparent inaccuracy otherwise than by supposing that Simon had been prevented by the troubles between King Olaf and his brother Reginald, from taking his See of Man in possession till after the death of King Reginald in 1229. As a further confirmation of his decease having happened in 1247, we may perhaps regard the fact, recorded in the papal letter to the Abbot of lona, dated April 22, 1247, and printed for the first time in our Appendix as No. 21, viz., that this abbot repaired personally to the Pope at Lyons, to present his compliments, and obtain the grant of using episcopal insignia under some limitations ; as it is most likely that for requesting such a privilege he chose expressly the time when the episcopal See was vacant, and when there were none to make objections. We learn, also, that the request was granted.11 The Icelandic annals the decease of Simon is wrongly referred to AD. 1249.
When the Abbot of Iona, as we learn from the letter just nientioned, visited the Pope at Lyons, and obtained the right to wear the episcopal mitre and ring, there can be no doubt that it was also he who got the letter of protection to Dugald, Lord of Machumel in Kentire, dated only four days before, which is given in the Appendix, No. 20, not because there is anything remarkable in the general contents, but chiefly because Kentire is said here to belong to the diocese of Lismore, more generally called the diocese of Argyle ; the former denomination appearing to contain some reminiscences from the times when the Isles had not their bishop in common with Man.
1 [Dr. Gordon (Monasticon, i. 580) says that Simon, Bishop of the Isles, appears also to have been Abbot of Iona in 1226. He was present at the settlement of a dispute with the Bishop of Moray about the church of Kincardine, in Strathspey.]
2 Hak Hák. Saga, ch. 131.
3 Ibidem, ch. 147.
4 As a farther proof of the ecclesiastical zeal of Simon, we add that there exists a record of Statutes, enacted in a diocesan ecclesiastical synod held by him, A. D. 1229 ; the Statutes are printed in Concilia Magnae Britaniae, ed. Wilkins, i. 664.
5 [This is pure conjecture ; Simon could not give to his Chapter rights which the Holy See had given to Furness, unless with the Pope’s sanction, or by his concession. It does not appear on record that the Chapter exercised the right of election after Simon’s time ; on the contrary, Pope Innocent IV. , in his bull of February 16, 1244, speaks of the right of election by the monks of Furness having been hitherto peacefullyrecognised, and at their request he sanctions the consecration of theBishop by the Archbishop of York, with the permission, however, of the Archbishop of Drontheim. See Appendix, No. 19. In 1349 the right of election is said in a bull of Clement VI. to have been by ancient usage in the clergy of the cathedral city, and of the diocese, Appendix, No. 29, by whom, together with the people, Harold required the election to be made of Lawrence, though he had been elected by the Chapter, as is stated by the Chronicle, which, however, makes no mention of the right of election which Munch attributes to it. The accidental mention of a Chapter on this occasion, does not prove that there was no Chapter at an earlier period. In March 1253, Pope Innocent writes distinct copies of a letter to the Chapter, to the clergy, and to the people, on the appointment of Bishop Richard, but in 1349, Pope Clement VI. , on a similar occasion, sends letters to the clergy and to the people only. In the synod held by Bishop Simon in 1229 (Cumming says 1239) thirteen canons were enacted, most of which relate to probate of wills, dues of the clergy, and other inferior matters ; they are published in Oliver’s Mon. iii. 176.]
6 [See Appendix, No. 21.]
7 [See Appendix, No. 19.]
8 [This is very improbable. The See was called indifferently Mannensis or Sodorensis. The connection of the See of Man with the Archbishop of Nidaros dates only from the bull of Anastasius IV., in 1154 ; and this bull, as Munch states in his note b, p. 246, was renewed or reissued by Pope Innocent IV. in 1253, so that the Holy See must have been well informed of the condition and position of the See of Man, and nobody would know this better than the monks of Furness.]
9 [There appears no reason why the Archbishop should object to the proposition stated inDocument No. 19,—namely, that, in virtue of faculty from the Pope, and leave from the Archbishop of Drontheim, the Archbishop of York should consecrate a bishop already regularly appointed to a See subject to the Norwegian metropolitan, when circumstances rendered it very inconvenient or dangerous for the bishop-elect to go to Norway for the purpose of receiving consecration.]
10 Shortly before, the successor of Simon, Richard, was consecrated by Archbishop Serb, AD. 1253, the foundation bull of the metropolitan See of Nidaros was renewed in extenso, and confirmed by Innocent IV. (Dipi. Norv. iii. 3), and here the Sudreyan Isles are expressly named. [See Appendix, No. 5, for the differences between the two bulls.]
11 [Such concessions are not unusual, and the Pope in granting the privilege would be more influenced by the personal presence of the abbot than by the vacancy of the See. Besides, as the See was vacant for six years, no argument can be drawn therefrom as to the time of Simon’s death ; for if he died in 1244, or 1247, or 1249, it would have been equally vacant. Usher says that Simon was made bishop iii 1230, and died in 1249. Keith says that he witnessed a charter in 1234, the 17th of the reign of King Alexander II. of Scotland. Hardy’s Le Neve gives 1249 as the year of his death. In 1236 Pope Gregory IX. requested the bishop of Moray to provide by canonical election a bishop for Lisinore (Argyll) as the Bishop of Sodor, its administrator, sought to be relieved from the additional burden, on account of his infirmities.- Theiner, p. 33. See Appendix, No. 18. The real date of his death must be 1244 or 1247.
In some recent excavations at Peel Castle there have been found human remains mixed with the bones of a dog, in the site usually assigned to a founder, which have consequently been conjectured to be those of bishop Simon. The dog is often taken as a symbol of the preacher, because the faithful dog and the good preacher by their bark terrify wolves and thieves, or as an old French MS. has it : "Li boncien, li bon precheur qui abaient et espoenteiit les lons et les larrons." A few years ago there was found the skull of a greyhound in the tomb of the great Earl of Westmoreland, in Staindrop church. Bones of animals are sometimes found amongst human remains in cairns in Scotland of pagan times, but these offer no explanation for the bones of a dog in the grave of a christian bishop in the 13th century. The body of the bishop had been embalmed in a rough sort of way, or at least quick lime and sand, or impure lime, had been put into the chest or grave with the body, which it quite filled, leaving the marks of the ribs on the slaked lime. It is not certain that it was the grave of Simon, or of any bishop indeed the absence of any trace of the insignia of a bishop usually buried with him leaves it very doubtful.].
Here the whole transaction is omitted, which has been mentioned above in the chronicle of the kings, p. 100, and which accounts for the long vacancy after the decease of Simon. It appears that the recently founded Chapter had exercised for the first time its right of election, choosing their archdeacon, Lawrence, for his successor, but that the whole clergy and the people, unwilling to forego their ancient privilege of electing the bishops in common, had protested against transferring it to the body of canons, in a letter sent to King Harold, who happened to be in Norway, and that Harold, siding with the protesters, denied his assent to Lawrence until the election had been repeated in the ancient manner.a There seems, however, not to have been any doubt that the election of Lawrence would be confirmed, but this was never to happen, as Lawrence shared the melancholy fate of the king and his queen, who were drowned in Sumburgh Roost on their return to the Isles, AD. 1248.
It is not explained why the See still continued vacant for about five years, yet we may guess~ with pretension almost to certainty, that the right of election continued some time to be a matter of dispute be-tween the Chapter and the other party, especially as we learn from the letter of Innocent IV., given in the Appendix as No. 23, that Richard, the final successor of Simon, was named by provision, a rather unfailing sign in those times of the election having been disputed and protracted beyond the proper time. It is also related in the Saga of King Hácon, ch. 276, that the Nidrosian archbishop Sörli or Serb, who had been elected AD. 1252, and had repaired to Rome as usual, in order to be confirmed by the pope, consecrated afterwards, during his stay there, two of his suffragans, Peter, Bishop of Hamar, and Richard of Sudrey. From our Chronicle we learn that Richard was an Englishman, from the papal letter (Appendix, No. 23), that he was chaplain to the Cardinal John of St. Lorenzo in Lucina, and canon of St. Andrews in Scotland, likewise, that he was not immediately nominated by the pope himself, but at his order by the archbishop. The circumstance that the letter to the Chapter of Sudrey is only accompanied by one to the clergy in general, and one to the people, but none to the king, although it was usual to address the king particularly on such occasions, may be accounted for by what is known from our Chronicle, that Magnus was not duly installed as king till in the course of 1 253, while the papal letter is dated the 14th of March in the same year. As Richard was consecrated in 1253, and died in 1274, on his return from the general council of Lyons, he did not fill the See, as our Chronicle says, for twenty-three years, but only twenty-one. The name of his dying place, Lasigalyver in Copland, we have not been able to find on the maps. Yet it must have been somewhere near Furness abbey, since he was buried there.2
1 [Munch strains the text of the Chronicle : it simply says that Harold refused to give assent to his consecration, on account of some letters which had been sent from Man against him, until, in his presence, on his return to Man, he should be elected by all the clergy and people. Both Cumming and Hardy’s Le Neve erroneously state that he was consecrated by the Archbishop of Dronthiem. About a century after the shipwreck of Lawrence, Bishop Gyrd Ivarsson of Iceland was drowned in the same tempestuous sea on his way to Norway, so that there is no reason to be surprised, apart from any other consideration, at the preference felt by those having ecclesiastical business at the archiepiscopal court, for York over Nidaros.
About the time of the death of Simon, or during the vacancy of the See, King Harold of Man issued a charter of protection to the monks of Furness, and also made unto them a grant of all kinds of mines, both beneath and above the soil of Man, and three acres of land near St. Trinian’s, for the erection of a house for their workmen, and store-room for their minerals, free of all secular service, and exempted them from toll and all other custom. —Oliver’s Mon. ii. 77-81.]
2 [Munch’s reasoning will hardly hold : for Magnus was de facto king in 1252, and the Chronicle makes the dedication of the church of Rushen abbey take place in the fifth year of Richard’s episcopate, and the fifth year of the reign of Magnus. If the years of Richard’s consecration and death be included, the twenty-three years of his episcopate are made up. However, as the general council did not terminate till July 17, 1274, he may not have reached home till 1275. Langalyver is a manor in Cuniberland. At the dissolution Furness held land in Copland of the annual value of £4 : 6 : 8. St. Bee’s abbey was in Copland, and its prior was a baron of the Isle of Man, the convent holding lands there.— Oliver’s Mon. i. 201, ii ; 228-9 ; ii. 92. Stubbs says that Richard died in 1275, and was buried on March 25. The Beg. of Paisley, under date 1253, record that Stephen, Bishop of the Isles, confirmed to the monastery of Paisley all the churches and lands they held in his diocese. Who was he ? Hardy’s Le Neve thinks that there were two Richards, Stephen coming between the two, but this seems an improbable conjecture. Richard, Bishop of Man and the Isles, in the first year of his episcopate granted an indulgence of forty days to persons benefiting in any way the church of St. Cuthbert at Durham. In 1257 King Magnus confirmed the liberties of the church of Man in a charter addressed to Bishop Richard. He grants him leave to hold his court, with powers of life and death ; the mines of lead and iron ; freedom of the clergy from secular fines ; the island of St. Patrick, Kirk Christ Lezayre ; half of the fishery in Mirescoge.—Oliver’s Mon. ii. 89, 92, 162 iii. 13. The ‘V. H. Can. Raine of York has an impression of his seal.]
We learn from the Icelandic annals that Marcus was consecrated by the Archbishop of Nidaros in the city of Tunsberg, in the south of Norway, A.D. 1275. Afterwards we learn from the Saga of the Icelandic bishop Arni, that Marcus was in Norway A.D. 1 280, and no doubt present at least at the first sittings of the provincial council, then held in Bergen by Archbishop John. But no clue is given to explain the fact, mentioned by our Chronicle, that he was expelled by the Manxmen for some time and that the Island in consequence was sub-jected to interdict for three years. We may venture to suggest that the dispute between the Chapter and the people and clergy of Man not yet being ended, but only suspended by the nomination by provision of Richard, Marcus had been elected by the Chapter, and of course con-firmed in his dignity and consecrated by the Norwegian archbishop, but on his return in 1 275 had been rejected by the other party, and that he did not return and had not been acknowledged by his flock till 1 280, having, perhaps, meanwhile personally visited the papal See in 1277, to make his complaints and obtain the decree of interdict, and spent the rest of his exile in Norway.a The frequent change of handwriting in these entries testifies to their having been added successively by contemporaneous writers. If Marcus, as it is said, was bishop for twenty-four years, he must have died in 1292
a [Stubbs, citing a continuation of William of Newburgh by a monk of Furness, shows that the conjecture of Munch about the election of Mark is erroneous. On the death of Richard, the Abbot of Furness went to the King of Scotland to prosecute his right about the election of bishops. The king received the abbot graciously, and deceived him with specious promises ; but treacherously forbade the clergy and people, at their peril, to receive the elect of the abbot and convent of Furness. Meanwhile the clergy and people of Man, meeting for the election of a bishop, unanimously elected Master Gilbert, Abbot of Rushen, whom the King of Scotland, in opposition to the canons, set aside, and in his place intruded one Master Mark, a relative of the bailiff of Man, whom he straight away sent, with letters from himself, and with such as he had been able to extort from the clergy and people under their seals, to Norway, to his metropolitan, the Archbishop of Nidaros, for consecration. The writer did not know the result; but it ended in the consecration of Mark. By the treaty of Perth, July 2, 1266, the ancient kingdom of the Isles had been made over by Magnus of Norway to Alexander III. who still ruled Scotland ; and he was no doubt anxious to have for a partisan a Bishop of Man, as King Edward of England was then beginning to manifest an encroaching spirit in his policy towards Scotland.
The diligence of Dr. Oliver has made us acquainted with several documents elucidating the history of Mark. In 1289 " Marc, evesque de Man," occurs amongst the prelates, counts, barons, etc. , the guardians of the kingdom of Scotland, signing a letter to Edward I. of England—Mon. ii. 106. In 1290 the Isle of Man was in Edward’s hands ; and it is curious that, in the taxation of the Province of York for the levying of contributions, under the sanction of Pope Nicholas IV. , towards a crusade, the Abbey of Man is named in the deanery of Coupland, under the archdeaconry of Richmond, as assessed at 6s. 8d. (The taxation of the Ecclesiastical Province of York was not completed till 1292, Lingard ii. 589).—Oliver’s Mon. ii. 110 ; Gregson’s Fragments. In March 1291, Mark held a Diocesan Synod at Kirk Braddan, in which 34 canons were enacted for the improvement of ecclesiastical discipline, and the regulation of tithes and dues. Keith says there were 39 canons, Cumming, 35 ; they are published by Dr. Oliver, Mon. in. 182-201. In 1292 Mark appears at the great parliament of Berwick, as one of the auditors, declaring that the competitors for the crown, Bruce and Baliol, had concluded their pleadings, so that the king might proceed to judgment—Mon. ii.
118. In 1296 the bailiff of Dumfries is ordered to bring the venerable prelate Marie, Bishop of Sodor, to make his allegiance to Edward 1.—Mon. ii. 132. In 1299, Mark of his own free will, appropriates to the abbot and monks of Furness, the churches of St. Michael and St. Maughold. The abbot, supposed to be Dalton, afterwards deposed, was then holding the singular office of Custodian of Man—Mom. i. 202 ; ii. 133. Stubbs thinks that Mark died not earlier than 1303, possibly as late as 1305, when we first hear of his successor. Keith says that he was sent prisoner to London ; but he gives neither date nor authority. He says also that he had been Chancellor of Scotland.]
a There exists also a record of council statutes, enacted by Marcus. See Monasticon Anglicanurn and Langebek (Scr. R. D. iii. Marcus likewise was present at the great parliament held in Berwick in the summer of 1292, to settle the claims of the different pretenders to the crown of Scotland ; Marcus was one of the judges named by John Baliol.—Rymer, i. 2. p. 755.
Of the four bishops here enumerated, Alan, Gilbert, Bernard, and Thomas, we have not found anything elsewhere, and therefore know nothing about their election and consecration, except what is said in general, p. 118, that they were all consecrated by the Archbishop of Nidaros. That some vacancies must have occurred between their respective episcopates, and therefore, perhaps, the above mentioned dispute nlay have continued, appears from the circumstance that the two and a half years of Gilbert, the four of Bernard, and the eighteen of Thomas, in all twenty-four and a half, do not fill up the gap of twenty-eight and a half years between the death of Alan on the 15th of Feruary, 1320, and that of Thomas, on the 20th of September, 1348 1
1 [Some writers have created confusion in the succession of bishops by introducing new names. Keith, and Cumming, and Hardy’s Le Neve, introduced before Alan Onachus or Onanus ; Cumming places him in 1298, on the authority of William Quayle’s MS. from Spottiswood’s Scottish Church, Book ii. 116. Keith places him about the year 1304 ; but it is generally held that he is one and the same with Alan. After this supposed Onachus, and before Alan, Cumming (Isle of Man, 346) introduces a Mauricius in 1303, who was sent prisoner to London by King Edward I. , and therefore supposed never to have been consecrated, and consequently never put into the catalogue of bishops ; but Keith says that Mauricius or Marus was the same person as Mark, so that we may rightly follow the Chronicle in placing Alan after Mark, and regard Mauricius and Onanus as myths. There is a Patent Roll of 33 Edward I. in Prynne, iii. 1111, answering to the year 1305, March 25, in which the king gives him safe conduct to visit the churches in the Isles of Inchegal. —Stubbs. In the ancient rolls of Scotland occurs this note of a presentation to the living of Kirk Cairbre or Arbory, in 1295 : " Allan of Wightown holds letters of presentation to the Church of St. Carber in Man."—Cumming, citing Train’s Hist. i. 339. Bishop Alan was one of the Scotch clergy who recognised the claim of Robert Bruce to the crown in 1309. Oliver publishes two documents that require explanation, ii. 162, 68 ; to a charter granted by Robert Bruce to the Earl of Moray, December 20, 1313, the witnesses are William, John, William, David, and David, Bishops of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Dunkeld, Moray, and Sodor. Which was Bishop of Sodor ? October 24, 1317, John, Bishop of Sodor, has letters of protection from the Marquis to accompany the King, Edward II., and the Marquis to the Isle of Man. Alan died February 15, 1321. Gilbert McLellan, called by Johnstone, M’Cleland, succeeded Alan in 1321. The Chronicle says that he ruled two years and a half, and hence he is supposed to have died in 1323 ; but Keith (Scottish bishops, 302) says that he is found witness to several charters in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first years of King Robert I. ‘s reign, which coincide with the years 1325, 6, 7. In order to reconcile the discrepancy, Stubbs conjectures that the two years of the Chronicle are a mistake for 6—(ii. for vi).
Gilbert was succeeded by Bernard de Linton, Abbot of Arbroath, and not by Bernard, Abbot of Kilwinning, as some English writers have erroneously supposed. Bernard was bishop elect in 1328, and was consecrated in 1329 (Keith, 302). In 1296 he was rector of the church of Mordington, in Berwickshire, and swore fealty to Edward I. on the 24th of August of that year. In 1307 Robert Bruce, on ascending the throne of Scotland, made him his chancellor, on the removal of Nicholas de Balmute, Bishop of Dunblane. In 1309 he was niade Abbot of Arbroath, and on August 21, 1312, entered into an engagement with the Abbot of Kilwinning for the redemption of his predecessor, John, then a simple monk, from captivity in England. He celebrated the battle of Bannockburn in a Latin poem, a fragment of which is still extant. He continued abbot and chancellor till 1328. Under him the abbey of Arbroath attained its greatest prosperity. He executed many repairs on its buildings at considerable expense. Robert Bruce frequently resided there, and during his patriotic efforts to free his country from English domination, it often witnessed the gathering of councils and parliaments within its walls. Bernard was most likely the Abbot of Arbroath whom Robert Bruce sent to Norway on state affairs, probably in connection with the negotiations that ended in the treaty of Inverness in 1312. In 1328 he was elected Bishop of Man and the Isles, and on the 30th of April in that year, William, Bishop of St. Andrews, made a visitation of his monastery, amid in consideration of his upright life, his prudent government, his great merits, and in compensation for his expenses in repairing the monastery, granted to him all the funds of the church of Abernethy, with the chapel of Dron, for seven years. See Appendix, No. 28. In 1329 Bernard, Bishop of Sodor, witnessed a charter granted by King Robert Bruce to the city of Glasgow. He died in 1333 ; and was buried, some say at Kilwinning, others at Arbroath.—Dr. Gordon’s Monasticon, i. 518-520 ; Keith, 302,
Thomas is said to have been made bishop in 1334, and to have died in 1348, after an episcopate of eighteen years ; Cumming says fourteen, in order to reconcile the statement. In his time the English possessed themselves of the island, so that he was the last bishop appointed by the Scotch. November 24, 1341, King Edward III. directed Thomas de Drayton of Great Yarmouth to send the Bishop of Man, with the other persons seized at Carlisle, up to London ; but to await further orders with regard to their ship and its freight—Oliver’s Mon. ii. 185. On the 17th of December following the King ordered the Bishop of Man to be set at liberty, and his goods and chattels to be restored to him, as he was in allegiance to the king, and was on his way to Rome about the business of his See, when he had been driven by stress of weather off Kirkall, into Lowestoff. The king further granted him letters of protection for the continuance of his journey, and for his return—Mon. ii. p. 187, 190.]
The letters 1 of Pope Clement VI., by which the election of William was confirmed, are still preserved in the papal Registers, and we have given at length in the Appendix, No. 30, that addressed to the Archbishop of Nidaros, from which we learn that the cause why the con-firmation and consecration were not given by the latter, is by no means to be ascribed to any intention of the Pope to detach the Sudreyan See from the Provincia Nidrosiensis, or cause any prejudice to his metropolitan rights, but only to the circumstance that this episcopate, as all others, or in general all ecclesiastical benefices, had been reserved by the Pope for his own, to be provided for by himself ; wherefore, at this period, we find in Registers an immense number of siniilar provisions, which were indeed as many encroachments a upon the rights of the legal electors and disponents, and, when regarding episcopates, generally accompanied by " permissiones redeundi," showing that the consecration has been given at the papal See, not by the proper metropolitan. In this manner, also, the present letters are followed by a permissio redeundi (No. 31), dated May 6, 1349, from which it appears that William was consecrated by the cardinal-bishop of Ostia, not, as it is stated in our Chronicle, by the Pope himself. By comparing the date of both letters we learn that the consecration must have taken place between the 27th of April and the 6th of May.
The letter of confirmation apprises us of the important fact that the dispute between the chapter and the people and clergy must at last have been ended in favour of the latter party ; if, indeed, the chapter had not been entirely dissolved, which we might be induced to believe from the fact that none of the copies are addressed, as usually, to the chapter, this being not at all mentioned. If such a dissolution had happened, ifr must have been after 1320, in which year an archidiaconus Sodorensis, by the name of Cormac, is mentioned in a letter issued by Archbishop Eilif at Nidaros (Bartholiniana E. p. 134) a It would even seem from the fact that William had been formerly Abbot of Russin, that the pretensions of Furness had somehow again been revived. The three last copies show that at that time b William of Montague was the chief Lord of Man, and that he, Robert the Steward, Lord of Bute, and his son-in-law John Mac Donald of Isla, great-great grandson of Reginald Mac Somerled c were the three most powerful lords in the diocese. As No. 32 and 33 we give two other letters, which show that William did not return from Avignon till after the 14th of June 1349, and that he must have had some influence with the Pope in obtaining not unimportant grants, especially that of encumbering his church and see with a mortgage.6 From the letter of Pope Urban V. , dated December 7, 1367, which is given in the Appendix as No. 41, we learn that then there was a question, at the request of the Franciscan Provincial of Ireland and the said William of Montague, now Earl of Salisbury, about erecting a Franciscan convent in the Isle of Man, which, however, does not seem to have been put into execution 7
1 [See Appendix, Nos. 29, 30, and 31.]
2 [These provisions could not be regarded as encroachments upon rights by Roman Catholics, because they consider the Pope, as supreme head of the church, to have the exclusive right and power of appointing bishops. Though he has had many ways, varying with times and circumstances, of selecting the person to be appointed, such as capitular elections, etc. , these institutions of his own could not put limits, other than those dictated by expediency, to the exercise of his absolute rights and power. Hence, though we find in history complaints of appointments made by the Pope without having had recourse to the usual means of selection, we do not find the validity of such appointments called in question. The case is different in the supposition of a concordat, by which the Pope engages, in consideration of some advantage to be reaped by the church from the agreement, to appoint a subject selected by a sovereign, provided there be no objection to his fitness for the office. These concordats however, did not exist at the time of which we are speaking.]
3 [In the Appendix, No. 43, will be found a letter from Urban V. to an Archdeacon of Man, dated as late as 1368.]
4 [January 13, 1364, the Scots agreed, in a treaty with England, to settle upon the youngest son of the King of England, Edward III. , the lands in Galloway which were the inheritance of Edward Baliol, and the Isle of Man. The annual income of this island is rated at a thousand marks ; and it is stipulated that if the Earl of Salisbury should claim the property of the island, an annuity of 1000 marks sterling should be paid to the prince, until lands of the same value are settled upon him, provided always that he is willing to hold the same as the sworn vassal of the King of Scotland.—Tytler, Hist. Scot. ]
5 See Genealogical Tables.
6 [See in Oliver’s Mon. iii. page 202, the decrees of a synod held by this Bishop William, on 23d February 1350. William de Zouche, Archbishop of York, granted to William, Bishop of Man, a commission to confer orders in the diocese of York, December 11, 1351. This commission was renewed by his successor John de Thoresby, October 21, 1353.—Raine, i. 458. See records of some events of that time in the Appendix, Nos. 34, 5, 6, 7, 8, 40-46-48.]
7 [Professor Munch is mistaken. A Franciscan Friary was erected at Bymaken, Beemaken, Bowmaken, or Bechmaken, in Kirk Arbory or Kirk Cairbre in 1373. The only remaining portions of the Friary remaining, now converted into a barn, are, Cumming thinks, of 15th century work. They lie about a quarter of a mile east from the parish church of Arbory, on the side of the road leading thence to Rushen. The lands of the Friary did not constitute a separate manor, but were held of the Lord of Man, at an annual rent of 20s. The prior was not a Baron of the Isle. In 1606, James I. leased Brymaken, Rushen, and the nunnery, to Sir Thomas Leigh Knightly, for forty years, at a fine of £101 : 15 : 11. In 1609 the king granted to William, Earl of Derby, the same properties for ever. In 1626 Charles I. granted them to his Queen, Henrietta Maria, for life, valuing them at £101 : 15 : 11. The Friary and lands are now held by the family of Greetham, descendants of the old loyal cavalier family of Tyldesley of Lancashire.]
The date and year are so precisely stated, along with the time of his episcopate and the consecration of his successor, that there would seem to be no occasion for doubt as to the accuracy thereof. Still it is strange, that in the papal letter of provision, dated on the 26th of May 1377, which is given in the Appendix, No. 47, William is spoken of without the usual addition for the deceased, of " bona memoriœ." This omission, however, cannot be but a mere accidental blunder.
The day is rightly described, the 31st of May AD. 1374 being the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. This John Duncan was previously Arch-deacon of Down, and nuncio, and collector of the papal revenues in these parts, as appears from the letters given in the Appendix, Nos. 39, 42, 44, and 45. What our Chronicle says about his election and confirmation is not quite according to the truth, in so far as the Pope did not properly confirm his election, but appointed him proprio motu, by way of provision, without regarding his election otherwise than as a mere recommendation. All this appears from the papal letter of provision, which we give here at length, with all the usual accompanying letters of recommendation (these, of course, only in extract), vide Appendix, No. 47. The date of the provision, however, or, as it is styled in our Chronicle, the confirmation, is rightly said here to be St. Leonard’s a day, or the 6th of November. From the accompanying letter to the archbishop of Nidaros in Norway (Thrond) we learn, what is exceedingly interesting, that even so far down as 1374, his metropolitan supremacy over the Bishop of the Sudreys was acknowledged by the Ouria ; the Sudreyan church being expressly characteriseci as " suffraganea tua." How long it continued as such, we are not able to say, from want of documents yet there is every reason to believe that in the papal chancery nothing was altered in this respect, at least down to the time when the See of St. Andrews was elevated into a metropolitan one by Pope Sixtus IV. in 1472 ; for in several lists of archiepiscopal Sees, with their respective suifragans, made in the 1 5th century, and preserved in the Vatican archives, the Episcopus Sodorensis is always referred to as suifragan to the Archiepiscopus Nidrosiensis!~ Among the accompanying letters, one is directed to King Robert Stpwart of Scotland, the same to whom, as Lord of Bute, a similar letter was addressed when William, the predecessor of John Duncan, was appointed bishop in 1349. Another letter, containing verbotenus the same, is addressed to " King William of Man " "Wilhelsno regi Minaviœ), the particulars of which, however, we must leave to our English readers to supply. The cardinal, who consecrated Bishop John was Simon de Langham or Longam, who had previously been Prior and Abbot of Westminster, then successively Bishop of London, of Ely, Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury (in the text of our Chronicle " Cantuariensem " is distorted into "Carocuviacum "), Cardinal priest of St. Praxede or St. Sixtus, Legate in England and France ; in 1373 he was promoted to the cardinal-bishoprick of Præneste, and died in Avignon on the 22d of July, 1376 (Ciaccoime, ii. 568). Why bishop John, as it is stated in the last words of our Chronicle, was arrested in Boulogne and kept as prisoner for more than a year, as it appears, we are not able to tell ; maybe there was something the matter about his collecting-business, which he no doubt dd not execute to the pleasure of all parties. Even the successor of Gregory XI., Urban VI., was not satisfied with his behaviour, as appears from the letter given in the Appendix, No. 50a Curious it is, that shortly after his deliverance, in a letter of provision issued by Pope Gregory to a Sudreyan clergyman, Malcolm, son of Isaiah, dated May 26, 1377, the predecessor of John, bishop William, is mentioned without the usual addition for deceased persons, of " bonœ memoriœ," as if he were still living (Appendix, No. 49). This however, must be regarded only as an error of omission, as bishop John must have been too well acquainted with the Pope, that the latter should have forgotten the particulars about his accession.
1 [There were two saints of the name of Leonard, one the Abbot of Noblac, commemorated November 6, the other abbot of Yandeuvre or Vandoeuvre, commemorated on the 15th of October. Dr. Oliver supposes the latter to be meant, Munch the former.]
2 [Cumming says that on time death of John Donkan the See of Man and the Isles was divided into two, Man continuing to be the seat of the Bishop of Man, and Iona becoming that of the Bishop of the Western Isles ; but John Donkan did not die Bishop of Man, being translated to Down in 1395 . In the year 1458, Pope Calixtus III. (Oliver’s Mon. iii. p. 20), speaks of Man as a suifragan of York.— Oliver’s Mom. iii. 21. Raine (Archbishops of York, i. 31) considers that this bull formally subjects Man to York. To me it seems to imply that it had been previously subjected. The Bollandists (October 20) say that in 1478 Glasgow was made an ecclesiastical province, and that the Bishop of the Sodor diocese (probably the Isles only are meant) was made suffragan. They contend, however, that the two Sees were not divided till about 1540.
3 [This was William de Montague, Earl of Salisbury, and Lord of Man.]
4 [This investigation must have been satisfactory, though we do not know the result of it ; for fifteen years later, AD. 1395, he was translated by Pope Boniface Ix. to the See of Down. Both as Bishop of Sodor, and Bishop of Dowmi, he seems to have been well thought of both by Richard II. and Henry IV. July 13, 1388 (see Appendix, No. 51), the 12th of Richard II., a commission was given to him by the council, to treat with the sons of John de Islay, late Lord of the Isles, regarding a treaty of alliance and commerce between timem and England. October 15, 1393, 16 Richard II., he received from time royal treasury £66 : 13 : 4 in discharge of 100 marks for charges and labour incurred by him in prosecuting certaiim affairs for the king in the Isles—Oliver’s Mon. ii. 211, where it is erroneously supposed to refer to Bishop Waldhy. September 16, 1405 (see Appendix, No. 52), the 6th of Henry IV., being now Bishop of Down, he was again deputed to negotiate a lasting peace and alliamice between England and Ireland on the one side, and Donald, theLord of the Isles, and his brother John on the other. Before his translation to Down, whilst yet Bishop of the Sudreys, he received, January 14, 1390, a suffragan’s commission from the Bishop of Salisbury, similar to that which his predecessor William had held from the Archbishop of York. In Hardy’s Le Neve it is incorrectly stated that Bishop Domigan died in 1380 ; he died in 1412. The Irish Eccles. Record (1865, p. 267) calls him Dougan.]
We wind up these Notes, subjoining some, hitherto unknown, supplements to the knowledge of the Metropolitan Supremacy of Nidaros over Man and the Sudreys. In a manuscript codex 1 written in time 15th century, " liber censuum Romanœ ecclesiae," composed by Cencius Camerarius, AD. 1192, but with additions of later dates, showing that it has been kept a jour with all subsequent alterations, we read, folio 44, under the superscription " Norwegia :"
" In archiepiscopatu Nidrosiensi—In episcopatu Bergensi—In episcopatu Stauuengrensi—In episcopatu Hamarensi—In episcopatu Asloensi—In episcopatu Horchadensi—In episcopatu Sudereiensi, alias Manensi (to which is added ; Ecclesia Sancti Columbi de Insulae Hy .ii. Bisancios 2 annuatim)— In episcopatu Scalotensi in Islandia — In episcopatu Holensi in Islandia—In episcopatu Pharensi in Grotlandia 3 — In episcopatu Gardensi in Grotlandia."
In another manuscript codex,4 written about AD. 1400, or perhaps later,5 containing first an alphabetical list of all existing bishoprics, with the taxation of. their revenues, referred to their respective Metropolitan provinces ; tlien a similar list of all monasteries ; and finally a " Provinciale omnium mundi Ecclesiarum Patriarchalium, Metropolitanarum et Episcopalians," i.e., a list of the Sees, systematically enumerated under their respective metropolitans, without addition of tihe taxes, the Sudreyan See is mentioned, in the first list, under the letter S, in these words
Sodorensis in Noruegia et provincia Nidrosiensi, floren. vj.x lx (660) in the third, folio 53 recto, the list of Norwegian bishoprics begins with the words Archiepiscopus Nidrosiens hos habet suffraganeos ; then follow first those in Norway proper, and Greenland, next to them " Olorchadensem uel Orkadensem, Scorensem (i.e , Sodorensem) uel Insulanum, prope Scociam est ; " then those of Iceland,—while no mention is made of Man or the Sudreys under the "archiepiscopus Eboracesisis " or "archiepiscopus Sancti Andree." 6
1 MS. Cod. in the Vatican Archives.
2 [See Appendix, No. 6. The besammt was a coils of pure gold, struck at Byzantium (Constantinople), in the time of time Christian emperors. Its value is generally estimated at 9s. 4&d. sterling. It was current in England from the tenth century till Edward III.—Æ. and Q. 4 s. vii. 208.]
3 This means, of course, Greenland, but is, as everybody sees, a mistake.
4 MS. Cod. likewise in the Vatican Archives.
5 As the See of St. Andrews, in Scotland, is always spoken of here as an archbishopric, it might be fair to conclude that the book was written after the erection of this See to an archiepiscopate by Pope Sixtus IV. in 1472, but the hand-writing has evidently an older character, and tisat denomination miight possibly be a blunder, of which there are more than one in the book, especially as to the spelling of the names.
6 [From the time that King Magnus offered, in vow, to St. Olave, king and martyr, himself and his kingdom, the archbishop of Nidamos claimed a right for himself and his suffragans to give a vote, and the first in order, in the election of a new king, but in 1273 the privilege was restricted to the occasicn of introducing a new dynasty.—Thomassinus, Pt. iii. lib. 1, c. 31.]
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