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    HISTORY OF

    THE

    CATHEDRAL CHURCH

    Of Wells

    AS

    ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF

    THE CATHEDRAL CHURCHES

    OF THE

    OLD FOUNDATION.

    BY

    EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M.A.

    FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD.

    London:

    MACMILLAN AND CO.

    1870.


    LONDON:
    R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
    BREAD STREET HILL.




CONTENTS.


                   PAGE

  LECTURE I.          1

  LECTURE II.        42

  LECTURE III.      105

  NOTES             163

  INDEX             191




PREFACE.


This small volume is a reprint, with hardly any change, of three
lectures which were given to a local society in Wells in the months of
December 1869 and January 1870, and which were printed at the time in a
local paper. I have added some notes and references, but the substance
is essentially the same. The subject seemed to deserve more than local
attention on more grounds than one. I wished to point out the way in
which local and general history may and ought to be brought together.
As a general rule, local historians make hardly any attempt to connect
the history of the particular church or city or district of which they
are writing with the general history of the country, or even with the
general history of its own class of institutions. On the other hand,
more general students of history are apt to pay too little heed to the
history of particular places. I have here tried to treat the history
of the Church of Wells as a contribution to the general history of the
Church and Kingdom of England, and specially to the history of the
Cathedral Churches of the Old Foundation. I have also a special object
in calling attention to the origin and history of those foundations,
to their original objects and their modern corruptions. It is quite
impossible that our Cathedral institutions can stay much longer in the
state in which they now are, a state which satisfies no party. If they
are not reformed by their friends, they can hardly fail to be destroyed
by their enemies. The awkward attempt at reform which was made thirty
years back was made in utter ignorance of the history and nature of
the institutions. Instead of reforming them, it has merely crippled
them. Our Cathedral Churches have indeed vastly improved during those
thirty years; but it has been almost wholly because they have shared
in a general improvement, hardly at all by virtue of the changes which
were specially meant to improve them. I wish to point out the general
principles of the original founders as the model to which the Old
Foundations should be brought back, and the New Foundations reformed
after their pattern.

What I have now written is of course a mere sketch, which does not at
all pretend to be a complete history of the Church of Wells, either
architectural or documentary. I had hoped that Professor Willis would
have allowed me the use of the materials of both kinds on which he
grounded his lectures in 1851 and 1863. But it seems that he reserves
them for the general work for which architectural students have been
waiting so long. I have therefore been left to my own resources,
that is, as far as documents are concerned, to the ordinary printed
authorities in _Anglia Sacra_, the _Monasticon_, and elsewhere. But it
is to be hoped that some day or other the documents that are locked up
in manuscript at Wells and at other places may be made available for
historical purposes. Some of our capitular records would be excellently
suited for a place in the series issued by the Master of the Rolls.

I have given an historical ground-plan, but the scale of the book
forbade any strictly architectural illustrations, while it seemed
needless to give any mere picturesque views of a building of which
engravings and photographs are so common.

  SOMERLEAZE, WELLS,
  _May 18th, 1870_.




LIST OF BISHOPS.

BISHOPS OF SOMERSETSHIRE OR WELLS.

                              Consecration.         Death or
                                                  Translation.

  AEthelhelm                        909                914[1]

  Wulfhelm                         914                923[1]

  AElfheah                          923                937?

  Wulfhelm                         938                955?

  Brihthelm                        956                973

  Cyneward                         973                975

  Sigar                            975                997

  AElfwine                          997                998?

  Lyfing                           999               1012[1]

  AEthelwine }[2]                  1013               1023?
  Brihtwine }                     1013               1023?

  Merewith                        1027               1033

  Duduc                           1033               1060

  Gisa                            1061               1088


  BISHOPS OF BATH.

                              Consecration or       Death or
                               Translation.       Translation.

  John de Villula                 1088               1122

  Godfrey                         1123               1135

  Robert                          1136               1166

  Reginald                        1174               1191[3]

  [1] Translated to Canterbury.

  [2] This seems to have been a case of disputed election.

  [3] Translated to Canterbury.

  BISHOP OF BATH AND GLASTONBURY.

                              Consecration or       Death or
                               Translation.       Translation.

  Savaric                         1192               1205

  BISHOPS OF BATH AND WELLS.

  Jocelin of Wells                1206               1242

  Roger                           1244               1247

  William Button                  1248               1264

  Walter Giffard                  1265               1266[1]

  William Button                  1267               1274

  Robert Burnell                  1275               1292

  William of March                1293               1302

  Walter Hasleshaw                1302               1308

  John Drokensford                1309               1329

  Ralph of Shrewsbury             1329               1363

  John Barnet                     1363[2]            1366[3]

  John Harewell                   1367               1386

  Walter Skirlaw                  1386[4]            1388[5]

  Ralph Erghum                    1388[6]            1400

  Henry Bowett                    1401               1407[7]

  Nicholas Bubwith                1407[8]            1424

  John Stafford                   1425               1443[9]

  Thomas Beckington               1443               1465

  Robert Stillington              1466               1491

  Richard Fox                     1492[10]           1494[11]

  Oliver King                     1495[12]           1503

  Hadrian de Castello             1504[13]           1518[14]

  Thomas Wolsey                   1518[15]           1523[16]

  John Clark                      1523               1541

  William Knight                  1541               1547

  William Barlow                  1549[17]           1554[18]

  Gilbert Bourne                  1554               1559[19]

  Gilbert Berkeley                1560               1581

  Thomas Godwin                   1584               1590[20]

  John Still                      1593               1608

  James Montague                  1608               1616[21]

  Arthur Lake                     1616               1626

  William Laud                    1626[22]           1628[23]

  Leonard Mawe                    1628               1629

  Walter Curll                    1629[24]           1632[25]

  William Piers                   1632[26]           1670

  Robert Creighton                1670               1672

  Peter Mews                      1673               1684[27]

  Thomas Ken                      1685               1690[28]

  Richard Kidder                  1691               1703

  George Hooper                   1704[29]           1727

  John Wynne                      1727[29]           1743

  Edward Willis                   1743[30]           1773

  Charles Moss                    1774[30]           1802

  Richard Beadon                  1802[31]           1824

  George Henry Law                1824[32]           1845

  Hon. Richard Bagot              1845[33]           1854

  Robert John Lord Auckland       1854[34]           1869[35]

  Lord Arthur Charles Hervey      1869

  [1] Translated to York.

  [2] Translated from Worcester.

  [3] Translated to Ely.

  [4] Translated from Coventry and Lichfield.

  [5] Translated to Durham.

  [6] Translated from Salisbury.

  [7] Translated to York.

  [8] Translated from London to Salisbury, and thence to Bath
  and Wells.

  [9] Translated to Canterbury.

  [10] Translated from Exeter.

  [11] Translated to Durham, thence to Winchester.

  [12] Translated from Exeter.

  [13] Translated from Hereford.

  [14] Deprived for a conspiracy against Pope Leo the Tenth.

  [15] Held in plurality with York.

  [16] Exchanged for Durham.

  [17] Translated from Saint David's.

  [18] Deprived on the accession of Queen Mary and reappointed
  to Chichester under Queen Elizabeth.

  [19] Deprived on the accession of Elizabeth.

  [20] Father of Francis Godwin the historian, Canon of Wells
  and afterwards Bishop of Llandaff.

  [21] Translated to Winchester.

  [22] Translated from Saint David's.

  [23] Translated to London and thence to Canterbury.

  [24] Translated from Rochester.

  [25] Translated to Winchester.

  [26] Translated from Peterborough.

  [27] Translated to Winchester.

  [28] Deprived for refusing the oaths to William and Mary.

  [29] Translated from Saint Asaph.

  [30] Translated from Saint David's.

  [31] Translated from Gloucester.

  [32] Translated from Carlisle.

  [33] Translated from Oxford.

  [34] Translated from Sodor and Man.

  [35] Resigned. Died 1870.




HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WELLS.




LECTURE I.


The subject which I have chosen for this course of lectures is one
which must always have an interest beyond all others for us who
live in this city and neighbourhood. In every place which boasts
of a cathedral church, that cathedral church is commonly the chief
object of interest, alike as its present ornament and as the chief
centre of its past history. But in Wells the cathedral church and its
appurtenances are yet more. Their interest is not only primary, but
absorbing. They are not only the chief ornament of the place; they are
the place itself. They are not only the centre of the past history
of the city; their history is the history of the city. Of our other
cities some can trace up a long history as cities independent of their
ecclesiastical foundations. Some were the dwelling-places of Kings
in days before England became one kingdom. Some have been for ages
seats of commerce or manufactures; their history is the history of
burghers striving for and obtaining their freedom, a history which
repeats in small that same tale of early struggles and later abuses
which forms the history of so many greater commonwealths. Others have
a long military history; their name at once suggests the memory of
battles and sieges, and they can still show walls and castles as the
living memorials of the stirring scenes of bygone times. In others
even the ecclesiastical pre-eminence of the cathedral church may be
disputed by some other ecclesiastical building. The bishoprick and
its church may be comparatively modern institutions, and they may be
altogether eclipsed by some other institution more ancient in date
of foundation, perhaps more ancient in its actual fabric. Thus at
Oxford the cathedral church is well-nigh lost among the buildings
of the University and its greatest college. At Chester its rank may
be disputed by the majestic fragments of the older minster of Saint
John. At Bristol the cathedral church, even when restored to its old
proportions, will still have at least an equal rival in the stateliest
parish church in England. In these cities the bishoprick, its church
and its chapter, are institutions of yesterday; the cities themselves
were great and famous for ages before they were founded. So at Exeter,
though the bishoprick is of far earlier date, yet Exeter was a famous
city, which had played its part in history, long before Bishops of
Exeter were heard of. Even at Winchester the overwhelming greatness of
the Old Minster has to compete with the earlier and later interests
of the royal palace, of the fallen Abbey, of the unique home of noble
poverty[1] and of the oldest of the great and still living schools
of England. Salisbury alone in our own part of England, and Durham in
the far north, have a history which in some measure resembles that of
Wells. Like Wells, Salisbury and Durham are cities which have grown up
around the cathedral church. But they have grown up--I presume it is no
offence to say so--into a greater measure of temporal importance than
our own city. To take a familiar standard, no one has ever proposed
to strike either of them out of the list of parliamentary boroughs.
Wells stands alone among the cities of England proper as a city which
exists only in and through its cathedral church, whose whole history
is that of