Henry of Winchester: the Bishop, the City, and the Wider World (The R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture, 2014)

Summary

Henry of Winchester is one of the most recognisable figures of the twelfth century. In the Winchester Bible, which he commissioned, he is found as Pope Desiderius, addressing a slightly sceptical St Jerome. He bears his Bible under his left hand, and over his vestments he wears the pallium which he had long sought (Fig. 1). On the Tournai marble font, in the cathedral, he appears as St Nicholas, the very model of pastoral care, with his beard rather more carefully trimmed (Fig. 2). On the famous enamel plaques in the British Museum, he appears to be presenting an altar or a reliquary (Fig. 3), and he has supplied the engraver with suitable texts, stressing his qualities and his responsibilities. ‘May the angel take the giver to heaven after his gifts, but not just yet, lest England groan for it, since on him it depends for peace or war, agitation or rest.’ These prayers would seem to relate particularly to the civil war during the reign of his brother, King Stephen. He was for all of that time, in the phrase of Dom David Knowles, ‘unquestionably the most powerful agency in England both in secular and in ecclesiastical politics’. And he remained recognisable, a man who stood out from his surroundings, until his death in his eighth decade. The invitation to deliver the Allen Brown Memorial Lecture, which was much appreciated, brought with it the opportunity to cover the full chronological range of Henry’s life. But it brought also the need to be selective. Our conference met in Henry’s cathedral city, in surroundings that bore his imprint almost at every turn, and so it seemed proper to focus on Henry’s relationship with his city. Never were a bishop and his city better matched.

Introductions

It is this match that I hope to illustrate and evaluate. We must first effect the introductions. Henry first of all. In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he is Henry ‘of Blois’. But no one knew him as such. Orderic Vitalis introduces him as a grandson of William the Conqueror. He was the youngest of five sons of William’s daughter, Adela, and Stephen, count of Blois.