‘Above all these Charity’: the Career of Walter Suffield, Bishop of Norwich, 1244–57

Summary

Walter Suffield became well known beyond his own diocese of Norwich and the royal court through his enforced role as chief assessor of the 1254 valuation, for taxation purposes, of the resources of the English church. Some light is thrown on his reputation, and perhaps even on his character, in the pages of Matthew Paris. On one occasion he is criticised for securing from the papacy a privilege by which he might extort money from his diocese (within which St Albans had two dependent priories). Elsewhere, however, he is noted for preaching eloquently at the translation in 1247 of the relic of the Holy Blood to Westminster, and praised for his spirited protest at the curia against papal exploitation of the English church and for his notable charity, most particularly that in a time of great hardship he sold his plate to provide for the destitute. Paris reported, indeed, that after his death he was popularly regarded as a saint. Overall, this is a remarkably positive assessment from a chronicler who generally had little love for bishops and who displayed venomous hostility against those who encroached on the revenues of his own abbey. The aim of this paper is to amplify Matthew Paris's picture by consideration of the bishop's remarkable will, of Norwich synodal statutes which are at least near-contemporary and may well have been issued during his tenure of the see, and of his episcopal acta, a category of evidence in the study and publication of which David Smith has been pre-eminent in his generation.

It is clear from various sources that Suffield moved in a milieu of sanctity. He had acted as Archbishop Edmund Rich's official sede vacante in Norwich diocese in 1237, and the archbishop left him a cup which, in his own will made nine years after Edmund's canonisation, Suffield left to his foundation of St Giles's hospital. He also bequeathed twenty marks to the completion of the work which he had inaugurated on the saint's feretory at Pontigny, for which house he confirmed Edmund's grant of revenues from Romney church.