Bishop Sylverster -1218

Chronicle of the Abbey of Evesham. On the fifth day after these events [in November 1213], at the request of the monastic community, the lord legate took pity on him and gave him the priory of Penwortham [Map] for his maintenance for life. Five months later, however, he took it away from him because of his offences. He then went to Rome, but was able to obtain neither the abbacy nor the priory, nor even recognition as a monk of this church. Returning therefore with his business unsuccessful, he attached himself to Silvester¹, Bishop of Worcester, and suggested to him whatever he thought might harm us and our church, but he did us no injury. He also went with the bishop to the lord Wala, then legate of the Apostolic See, at Gloucester, and sought restoration to the abbacy, but obtained nothing from him, just as previously he had obtained nothing from the lord pope. Then, despairing of his own restoration, he demanded one hundred pounds which, as he said, he had fraudulently carried off from the church of Canterbury, claiming that the church of Evesham ought to restore it to that church because he asserted that he had spent the money for Evesham’s benefit. But the lord legate, in our absence, regarded his unsupported assertion as worthless. Then, pouring out all his malice and all his venom, he prostrated himself on the ground and said that against his conscience he had freed the church of Evesham from subjection to the Bishop of Worcester, and openly informed the lord legate of everything which he considered weak in our claim to liberty. But he put forward nothing worthy of belief. The lord legate, who at the time when judgement had been given in favour of the exemption of our church had sat with the other cardinals beside the lord pope, and who was among the cardinals especially learned in civil law, replied: "It was not you, wretched man, who freed the church of Evesham, nor were you even in Rome when the judgement was given. Rather, the lord pope, after examining and approving the privileges of the Roman pontiffs, declared it free by his judgement. And because you plead your own disgrace, you are not to be heard." And he ordered him to leave the house, and so he departed in confusion. Afterwards, when almost five years had passed since his deposition, the lord Pandulf, who was then exercising the office of legate in England, took pity on him and, lest he should remain a wandering monk for all the days of his life, restored to him the priory of Penwortham. There he withheld from the monastic community whatever revenues assigned to it he could. He lived there for almost six years thereafter². During that time, although both Master Adam Sortes by word of mouth and I, as prior, through monks and through laymen who were his kinsmen and others, repeatedly admonished him, indeed advised and begged him, to write to the monastic community so that all resentment on both sides might be put aside, although we had already wholly put ours aside in our hearts, and also to ask the lord abbot and the monastic community that he might be made a monk of Evesham, he refused to agree to our requests. He died there and was buried in the same place. Although, therefore, as has been said, he was not one of our monks, nevertheless the lord abbot and the monastic community, acting piously towards him, caused everything to be done for him, both in spiritual and temporal matters, just as if he had died among us at Evesham as one of our own monks.³

Quinta post hæc die ad petitionem conventus misertus illius dominus legatus, dedit ei prioratum de Penwrtham ad vitæ sustentationem, quem post quinque menses propter excessus suos ei abstulit. Qui tunc Romam adiit, sed nec abbatiam nec prioratum nec etiam monachatum hujus ecclesiæ obtinere potuit. Reversus igitur infecto negotio, adhæsit Silvestro Wigornensi episcopo et quæcunque nobis et ecclesiæ nostræ nocitura credebat ei suggessit, sed nihil nobis nocuit. Ad dominum etiam Walam tunc temporis apostolicæ sedis legatum apud Glouerniam cum episcopo accessit, et restitutionem abbatiæ petiit, sed nihil ab eo obtinuit, sicut nec prius a domino papa. Tunc desperans de reformatione sua petiit centum libras quas ab ecclesia Cantuariensi, ut dicebat, fraudulenter asportaverat eidem ecclesiæ ab ecclesia Eveshamensi debere restitui, in cujus usus eas se expendisse asserebat. Sed dominus legatus ejus nudam assertionem in absentia nostra pro nihilo reputavit. Tunc omnem malitiam suam et omne venenum suum effundens, humi prostratus dixit quod contra conscientiam suam ecclesiam Eveshamensem a subjectione Wigornensis episcopi liberaverat et omnia quæ circa libertatem nostram infirma putabat domino legato palam intimavit, sed nulla fide digna proposuit. Unde dominus legatus qui tempore late sententiæ pro exemptione ecclesiæ nostræ cum aliis cardinalibus domino pape assederat, ut inter cardinales in jure civili peritissimus, respondit, "Non tu, miser, ecclesiam Eveshamensem liberasti, nec etiam tempore sententiæ latæ Romæ fuisti, sed dominus papa inspectis et approlatis privilegiis Romanorum pontificum eam liberam per sententiam suam declaravit. Et quia propriam turpitudinem allegas, non es audiendus;" — et jussit ut domum egrederetur, et sic confusus recessit. Postmodum vero, elapsis fere quinque annis a tempore depositionis suæ, misertus illius dominus Pandulfus qui tunc legationis officio fungebatur in Anglia, ne esset gyrovagus omnibus diebus vitæ suæ restituit ei prioratum de Penwrtham, ubi quoscunque redditus potuit conventui assignatos subtraxit. Vixit autem ibi postea to him in annis ferme sex, et quamvis pendente hoc tempore tam magister Adam Sortes viva voce quam ego prior, et per monachos et per viros sæculares consanguineos suos et alios, commonuissemus eum, immo consuluissemus et supplicassemus ei, quod scriberet conventui ut utrinque omnis indignatio remitteretur (quamvis nos ex animo omnino remissemus), et etiam peteret a domino abbate et conventu quod fieret monachus Eveshamiæ, noluit acquiescere nobis, sed mortuus est ibidem et sepultus in eodem loco. Quamvis itaque, ut dictum est, non esset monachus noster tamen pie agentes cum eo dominus abbas et conventus ita omnia pro eo tam in spiritualibus quam temporalibus agi fecerunt ac si Eveshamiæ apud nos monachus noster obiisset.

Note 1. Silvester de Evesham, prior of Worcester, was elected bishop 3rd April 1216, and consecrated 3rd July in the same year. It was in this year also that cardinal Guala [aged 63] came to England as legate of Innocent III.

Note 2. Abbot Roger Norreis died on 19th July 1223; Lambeth MS 589.

Note 3. The following passage is here inserted in Harl. 3763, on the margin of fol. 170 b: "During the time of this Abbot Roger, namely in the year of the Lord 1203, the altar of St John the Baptist was dedicated on the feast of St Theodore the Martyr by Philip, Archbishop of Tuam, in the province of Connacht in Ireland, granting to the benefactors of the same altar a remission of thirteen days. Also during his time, namely in the year of the Lord 1206, Ægidius, Primate of Ireland, ordained at Evesham in the month of September monks of Evesham and Bruern, together with several clerks."

The following passage is here inserted in Harl. 3763, on the margin of fol. 170 b: "Tempore istins Rogeri abbatis, videlicet anno Domini MCCIII dedicatum est altave sancti Johannis Baptistæ in die sancti Theodori martyris a Philippo Tuamensi archiepiscopo, Conuactiæ provineix Hiberniœ, relaxando benefactoribus ejusdem xiii. dies. Istius etiam tempore, videlicet anno Domini MCCVI, Ægidius primas Hiberniæ apud Evesham monachos Eveshamiæ, Brueriæ et plures clericos in Septembri ordinavit."