69 Facts About Gilbert Foliot

Gilbert Foliot joined Matilda's supporters after her forces captured Stephen, and continued to write letters in support of Matilda even after Stephen's release.

Gilbert Foliot accompanied Theobald of Bec, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to a papal council at Reims in 1148.

Gilbert Foliot later claimed to have opposed this appointment, and supported Henry during the king's dispute with the new archbishop.

Gilbert Foliot was translated, or moved, to the Diocese of London in 1163, perhaps as consolation for not receiving Canterbury.

Gilbert Foliot acted as an envoy for the king on a number of diplomatic missions related to this dispute and wrote a number of letters against Becket which were circulated widely in Europe.

Gilbert Foliot was a prolific letter writer, and some of his correspondence was collected after his death.

Gilbert Foliot wrote sermons and biblical commentaries, two of which are extant.

Whatever his parentage, Gilbert Foliot was certainly Robert de Chesney's nephew; another of his uncles, Reginald, was a monk of Gloucester Abbey and Abbot of Evesham Abbey.

William de Chesney, a partisan of Stephen's and a leading Oxfordshire layman, was another of Gilbert Foliot's uncles, and Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford, was a cousin.

Gilbert Foliot became Prior of Cluny Abbey, then Prior of Abbeville, a Cluniac house.

Gilbert Foliot acquired a knowledge of rhetoric as well as the liberal arts.

Gilbert Foliot attended the Second Lateran Council, called by Pope Innocent II.

Gilbert Foliot seems to have had some doubts in 1139, but before writing his letter of 1143 he had come to believe that Matilda was indeed the legitimate heiress, and he supported the Angevin cause, as Matilda's claim was known.

Gilbert Foliot was well connected at court in other respects, for his probable father had been steward to David I, before David became King of Scotland.

Gilbert Foliot attended the council and was one of her main supporters in the following months as the Angevin cause tried to place her on the throne.

FitzCount, in a letter now lost, had presented his reasons for supporting Matilda, and Gilbert Foliot's reply set forth a defence of Matilda's claim to the throne.

Gilbert Foliot wrote that Stephen had "dishonoured the episcopate" with his behaviour in 1139, when the king arrested Roger of Salisbury, the Bishop of Salisbury, and Roger's nephew, Alexander, who was Bishop of Lincoln, as well as attempting to arrest another of Roger's nephews, Nigel, Bishop of Ely.

Matthew points out that Gloucester Abbey owed no military service in a feudal levy, which allowed Gilbert Foliot to avoid choosing sides irrevocably.

Matthew points out that after 1141 Gilbert Foliot is a signatory to just one of Matilda's charters.

Gilbert Foliot did though address Robert of Gloucester's defence of Matilda's rights, buttressing it with arguments of his own.

Gilbert Foliot helped Theobald by forming a communication link to Matilda's side.

Gilbert Foliot took an interest in the Dorset monastery of Cerne Abbey, which in 1145 received the Prior of Gloucester Abbey, Bernard, as abbot.

Bernard was an active reformer, and Gilbert Foliot supported Bernard's efforts, but the monks objected to the new abbot, and drove him out of the monastery.

Gilbert Foliot had disputes with the Welsh bishop Uhtred, Bishop of Llandaff, over Goldcliff Priory and a church in Llancarfan, concerning tithes and new chapels that had been built without Gloucester Abbey's permission.

In early 1148, Gilbert Foliot accompanied Theobald of Bec to the Council of Reims, even though the archbishop had been forbidden to attend by King Stephen; Gilbert Foliot was presumably with Theobald when the archbishop used a small fishing boat in his escape from England to the continent.

Robert de Bethune, the Bishop of Hereford, died at the Council of Reims, and Gilbert Foliot was nominated by Pope Eugene III to fill the Diocese of Hereford, which was held by the Angevin cause.

Gilbert Foliot switched his allegiance on his return to England and swore fealty to Stephen, angering the Angevins.

Gilbert Foliot attempted to hold Hereford in plurality, or at the same time, with the abbey of Gloucester, but the monks of Gloucester objected.

Gilbert Foliot supported his uncle Robert de Chesney's nomination to become Bishop of Lincoln, lobbying the pope on Robert's behalf, and maintaining a long correspondence with Robert after his elevation.

The art historian Hans J Boker claims that Foliot began the construction of the Bishop's Chapel at Hereford Cathedral.

Gilbert Foliot denied that he ever lobbied for the office, but John of Salisbury and Thomas Becket apparently believed that Gilbert Foliot desired it.

Gilbert Foliot objected to the king's choice on the grounds that Becket was too worldly, the only bishop or magnate known to have opposed the king's choice.

Becket wrote to Gilbert Foliot urging him to accept the translation.

Gilbert Foliot then attempted to make London independent of Canterbury by reviving Pope Gregory I's old plan for an archbishopric at London.

Gilbert Foliot proposed either to have London raised to an archdiocese along with Canterbury, or to have London replace Canterbury as the archiepiscopal seat for the southern province.

Gilbert Foliot did though support Becket in the latter's attempt to prevent the Archbishop of York having his archiepiscopal cross borne in procession before him when visiting the province of Canterbury.

However, after the council was dismissed, Gilbert Foliot became the leader of those bishops who changed sides in support of the king.

Gilbert Foliot replied that Becket "was always a fool and always will be".

Gilbert Foliot was sent, along with Roger, the Archbishop of York, Hilary of Chichester, Bartholomew Iscanus, the Bishop of Exeter, Roger of Worcester, the Bishop of Worcester, William d'Aubigny, the Earl of Arundel, and a group of royal clerks, to Thierry the Count of Flanders, Louis VII the King of France, and Pope Alexander III.

Gilbert Foliot's delegation met with more success at the papal court; although they did not succeed in securing a decision in the king's favour, neither did the pope side with the archbishop.

Gilbert Foliot observed during the conflict that it was not a theological or moral dispute, merely one over church government.

Gilbert Foliot was made custodian of those benefices in the diocese of Canterbury.

Becket blamed both Gilbert Foliot and Roger of York for the confiscations, but evidence appears to show that the confiscations were Henry's decision, and that Gilbert Foliot, at least, was a conscientious custodian who made sure that little profit went to the king, and most of the revenues from the benefices went to religious purposes.

In early summer 1165, Pope Alexander III wrote twice to Gilbert Foliot, ordering him to intercede with the king and protest the royal injunction against appeals to the papacy.

Gilbert Foliot replied that the king respected the pope, heard his protests carefully, and that the archbishop had not been expelled, but had left of his own accord.

Gilbert Foliot wrote that the king had said Becket was free to return at any time, but would still have to answer to the charges he had faced at Northampton.

Gilbert Foliot then advised the pope not to impose any sentences of excommunication and to be patient and continue to negotiate.

In 1166, Gilbert Foliot accused Becket of simony, or the purchase of church offices, basing this on the alleged purchase Becket had made of the chancellorship, although there is no evidence that Becket bought the office.

The king and Gilbert Foliot got along well, and it was probably Gilbert Foliot's influence that kept the king from more violent measures against Becket.

Becket replied to these moves with a letter written to Gilbert Foliot that was full of resentment and reproaches.

Gilbert Foliot then suggested that the archbishop compromise and exercise some humility to reach his goals.

Gilbert Foliot then proceeded to Rome, but at Milan he received word that his envoy at the papal court had secured the right for him to be absolved by Rotrou, Archbishop of Rouen.

The only requirement of this absolution was that Gilbert Foliot accept a penance to be imposed by the pope.

Becket and his supporters pointed out that there were some situations in which it was possible to excommunicate without warning, but Gilbert Foliot claimed that the present situation was not one of them.

Gilbert Foliot's example of appealing excommunications to the papacy was an important step in the setting up of an appeal process for excommunication during the 12th century.

Gilbert Foliot was mainly a force for moderation in the quarrel between the king and the archbishop, urging restraint on Becket and curbing the king's attempts to impose the Constitutions more rigorously.

Gilbert Foliot developed the novel legal filing of ad cautelam, which was an appeal to the papacy against any future action by the archbishop.

Gilbert Foliot was active in both of his dioceses in supporting his cathedral chapters and other religious houses of the dioceses.

Gilbert Foliot kept in constant contact with his archdeacons and deans about the administration of the dioceses.

Gilbert Foliot gathered about himself a group of clerks who compiled a collection of decretals known as the Belvoir collection.

Gilbert Foliot was well known as a letter writer, and his letters were later collected as a book.

The main manuscript for this collection, now held at the Bodleian Library, is supposed to have originated in Gilbert Foliot's own writing office.

Gilbert Foliot's letters are typical of the educated letter writer of his time, refined and polished to an art form.

Gilbert Foliot wrote a number of sermons and commentaries on the Bible.

However, the historian Richard Sharpe feels that the fact that the sermons are paired with a group of Aelred's sermons dedicated to Gilbert Foliot makes their authorship by Gilbert Foliot slightly more likely.

The antiquarian John Bale in the 1550s listed six works of Gilbert Foliot known to him, five of which were letters.

The scholar John Pits gave much the same list in 1619, adding one work, a Vitas aliquot sanctorum Angliae, Librum unun, but this work never appears in a medieval book catalogue and has not survived under this name so it is unclear if Gilbert Foliot wrote such a work.

Lastly, Walter Map recorded that Gilbert Foliot had begun work on a "the Old and the New Law" shortly before his death.

Gilbert Foliot sent his nephew Richard Gilbert Foliot and another clerk of his household to Bologna to study law in the 1160s, exemplifying the growing emphasis laid on Roman law among his countrymen.