52 Facts About Roger Northburgh

Roger Northburgh was a cleric, administrator and politician who was Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield from 1321 until his death.

Roger Northburgh's was a stormy career as he was inevitably involved in many of the conflicts of his time: military, dynastic and ecclesiastical.

Roger Northburgh seems to have communicated in Norman French, which makes it likely, but still not certain, that he came from the landed class of French descent.

Roger Northburgh is often said to have been educated at Cambridge University.

Roger Northburgh must have acquired an adequate education in Latin to perform his ecclesiastical functions.

Roger Northburgh was not given the formal title of Keeper of the Privy Seal until 1315, apparently the first so-called, although the function had existed for some time.

Roger Northburgh's keepership is regarded as decisive in constituting it as a separate office.

The barons were determined to separate control of the privy seal from the court, which they saw as the source of the nation's ills, and Roger Northburgh seemed ready to work with them.

Under the terms imposed on the king by parliament, Roger Northburgh was compelled to work in London with his staff, separately from the rest of the Court, which kept its distance from the barons.

Roger Northburgh rejoined the king for the campaign of summer 1314 in Scotland, which was hampered from the outset by lack of resources.

Roger Northburgh emerged victorious but in 1318 exchanged the prebend for that of Yatesbury in the Diocese of Salisbury, which he held until he became a bishop.

However, Vitalis emerged victorious in 1318 and Roger Northburgh seems to have abandoned hope of an economic or power base in the capital.

The idea that Roger Northburgh was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1321 to 1326 is discredited, although it goes back at least as far as Henry Wharton's 1691 compilation of episcopal biographies, Anglia Sacra.

Roger Northburgh was recommended for preferment to the pope by the king in letters from 1318 to 1320.

However, when the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield became vacant late in 1321, Roger Northburgh was not the king's preferred candidate.

From this point Roger Northburgh began to take control of the diocese, although he was forced to assemble a team of deputies, as he had not yet set foot in either of the diocesan centres.

Roger Northburgh appointed Master Ralph Holbeach as his commissary-general, dealing with appointments among other matters.

Roger Northburgh installed in the prebend of Gaia Major William of Harlaston, a clerk of the chancery who was trusted to look after both the privy seal and the Great Seal on occasion, as John of Chelmsford, the incumbent, had been deprived for supporting Lancaster's revolt: this was a decision Chelmsford later emerged from prison to contest.

Roger Northburgh decreed a forty-day indulgence to pilgrims who visited the Abbey's most important relic, the head of St Barbara, so long as they made a gift and said both the Lord's Prayer for the king and queen and the Hail Mary in English.

Roger Northburgh was in almost constant conflict with his Lichfield chapter.

The canons wrote to Roger Northburgh requesting a delay because the dean was still at Avignon.

Roger Northburgh seems to have simply reiterated his original citation, rejected the claim of immunity and proceeded with the visitation.

Probably seeing that he would get little practical help from the chapter, Roger Northburgh appointed William Weston as his official, assigned him the prebend of Dasset Parva, and set out on the visitation of Stafford Archdeaconry, which included the areas immediately surrounding Lichfield itself.

Roger Northburgh's excommunication of the Archdeacon of Chester in 1323 led to a repetition of the earlier protests, as the archdeacon was a member of the cathedral chapter.

Roger Northburgh tried to use the vacancy to take over jurisdiction, and the chapter wrote to other cathedrals with chapters of secular clergy for advice.

Roger Northburgh too was keen to uphold the established order at the cathedral, but his commitment to the post did not last long: he exchanged it with John Garssia in 1328 for a canonry at Lleida.

The ODNB entry on Roger Northburgh describes him as apparently "efficient and conscientious" as a bishop.

Roger Northburgh seems generally to have been supportive to serving clergy and fairly sensitive to the needs of the laity, while often firm with clerical laxity.

Roger Northburgh gave the vicars security of tenure, ordering that they be dismissed only with his own permission, and ordered that they be paid punctually and allowed to use the dwellings of the absentee canons, pending provision of proper common quarters.

Language issues seem to have loomed large and Roger Northburgh intervened in various ways to remove barriers to communication.

Roger Northburgh carried out numerous visitations to religious houses, as well as intervening on other occasions to secure improvements in governance.

In 1322 William de Bloxham, the Prior of Arbury, offered his resignation as soon as a visitation was announced, explaining that he was insufficiens ad regimen, not up to the task of leadership, as soon as Roger Northburgh arrived in the diocese and Holbeach was deputed to hold an inquiry.

Evidently Holbeach recommended acceptance of the Prior's resignation, as shortly afterwards Roger Northburgh was making enquiries about the competence and character of John de Borebach, the prior-elect.

Later still, under 1326, Roger Northburgh's register has a record of the Prior being deprived, but this appears out of place: it cannot refer to Borebach, who survived in office until 1329.

Roger Northburgh had to intervene in the case of Elizabeth la Zouche, who, with another canoness, deserted White Ladies Priory, near Brewood, in 1326.

Roger Northburgh seems not to have returned until 1331, when she had to confess before Northburgh in Brewood parish church, ask for readmission at the priory entrance and undergo penance.

When he visited White Ladies in 1338, Roger Northburgh reprimanded the prioress, Alice Harley, for financial mismanagement and extravagance, including her expenditure on clothes.

However, Polesworth Abbey in Warwickshire seems to have had a special relationship with the Bishops, Roger Northburgh included, through most of the 14th century and enjoyed unusual favour.

Roger Northburgh had forced Thomas, the rector, to swear to pay the abbess two thirds of his income as a pension before allowing him to be inducted.

Roger Northburgh had ordered the abbess to take the matter no further.

When Roger Northburgh visited the abbey in 1352 he found little to remark upon.

Roger Northburgh had his injunctions delivered in French, as was now the custom with women's houses.

Roger Northburgh attracted papal criticism for refusing to deal with a consanguinity case.

However, a papal letter three years later makes clear that Roger Northburgh refused to act.

Roger Northburgh certainly had no principled objection to giving dispensations for cousin marriage: he had ratified a papal dispensation in exactly the same circumstances in the interim.

Roger Northburgh remained in favour with Edward II, through the difficulties of his final years.

Roger Northburgh was one of several Treasurers who served for only very short periods because they moved to other work.

Roger Northburgh remained politically active after Edward III took control of his own realm in 1330.

Roger Northburgh attended the Parliament of 1333 and was one of a group of bishops and nobles appointed to discuss royal activities.

Roger Northburgh seems to have been a welcome addition to the administration, a veteran administrator who shared many of Stratford's values and attitudes.

Roger Northburgh arrived by surprise with a coterie of mainly military men, of whom William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton, a brother of the Earl of Hereford, was the most prominent.

Roger Northburgh then carried out a coup against his own administration, removing and in some cases arresting, judges and officials whom he identified with Stratford's rule.