Bells Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich | Page 3

falls not far short, and this fact alone will perhaps give some idea of his popularity during his life, and the interest then aroused which has lasted down to our own times. From a small pamphlet issued by the dean and chapter in 1896, and containing extracts from the Registrum Primum, we learn that "In primis Ecclesiam prefatam fundavit pi? memori? Herbertus Episcopus, qui Normanni? in pago Oximensi natus." First Herbert, the bishop, of pious memory, who was born in Normandy, in the district of Oximin (or Exmes).
This seems very credible, and the old monkish chronicler who was responsible for the Registrum Primum and its rugged Latin, may have had authentic proof of the truth of his assertion. The manuscript dates from the thirteenth century, and no considerable period, historically considered, had then passed since Herbert had been one of the prime movers of the religious and political life of the day.
Blomefield, the antiquary, attributed to him a Suffolk extraction, and then again spoke of his Norman descent: thus agreeing in some measure with the Registrum Primum. And again, another idea is that he was born in the hundred of Hoxne, where he possessed property, and his father before him.
Herbert had, we know, received his education in Normandy, and had taken his vows at, and ultimately had risen to be prior of, the Abbey of Fécamp in Normandy; and it was while vigorously administering this office that he received an invitation from William Rufus to come to England, being offered as an inducement the appointment of Abbot of Ramsey.
And no doubt from this period the spiritual side of his duties must of necessity have been somewhat neglected. From the position of prior of Fécamp, his circle of power limited to the neighbourhood of his priory, and his duties rounded by the due observance of the rules of his order, he was given at once the administration of what was one of the richest abbeys in England, and attained at once the power of a great feudal lord. He was Sewer to William Rufus as well, an office endowed with fees and perquisites, and so to Herbert came the temptation of accumulating wealth for his own ambitious ends. It was not, however, the sin of a small man: he introduced no personal element into his greed, but rather thought of his party and his Church, although, of necessity, an environment so purely temporal told on the spiritual side of his character. It might be best to connect the links of the East Anglian bishoprics here, although in the notes on the diocese the matter is gone into at more length.
Herbert de Losinga was the first bishop of Norwich, to which town the see was transferred in compliance with a decree of Lanfranc's Synod, held in 1075, that all sees should be fixed at the principal towns in their dioceses.
Felix was the first bishop of East Anglia, and fixed his see at Dunwich in 630.
The see was divided by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 669 into those of Elmham and Dunwich; and these again were united under Wildred in 870, and the see fixed at Elmham, and where it remained till 1070, when Herfast, a chaplain of William the Conqueror's, moved his see to Thetford.
Now, about this time, when Herbert was abbot of Ramsey and Sewer to William Rufus, the see of Thetford was vacant, and Herbert gave the king to understand that if he was appointed to the vacant bishopric, and his father made Abbot of Winchester, he was willing and able to pay for such preferment a sum of ￡1900: a part of his accumulated savings, no doubt, and a very large amount for that time.
William II. made these appointments, and the sum mentioned was paid into the royal treasury; but the bishop found that he had attained his end at a cost other than he had reckoned on; public opinion in those days was quite as powerful a force as it is now, though the channels along which its force could be felt and its strength find expression were limited. Indignation was rife, and monkish versifiers and chroniclers protested in lines more or less uncomplimentary, and more or less forcible, their loathing of such sin of simony.
Now it is probable that, in expiation of this transgression, Herbert came to build Norwich Cathedral. It is certain that he almost at once repented. In after years, in his letters, he says, "I entered on mine office disgracefully, but by the help of God's grace I shall pass out of it with credit."
In Dean Goulburn's admirable monograph on the cathedral many of Herbert's letters are given, and these alone would go to stamp him as a wonderful man. His conscience was awakened by the popular outcry against his sin of simony, he