n. 4. flattering estimate of the merits of a departed friend and "Pontificum Robertus honor, quem fama superstes "Hic humilis dives (res mira!), potens pius, ultor Bloet was chancellor of William II. in September 10901; how long before I cannot say. He does not occur I believe as chancellor, after he became bishop of Lincoln. In William's Lincoln charter, not later than 1095, which Infra, 32, settles the archbishop of York's claim to Lindsey, he speaks of Bloet's chancellorship as a past thing,—“ quia "cancellarius meus extiterat." In the latter years of his life, as we learn from Henry of Huntingdon, Bloet was justiciar of all England, under Henry I. The account, by his archdeacon and friend, of how the king plundered and disgraced him in the last year of his life, and of how bitterly Bloet took to heart the loss of his sovereign's favour, and the curtailment of the costly grandeur of his household, is very interesting, but very saddening. It is plain that Bloet, with all his good qualities, was to the last, when his life was drawing near to its close, still far too much of a devoted courtier, far too closely tied to the pomps and vanities of earth. This his early experiences in the court had made him; and the love of earth still clung to him, though as a bishop he had been so bountiful a benefactor, and so good a man in many ways. But look at him on the whole, in the light that all at all trustworthy history throws upon him, and we can only say that it is a crying shame, that such a man should have come down to us with the evil fame that has been falsely and foully attached to him,-and this even in Lincoln tradition. and 197, Alexander, Giraldus's brief account of bishop Alex- Infra, 33, 1123-1148. ander, "The Magnificent" of the court of &c. Rome, agrees closely with the equally brief account of John de Schalby. The contemporary Lincoln account, from which they quote, seems to have recorded what it could of his good deeds, and to have passed with slight mention over what was bad in him. He was more a complete man of the world, and far less it would seem a good bishop than his predecessor Bloet, notwithstanding that his name has come down with little or no obloquy attached to it. "Magnificent," indeed, he was; and not only in the magnitude of the stately grandeur with which he appeared more than once at Rome, and showered his gold into the capacious pouches of the Roman courtiers, but fully also in what he did. in his diocese in England. Besides his benefactions to Lincoln, he founded four monasteries-by robbery, however, of Lincoln property, we are told-and built Infra, 33, three castles. For such magnificent doings all the then and n. 5 rich revenues of the bishopric of Lincoln, and all his own private means, probably very great, were insufficient: Henry of Huntingdon tells us that Alexander had to exact largely from his subjects, in order to find the means for his profuse expenditure.1 and 6. and n. 2. His repairs and church, after fire. a One of his benefactions to Lincoln, vaulting of the according to the contemporary Lincoln history handed down by Giraldus and John de Schalby, was the restoration of the church after a fire, and giving it a stone vault. It has been supposed that this was done in the early years of his episcopate, after a destructive fire, about 1124, which is mentioned however by no one except our Infra, 25, untrustworthy friend Giraldus. There is good evidence, from very far better authorities than Giraldus, that the church suffered no injury at all from fire anywhere about this time. At all events it seems certain, if it suffered at all, that it did not suffer to anything like the extent that Giraldus represents, such as would call for Alexander's repairs and stone vault. But there was a fire, and a well authenticated one, towards the end of Alexander's episcopate. The Spalding, and a Peterborough chronicle1-one probably merely following the other, or perhaps both drawing from a common source-place it under the year 1141, two or three years perhaps too early, as with others of their dates about this time. Henry of Huntingdon-the conclusive authority at this time on any Lincoln matter he mentions-assures us certainly, that a fire had occurred shortly before 1146, and that Alexander nobly repaired the damages in the last year or two of his life. He tells us that in 1145 Alexander went to Rome, and returned the next year; when finding that his church had been injured by a fire, he restored, it with such subtle workmanship, that it came forth more beautiful than when 1 By the Spalding Chron. I mean the Chron. Ang. Petriburg. of Sparke and Giles. There is abundant internal evidence that it was written in Spalding abbey; and it ought to be known by the name I give it. It says, under 1141, "Combusta est "ecclesia Lincolniensis in festo "S. Albani." The Peterborough Chronicle is the Chron. Petroburg. of the Camden Society; it simply says, under the same year, "Com"busta est ecclesia Lincolniæ." newly built, and second to no structure within the bounds of England.1 It is, therefore, quite certain, that Alexander restored the church, after a fire, in the last year or two of his episcopate. It is possible that there may have been a previous fire during his episcopate, and consequent restoration by him; but the only evidence for such a fire is Giraldus's worthless talk about the fire of 1124, and there is no evidence whatever for any such earlier works of restoration by bishop Alexander. It is only by modern expositors of Lincoln history, that Giraldus's 1124 fire has been connected with Alexander's restorations; Giraldus describes the first under his very dubious legend of the miracles of Infra, 25, bishop Remigius, and the latter, many chapters after- and 33. wards, under his authentic history of bishop Alexander, without a hint of the one having anything to do with the other. Alexander died in the early spring of 1148, and it may seem that the time since his return from Rometwo good years at the very utmost, perhaps little more than one year-is insufficient for the restorations after the fire, which are attributed to him. But the injury to the actual fabric by this fire was very little, if any at all; Henry of Huntingdon only says that the church was badly disfigured (" deturpata") by it. Moreover, he has not a word about the vaulting of the church by Alexander, as recorded by the Lincoln history. This vault must have been a vault over the body of the church, for the aisles would certainly be vaulted by Remigius. The Lincoln history-contemporary we must consider it, though we now only have it in the pages of Giraldus and John de Schalby-is an authority that we cannot well doubt. Probably Alexander intended this vault, and prepared for it, and possibly made some small beginning of it, and therefore was not unnaturally spoken of as its builder, though perhaps it was not finished for many years after his death. That it was completed by him, or even largely begun, I cannot believe. A stone vault over the body of a large church was a thing, so far as we know, not attempted in England before 1148; and if Alexander had built, or even largely begun such a novelty, it seems scarcely possible to imagine that Henry of Huntingdon, when recording his restorations, would not have noticed it. The day of his Huntingdon tells us that bishop Alexander was buried on Ash on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 24), 1148; but of the exact day of his death Infra, 155, no record hitherto has been known. This day, Feb. 20, is now ascertained, from the twelfth century Lincoln obituary, printed amongst the appendices of the present volume. and 34, n. 2. Infra, 34, and 198. death. Giraldus's account of bishop Chesney Robert de Chesney, 1148-1166. is fuller than that of John de Schalby; agreeing, however, closely with him, so far as the later writer goes. The main historical addition in Giraldus is the loss of episcopal jurisdiction over St. Alban's abbey during Chesney's episcopate. He is perfectly right as Infra, 34, to this fact; there is long history about it in the St. Alban's chronicles; and no doubt he found what he tells us in Lincoln history, though the after compiler is silent on the subject n. 4. These compilers tells us, in large part, all that we are told about bishop Chesney. From Henry of Huntingdon, in one of the last of his pages, we learn that he was archdeacon of Leicester when elected, a "juvenis |