Talk:Bishop of London

Merge

I have merged the article "Bishop of London (Catholic)" into this one. aliceinlampyland 21:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC).

Balance

This article seems to lack neutral point of view and, in particular, it repeatedly emphasises the split between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism which is, in parts, anachronistic and, pretty much everywhere, irrelevant, in that it is not a feature of this see any more than of any historic English see. Chelseaboy 16:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Have tried to fix this now. Chelseaboy 16:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

All the pre-Reformation English bishoprics were modified by someone a few months back to split them into Catholic and Anglican articles; some echoes of this are probably still kicking around. Here's the pre-move version, if it helps. Shimgray | talk | 16:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Hierarchy of Bishops

I had always thought the Bishop of Durham was the senior bishop after the two archbishops, given that the role of Prince Bishop is viewed as a higher status, whereas this article seems to state it is the Bishop of London. Can someone clarify please? user:lawsonrob

I thought that too, but it seems the correct order of precedence is the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester, followed by Diocesan Bishops (in order of seniority), and then Suffragan Bishops. See [1] – Agendum 23:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Roman province

Are you absolutely sure that the office goes back to the time of the Roman province of Britannia? It seems more likely that Jocelyn of Furness may have written about the early Celtic church, but this just seems rather far-fetched. And, in any case, are you sure that the diocese of London existed then? – Agendum 13:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Restitutus is the first historically-attested Bishop of London; he was listed among the bishops present at the Synod of Arles, 314. The site of his cathedral is unknown; it was not St. Paul's. Otherwise, Jocelin is the only witness to his "bishop-list". The antiquarian John Stow saw Jocelin's list: "Stow also gives us, on the authority of 'Joceline of Furneis,' the names of both the first and second archbishops, Thean and Elvanus, as well as of their fourteen successors; and informs us that whilst the first, aided by King Lucius's butler, Ciran, erected the church, the second added a library, and 'converted many of the Druids, learned men in the Pagan law, to Christianity.'" (Charles Knight, ed. London (1843) vol. 5: CXI.-The Churches of London [on-line text]).

"King Lucius" is as much a phantom as his butler Ciran, needless to say. Clerics writing histories of diocese were under pressure to establish an "apostolic succession" that would support their current bishop's claims of precedence, etc. Look at the dioceses of Gaul for instances. Some of the other Roman bishop names listed by Jocelin, who had no documents at Furness to go by, may have been authentic, nevertheless. The list begins anew with Mellitus (Millet, in English). "And Millet, monk, the which came into the land with St. Austin, was made the first bishop of London, and his see was made in Paul's church." --Wetman 21:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Arriving late to this discussion: There's no good evidence for the nature of the list of bishops (or rather, so-called ARCHBISHOPS) of London that John Stow (and only John Stow) saw - but it almost certainly wasn't written by Jocelin of Furness. It's clearly cobbled together from Geoffrey of Monmouth, a few Welsh saints, a misplaced Anglo-Saxon (Theodred) and some names probably just made up. Restitutus is the only "real" bishop, attested from outside sources, and he wasn't in the list that John Stow saw - he had to be inserted. Vodinus is also a problem - I think the only other reference to him is in Hector Boece (1465–1536) - Scotland's own Geoffrey of Monmouth - so either Boece and pseudo-Jocelin had access to a similar source, or the list was only compiled after the appearance of Boece's Scottish history, shortly before Stow's own time (ie it's an out-and-out 16th-century fake). And if the reference to the second archbishop converting Druids was in the original, and not an elaboration by Stow himself or by whoever provided the list for Stow's use, then I think we're looking at a 16th-century fake - 'Druids' were hardly known to medieval authors, who would (like Geoffrey of Monmouth) have referred to pagan priests or 'flamens'. Druids were rediscovered and became very popular among historians in the early 16th century.

However, there's a paper due out on this subject from Helen Birkett, the expert on Jocelin of Furness. It will be interesting to read her conclusions.

In the meantime, perhaps we should change the heading on this list from 'Traditional' (it's only traditional because people keep reprinting it) and refer to 'legendary archbishops of London' - with a footnote that Restitutus is the only historically-attested bishop of Roman London that we know of. -- John O'London (talk) 15:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and change the infobox accordingly - first bishop Mellitus, 604. John O'London (talk) 15:18, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Almost heartwarming to hear that Scotland got their own Geoffrey; I'll have to look him up.

As with the new treatment, though, we should note that the general consensus is that Restitutis was the London bishop but the text is corrupt. We're only sure (as these things go) that one of the two of Restitutus and Adelfius were Londoners.

I think you're right that traditional is somewhat misleading. I like sneer-quoted #"Archbishops" of London, but I'm ok with changing the heading to #Legendary bishops if we want to ignore what the source said. The real "first bishop", though, is "Unknown". Or is it common at these pages to just start from the reëstablishment by the Gregorian mission? Either seems understandable; let's just keep it consistent with the treatment at York. — LlywelynII 14:56, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

The actual list is highly suspect (above and below) but as sketchy as most of the details are, yes, we're pretty sure on pretty good authorities that there was a church administration in Britain by the end of the 2nd century. London would certainly have had a bishop. (To the point where the council at Arles is used to locate the other provincial capitals.) — LlywelynII 15:01, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

"Archbishops" of London

A comment from my talk page:

I don't want to intervene while you are in the midst of editing this section (and I'm not inclined to do any more wiki editing myself) - but when you are discussing the list of 'archbishops' attributed by John Stow to Jocelin of Furness, it would be as well to cite Helen Birkett's recent paper 'Plausible fictions: John Stow, Jocelin of Furness and The Book of British Bishops' in Clare Downham (ed) Jocelin of Furness: Essays from the 2011 Conference Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2013, pp 91-120. Birkett (author of The Saints' Lives of Jocelin of Furness (2010)) concluded that the list was definitely NOT by Jocelin, but might well still be late 12th-century in origin, composed in support of the campaign by the then Bishop of London, Gilbert Foliot, to have the archbishopric 'restored' to London from Canterbury. I'm not entirely convinced, some of the wording in the list as John Stow quotes it suggests to me it was at least tampered with in the 16th century - but I can't give you a verifiable published source for that!

Best wishes. John O'London (talk) 10:59, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I also think it would be very worthwhile to use this source to present the most current treatment of the topic. (We should still give the traditional version, but it should be appropriately caveated with all we've learned since.) However, I don't have JSTOR &c. access and can't get ahold of that paper. Anyone else mind looking it over and adding her thoughts to the section? — LlywelynII 14:48, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Not available on JSTOR, only in print, as far as I know. I have the book, but unfortunately my real-life persona is too busy for me to be able to do any serious editing on wikipedia at the moment.

A couple of points - if you look at the earliest version of the list that John Stow attributed to Jocelin, which Stow printed in his Chronicles in 1580, it comprises only thirteen archbishops: Thean, Cluus (note spelling), Cadar, Obinus, Conan, Paladius, Stephan, Iltut, Dedwin, Thedred, Hillary, Guidilinus, and Vodinus "who was slain of the Saxons that came first into this lande". In his 1598 Survey of London he added the fourteenth "Theanus, the foureteenth, fledde with the Britaines into Wales". This was presumably for consistency with Geoffrey of Monmouth, who made Theanus the last British archbishop of London. Later versions of the list call him Theanus II or Theanus Junior.

Restitutus and Fastidius don't appear in "Jocelin"'s list of archbishops. Clearly "Jocelin" or whoever it was who cobbled this list together (probably in the 12th century) had never heard of them. Why not have two separate lists, one of the "legendary" archbishops (who are, frankly, fictitious) and one of any properly documented Romano-British bishops - which basically means Restitutus (and/or Adelphius)? Fastidius I think was described as "episcopus Britanniarum" - bishop of/from the Britains (genitive plural), presumably from one of the late Roman provinces of Britain - I'm not sure there is any real evidence that he was bishop of London. Ever since the 16th century there have been attempts to incorporate Restitutus and Fastidius in the "legendary" list (for example, by making Iltut=Restitutus) - it just doesn't work.— John O'London (talk) 15:56, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

See also Talk:Restitutus – John O'London (talk) 10:48, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

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Beaumis or Belmeis?

Excellent article on Richard de Belmeis I goes into spelling his name, but he and his nephew appear as de Beaumis in the table on this page. I think they probably should be streamlined into de Belmeis, which is the name normally used by historians. I can't see how to do this with the right links, though... Katiehawks (talk) 10:05, 27 November 2019 (UTC)