Bishop of Durham
The post of Bishop of Durham has existed since the eighth century. After the Norman conquest the Bishop was made Prince-Bishop of the Palatinate of Durham. They had their own army, parliment, currency, and court system. In 1536 Henry VIII withdrew much of the Prince-Bishop's secular authority, and it authority was further hedged during and after the English Civil War, and the Principality was abolished in 1836. The Palatinate court system, however, survived until the Courts Act of 1971. Within the Church of England the Bishop of Durham is still an important figure, being fourth in the hierarchy, and ex officio a member of the House of Lords.
The title The Land of the Prince Bishops is an invention of the tourist industry, but the Bishops of Durham did hold vice-regal powers, and more.
The County Palatine of Durham was once a virtually independent state ruled by the so-called Prince Bishops, who were more or less the Kings of County Durham.
It owes its unique position to the 7th and 8th century Kingdom of Northumbria. Although it once stretched from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, making up almost a third of the entire mainland of Britain Vikings and Scots invasions reduced to an earldom stretching from the River Tweed to the Tees. However, it was a buffer zone, protecting the rest of England from Scottish invaders.
Northumbria at the time of the Conquest
William the Conqueror became king of England in 1066. He soon realised he needed to control Northumbria to protect his kingdom from Scottish invasion until was subject to his rule.
Both the Bishops of Durham and the Earls of Bamburgh had remained virtually independent of the Kings of England, even during the reign of Alfred the Great (849-899). To acknowledge the remote independence of Northumbria and England was properly defended from the Scots William gained the allegiance of both Bishop and Earl and confirmed their powers and privileges. However in Northumbria rebellions followed.
William therefore attempted to install Robert Comine, a Norman noble, as the Earl of Northumbria, but before Comine could take up office, he and his 700 men were massacred in the City of Durham. In revenge, the Conqueror led his army in a bloody raid into Northumbria, an event that became known as `the Harrying of the North'. Aethelwine, the Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Durham tried to flee Northumbria at the time of the raid, with Northumbrian treasures. He bishop was caught, imprisoned, and later he died in confinement, his see was left vacant.
Because the Earl joined the new King Donald of Scotland, William II of England invaded and took direct control of Northumbria.
Suspecting of supporting the revolt, Bishop Carileph, was summoned to Windsor to meet the king. He died there on January 6, 1096.
Ranulf Flambard, William Rufus' chief adviser, was appointed the next Bishop, but not until 1099. Flambard had acquired a fortune for himself and the king by collecting revenue from postponed appointments and through his tough approach to taxing the barons.
By 1100 William Rufus was dead and Henry I was on the throne. To appease the barons Flambard was imprisoned in the Tower of London. However, as the first prisoner in the tower Flambard also become the first to escape ‐ using a rope smuggled in by a butler in a cask of wine, he then fled to seek refuge in Normandy.
The only Englishman ever to be Patriarch of Jerusalem was Antony Bek, Bishop of Durham 1284 ? 1311, who held the patriarchate 1306 ? 1311.
As senior bishop in the Northern Province the bishop of Durham sits in the House of Lords as of right, and by 1386 also had the duty to escort the sovereign at the coronation
By a quirk of convention the bishop of Durham describes himself in formal documents as being bishop "by divine providence"; when other bishops style themselves "by divine permission".
The very unusual secular powers that bishops exercised grew up over time.. In the palatinate most of the powers belonging to the king in other parts of the country were wielded by the bishop, even documents which went out in the king's name elsewhere went out in the bishop's name,.
This exceptional position reached its full development by 1300, and, although very substantially diminished during the sixteenth century, it was not fully annexed to the Crown until 1836.
One of the many anomalies of county administration in England that were resolved in the lat nineteenth century was Islandshire. This exclave resulted from the Bishop holding Bedlington, and the shires or parishes of Norham and Holy Island, which lie on the south bank of the River Tweed, and also the Bishop's duty to maintain a major fortress overlooking the Tweed at Norham to check Scottish incursions. For a period Carlisle was also placed under the bishop's jurisdiction, to protect the west of England from invasion.
To differentiate his ecclesial and civil functions , the Bishops used two or more seals. The traditional almond-shaped seal of a cleric, and the oval seal of a nobleman. In fact, they also had a large round seal showing them seated administering justice on one side, and, on the other, armed and mounted on horseback. That design was, and still is, used by monarchs as the Great Seal of the Realm. Similarly the bishop of Durham's coat of arms was set against a crosier and a sword, instead of two crosiers, and the mitre above the coat of arms was encircled with a coronet normally reserved for dukes.
In 1534, under King Henry VIII, an act was passed that listed the places that might be used in providing titles for Anglican assistant-bishops appointed as assist to diocesan bishops. Such bishops had been common in the diocese of Durham, ensuring that Episcopal functions continued to be performed while the diocesan bishop was playing his expected part in affairs of state; - for instance Bishop Langley was frequently in London and occasionally overseas because as chancellor to Kings Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI, he was the highest ranking servant of the Crown,.
Two Kings in England
Origin of the Prince Bishops
The Earl-Bishop of Northumbria
The Norman William Walcher was appointed as the new Bishop of Durham, but the north was still not completely subdued, so the King appointed an Anglo-Saxon called Waltheof, of the old Northumbria house, as the new Earl. A close friendship developed between Walcher and Waltheof and the earl built a castle at Durham for his bishop, but later he was executed in 1075 after another rebellion.
Waltheof's powers were given to Walcher, the first and only Earl-Bishop of Northumbria. Now the Northumbrian province maintained a degree of political independence but was in the hands of one of the King's men. Walcher's was well-intentioned man but incompetent leader, and this led to his murder in Gateshead in 1081.
Northumbria Partitioned - Northumberland and Durham
Despite the murder, the new King William Rufus continued this policy to Northumbria. Walcher's successor, Bishop William St Carileph (1081-1096), was thus also given the powers of Earl, but south of the Rivers Tyne and Derwent. This became the County Palatinate of Durham . The remainder, to the north of the rivers became Tyne and Derwent, became the Northumberland where the political powers of the Bishops of Durham were limited to only certain districts. Despite the partition of political power, the Durham bishops remained the religious leaders for the whole of Northumbria, until the creation of the diocese of Newcastle upon Tyne in the nineteenth century.
The Prince Bishops and their powers
William St Carileph, a much stronger bishop than his predecessor, had thus become the first head of the County Palatinate of Durham. A virtually separate state, and defensive buffer zone sandwiched between "civilised" England and the often-dangerous Northumbria-Scottish borderland. Carileph and successive bishops, had nearly all the powers within their County Palatinate that the king had in the rest of England, but although often called Prince Bishops it was not a title used by any of the office holders.
Bishops of Durham had the power to;
In 1093 Bishop William demolished the old Durham Minster. The first stones of the replacement cathedral are laid by the Bishop and King Malcolm III of Scotland, even though Malcolm had invaded the county just two years before. Months later Malcolm III was killed during a raid on Alnwick. List of Bishops of Durham
Roman Catholic Bishops
Roman Catholic Prince-Bishops
The Reformation
Church of England Prince-Bishops
Church of England Bishops
External links