into the conduct of the prior of St. Augustine's at Canterbury, and wrote a most indignant report to the pope on the conduct of that dignitary, and the disorder and waste of the community he was supposed to rule. Letters are preserved, written by him to Alexander III, begging him to confirm the elections lately made to Hereford and Winchester, and urging him in the strongest terms not to disallow the election of Richard of Dover to the see of Canterbury; though in after days, if we may trust Giraldus Cambrensis, he would have been only too ready to recall his recommendation (see Giraldus Camb. Rolls Ser. vii. 58, 59). After Becket's death Canterbury Cathedral was closed for nearly a year, and on its reopening Bartholomew preached the first sermon, choosing for his text the words: ‘According to the multitude of my sorrows have thy consolations rejoiced my soul.’ In May 1175 he was present at Westminster when the archbishop's canons were promulgated, and in July at the council of Woodstock, when pastors were chosen for the vacant churches. Two years later he signed Henry II's award between the kings of Castile and Navarre at the great council of Westminster. Only two months before this, having been commissioned to inquire into the state of Amesbury nunnery, he dismissed the abbess, who seems to have been leading a notoriously loose life, and reformed the whole establishment (Walter of Coventry, Rolls Ser. i. 274). These appear to have been his last recorded acts before his death, which occurred in 1184. Leland and other English biographers give Bartholomew great praise for his learning, and add that he and Baldwin used to dedicate their works to each other. One of Bartholomew's last treatises must have been his ‘Dialogus contra Judæos,’ if Leland is right in saying that this was dedicated to Baldwin when bishop of Worcester (1180–4). Amongst others of Bartholomew's writings enumerated by the same authorities are a work on Thomas à Becket's death, one on predestination, and another entitled ‘Penitentiale,’ of which a copy still exists among the Cotton MSS. (Faust. A. viii. 1). Bartholomew seems to have been friendly with the most learned men of his age. Walter Map praises his eloquence in the ‘De Nugis Curialium;’ St. Hugh (afterwards of Lincoln) seems to have been acquainted with him, and Giraldus Cambrensis devotes several pages to an account of his life, and relates several stories, which seem to show that Bartholomew had a strong turn for uttering stinging remarks. He also tells us that it was to Bartholomew that William de Tracy made a confession of the terrors in which he lived after having borne a part in Becket's death; and Giraldus adds that from the time of this confession the bishop always maintained that Henry was responsible for the archbishop's murder. For a full list of Bartholomew's writings see Pits and Tanner.
[Leland, 225; Bale, 224; Pits, De Angl. Script. 249; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Materials for the Life of Thomas Becket (Rolls Ser.), ii. 328, 339, 402, &c., iii. 92, 117, 513, iv. 16, 354, v. 14, 72, 210, 295, vi. 71, 320, 606; Ralph of Coggeshall (Rolls Ser.), 20; Roger of Hoveden (Rolls Ser.), i. 230, ii. 78, 121, 130, 289; Map, De Nugis Curialium, i. xii; Vita Hugonis ap. B. Perzii Bibliothecam Asceticam, x. 262, &c.; Migne's Cursus Patrologiæ, cxcix. 362, cciv. 642; Giraldus Cambrensis (Rolls Ser.), vii. 62.]
BARTHOLOMEW, Saint (d. 1193), was a Northumbrian hermit of some celebrity, who flourished in the twelfth century. His life was most probably written by Galfrid, the author of the biography of St. Godric, and a monk of Bartholomew's own monastery of St. Mary at Durham. In any case, it professes to be written in the lifetime of the saint's contemporaries. According to this life, Bartholomew was born at Witeb or Whitby. His real name, we are told, was Tostius (Tostig?), which his parents changed to William to avoid the laughter of his playmates. After an early life of trifling and scurrility, a vision of Christ so far sobered him as to lead him to wander abroad among strange nations, till at last he found himself in Norway, which had so lately been christianised by the help of English missionaries. Here the bishop ordained him, first deacon, and then priest. After three years Bartholomew returned to England, and, having for some little time served in a Northumbrian church, joined the monks at Durham. Thence, in obedience to an apparition of St. Cuthbert, he went to Farne. On reaching Farne he found it already occupied by a monk named Ebwin, who with much reluctance withdrew in favour of Bartholomew. The new hermit's life was one of the strictest asceticism. The fame of his sanctity was soon spread abroad throughout the north. For all his guests he supplied food, and, though not eating himself, would enter into conversation with them over their meal. In 1162 his solitude was broken by the arrival of the prior Thomas, whose company was so little to Bartholomew's relish that he left the island and once more joined his old confraternity at Durham, till the united prayers of the brothers, the new prior, and the bishop, at last induced him to return. When, in about a year, Thomas died, Bartholomew was once more alone, and continued so till
