Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maurice (d.1107)
MAURICE (d. 1107), bishop of London, chaplain and chancellor to William the Conqueror, was appointed by him to the see of London, vacated by the death of Hugh of Orival, at the memorable council held at Gloucester (Christmas 1085–6). At the same time two other royal chaplains, William Beaufeu [q. v.] and Robert de Limesey were appointed respectively to the sees of Thetford and Chester (Lichfield) (Symeon Dunelm. ii. 213). Maurice was consecrated by Lanfranc at Winchester, 5 April 1086, having been previously ordained priest by him at Chichester, 19 March (Epp. Lanfranc, p. 24). Maurice was an early friend of Ranulf Flambard (ib. p. 135), and his moral character was, like Flambard's, open to grave reproach. Sober with regard to other pleasures, according to William of Malmesbury, his fondness for the female sex was carried to an extent unbefitting a bishop. He excused his licentiousness as a medical prescription, essential to his health (Malmesbury, Gesta Pontiff. p. 145). He attended William Rufus's first court at Westminster at Christmas 1087 (Henry of Huntingdon, p. 211; Freeman, William Rufus, i. 19). In 1094 he had a controversy with Anselm as to his right as metropolitan to consecrate the newly built church of Harrow, in the diocese of London, which by the verdict of Wulfstan of Worcester, then ‘one and alone of the ancient fathers of the English,’ was decided in favour of the primate (Eadmer, p. 22; Anselmi Epp. iii. 19; Freeman, u. s. p. 440). In the absence of Anselm, Maurice, as the highest suffragan of his province, crowned Henry I at Westminster, 5 Aug. 1100 (Hoveden, i. 157; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 233; Orderic, p. 783 B; Freeman, ii. 350), and witnessed the charter he put forth (Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 98; Freeman, u. s. p. 358). He also attended the council at Westminster, 29 Sept. 1102, as one of Anselm's assessors (Malmesbury, p. 118; Symeon Dunelm. ii. 235). The chief work which signalised the episcopate of Maurice was the commencement of his cathedral church of St. Paul's, on a scale that rendered it ultimately the vastest of all the cathedrals of England, by which, and by the general efficiency of his rule, his faulty moral character, ‘vir moribus non usquequaque probatissimis,’ was held by his contemporaries to be atoned for (Malmesbury, p. 145). He died 26 Sept. 1107.
[Symeon of Durham, i. 135, ii. 213, 235; Hoveden, i. 157, 160, 164, ii. 213, 235, 239; William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontiff. pp. 118, 145; Henry of Huntingdon, pp. 208, 211, 233, 236, 316; Diceto, i. 211, 218, 233; Matt. Paris's Hist. Angl. i. 32, 308.]