the title of provost, and the canons left their new home to live in separate houses on the pittances provided by the provost: the buildings fell into ruin and Giso's work was all undone. At last, about 1140, under Bishop Robert, Wells revived: the church was restored or rebuilt: the Salisbury system was introduced, the chapter was reconstituted under a dean, and the right of election of the bishop was henceforth shared with the monks of Bath, although it was not for a hundred years more that the bishop began to use the double title of Bath and Wells.
Such is the story in brief: but we must look back for a moment to the dark period under Bishop John of Tours (1088-1122). In Bishop Giso's time the estates of the canons had been managed by a provost chosen by themselves out of their own number.[1] But they were handed over by Bishop John in the first instance to his steward Hildebert, who assigned but a meagre allowance to the canons.[2] Nor were matters improved when John, the bishop's nephew and archdeacon, became their provost. He claimed that the lands were his by hereditary right, subject only to a charge for the support of the canons. The next bishop, Godfrey (1122-35), disputed the claim and sought to restore the alienated property; but John, the archdeacon and provost, had friends at court, and no redress could be obtained while K. Henry lived. Bishop Godfrey died, 16 Aug. 1135, leaving matters in this deplorable condition. Soon afterwards John the archdeacon fell sick, and repented of his usurpation. On his death-bed he charged Reginald, his brother and heir, to see to it, for the eternal welfare of them both, that restitution was duly made.[3]
Robert, the next bishop, had been a monk of the first Cluniac foundation in England, the priory of Lewes. Henry of Blois, the brother of K. Stephen, who had himself been trained at Cluny, was now holding the abbacy of Glastonbury together with the bishopric at Winchester: he had discovered merit in the young monk of Lewes and had called him to preside over his monastery of St Swithun
- ↑ Our information is mainly drawn from the so-called 'Historiola' (Ecclesiastical Documents, Camden Society, 1840), of which we shall say more presently. There (p. 19) we read of their provost 'Ysaac nomine'. The Gheld Inquest (Vict. Co. Hist., Som., i. 531) mentions 'Isaac the prepositus of the canons'. The name 'Isaacsmede', which occurs in Wells documents from 1176 onwards, may have come from him.
- ↑ Hildebert dapifer attests charters in 1100 and 1106: Bath Chartul. (Som. Rec. Soc, vol. 7), i. 41, 53. It is nowhere stated that he was Bishop John's brother, but this inference has been drawn from the fact that John the archdeacon claimed to inherit the estates from his father; and this John and his brother Reginald were certainly the bishop's nephews.
- ↑ 'Historiola,' p. 23.
