Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/626

 GIFFARD

552

GIFFORD

ornamented the eastern part of the cathedral with the Bmall columns of marble having joints of gilded brass, which form orie of the most graceful characteristics of the present choir and Lady chapel. Even after re- tiring from the chancellorship he is still found exer- cising judicial functions, as when, in 1272, with Roger Mortimer he enquired into the injuries done by the townspeople of Oxford to the scholars; and, in 1278, he was at the head of the justices itinerant for the counties of Hereford, Hertford, and Kent. He was buried on 4 Feb. in his cathedral church (Ann. Monast., IV, 551). Thomas, Antiquitatcs prinr„i,i<, vtnjnri.i Malvemice in agro

Wicciensi, cum chartis or/<, '> ,ii,h'm illuatrantibua, ex

regislris Sedis Episcopalis 11 London, 1725); Idem,

A Survey of the Cathedral CI 1 1 - 'f r, with an Account

of the Bishops thereof (Loiuluu. 1 . uG . l:i.j -145; Annates Manas- t,ci, ed. LOARD in K. S. (Loudon. 1S69), IV; Registrum Epis- tolarum J. Peckham, ed. Martin in R. S. (London, 18S4), II; Tout in Diet. Nat. Biog., s. v.; Smith and Onslow, Diocesan Histories: Tyorces(er (London, 1883).

Edward Myers.

Giffard, William, second Norman Bishop of Win- chester from 1100 to 1129. Little is known of his his- tory anterior to his episcopate, except that he was suc- cessively canon and dean of Rouen, and ably filled the office of chancellor to William the Conqueror (d. 1087), William Rufus (d. 1100), and Henry L Since the death of Bishop Walkelin in 1098, no appointment had been made to the See of Winchester during the remain- ing two years of the reign of Rufus, and the revenues were appropriated by the king. The very first act of Henry I (Stubbs, "Const. Hist.", Oxford, 1891-5, I, 329), after his election as king at Winchester, in Aug., 1 100, wa.s to give a token of his goodwill to the Church by filling the See of Winchester, and he caused William Ciiffard, who was still only a deacon, to be duly elected bishop. Henry may have wished to provide himself with a strong "supporter in the episcopal body, but, from the first, William would appear to have realized that the points at issue between the king and the Church had become part of the great European quarrel of investitures, and declined to accept the pastoral staff from the king's hands. At the moment, the sup- port of churchmen was necessary to assure Henry's position; he was too prudent to force the acceptance of the sacred symbol, and Giffard was immediately invested with the temporalities of the see. It only remained to arrange for his consecration. Meanwhile St. Anselmhad returned from exile, and, strengthened by the decision of the council held at the Vatican in 1099, declined to become the homo of a layman.

An uneasy time followed, and embassies were sent to Rome. As bishop-elect, Giffard assisted at the council held at Westminster, 20 Sept., 1102. In spite of his agreement with Anselm, Henry invested the Bishops-Electof Salisbury and Hereford, and requested Anselm to consecrate them. Anselm was willing to consecrate Giffard, but in spite of the king's re- peated insistence declined to consecrate the others. Gerard of York having undertaken to do so, one of the bishops-elect returned his crosier; the consecration ceremony of the remaining two had already begun when Giffard, conscience-stricken, declined to take fur- ther part in it. The king failed to intimidate him and he was sent into exile, and his goods confiscated. He had a constant friend and adviser in St. Anselm, and when the latter set out for Rome in April, 1 103, Giffard went with him. Anselm's long stay at Lyons began about Christmas, 1 103. In the meantime Giffard had been allowed to come back to England, for in 1 105 he signed, together with the bishops, the petition begging Anselm to return. Eventually a compromise was effected, An.selm returned 1 Aug., 1107; the realities of feudal homage were retained, but the special form of the gift of ring and crosier was given up by the king. Giffard, who had been ordained priest (juietly the day before, was con.secrated by Anselm on 11 Aug., 1107.

He regained Henry's confidence and acted for him in several matters of ecclesiastical interest. As Bishop of Winchester one of his first duties was to act as chief commissioner in the completion of the Domesday Record of Winchester, that royal city having been omitted from the Domesday of the Conqueror. In 1110 he negotiated with the king and the community the removal of the so-called "Now Minster" (or St. Grimbald's Abbey) founded by King Alfred, which stood in very inconvenient proximity to the cathedral on the north side, to a new site outside the city, under the name of Hyde Abbey.

Eventually this led to serious difficulties with the monks of the cathedral community, in consequence of the bishop's having alienated certain revenues which they conceived to belong to them. The difficulty cul- minated in 1122 in a strange symbolical pageant by the monks, and the interference of the king. Peace was made, and the bishop grew more and more attached to the community, spending most of his time among them, taking his meals with them, wearing the cowl, and eventually dying in their infirmary. The Canons Regular of St. Augustine were welcomed to England by him and a home was found for them at St. Mary Overy's (now St. Saviour's) in Southwark; near their stately church he built the town-house of the Bishops of Winchester. To him also belongs the honour of having given a first home in England to the monks of the Cistercian Order, by establishing, in Nov., 1128, the abbey of Waverley, near Farnham, in Surrey, a filiation of L'Aumone in the Diocese of Chartres. He died on 25 Jan., 1 129, and was buried in the nave of his cathedral church near his predecessor Walkelin.

Venables in Diet. Nat. Biog. indicates the chief original sources; Milner, Winche.'iter (Husenbeth's ed., Winchester, s. d.), I, 153-6; II, 130, 243; Rule, Life and Times of St. Anselm (London, 1883), II, 229, 259; Stephens. A Historu of the English Church (London, 1904), II. vii; Stephens and Capes, TheBishops of Winchester (Winchester, 1907), pt. II, 5-9.

Edward Myers.

Gifiord, William, Archbishop of Reims; b. in Hampshire, 1554; d. at Reims, 11 April, 1629. He was the son of John Gifford, Esquire, of Weston-under- Edge, Gloucestershire, and Elizal)eth, daughter of Sir George Throckmorton, Knight, of Cough ton, Warwick- shire (Wood, " .\then. Oxon.", below). He was sent to Oxford in 1509, where he was entrusted to the care of John Bridgewater, President of Lincoln College, who was a Catholic at heart. Gifford remained at Ox- ford for about four years, part of which time he spent in the celebrated boarding school kept by the Catholic physician Etheridge, whither he had been removed oil the compulsory retirement of Bridgewater for refusal to conform. After this period, Ciifford, accompanied by his tutor, proceeded to Louvain (1573), resumed there his studies, and took the degree of M.A. (Athen. Oxon.). After having also obtained liis baccalaureate in theology on the completion of a four years' course in that science under Bellarmine, Gifford was forced to quit Louvain owing to the disturbances in the Low Countries. Proceeding thence, he pursued his eccle- siastical studies at Paris, at Reims, which he visited (1577) at the invitation of Dr. Allen, and at the English College at Rome, of which he was admitted a member on 15 Sept., 1579 [Foley, "Records of the English Province", etc., VI (London, ISSO), 139; but comixare statement there given as to age with date of birth above]. Having been orilained priest in March, 15S2 (Foley, " Records", loc. cit.), he was recalled to Reims by Allen as professor of theology at the English College ("Douay Diaries", infra: Diarium Primum, 11; Dia- rium Secundum, 1S9 — note statement as to age). The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him in December of 1584 at Pont-il-Mousson in Lorraine, after which, returning to Reims, Gifford taught the- ology at intervals for nearly twelve years.

On Allen's elevation to the canliualate, Gifford