Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/141

Bek  for dilapidation and waste of the property of the see, for which he recovered very large damages. He stoutly resisted the metropolitical visitation of his diocese by Archbishop Stratford, and stirred up the citizens of Norwich to make common cause with him. On the king's interposition on the primate's behalf, 29 Nov. 1342, the citizens yielded, but the old man continued obstinate, and appealed against the archbishop to the pope. He made himself detested by the monks of his cathedral by his determined attempt to introduce a stricter system of discipline, and to reduce the convent to greater subordination to the bishop, 'suffering them to do nothing in their house but what he liked, plucking down and preferring amongst them whom he listed, dealing so rigorously with them that it got him the hatred of all men, which proved his destruction' (, Hist. of Norfolk, ii. 359). His death, which took place at his manor of Heveringham on 19 Dec. 1343, was popularly attributed to poison administered to him by his servants at the instigation of his monks. Such suspicions were very common in the middle ages, and there seems to be no ground for the charge besides vulgar report. The death of an old man of seventy-nine requires no such explanation. With all his faults of temper and character, Bek is described as 'a man of learning and principle, and fearless and inflexible when standing up for what he believed to be right' (, Diocesan History of Norwich, 115). He appears to have patronised learning, 'his best preferment being bestowed on graduates of the universities' (ib.) He seldom left his diocese during his episcopate, but its duration was too short and his own years much too advanced, to allow of his doing much to bring about the reforms his predecessor's scandalous negligence rendered necessary.

[Godwin, De Præsulibus, ii. 14; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 414; Blomefield's Hist. of Norfolk, ii. 358-9; Le Neve's Fasti, ii. 13, 92, 464; Harl. MS. 3720.]

 BEK, THOMAS I (d. 1293), bishop of St. David's, was the second son of Walter Bek, baron of Eresby, Lincolnshire, and the elder brother of Antony Bek I [q. v.], the bishop of Durham and patriarch of Jerusalem. Thomas Bek, like his brothers, rose high in the royal favour, and filled several important offices of state. In 1269 he became chancellor of the university of Oxford (, Fasti (ed. Hardy), iii. 464;, Annals of University College, p. 12); in 1274 he was keeper of the wardrobe to Edward I (, Fœd. i. 519); on 29 Sept. 1278 he was one of the lords of parliament present at Westminster when Alexander III of Scotland did homage (ib. p. 563); in 1279 he became lord treasurer (Pat. 1 Edw. I, m. 7); and in the same year was entrusted with the keeping of the great seal during Edward's absence in France (, Fœd. i. 575). His ecclesiastical preferments were also many and lucrative. He held the rectories of Silkstone, Yorkshire, and Wainfleet All Saints, Lincolnshire. In 1275 he was archdeacon of Dorset (Pat. 3 Edw. I), and attended on Edward I and Queen Eleanor, 19 April 1278, on their visit to Glastonbury to inspect the relics of King Arthur (, Menev. Sacr.) He was archdeacon of Berkshire in 1280 (, Collect, tom. iii. p. 108). On 20 Jan. 1280 he was presented by the king to the prebend of Castor in the cathedral of Lincoln (, Fasti, ii. 125; Pat. 8 Edw. I, m. 23). The next year, Sunday, 6 Oct. 1280, Bek was consecrated bishop of St. David's in Lincoln Minster, by Archbishop Peckham, assisted by six other bishops, including the Archbishop of Rages, or Edessa. The same day the body of St. Hugh of Avalon was translated to the new shrine prepared for it in the recently erected 'Angel Choir' in the presence of Edward I and his queen and their children, his brother Edmund of Lancaster and his wife the queen of Navarre, Archbishop Peckham and other prelates, and 230 knights, with other nobles. The whole cost of this magnificent ceremonial and the accompanying festivities was defrayed by the newly consecrated bishop ( vii. 219, 220, Rolls Series). He sang his first mass in the diocese at Strata Florida, on 1 or 2 Feb. 1281, and was enthroned at St. David's (on St. David's day) 1 March of that year ( and, i. 528). In 1282, when Edward was marching against Llewellyn and his brother David, the bishop of St. David's was one of the bishops and abbots ordered on 20 May to have his contingent ready to join the king's forces (, Fœd. i. 607). In 1283 he certified his having received letters from Pope Martin IV allowing the marriage of Rhys ap Mereduc and Auda of Hastings, though within the prohibited degrees (ib. p. 635). When in 1284 Archbishop Peckham made a metropolitical visitation of the Welsh diocese, Bek, as a last expiring protest on behalf of the ancient independence of the Welsh church, made an ineffectual remonstrance against the jurisdiction of Canterbury. The protest was completely disregarded, excommunication being threatened if the opposition were persevered in. The visitation was held, and injunctions for the diocese