Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/128

 high favour with both king and pope—favour which Matthew Paris seems to have regarded as bought by a desertion of the cause of which Simon had once been an extreme partisan. When Ralph Neville, bishop of Chichester, was elected to the see of Canterbury, in 1231, Gregory IX consulted the archdeacon as to the character of the primate-elect, and quashed the election in consequence of Simon's reply, in which, according to Matthew Paris, the crowning charge against Ralph was a desire to carry out Stephen Langton's supposed design of freeing England from her tribute to Rome. Another election to Canterbury was set aside by Gregory on Simon's advice in 1233. In January 1235 Simon was in Gaul on the king's business, endeavouring to negotiate a truce with France and La Marche. For the 'fidelity and prudence' which he had already shown in this matter he received Henry's special thanks, which were repeated in April, with a request that he would continue his good offices, 'as it is to be feared that the work which you have begun will fall to the ground if you leave it.' In 1238, when a dispute arose between the chapter of Canterbury and their new archbishop, [q. v.], Simon warmly espoused the archbishop's side. He accompanied him to Rome, denounced the monks as guilty of fraud and forgery, and published the sentences of suspension and excommunication issued against them next year. After Edmund's death (November 1240) they accused the archdeacon of usurping functions which, during a vacancy of the see, belonged of right to the prior. Simon, according to their account, retorted with 'contumelious words and blasphemies,' tried to associate the clergy of the diocese in a conspiracy against them, and carried through his usurpation by force. Next year, when they were on the point of being absolved by the pope, Simon appealed against their absolution; but a threat of the royal wrath, and a sense of being 'too old to cross the Alps again,' deterred him from prosecuting his appeal. He died in 1248. Gervase of Canterbury denounces his memory as 'accursed,' while Matthew Paris declares 'it is no wonder if he was a persecutor and disturber of his own church of Canterbury, seeing that he was a stirrer-up of strife throughout the whole realms of England and France.' But the sole witnesses against him are Gervase and Matthew themselves, and their evidence is plainly coloured by party feeling.

Of the writings which Bale attributes to Simon Langton, the only one now known is a treatise on the Book of Canticles (Bodl. MS. 706).



LANGTON, STEPHEN (d. 1228), archbishop of Canterbury and cardinal, was son of Henry de Langton, and certainly an Englishman by birth, though from which of the many Langtons in England his family took its name there is no evidence to show. He studied at the university of Paris, became a doctor in the faculties of arts and theology, and acquired a reputation for learning and holiness which gained him a prebend in the cathedral church of Paris and another in that of York. He continued to live in Paris and to lecture on theology there till in 1206 Pope Innocent III called him to Rome and made him cardinal-priest of St. Chrysogonus. Walter of Coventry says that he taught theology at Rome also, and Roger of Wendover declares that the Roman court had not his equal for learning and moral excellence. He had long been on intimate terms with the French king Philip Augustus, and King John of England now wrote to congratulate him on his promotion, saying that he had been on the point of inviting him to his own court. It is clear that Langton was already the most illustrious living churchman of English birth when a struggle for the freedom of the see of Canterbury opened, in July 1205, on the death of [q. v.] An irregular election of Reginald, the sub-prior, made secretly by some of the younger monks, and a more formal but equally uncanonical election of [q. v.], made under pressure from the king, were both alike quashed on appeal at Rome in December 1206. Sixteen monks of Christ Church were present, armed with full power to act for the whole chapter, and also with a promise of the king's assent to whatever they might do in its name; this promise, however, had been given them only on a secret condition, unknown to the brotherhood whom they represented, that they should do nothing except re-elect John de Grey. Innocent now bade them, as proctors for their convent, choose for primate whom they would, ‘so he were but a fit man, and, above all, an Englishman.’ With Langton sitting in his place among the cardinals, the suggestion of his name followed as a matter of course. The monks were driven to confess their double-dealing and that of the king; Innocent scornfully absolved them from their shameful compact; all save one elected Stephen