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 tained by the order of Count Guido, who charged him with disloyalty to Anselm, his spiritual head. He was released on promising to do nothing derogatory to Anselm. But for the ransom of his retainers he was required to pay forty marks. He had designed this money to further an appeal to the pope for an acknowledgment of his claim to control the convent at Bury—a control from which the Bury monks were exempt by the terms of a grant of Pope Alexander II, which Lanfranc had regarded as binding.

Herbert and his fellow-ambassadors represented that they received at Rome a verbal message from the pope recognising Henry I's pretensions, but Anselm's envoys, who were at Rome at the same time, warmly disputed the truth of their report [see arts. and, d. 1108]. In 1108 Herbert vainly sought to act the part of peacemaker between Anselm and Thomas (secundus), archbishop-designate of York, who declined to receive consecration from Anselm. After Anselm's death in 1108 Thomas was consecrated, and Herbert assisted (27 June 1109). A rumour that Herbert was regarded as a possible successor of Anselm proved groundless. After five years Ralph, bishop of Rochester, received the appointment. In 1115 Herbert was twice associated with the new primate in the consecration of bishops, and in the same year set out for Rome in attendance on the archbishop, together with Hugh, abbot of Chertsey. At Placentia Herbert was seized with sudden sickness, and he was obliged to return home.

Herbert held a high position at court, and was greatly esteemed by Henry's queen, Matilda. Among the bishop's ‘Letters’ is one addressed to the latter (‘Herbert her priest of Norwich’ to ‘the common mother of all England,’ in which he likens her to the Queen of Sheba, &c.) The last act of the bishop was to attend the queen's obsequies.

Spelman in his ‘Glossarium’ represents Herbert as chancellor in 1104; if so, he would have succeeded Roger of Salisbury. Lord Campbell in his ‘Lives of the Chancellors’ (i. 54) speaks of Herbert as one of Henry I's chancellors, and he is thus distinguished in the epitaph over his tomb at Norwich, but it seems doubtful if he held the appointment (cf. and, i. 322–8).

On 22 July 1119 Herbert died, aged about sixty-five years. He was interred before the high altar of the cathedral church, and the original eulogistic epitaph is preserved by Weever from the burnt Cotton. MS. B. xiii. (Ancient Funeral Monuments, pp. 787, &c.). His death was commemorated by a solemn anniversary function in the cathedral church, of which the form of service is to be found in the Norwich ‘Ordinale’ (Parker Collection, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge), a manuscript of the fourteenth century. A translation is given by Goulburn and Symonds (i. 352). Weever states that some vain attempts were made to have Herbert canonised. A tomb in the choir, towards the high altar, known as ‘the founder's tomb,’ was, according to Sir Thomas Brown (Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Norwich), greatly reduced in height, ‘it being an hindrance unto the people.’ Later on, Humphrey Prideaux, one of the prebendaries, was instrumental in restoring the tomb, and wrote a long Latin epitaph. Although the tomb has been demolished, the slab which bears Prideaux's inscription is on the floor of the presbytery, possibly on the original site.

Herbert's character has ‘been recklessly disparaged and blackened,’ but simony was, to use the words of Thomas Fuller, ‘a fashionable sin,’ and William of Malmesbury dilates upon the sincerity of Herbert's repentance. He was undoubtedly covetous. He retained on one occasion a palfrey which had been merely lent to him, and on another occasion complained of the scantiness of a voluntary gift of fruit. In his relations with his cathedral, his monks, and his diocese, Herbert was dignified and strict. He is said to have been personally attractive and to have excelled as a preacher and as a scholar.

Fourteen sermons by Herbert were edited for the first time from a manuscript in the university of Cambridge, with English translation and notes by Dr. Goulburn and Mr. E. M. Symonds, in 1878. Many of them are admirable, both in exposition and style. His ‘Letters,’ extant in a unique manuscript which was discovered by Dr. J. A. Giles at Brussels, were edited by Mr. Robert Anstruther and printed in 1846, both in the ‘Scriptores Monastici’ and for the Caxton Society; they were translated by Messrs. Goulburn and Symonds in 1878, in their ‘Life.’ They abound in quaint touches of humour, and are invaluable to the bishop's biographer. According to Bale, Herbert also wrote three treatises: (1) ‘On the Length of the Ages,’ (2) ‘On the End of the World,’ and (3) ‘A Book of Monastic Constitutions,’ of which all trace is lost. Henry of Huntingdon (circ. 1150) refers to Herbert's work ‘De Fine Mundi,’ while Thomas Eliensis (circ. 1170) mentions the sermon, &c., preached at Ely Cathedral, which is now missing. Mr. Anstruther mentions in the preface to his edition of the ‘Letters’ two other lost books of one Herbert mentioned in a catalogue of