Page:Somerset Historical Essays.djvu/101

 has been stated again and again that the king selected for this post of responsibility a monk of the abbey in which the election took place. The late Professor Stokes speaks of John Cumin as ' a monk of that abbey '; and even so careful a historian as Mr. G. H. Orpen calls him a ' monk of the abbey of Evesham in Worcestershire '. Moreover, in that standard work of reference, Gams' Series Episcoporum, the letters O.S.B. are attached to his name, and we are pointed in a note to D'Alton's Memoirs of the Archbishops of Dublin, which was published in 1838, and which describes him as 'a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Evesham'. It is possible that with D'Alton the mistake may have begun, for we do not find it in the Antiquities of Ireland of Sir James Ware, who died in 1666. In view of this and other misconceptions regarding so important a figure in Irish history, it is worth while to review John Cumin's early career and to bring together some scattered facts which have not hitherto received attention.

The first occasion of interest on which we meet with John Cumin's name is the famous assembly at Woodstock in the early days of July 1163, when Becket crossed the king's will in the matter of the sheriff's aid. Among other items of business then transacted we find from the chartulary of Bruton Priory that Thomas the archbishop in the presence of the king and his court confirmed to the prior and canons the church of Ban well, lately given them by Bishop Robert of Bath. The king's confirmation which follows is attested by the archbishop, Richard archdeacon of Poitiers, John Cumin, and others. The position in which his attestation occurs indicates that John Cumin was already at this time a prominent official in the royal chancery.

The next mention of his name is an incidental reference in a letter written towards the end of the same year, when the real conflict between Henry and his archbishop had broken out at the council of Westminster. In order to understand it we must briefly recall the events which had brought the papacy into a position of unusual weakness and distress. On 7 September 1159 Alexander the Third had been elected pope; but a minority of the cardinals had chosen Octavian, who claimed the papal throne under the title of Victor. The antipope was supported by the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, and Alexander the Third was soon obliged to quit Rome. France and England agreed to recognise Alexander, who aftei some wanderings settled his court at Sens, some seventy miles south-east of Paris; here he stayed from 30 September 1163 till 4 April 1165. It was on the day after the pope's arrival at Sens that the council assembled at Westminster which brought Henry and Becket into open collision on the subject of the trial of criminous clerks. A few weeks later the letter