Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/191

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exactly like the violent inroad of Robert of Limesey on the church of Coventry, was at least like the first designs of Hermann on the church of Malmesbury, which had been thwarted by the interposition of Earl Harold. The change was made in a perfectly orderly manner, but by the secular power only. The abbey of Bath was now vacant by the death of its abbot Ælfsige. Bishop John procured that the vacant post should be granted to himself and his successors for the increase of the bishopric of Somerset. This was done by a royal grant made at Winchester soon after the suppression of the rebellion, and confirmed somewhat later in a meeting of the Witan at Dover. John then transferred his bishopsettle from its older seat at Wells to the church which had now become his. He next procured a grant of the temporal lordship of the "old borough," which was perhaps of less value after its late burning by Robert of Mowbray. Thus, in the language of the time, Andrew had to yield to Simon, the younger brother to the elder. That is, the church of Saint Peter at Bath, with its Benedictine monks, displaced the church of Saint Andrew at Wells, with its secular canons freshly instructed in the rule of Chrodegang, as the head church of the bishopric of Somerset. The line of the independent abbots of Bath came to an end; their office was merged in the bishopric, by the new style of Bishop of Bath. Thus the old Roman city in a corner of the land of the Sumorsætan, which has never claimed the temporal headship of that land, became for a while the seat of its chief pastor.