Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/267

 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY getting the best of the fray, and driving their assailants out of the precincts. We do not hear a word about the assault being renewed. It was a disgraceful business and bad enough in all conscience. It needed no exaggeration by contemporary and later writers, but that the flames reached the cathedral, or that the mob ever got possession of the main build- ings of the monastery and gutted them, there is everything to disprove, when all the documentary evidence is carefully and judicially examined.^ Through all this dreadful business Bishop Roger showed himself to be deplorably unfitted for his sacred office. His attitude towards the citizens was that of a bitter and relentless supporter of the monks and their conten- tion. He placed the city under an interdict, and induced the pope to ex- communicate all who had taken part in the assault upon the priory. In vain did the Dominicans endeavour to arbitrate. Only for a little while, at the intercession of Henry III, was the interdict relaxed, and only under an appeal to Rome was the excommunication withdrawn, and absolution pronounced upon the delinquents by the priors of the mendicant orders, and that not until four years after the outbreak, when heavy fines had been imposed in compensation for the damage done. The bishop showed himself absolutely implacable and so he seems to have remained to the end. He died 22 January, 1278, and was buried in the Lady Chapel of the cathedral. History has nothing to tell of his episcopate that deserves to be remembered. More than a hundred years passed before the Norwich monks were again permitted to elect their prior to the bishopric of Norwich. Roger de Scarning was succeeded by William de Middleton, who had held the archdeaconry of Canterbury for two years when he was elected to the see of Norwich 24 February, 1278. The royal assent to his election was signified to the archbishop of Canterbury on 6 March,' and he was consecrated at Lambeth on 29 May by his friend. Archbishop Kilwardby. His enthrone- ment at Norwich on Advent Sunday, 27 November, 1278, was an occasion of great splendour. At this time, when bishoprics were the reward of successful diplomacy or skilful statesmanship, the bishops of Norwich were almost invariably men whose services were in constant requisition by the king. As archdeacon of Canterbury, William de Middleton had been employed on an important mission to the court of France,^ and as bishop he must have spent much time out of his diocese, but the visitation with which he inaugurated his tenure of the see, in i 279, was one of great thoroughness. Bartholomew Cotton * tells us ' he visited all his diocese, parish churches as well as religious houses, and ordered rigid correction to be executed of the delinquencies of all laymen as well as clerics.' It was followed, in the latter part of 1280, by Archbishop Peckham's visitation ' of the monasteries in the diocese, which must have been performed with equal thoroughness' ; the fact that his reforming zeal found no worse ' The whole subject has been elaborately treated by Mr. Rye in the second volume of the t^orf. Antij. Misc. 17-90. With the main conclusion arrived at by Mr. Rye I agree, though the last word has not been said on the questions that may be discussed regarding the incident. ' Pat. 6 Edw. I, m. 20. ' Pat. 5 Edw. I, m. 6. ' The Reg. of Archbp. Peckham's Letters (Rolls Ser.) shows that he was at Wymondham, 1 7 Nov. ; at Thorpe on the 25th ; at St. Benet's, Hulm, 6 Dec. ; at Giraingham, 13 Dec. ; at Coxlbrd, 4 Jan. ; at Creyke 5 Jan. ; at Docking, 8 Jan. ; at Castle Acre Priory, 15 Jan. ; at Gaywood, 20 Jan ; and lastly at Dereham. 2 233 30
 * Barth. de Cotton, De Rege Edwardo I (Rolls Ser.), 161. ' John de Oxenedes, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), 257.