Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cantelupe, Walter de
CANTELUPE, WALTER de (d. 1266), bishop of Worcester, was the second son of William, the first baron Cantelupe [q. v.] While still a young man, and only in minor orders, he held several benefices (Foss, Judges, p. 155). He was at the Roman court in 1229, and was sent by Pope Gregory IX to carry the pall to Archbishop Richard (Dunstable Annals, p. 116). In 1231 he acted as one of the seven justices itinerant for several counties. He was elected bishop of Worcester on 30 Aug. 1236, and was at once accepted by the king. As bishop elect we find his name among those who signed the confirmation of Magna Charta in January 1237. He left England immediately afterwards and was consecrated at Viterbo on 3 May 1237 by Pope Gregory IX, who had previously ordained him deacon and priest. The following October he was enthroned in his cathedral, in the presence of the king and queen, the queen of Scotland, the archbishop, and the legate Otho. He began at once a very vigorous administration of his diocese, visiting the chief religious houses, such as Gloucester, Malvern, Tewkesbury, &c., dedicating churches, holding synods, ordaining clergy, settling lawsuits, obtaining grants of fairs and markets from the king. How minute his care over the whole diocese was may be seen by the constitutions issued in 1240, where besides giving strict injunctions to the clergy as to their visiting the sick, avoiding anything like usury in selling their corn, &c., he especially bids them to warn mothers and nurses from overlaying their children at night.
In 1237, at the council of St. Paul's, under the legate Otho, he took the lead in opposing the legate's attempt to enforce the statute of the Lateran council against pluralities, pointing out how the hospitality practised and the alms bestowed by many of high rank and advanced years would be impossible if they were deprived of their benefices. In 1239 he was appointed one of the three arbitrators in the dispute between Bishop Grosseteste and his chapter. In 1241 he left England with the legate, but proceeded only as far as Burgundy, whence he returned with Richard of Cornwall. In 1244, in company with Bishop Grosseteste and the Bishop of Hereford, he made a strong protest against the king's treatment of William de Raleigh, who had been elected bishop of Winchester against his (the king's) wishes. Henry III, who would always give way to a certain amount of determined opposition, tried to avoid them, and ran off from Reading to Westminster. They followed him thither, and threatened to put his chapel under an interdict. They, however, granted his request for delay in the matter, and the Bishop of Winchester was forced to call in the aid of the pope; then the king gave way and was reconciled to the bishop, as the three protesting bishops were given the power of placing the country under an interdict.
This same year he was one of those appointed by the clergy to consider the king's demands; soon afterwards he proceeded to Lyons on secret affairs in company with the archbishop (Boniface) and the Bishop of Hereford. Paris speaks of these three as being the chief friends of the pope among the English bishops, and that therefore they were ‘Anglis suspectiores,’ a remark which the historian struck out on revising his history.
In 1247 Cantelupe took the cross in company with William de Longespée; but he does not seem to have carried out his vow, as we find him at the parliament in London in 1248. In 1250 he was at Lyons in order to defend the rights of his see against William Beauchamp (Tewkesbury Annals, 139; Worcester Annals, 439); the same year he again took the cross, but he returned to Worcester in 1251, and the quarrel with Beauchamp was made up, the latter receiving absolution. His peace was also at the same time made with the king, who had taken up Beauchamp's cause. Just before this he had, in conjunction with the bishop of London, Fulk Basset, successfully opposed the grant proposed by the pope for the king (Tewkesbury Annals, 140). He was one of the bishops who met at Dunstable this year to resist Archbishop Boniface's demand of the right of visitation, and in 1252 he stood by Grosseteste in resisting the papal demand of a tenth for the king. In 1253 he joined the other bishops in excommunicating the infractors of Magna Charta, and we find him at Grosseteste's funeral at Lincoln. He then went into Gascony in company with the king and queen, and was sent with John Mansel to Alfonso X of Castile to make the final arrangements for the marriage of Alfonso's sister Alienora with the young Edward, as the former ambassadors sent for this purpose had failed (Dunstable Annals, 188). They were now brought to a successful issue. Though now without the support of Grosseteste, he kept up his stand against encroachments on the church from all quarters; and at the meeting of the prelates in London summoned by Rustand in 1255 for the usual demand of an aid for the pope and the king, his words were that he would rather submit to be hanged than that the church should suffer this (Matt. Paris. v. 525). In 1257 he was one of the ambassadors to St. Louis on the fruitless mission to demand the restoration of the English rights in France, and in 1258 one of the English ambassadors at the parliament of Cambray (ib. v. 720). In 1257 with the Bishop of London he was sworn king's counsellor (Burton Annals, 395), and at the parliament of Oxford was elected one of the twenty-four who were to be practically the governors of the kingdom, he being one of the twelve elected on the barons' side. In this capacity he was one of those before whom the acts of the council were confirmed, and one also of those sent to Richard of Cornwall (then king of the Romans) on his return to England to secure his submission to the provisions of Oxford before being allowed to enter the country. He met Richard at St. Omer, and forced him to swear to them. In 1259 he was one of the council appointed to act when the king was out of England. His name appears among those who submitted the question between the king and the baronage to the arbitration of St. Louis; and when the civil war broke out he took his side distinctly with Simon de Montfort and the barons.
We find him present at Gloucester in 1263 at the interview with Edward, when the latter had fallen into the hands of the barons, and in order to escape made the offer to obtain peace and the king's consent to their demands. In 1264 it was chiefly through his means that Edward was allowed to escape from Bristol; but on Edward's entering Windsor Castle, the bishop advised Simon de Montfort to detain him prisoner, when he met him on his way to besiege the castle (Rishanger, p. 19).
Before the battle of Lewes he was sent with the bishop of London by the barons to mediate; he bore to the king the offer of a large grant of money, provided the statutes of Oxford were observed. When this was refused and the battle inevitable, he gave absolution to the army of the barons and exhorted all to fight manfully for the cause of justice.
After the battle he was one of the four bishops summoned to Boulogne by the legate and ordered to excommunicate Simon de Montfort. But their papers were seized and thrown into the sea by the people of the Cinque Ports, probably in accordance with their own wishes. At least this is implied by the words of Wykes, who relates this episode. After the quarrel between Simon de Montfort and Gilbert de Clare, he was one of the arbitrators appointed to bring them together (Waverley Annals, 361), and his seal was one of those affixed to the terms offered to Edward. He was, however, true to Simon de Montfort to the end; Simon slept at his manor of Kempsey the night before the battle of Evesham, and the bishop said mass for him in the morning. After this he was suspended by Ottoboni and summoned to Rome. He therefore was not at the parliament in 1265. This may, however, have been in consequence of illness, as he died at his manor of Blockley on 12 Feb. 1266. He was buried in his cathedral, where his effigy may still be seen.
Some letters to him from Grosseteste, showing their intimacy and reliance on each other, will be found in the collection of Grosseteste's letters. There are some to him from Pope Innocent IV in the ‘Additamenta’ of Matthew Paris. Of his own composition there is nothing extant excepting the constitutions for his diocese in 1240. He founded the nunnery of Whiston or Wytestane, in the north part of Worcester, and began the fortifications of the manor house of Hartlebury.
With the exception of Bishop Grosseteste he must rank decidedly as the greatest bishop of his time; as an administrator of his diocese, a statesman, a vindicator of the rights of the country against tyranny of whatever kind, no one else can be compared to him. The proof of the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries is well seen by the words of the royalist chronicler Thomas Wykes, who says he would have merited canonisation had it not been for his adherence to Simon de Montfort.
[Annales Monastici, see especially the index as to the details of his work in the diocese of Worcester; Matthew Paris, Rishanger, the Chronicle and the separate treatise on the battles of Lewes and Evesham, printed in the Rolls Series by Riley as an appendix to the Ypodigma Neustriæ, Epistolæ R. Grosseteste (Rolls Series). The Constitutions for the diocese of Worcester are printed in Wilkins's Concilia, i. 665.]