Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hatfield, Thomas of
HATFIELD, THOMAS of (d. 1381), bishop of Durham, is stated by Poulson (Hist. of Holderness, i. 442, Hull, 1840) to have been the second son of Walter of Hatfield in Holderness. He seems to have entered the king's service at an early age, and was keeper of the privy seal in 1343 (Godwin, De Præsulibus, ii. 330). Poulson adds (p. 443), but without giving his authority, that he was tutor to the Prince of Wales. Before this he had been presented to the prebend of Liddington in the church of Lincoln, 1342 (Le Neve, Fasti Eccl. Anglic. ed. Hardy, ii. 178), and on 17 Dec. 1343 he was collated to that of Fridaythorpe in the church of York (ib. iii. 186). A year later he was given another Lincoln prebend, that of Buckden (ib. ii. 119). The Thomas de Hatfield who was prebendary of Oxgate in St. Paul's Cathedral (ib. ii. 420) belongs apparently to an earlier generation. On 14 April 1345 Richard of Bury, bishop of Durham, died, and Edward III desired to raise Hatfield to the see. According to the story handed down at St. Albans (Chron. Angl. ed. E. M. Thompson, 1874, p. 20; Walsingham, Ypodigma Neustriæ, ed. H. T. Riley, 1876, p. 284), the king caused great scandal by writing to the pope in favour of his secretary, and when some of the cardinals objected ‘dictum Thomam fore levem et laicum,’ Clement VI replied, ‘Vere, si rex pro asino supplicasset, obtinuisset ad vota ista vice.’ Murimuth (p. 171) implies that the monks of Durham had the new bishop forced upon them, but no mention is anywhere made of their proposing another candidate. Hatfield was elected on 8 May (Chambre, p. 133, where the year is accidentally given as 1346; Le Neve, iii. 290). The order for the restoration of the temporalities was given on the 24th (Rymer, Fœdera, Record ed., iii. pt. i. 40), and they were restored to him on 2 June (Registr. Palat. Dunelm. ed. Sir T. Duffus Hardy, iv. 364, 1878), his appointment having been confirmed a day earlier (Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Anglic. p. 54). He was consecrated on 10 July (not 7 Aug., as Murimuth says, p. 172), and enthroned on Christmas day (Chambre, p. 137).
Hatfield's relations with the court caused him to be often absent from his diocese. On 17 July 1345, before his consecration, the king when going to Flanders appointed him one of the councillors of his son Lionel, who was left as regent (Rymer, iii. pt. i. 50). In the autumn of the same year, when the pope wrote to Edward urging him against making war with France, he directed Hatfield at the same time to use his advocacy with the king (Murimuth, p. 176). Doubtless he counted upon the support of so recently favoured a nominee. But the pope's statement of the case was too plainly dictated in the French interest, and his arguments were of no avail (ib. pp. 177–88). Hatfield accompanied Edward to France, 11 July 1346 (ib. p. 199; G. Le Baker, p. 79), and after the battle of Crécy he performed the funeral service for the king of Bohemia, 27 Aug. (ib. p. 85). He then attended Edward on his march to Calais, where he was on 8 Sept. (Rymer, iii. pt. i. 90), and probably remained for some time longer. In July the prior of Durham sent him intelligence of the threatened Scottish invasion, and in October informed him of the battle between Durham and Bearpark (since known as that of Nevill's Cross) on 17 Oct. (Letters from Northern Registers, ccxli. ccxlii. pp. 385–9, where the letters are printed). On 10 Dec. the bishop was summoned with other northern lords to attend a council to take measures touching the war with Scotland (Rymer, iii. pt. i. 97), and between 1350 and 1357 he was placed at least six times upon commissions to treat for peace with that country and for the ransom of David Bruce. In 1355 Avesbury (p. 427) credits him with being instrumental in making a truce, but this notice probably refers to the negotiations concerning David's ransom in 1354 (Rymer, iii. pt. i. 285–91, 293).
Meanwhile Hatfield was frequently in the south of England, in attendance at parliament or at the court. On 18 March 1353–4 the admiral in the northern parts was ordered to provide three ships to carry the bishop's ‘victuals’ on his coming to parliament (ib. p. 275). On 22 Feb. 1354–5 he ‘received from the holy font’ the king's son Thomas at Woodstock (Avesbury, p. 422), and in the following autumn he accompanied Edward into France, himself attended by a hundred men-at-arms and other forces (ib. p. 427). The surprise of Berwick in November called the king to the border, and on his return early in 1356, after his raid into Scotland, he left Hatfield with the lords Percy and Nevill in charge of the defence of the north-east frontier (ib. p. 456). The bishop took part in the proceedings of 16 Aug. 1356 (Rymer, iii. pt. i. 365–8), which led to the final release of the Scots king, 3–5 Oct. (ib. pp. 372–8). Three years later, 20 Aug. 1360, and again 25 June 1362, Hatfield was empowered with others to treat for a perpetual peace with Scotland (ib. pp. 506 f., pt. ii. 659). After David's death early in 1371 there was again a risk of disturbance from the side of Scotland, and on 26 Feb. 1372–3 Hatfield was commanded to stay at the border and to take military precautions (ib. pt. ii. 936). The same order is repeated 20 July 1377 (ib. iv. 11).
Not long after the accession of Richard II Hatfield's health showed signs of failing. In a letter of 15 Dec. 1379 or 1380 he entreated the monks of Durham to pray for his recovery (Hist. Dunelm. Script. tres, App. cxxviii. pp. cxlv f.), and as he grew weaker he became the more instant in almsgiving. He died at his manorhouse of Aldforde, near London (probably Old Ford, then in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex), on 8 May 1381, after a pontificate of just six-and-thirty years (Chambre, pp. 138 f. and App. cxxxii. p. cxlviii). His remains were brought to Durham, and were buried in the tomb which he had prepared beneath his own throne in the cathedral. But the funeral did not take place without an unpleasant dispute between the prior and the bishop's executors as to the former's perquisites (ib. pp. 141 f. and App. cxxxii, cxxxiii).
Hatfield is described by Chambre as a magnificent man and venerable to look upon, given to hospitality and large in his charities. To the monks of Durham he showed himself kindly and generous, and he was as strenuous a protector of the liberties and the possessions of the monastery (cf. Hist. Dunelm. Script. tres, App. cxv. p. cxxxv) as he was of the privileges of his see (Chambre, p. 137). The relations between the dioceses of Durham and York were frequently troubled in consequence of the assertion by the Archbishop of York of prerogatives which his suffragan was indisposed to allow in practice; and during Hatfield's pontificate the bishop himself was credited with active hostility against his superior. When on 13 Feb. 1348–9 two of his clerks committed a disgraceful outrage in York minster, Archbishop Zouch stated that it was believed (if the reading of the text is right) to be with the bishop's consent and connivance (Letters from Northern Registers, pp. 397–9); and in 1357–8 Hatfield had to obtain a formal acquittance (March 10) from the king of any complicity in an attack which it was asserted he had made in person with a body of armed men upon Thomas Salkeld, bishop of Chrysopolis, who was acting as suffragan to the archbishop (see Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Anglic. 143 f.) at Kexby, in the immediate neighbourhood of York (Rymer, iii. pt. i. 389). In 1374 Alexander Nevill, archdeacon of Durham, was made archbishop, and it was Hatfield who delivered him the pall and consecrated him (Registr. Palat. Dunelm. iii. 524–7); but in spite of the local and personal connection Nevill affronted the Bishop of Durham by attempting to conduct visitations within his diocese. He was restrained by a royal order of 17 July 1376 (Hist. Dunelm. Script. tres, App. cxxvi. pp. cxliii f.), but the injunction had to be repeated on 27 Dec. 1377 (Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 124).
Hatfield's munificence has its record in his buildings at Durham, where he erected part of the south side of the choir of the cathedral, including the bishop's throne, and restored and added to the castle (Chambre, pp. 137 f.), the hall of which is mainly his work (Greenwell, pref. to Bishop Hatfield's Survey, p. vi). He also built a manorhouse and chapel in London (Chambre, p. 138), and founded a Carmelite house at Northallerton (Godwin, ii. 330). In Oxford he was a benefactor of the college which had existed for the use of monks from Durham since the last years of the thirteenth century, and whose buildings stood on the site of the present Trinity College. The scheme which Bishop Richard of Bury had drawn out for the foundation of a regularly established college was elaborated by his successor, who provided for the maintenance of eight monks and eight secular students. The foundation, however, was not completed until after Hatfield's death (see Chambre, pp. 138, 140, and H. C. Maxwell Lyte, Hist. of the Univ. of Oxford, 1886, pp. 105, 159). As other evidence of the bishop's wealth it may be noted that he lent King Edward two thousand marks in or before 1370 (Rymer, iii. pt. ii. 893, 901), and that according to his will he lent Alice Perrers one thousand marks (Testamenta Eboracensia, Surtees Society, 1836, p. 121). In this will he also made bequests, among others, to his godson, Thomas of Woodstock, and to his nephew, John Popham. But most of his gifts were made during his lifetime. There is an inventory of his goods in the first volume of ‘Wills and Inventories of the Northern Counties’ (Surtees Society, 1835), pp. 36–8; and other particulars of his bequests and endowments will be found in the Appendix cxxxii. to the ‘Hist. Dunelm. Script. tres,’ pp. cxlix ff. A survey of the possessions of the see of Durham, made by Hatfield's direction, and apparently completed about 1382, is also published. The bishop's register, which is preserved at Durham, is said by Mr. Raine to be of small general interest, consisting mainly of the ‘formal record of the working of the diocese’ (Letters from Northern Registers, Pref. p. x).
[Life by William de Chambre in Hist. Dunelm. Scriptores tres, ed. J. Raine (Surtees Soc., 1839), with appendix of documents; Historical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers, ed. J. Raine (Rolls Ser.), 1873; Bishop Hatfield's Survey, ed. W. Greenwell (Surtees Soc., 1857); Adæ Murimuth Contin. Chronicarum et Rob. de Avesbury de Gestis Mirab. Edw. III, ed. E. Maunde Thompson (Rolls Ser.), 1889; Galfridi le Baker de Swynbroke Chron. ed. E. M. Thompson, Oxford, 1889; F. Godwin, De Præsulibus, ed. Richardson, 1743; other sources cited above.]