Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pateshull, Hugh de
PATESHULL, HUGH de (d. 1241), bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, son, and apparently heir, of Simon de Pateshull (d. 1217?) [q. v.], judge, was a clerk of the exchequer, and received the seal of the court, holding the office called somewhat later the chancellorship of the exchequer. He appears to have belonged to the baronial party in the reign of John, and, his father being then dead, received restitution of his lands in 2 Hen. III. He received several benefices, holding in Northamptonshire the churches of Church Stowe, Ettingdon, and Cottingham (Bridges), and was a prebendary of St. Paul's, London. On 1 June 1234 he was, against his will, made treasurer of the kingdom in place of Peter de Rievaulx [q. v.], receiving a grant of a hundred marks as stipend. He bore a high character for honourable dealing, and discharged the duties of his office faithfully. The see of Lichfield having fallen vacant in 1238, and a double election having been made by the canons of Lichfield, who chose William of Manchester, and the monks of Coventry, who chose Nicholas of Farnham [q. v.], and both the elect having declined the see, the king ordered a new election, and Hugh was chosen unanimously about Christmas 1239. He took a moving farewell of the barons of the exchequer, telling them that he left the exchequer because God had called him to the cure of souls; they all wept, and he kissed each of them (Paris, Chronica Majora, iv. 2). He was consecrated at Newark, near Guildford, on 1 July 1240. He opposed the monks of Coventry, who formed one of his two chapters, probably with reference to the episcopal right of visitation (comp. ib. p. 171 with Annales Monastici, iii. 143, 152). In 1241 he went a pilgrimage to the shrines of St. Edmund and other saints, and on its termination attended a council of bishops held at Oxford. On his return thence he died at Potterspury, Northamptonshire, on 8 Dec., and was buried before the altar of St. Stephen in his cathedral at Lichfield, in which he had founded the prebend of Colwich, endowing it with the impropriation and advowson of Colwich in Staffordshire.
[Foss's Judges, ii. 437; Matt. Paris's Chron. Maj. iii. 296, 542, iv. 2, 31, 171, 175 (Rolls Ser.); Ann. de Dunstap. ap. Ann. Monast. iii. 149, 152, 157; Rot. Litt. Claus. i. 340 (Record Publ.); Madox's Hist. of Excheq. ii. 35, 255; Bridges's Northamptonshire, i. 90, 566, ii. 299; Le Neve's Fasti, i. 547, 591, ii. 414, ed. Hardy.]