as his own share, while the rest was left to the monks under a prior appointed by agreement of both parties.[1]
It is of interest to note that the dean and chapter of Wells were on Savary's side in the struggle. The ever-growing predominance of the great monasteries was a danger to parochial and diocesan life. Doubtless the canons of Wells had suffered from the overshadowing might of their proud neighbours, and thought with many good men of the day that the abbey ought not to be independent of the bishop. We catch one glimpse of Jocelin the canon on 28 January 1200, as he goes with the precentor, the subdean, and another canon (John de Bohun, doubtless a relation of the bishop) to enforce Bishop Savary's orders, and returns in the evening with five of the recalcitrant monks to be held as temporary prisoners at Wells. He little knew then that he was to inherit the episcopal quarrel.
Bishop Savary was so little at home that we have but few records of his episcopate, and therefore from the scarcity of documents Jocelin's history at this period is almost a blank. But we find him attesting as canon a grant of Bishop Savary appropriating the church of Hardington to the abbey of Keynsham.[2] Hugh of Wells attests this charter by his official: from which we gather that he already held the post of archdeacon. Hugh appears at an earlier date than this to have entered Savary's service; for on one occasion the bishop styles him his clerk. Jocelin, on the other hand, entered the service of Robert, the prior of Bath, who gave him an annual pension till he could find him a benefice. Soon afterwards he presented him to the church of Dogmersfield in Hampshire, an episcopal manor of Wells. The grants which record this are attested by Hugh as archdeacon of Wells, and they probably belong to the year 1204.[3]
By this date both Hugh and Jocelin had entered the royal service. They were probably introduced to it by Simon the archdeacon of Wells, who was a kind of vice-chancellor to the king, despatching his letters and charters in the necessary absence of the chancellor, Archbishop Hubert Walter. Before Simon became bishop of Chichester, Hugh was with him accompanying the king on his foreign journeys.
Of this Simon something must be said by way of digression, in order to explain the sort of service which in time brought both Jocelin and his brother to the episcopate. If Simon was not a model archdeacon, he was at any rate a typical one. Modern writers following Matthew of Paris have agreed to call him Simon of Wells:
