The very first, as it happens, concerns Bishop Jocelin's diocese. It is less explicit than some of the others, and conveys no distinct threat. But a shudder must have run through the county at the name of Gerard d'Athée, a heartless foreigner who was in charge of Gloucester Castle and whose reputation was of the very worst.
The king to all clergy and laity of the diocese of Bath. We command that as from the Monday next before Palm Sunday ye look to Gerard d'Athée as our bailiff for the diocese of Bath; and meanwhile give credence to him in what he shall say to you on our behalf concerning our affairs. Witness myself at Marlborough, the seventeenth day of March.
A like letter to Exeter follows. Then a letter to Durham, more expressly worded: Robert de Vieux Pont will inform them 'of the negociations at Winchester in the matter of the church of Canterbury, and in what manner we broke off, and of the wrong inflicted on us by our lord the pope, and we will that as concerns the clergy and their goods and possessions he should do as we have given him orders'. Similar letters were written to the counties of Oxford and Berks. Then comes a letter to Lincoln, which was now without a bishop: it commits into the hands of William de Cornhill, archdeacon of Huntingdon, and Gerard de Camville 'all lands and goods of abbots and priors and all religious, and also of all clergy of the Lincoln diocese, who from this time forth shall refuse to perform divine offices'. A like letter follows to Ely; and doubtless there were more which were not enrolled.
On 23 March the king writes to the bishop of London to hand over to the justiciar, Geoffrey fitz Peter, the letters patent which he had issued to the three bishops regarding his readiness to obey the pope. On that day, Passion Sunday, or on the next, the three bishops published the interdict, and fled across the sea, together with the bishop of Hereford and perhaps another.
By the terms of the interdict all churches were closed; and, though the sacraments of baptism and marriage were administered under restrictions, the dead were buried, so Roger de Wendover says, in ditches like dogs. There were special provisions by which monasteries at such times were permitted to conduct their services secretly, in a low voice, and without ringing of bells: but all these the pope now cancelled, allowing no exceptions. The Cistercians indeed, obeying the injunction of the head of their order abroad, refused to abandon their services, even opened their doors and shouted their chants.[1] But they had to give way; and, when a year
- ↑ The abbot of Citeaux took the technical ground that no authentic copy of the pope's bull had been sent to the monasteries. The Cistercians got small thanks from the king, who told them he valued their money more than their prayers (Gervase, II, cix and 105).
