Hubert Walter

Hubert Walter (died July 13, 1205) was chief justiciar of England and archbishop of Canterbury in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century.

Early life

He was the son of Hervey Walter^[1] and his wife Maud de Valoignes, who was one of the daughters of Theobald de Valoignes. Bertha, Maud's sister, married Ranulf de Glanvill, the great justiciar of Henry II. Hubert, and his older brother Theobald, were thus nephews of Ranulf de Glanvill. Hubert rose under the eye of his kinsman to an important position in the Curia Regis. Theobald was the ancestor of the Butler family of Ireland.^[2]

Early assignments

In 1184 and in 1185 he appears as a baron of the exchequer. He was employed, sometimes as a negotiator, sometimes as a justice, sometimes as a royal secretary. He was appointed Dean of York by order of King Henry II about July 1186. He was also an unsuccessful candidate to become Archbishop of York in September of 1186.^[1] In 1188 he founded a Premonstratensian house of canons regular at West Dereham, Norfolk on family property.^[3]

Richard I appointed him bishop of Salisbury, being elected on September 15, 1189 and consecrated on October 22, 1189.^[4] By Richard's command he went with the Third Crusade.^[5] He gained the respect of all the crusaders, and acted as Richard’s principal agent in all negotiations with Saladin, being given a place in the first band of pilgrims that entered Jerusalem.

He led the English army back to England after Richard's departure from Palestine; but in Sicily he heard of the king's captivity, and hurried to join him in Germany. In April of 1193 he returned to England to raise the king's ransom. Soon afterwards he was elected archbishop of Canterbury, having been postulated to the see on May 29, 1193.^[6] He was chosen as archbishop by the king and the cathedral chapter meeting without the bishops, who normally claimed the right to help decide the new archbishop.^[7] As well, he was made justiciar on December 25, 1193.^[8]

Justiciar

He was very successful in the government of the kingdom, and after Richard's last visit he was practically the ruler of England. He had no light task to keep pace with the king's constant demand for money. He was compelled to work the administrative machinery to its utmost, and indeed, to invent new methods of extortion. To pay for Richard's ransom, he had already been compelled to tax personal property, the first instance of such taxation for secular purposes. The main feature of all his measures was the novel and extended use of representation and election for all the purposes of government.

One of his first acts was on February 1194, when he presided over a feudal judgement of Prince John, who purportedly had sent letters to his retainers to prepare John's castles for defense after the release of Richard from captivity, but the letters were intercepted and John was disseised of his lands.^[9]Hubert was required to lay siege to Marlborough Castle himself, in order to defeat John's rebellion.^[10] When John showed no signs of submitting, Hubert called a ecclesiastical council at Westminster for the purposes of excommunicating John unless John submitted.^[11]

His chief measures are contained in his instruction to the itinerant justices of 1194 and 1198, in his ordinance of 1195 for the conservation of the peace, and in his scheme of 1198 for the assessment of the carucage. The justices of 1194 were to order the election of four coroners by the suitors of each county court. These new officers were to "keep," i.e. to register, the pleas of the crown, an important duty hitherto left to the sheriff. The juries, both for answering the questions asked by the judges and for trying cases under the grand assize, were to be chosen by a committee of four knights, also elected by the suitors of each county court for that purpose.^[12]

In 1195 Hubert issued an ordinance by which four knights were to be appointed in every hundred to act as guardians of the peace, and from this humble beginning eventually was evolved the office of justice of the peace. His reliance upon the knights, or middle-class landowners, who now for the first time appear in the political foreground, is all the more interesting because it is this class who, either as members of parliament or justices of the peace, were to have the effective rule of England in their hands for so many centuries. In 1198, to satisfy the king's demand for money, Hubert demanded a carucage or plough-tax of five shillings on every plough-land (carucate) under cultivation. This was the old tax, the Danegeld, in a new and heavier form and there was great difficulty in levying it. To make it easier, the justiciar ordered the assessment to be made by a sworn jury in every hundred, and one may reasonably conjecture that these jurors were also elected.^[12]

Besides these important constitutional changes Hubert negotiated a peace with Scotland in 1195, and in 1197 another with the Welsh. But Richard had grown dissatisfied with him, for the carucage had not been a success, and Hubert had failed to overcome the resistance of the Great Council when its members refused to equip a force of knights to serve abroad.

In 1196 a popular uprising in London led by William Fitz Osbern was quickly suppressed by Hubert.^[13]

Hubert also is probably the originator of the custom of keeping an archival copy of all charters, letters, patents and feet of fines in the chancery.^[14]

Archbishop of Canterbury and Justiciar

Hubert held a legateship from the pope from 1195 to 1198, which enabled him to act with the pope's delegated authority within the English Church.^[15] Hubert was the butt of jokes about his lack of learning, and was the target of a series of tales from the pen of Gerald of Wales, who was the archbishops's enemy. Even Hubert's supporters could only state that he was "moderately literate."^[16]

He revived the scheme of his predecessor Baldwin of Exeter to found a church in Canterbury that would be secular and not monastic. He offered to promise that the new foundation's canons would not be allowed to vote in archepiscopal elections nor would it be allowed for the body of Saint Thomas Becket to ever be moved to the new church, but the monks of his cathedral chapter were suspicious and appealed to the papacy. The whole dispute flared up again, with the papacy siding with the monks and the king siding with his archbishop, and the monks ending up locked up in their buildings once more. In the end, Pope Innocent III ruled for the monks and ordered Hubert to destroy what had been built.^[17]

Hubert was active in investigating ecclesiastical abuses, and deposed a number of abbots, including Robert of Thorney Abbey in 1195 and an abbot of St Mary's in the province of the Archbishop of York.^[18] He also took steps at the monastic cathedral of Worcester between the death of Henry de Sully and the election of John of Coutances to discipline the monks.^[19]

In 1198 Hubert, gave the monks of Canterbury who he was quarreling with another opportunity of complaining to the Innocent III, for in arresting the London demagogue William Fitz Osbern, he had committed an act of sacrilege in Bow Church, which belonged to the monks. The pope asked Richard to free Hubert from all secular duties, and he did so, thus making the demand an excuse for dismissing Hubert from the justiciarship, which Hubert resigned on July 11, 1198.^[8]

Under John

The Life of William Marshal says that when word reached William Marshall that Richard was dead, Marshall consulted with Hubert and they discussed who to support as the next king. Marshall's choice was John, but Hubert initially leaned towards Arthur of Brittany. When Marshall was insistent on John, the author of the Life has Hubert say in reply " 'So be it then," said the archbishop, "but mark my words, Marshal, you will never regreat anything in your life as much as this.' "^[20] John then sent Hubert ahead to England to get all free men to pledge fealty to John.^[21] On May 27 1199 Hubert crowned King John, making a speech in which the old theory of election by the people was enunciated for the last time. It is worth noting that this story is only contained in Matthew of Paris, and while it seems certain that Walter made a speech, it is not certain what the exact contents were.^[22] The same day that John was crowned, John appointed Hubert Lord Chancellor. W. L. Warren says of Hubert that "No one living had a firmer grasp of the intriccies of royal government, yet even in old age his mind was adaptable and fecund with suggestions for coping with new problems."^[23]

One of his first suggestions to his monarch was to lower the fees for having charters confirmed from nine pounds and five shillings to a fee of eighteen shillings and four pence. Accompanying this measure, was a requirement that no charter would be accepted in a king's court without having been confirmed by King John. Not only did this cut down on forgeries, it also led to the establishment of a Charter Roll, an administrative copy of all charters issued and confirmed by the government.^[23]

In 1201 he went on a diplomatic mission to Philip Augustus of France, and in 1202 he returned to England to keep the kingdom in peace while John was losing his continental possessions. In April of 1204 he returned to France with John de Gray the Bishop of Norwich, Eustace the Bishop of Ely, William Marshal, and Robert de Beaumont the Earl of Leicester along with the papal legate to seek peace with Philip Augustus, but Philip insisted on John handing over Arthur of Brittany and Arthur's sister Eleanor, plus renounce all his continental possessions before he would make peace. The embassy returned to England not long before Philip conquerered Normandy.^[24]

He died on July 13, 1205, after a long illness that permitted a tender parting with his monks.^[25] He was buried in the Trinity Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral, next to St. Thomas a Becket, where his tomb can still be seen.^[26]

W. L. Warren puts forth the theory that either Hubert Walter or Geoffrey Fitz Peter, instead of Ranulf Glanvill, was the author of Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Angliae.^[27]

See also

• List of Lord Chancellors and Lord Keepers
• List of Archbishops of Canterbury
• List of bishops of Salisbury

Notes

References

• Bartlett, Robert England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings: 1075-1225 Oxford:Clarendon Press 2000 ISBN 0-19-822741-8
• British History Online Deans of York accessed on September 10, 2007
• Cokayne, George Edward The Complete Peerage: Volume Two Bass to Canning Vicary Gibbs & H. A. Doubleday eds. Microprint reprint edition Stroud:Sutton Publishing 2000 ISBN 0-904387-82-8
• Jones, J. A. P. King John and Magna Carta London:Longman 1971 ISBN 0-582-31463-1
• Knowles, Dom David The Monastic Order in England: From the Times of St. Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council Second Edition Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1976 reprint ISBN 0-521-05479-6
• Norgate, Kate, England under the Angevin Kings, vol. ii. (1887)
• Petit-Dutaillis, Charles The Feudal Monarcy in France and England: From the Tenth to the Thirteenth Century trans. E. D. Hunt New York:Harper Torchbooks 1964
• Powell, J. Enoch and Keith Wallis The House of Lords in the Middle Ages: A History of the English House of Lords to 1540 London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1968
• Powicke, F. Maurice and E. B. Fryde Handbook of British Chronology 2nd. ed. London:Royal Historical Society 1961
• Stubbs, William, Constitutional History, vol. i. (1897)
• Stubbs, preface to vol. iv. of Roger of Hoveden's Chronicle (Rolls Series, 1868—1871).
• Warren, W. L. King John Berkeley:University of California Press 1978 ISBN 0-520-03643-3

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Donate to Wikimedia