The Early Life of Randolf Flambard.
I quoted some of the passages bearing on the early life of Randolf Flambard in N. C. vol. iv. p. 521. I mentioned there that he had a brother named Osbern, who appears in the Abingdon History. He had another brother Fulcher, of whom we shall hear again. See Ord. Vit. 788 D, and vol. ii. p. 416. He had also a son Thomas. I do not feel quite so sure as I did then, or as Dr. Stubbs seems to be (Const. Hist. i. 348), that he really did hold lands in England T. R. E. The entry which looks like it is the second of the three in Domesday, 51, which stands thus in full;
“Isdem Ranulfus tenuit in ipsa villa i. hidam, et pro tanto se defendebat T. R. E. modo est tota in foresta exceptis iiii. acris prati terra fuit iiii. carucatarum. Hæ duæ terræ valebant iiii. libras.”
It appears then that Flambard lost the arable part of this hide at the making of the New Forest, as he also lost another hide, with the same exception of four acres of meadow, which had been held T. R. E. by one Alwold. A third hide, of which it is said that “duo alodiarii tenuerunt,” he kept, as well as his holdings in Oxford and Oxfordshire. Dr. Stubbs suggests that these lands were “possibly acquired in the service of the Norman Bishop William of London.” Sir F. Palgrave (England and Normandy, iv. 52) makes the most of this despoiling of a Norman holder. But I am not clear that the words of the entry which I have given in full necessarily imply that the land was held by Flambard himself T. R. E. And, if we need not suppose this, his story becomes a great deal simpler. Above all, we need no longer suppose that a man who lived till 1128, and whose mother was living in 1100 (see vol. ii. p. 398), had made himself of importance enough to receive grants of land at some time before 1066.
The account of Flambard which is given by Orderic (678 C) would certainly not suggest that he had been in England in the time of Eadward;
“Hic de obscura satis et paupere parentela prodiit, et multum ultra natales suos ad multorum detrimentum sublimatus intumuit. Turstini cujusdum plebeii presbyteri de pago Bajocensi filius fuit, et a puerilibus annis inter pedissequos curiales cum vilibus parasitis educatus crevit, callidisque tergiversationibus et argutis verborum machinationibus plusquam arti literatoriæ studuit. Et quia semetipsum in curia magni regis Guillermi arroganter illustribus præferre ardebat, nesciente non jussus, multa inchoabat, infestus in aula regis plures procaciter accusabat, temereque majoribus quasi regia vi fultus imperabat.”
It is not easy to reconcile this with the version which makes Flambard pass into the King’s service from that of Bishop Maurice, who did not become bishop till Christmas, 1085. The story of his service with Maurice appears in the account of him which is printed in Anglia Sacra (i. 705), and also along with Simeon (249 ed. Bedford, and X Scriptt. 59). It is much more likely that the name of the bishop should be wrongly given than that his service with some bishop of London should be mere invention. If so, he may have passed into the service of the Conqueror at almost any time of his reign, while still so young that it becomes an easy exaggeration on the part of Orderic to say that he was in the King’s service from his childhood. The passage in the Life which continues Simeon stands thus;
“Fuerat autem primo cum Mauritio Lundoniensi episcopo; sed propter decaniam sibi ablatam orto discidio, spe altioris loci se transtulit ad regem.”
This must surely refer to something which really happened; and in the Register of Christchurch Twinham (Mon. Angl. vi. 303) we distinctly read of Flambard, “qui Randulphus antea fuerat decanus in ecclesia Christi de Twynham.” But this is directly followed by another extract from the same register which denies that the heads of the church of Twinham ever bore the title of dean, and which connects Flambard with Twinham in quite another way. According to this story, there were at Twinham in the time of William Rufus twenty-four canons under a chief named Godric (“Hunc Godricum sui tunc temporis clerici, non pro decano, quasi nominis ignorantes, sed pro seniore ac patrono venerabantur”). Flambard, already bishop of Durham, obtains a grant of Twinham and its church from William Rufus (“Randulfus episcopus hanc ecclesiam cum villa a rege Willielmo impetravit”). If I rightly understand a very corrupt text, Flambard enriches the church and designs to rebuild it, and then to put in monks instead of canons; meanwhile he keeps the prebends vacant as they fall in. This Godric opposes; but in the end Flambard rebuilds the church, and keeps the prebends in his own hands till there are only thirteen left. Then comes his own banishment, and the grant of the church to one Gilbert de Dousgunels, after which Flambard seems to have had nothing more to do with it.
It is odd that so many prebends should have become vacant in the single year during which Flambard held the bishopric for the first time, and one would not have expected him to have been a favourer of monks. But I can get no other meaning out of the words “cupiens et disponens … præfatam ecclesiam … funditus eruere, et meliorem decentioremque cuilibet ædificare religioni.” What comes after seems plainer still;
“Fregit episcopus illius loci primitivam ecclesiam, novemque alias quæ infra cimiterium steterant, cum quorundam domibus canonicorum prope locum ecclesiæ cimiterii, et officinarum compenciorem [?] faciendum et canonicis in villa congruum immutationem [sic] ut dominus adaptavit locum. Fundavit equidem hanc ecclesiam episcopus Randulfus quæ nunc est apud Twynham, et domos et officinas cuilibet religioni. Obeunte canonicorum aliquo, ejus beneficium in sua retinebat potestate, nulli tribuens alii, volens unamquamque dare præbendam religioni, si eos omnes mortis fortuna in suo tulisset tempore.”
Now all this can hardly have happened between Flambard’s consecration in 1099 and his imprisonment in 1100. But he may have had the grant of Twinham before he was bishop. Again, in two charters (Mon. Angl. vi. 304), granted by the elder Baldwin of Redvers, we hear of deans of Twinham and of “Ranulfus decanus,” which seems to mean Flambard himself. The lands of the canons of Twinham are entered in Domesday, 44; but there is no mention of Flambard.
We thus have the absolutely certain fact that Flambard held lands near Twinham. In two independent sources he is said to have been dean of Twinham. In another independent source he is said to have held and lost some deanery not named. In yet another story he is described, not as dean of Twinham, but as doing great things at Twinham in another character. These accounts cannot literally be reconciled; but they certainly point to a connexion of some kind between him and the church of Twinham.
We must indeed mourn the loss of the primitive church of Twinham with its nine surrounding chapels, something like Glendalough or Clonmacnois. The nave of the present church may well be Flambard’s work; but it has no special likeness to his work at Durham. But this may only prove that he built it before he went to Durham, and there learned the improvements in architecture which had been brought in by William of Saint-Calais (see N. C. vol. v. p. 631). The seculars of Twinham made way for Austin canons about 1150.
While speaking of Twinham, I must correct a statement which I made long ago with regard to one of the chief worthies of my earlier story. I said (N. C. vol. ii. p. 33) that Earl Godwine was “nowhere enrolled among the founders or benefactors of any church, religious or secular.” I find him enrolled among the benefactors of Twinham. And here again we mark that, as with his wife (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 358) and his son, his bounty goes to the seculars. The passage, in one of the charters of the elder Baldwin of Redvers granted to Hilary Dean of Twinham (Mon. Angl. vi. 304), stands thus;
“Ecclesiam de Stoppele cum omnibus quæ ad eam spectant; unam virgatam terræ cum appendiciis in eadem villa ex dono Godwini comitis, quam Orricus de Stanton eidem Christi ecclesiæ violenter surripuit.”
I cannot identify this “Orricus de Stanton” in Domesday, nor do I know anything as to the genuineness of the charter. But no one in the twelfth century or later would be likely to invent a benefaction of Earl Godwine.
Orderic, in the passage quoted above (678 C), distinctly speaks of Randolf as having been in the service of the Conqueror, and it must have been in his court that he got the surname which, in so many forms, has stuck to him, and which we find even in Domesday (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 521). The way in which he came by it is thus described—his false accusations have just been mentioned;
“Unde a Roberto dispensatore regio Flambardus cognominatus est, quod vocabulum ei secundum mores ejus et actus quasi prophetice collatum est. Flamma quippe ardens multis factis intulit genti novos ritus, quibus crudeliter oppressit populorum cœtus, et ecclesiæ cantus temporales mutavit in planctus.”
In this last piece of rhetoric we seem to lose the real reason why he was called Flambard, which is not very clear: still less do we get any explanation of the form “Passeflambard.” Lappenberg (ii. 167) says “er habe den Beinamen von der Fackel wegen seiner schon früh bewährten Habsucht erhalten.” But one has some fellow-feeling with his translator (225)—if he would only have written English to match Lappenberg’s German—“It is not easy to conceive how the sobriquet of Flambeau could be given to an individual on account of his covetousness.” Nor is it quite clear that it is covetousness strictly so called of which Orderic speaks. He says elsewhere (786 D); “Erat sollers et facundus, et, licet crudelis et iracundus, largus tamen et plerumque jocundus, et ob hoc plerisque gratus et amandus.”
In a letter to Pope Paschal (Epp. iv. 2) Anselm seems quite carried out of his usual mildness of speech by the thought of Flambard, especially by the thought of his being made a bishop. The letter must have been written just after Paschal and Flambard had received their several promotions. We get the same derivation of the name as in our other extracts; “Quando de Anglia exivi, erat ibi quidem professione sacerdos [see p. 330], non solum publicanus, sed etiam publicanorum princeps infamissimus, nomine Ranulphus, propter crudelitatem similem flammæ comburenti, promine Flambardus; cujus flamma qualis sit, non in Anglia solum, sed in exteris regnis longe lateque innotuit.”
Lappenberg, in the passage quoted above, refers to Thierry’s wonderful account of Flambard (ii. 141);
“Renouf Flambard, évêque de Lincoln, autrefois valet de pied chez les ducs de Normandie, commettait, dans son diocèse, de tels brigandages, que les habitants souhaitaient de mourir, dit un ancien historien, plutôt que de vivre sous sa puissance.”
I cannot find that Thierry speaks of Flambard anywhere else. The “valet de pied” must come from the bit in Orderic about the “pedissequi curiales.” The rest, including the wonderful confusion which makes him bishop of Lincoln, comes, as Lappenberg points out, from a passage in the Winchester Annals, 1092 (cf. 1097), which I shall presently have to refer to. But it is really amazing that Flambard’s loss of property in the New Forest did not cause him to be brought in at some stage or other as an oppressed Saxon.