Robert Bloet.

There is something startling in the simple way in which the Chronicler (1093) puts together the appointment of Anselm and that of Robert Bloet; “And þæt arcebiscoprice on Cantwarbyrig, þe ær on his agenre hand stód, Anselme betæhte, se wæs ær abbot on Bǽc, and Rodbeard his cancelere þæt biscoprice on Lincolne.” Florence translates, with a word or two of explanation inserted; “Insuper Anselmo Beccensi abbati qui tunc in Anglia morabatur, Dorubernensem archiepiscopatum, et cancellario suo Rotberto, cognomento Bloet, Lindicolinensem dedit præsulatum.” But this way of speaking is quite of a piece with the small amount of notice which the Chronicler seems throughout to give to Anselm and his affairs. That is, we are used to read the story of Anselm in Eadmer in the minutest detail, and we are surprised to find his story told in the Chronicle only on the same scale as the stories of other people.

We have heard of Robert Bloet before, as one high in the confidence of both Williams, father and son (see vol. i. p. 13). As a bishop, he is one of those persons of whom William of Malmesbury wrote an account which he afterwards found it expedient to alter. In his received text (Gest. Pont. 313) he is brought in in a singular and sneering way. The writer had just recorded the death of Remigius before he was able to consecrate the minster, and he then gives this account of his successor;

Here we have the implied picture of a bishop of the more worldly sort, and we can see that he was not in good favour with monks. But no particular fault is brought against him. But in the earlier version, the text, after the words “homini nomen,” reads, “Qui nihil unquam pensi fecerit, quominus omnis libidinis et infamis et reus esset. In cunctam religionem protervus, monachos Stou summoveri et apud Egnesham locari jussit. Gratis malus et gloriæ antecessoris invidus, a vicinis monachis sua commoda præverti causabatur. Quocirca, si monachi Egneshamnenses Dei dono pulchrum incrementum acceperint, procul illi gratias, quibus eximium se gloriabatur commodum inferre si vel illos sineret vivere.”

There is enough here to show that Robert Bloet was thoroughly disliked by the monks everywhere on account of his dealings with their brethren at Stow in removing them to Eynsham. His dislike to monks is also witnessed by the Chronicler, 1123, in recording the election of William of Corbeuil to the see of Canterbury (see N. C. vol. v. p. 236); “Ðis wæs eall ear gedon ðurh se biscop of Seresbyrig, and þurh se biscop of Lincolne, ær he wære dead, forði þet næfre ne luueden hi munece regol, ac wæron æfre togænes muneces and here regol.”

On the other hand, Robert Bloet has not been without his admirers and defenders both in his own time and since. Henry of Huntingdon, who was brought up in his court, always speaks of him with the deepest affection; and in our time he has found a gallant champion in Mr. Dimock in his preface to the seventh volume of Giraldus, pp. xxiii. et seq. Henry, like Florence, has the Chronicle before him in recording the appointments of Anselm and Robert, and he too makes (vii. 3. p. 216) his insertions. With him the passage stands thus;

Further on he records his death in 1123 (p. 244), and gives him a splendid epitaph. He is “pontificum Robertus honor,” and his special virtues fill two elegiac couplets;

He speaks of him again in the letter “de Contemptu Mundi” (p. 299), where he gives a glowing description of the splendour of his court, and speaks of him as “ipse quasi pater et deus omnium æstimatus,” and as “justitiarius totius Angliæ et ab omnibus summe formidatus.” He then goes on to quote him as an example, like so many others, of the uncertainty of earthly prosperity. He tells how he was troubled before his death by law-suits brought by some inferior justiciar, and then records his death at Woodstock. He adds, “Fuit autem Robertus præsul mitis et humilis, multos erigens, nullum deprimens, pater orphanorum, deliciæ suorum.” Further on (p. 305) we learn that Robert Bloet had a son named Simon, who was born before he was Bishop, but whom he made Dean of Lincoln while he was very young. Simon’s prosperity and unhappy end are also among the instances which are to lead to “contemptus mundi.” He is thus brought in;

“Decanum nostrum Simonem non prætereo, qui filius Roberti præsulis nostri fuit; quem genuerat dum cancellarius Willelmi magni regis esset. Qui, ut decebat, regaliter nutritus, et adhuc impubis decanus noster effectus, in summam regis amicitiam et curiales dignitates mox provectus est.”

We may be sure that it was the existence of this son which caused Bishop Robert to be reproached with looseness of life. Yet Simon may very likely have been born in lawful wedlock, though it is hardly safe to assume with Mr. Dimock that he certainly was. But, when Robert had once become an object of monastic dislike, stories grew as usual; it was found out that his tomb in Lincoln minster was haunted. So says the so-called Bromton (X Scriptt. 988), who is copied by Knighton (2364);

The reputation which Bishop Robert left behind him at Lincoln we learn from Giraldus and John of Schalby in the seventh volume of Dimock’s Giraldus. Giraldus himself (p. 31) brings him in as “prudentia et probitate conspicuus.” He records his gifts to his church, and his doubling the number of its prebends. From a Lincoln point of view, he highly approves of the translation of the monks of Stow to Eynsham; but he seems not to like the separation of Ely from the diocese of Lincoln (see N. C. vol. v. p. 229), and he speaks of Robert’s “inconsiderata largitio” and “alia sui deliramenta” in charging his see with the gift of a mantle of sable, worth a hundred pounds, to the King. John of Schalby (195) copies Giraldus, but abridges him, and leaves out some of his epithets both of praise and blame.

The death of Bishop Robert in 1123 is recorded by several of our writers, but there is no account so graphic as that in our own tongue. The King is riding in his deerfold at Woodstock with the two bishops, Robert of Lincoln and Roger of Salisbury, on either side of him. The three ride and talk. The Bishop of Lincoln suddenly sinks, and says to the King, “Lord King, I die (Laferd kyng, ic swelte).” The King gets down from his horse, lifts him in his arms, and has him carried into the house, where he soon dies (“Se king alihte dune of his hors, and alehte hine betweox his earmes, and let hine beran ham to his inne, and wearð þa sone dead”). Does this “inne” mean the King’s own house at Woodstock, or any separate quarters of the Bishop, like the “hospitium” of Anselm at Gloucester and elsewhere?

The name “Bloet,” according to M. de Rémusat (Anselme, 160), is the same as “blond.”