Ralph Neville

For other people named Ralph Neville, see Ralph Neville (disambiguation).

Ralph Neville
Bishop of Chichester
Ralph Neville was buried behind the high altar in Chichester Cathedral
Province	Canterbury
Diocese	Chichester
Elected	before 1 November 1222
Reign ended	1–4 February 1244
Predecessor	Ranulf of Wareham
Successor	Robert Passelewe
Other posts	Lord Chancellor Archbishop-elect of Canterbury Bishop-elect of Winchester
Orders
Consecration	21 April 1224
Personal details
Died	1–4 February 1244 London, England
Buried	Chichester Cathedral
Nationality	English
Denomination	Roman Catholic

Ralph Neville (or Ralf Nevill; died 1244) was a medieval clergyman and politician who served as Bishop of Chichester and Lord Chancellor of England. He was also briefly Archbishop-elect of Canterbury and Bishop-elect of Winchester. Neville first appears in the historical record in 1207 in the service of King John of England and continued in royal service throughout his life. By 1213 Neville had custody of the great seal of England, although he was not named Chancellor, the office in charge of the seal, until 1226. He was rewarded with the bishopric of Chichester in 1222.

As keeper of the seal and as chancellor, Neville was noted for the care he took to be impartial and he also oversaw a number of changes in how the chancery operated. Although he was elected to both Canterbury and Winchester, both times the elections were set aside and he did not attain those ecclesiastical offices. In 1238, he was deprived of the custody of the great seal, but continued to hold the title of Chancellor until his death. He died in his London palace, on a street later renamed Chancery Lane because of the location of his palace and his connection with the chancery.

Early life

Neville had at least three brothers: Nicholas de Neville, a canon at Chichester Cathedral, William de Neville, treasurer of the see of Chichester, and Robert de Neville, holder of a prebend at Chichester. Another likely sibling was Roger, who held land in Lincolnshire, and of the brothers, at least Ralph was illegitimate. He was also related to Hugh de Neville, the chief forester for King John of England. Robert was later Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Nicholas was a baron of the Exchequer.

Ralph was a royal clerk of King John in the spring of 1207, and in December of that year was at Marlborough Castle on royal business. Earlier references to a Ralph Neville, who in 1207 delivered items to Hugh Neville, or the Ralph Neville who was the same Hugh's chaplain, may be the same Ralph as the later bishop, but this is not sure. Later, Hugh and the bishop worked together and wrote to each other both on business and personal affairs. Both men claimed the other as a kinsman, and it is likely that Ralph served as chaplain to Hugh early in Ralph's career.

Ralph's activities for years after 1207 are not known, due to the lack of royal records, but in December 1213 he was given custody of the great seal of the king. Ralph was Dean of Lichfield on 11 April 1214 and held a prebend in the diocese of London at that time. Ralph was appointed to the royal chancery about 1214, largely through the patronage of Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester and one of the king's favourites. From March to October of 1214, Neville was with the king who was in France, but after the king returned to England in October continued work for the king until at least May 1216.

Royal service and Bishop of Chichester

Neville was keeper of the royal seal under Henry III from about 6 November 1218. He had been at the royal court since May 1218, and received custody of the seal as soon as it was made up for the new king. One of the first acts that was sealed under Neville's holding of the seal was a declaration that no charters or other documents would be granted in perpetuity until Henry attained his majority. Neville was also vice-chancellor of England, and with the retirement of Richard Marsh, the Chancellor, to Marsh's see of Durham to handle ecclesiastical affairs after his election as bishop in 1217, Neville in fact, if not in name, held the office of Chancellor itself. Marsh continued to hold the title of Chancellor until his death in 1226, but the day to day running of the chancery was in Neville's hands, as Marsh was seldom outside his northern diocese. In May and June 1219, when instability threatened the royal government, Neville was ordered by Pandulf, the papal legate, to remain in London with the great seal while a council was held at Gloucester which resulted in royal government being controlled by Hubert de Burgh the Justiciar, Pandulf, and Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester.

Neville received a dispensation for illegitimacy on 25 January 1220. The papal action was taken with the advice of the king, Stephen Langton the Archbishop of Canterbury, other bishops and the papal legate Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, all of whom testified to Neville's good reputation and character. In late October he was named chancellor of the see of Chichester, but was then elected as bishop of Chichester about 1 November 1222. He was given control of the temporalities of the bishopric on 3 November 1222, and was consecrated on 21 April 1224. In April 1223, Neville was ordered by Pope Honorius III to no longer use the great seal on the command of the justiciar or other members of the minority council, but instead to do so at the king's command. This effectively meant the end of the royal minority, although this did not effectively come about until December 1223 and even then was still limited by the fact that the king had not yet officially been declared of age, so that the ban on non-time limited grants remained in force.

Lord Chancellor

Neville was named Lord Chancellor of England on 17 May 1226. That appointment was done by the great council during the minority of King Henry III, and Neville obtained a grant of the office for life. Unlike Hubert de Burgh, who lost his offices when Henry III attained his majority and took control of the government, Neville remained in office with only slight disagreements until 1238, although a confirmation of the lifetime nature of Neville's officeholding was made in 1232. Under Neville, the first signs that the chancery was becoming a department of state, rather than just a royal department begin to emerge. The contemporary writer Matthew Paris praised Neville for his actions while chancellor, claiming that the chancellor treated all equally and was transparent in discharging his duties. This was important as the chancellor's office was powerful through its control who could see the king. Neville oversaw a number of changes in chancery procedures – splitting off the liberate rolls from the letters close in 1226 and revived the keeping of the charter rolls in 1227. He also issued writs on his own authority, the so-called writs de cursu. Neville received a number of gifts and privileges from the king while chancellor – including the right of exemption from the seizure of his belongings by any royal official or other secular official. The king also agreed to not interfere with the execution of Neville's last will and testament.

Letters from the precentor of Chichester Cathedral are still extant, begging the bishop to come to Chichester over Easter in order to celebrate the Easter Mass and to deal with pressing issues in the diocese. Neville's duties as Chancellor kept him from attending to much of the business of his diocese. However, Neville also employed clerics to administer the ecclesiastical offices of his diocese, and in general his relationship with his cathedral chapter appear to have been good. He also employed a teacher of theology for his cathedral, and supported students at schools in Lincoln, Oxford and Douai. He worked to protect the rights, lands, and privileges of his diocese and cathedral chapter from encroachment by others, both secular and clerical. This included an incident where he threatened to excommunicate the Earl of Arundel or the earl's men for hunting on land the bishop considered his own.

Neville was elected Archbishop of Canterbury about 24 September 1231 by the monks of Canterbury, but his election to the archbishopric was quashed in early 1232 by Pope Gregory IX. The rejection was based on Neville being an illiteratus or illiterate, although he had been found to be literatus in 1214 when he was appointed dean. Literatus in this sense meant "learned" not "illiterate". Other concerns were that Simon Langton, the Archdeacon of Canterbury, described Neville as a courtier instead of a true priest and claimed that Neville's goal was to free England from its feudal ties to the papacy.

Besides his chancery duties, Neville also occasionally sat with the barons of the exchequer or with royal justices, and he had an role in the appointment of royal justices also. In 1230 he was regent of England while Henry was absent in France. One of his actions while regent was to meet with Llywelyn the Great and negotiated an agreement that tried to resolve the disputes between the English and the Welsh, although in the end the agreement did not end problems between the two countries. In 1232, during the events surrounding the downfall from power of de Burgh, Neville, along with Ranulf, the Earl of Chester, urged that de Burgh not be dragged from sanctuary to face the royal accusations against him. Neville's pleas prevailed for a time, but eventually de Burgh was removed from sanctuary.

The king attempted to deprive Neville of his office in 1236, but the bishop prevented this by claiming that since he had been appointed during the royal minority with the consent of the great council, only the council could dismiss him. In 1238, the cathedral chapter of the see of Winchester elected first William de Raley in opposition to the king's choice of William of Valence, and when that election was quashed, they then selected Neville instead of William the Bishop of Valence. However, this election to Winchester was quashed in 1239, and it led to a quarrel with Henry III. Valence was the uncle of Eleanor of Provence, who Henry married in 1236, and he had gained much influence with the king quite quickly, and worked to eliminate the older royal officials and institute reforms in the royal administration. This, along with the disputed election to Winchester, was the cause of Neville's fall from favour. Although Henry deprived Neville of the actual custody of the great seal from 1238 until 1242, Neville retained the title of Chancellor until his death. This entitled Neville to the revenues he would normally have received from the office. The seal itself was held by a number of minor officials, probably in order for Henry to better control the usage of the seal by preventing the establishment of another powerful official to interfere with royal desires. They lacked the power base that Neville had possessed which allowed him to oppose the king.

In 1239, Neville may have been offered the custody of the seal, but refused to accept the responsibility. In May 1242, however, Neville once more had some responsibility for the seal, this time while Henry was in France, although the regent also appears to have had some responsibility also. After the king's return in September 1243, Neville did seal some documents with the great seal, but not many before his death in February 1244.

Death and writings

Neville died between 1 February and 4 February 1244 at the palace he had built in London on a what was then New Street, but was renamed Chancery Lane because of the palace he built. He was buried in Chichester Cathedral, behind the high altar. After Neville's death, Matthew Paris described him as "a man laudable in all things, and a pillar of fidelity in the business of the kingdom and the king". Some of the provisions of his will are known, and he left some jewelry and gems to the king, some of his lands were given to his successors as bishop, and other lands and items to his cathedral chapter at Chichester. He also endowed a distribution of bread to the poor residents of Chichester, a gift which continued into the 20th century. Besides these gifts, at some point Neville endowed a chapel near Chichester with two clergy to pray for the soul of King John.

Many of his letters survive, as they were collected by him during his lifetime. They currently are in the National Archives of the United Kingdom, as part of the Public Record Office. The letters are published in Sussex Archaelological Collections volume 3, edited by W. H. Blaauw in 1850. Besides promoting the career of his brother William, one of Neville's clerks, Silvester de Everdon, served the bishop in the chancery until the bishop left the chancellorship, and then continued in the chancery until 1246, when he was selected as Bishop of Carlisle.

References

• Carpenter, David (1990). The Minority of Henry III. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07239-1. 
• Carpenter, David (2004). The Struggle for Mastery: The Penguin History of Britain 1066–1284. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-014824-8. 
• Cazel, Jr., Fred A. (2004). "Neville, Ralph de (d. 1244)" (subscription or UK public library membership required). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/19949. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19949. Retrieved 8 November 2007. 
• Chrimes, S. B. (1966). An Introduction to the Administrative History of Mediaeval England (Third ed.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. OCLC 270094959. 
• Clanchy, C. T. (1993). From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (Second ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-631-16857-7. 
• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X. 
• Greenway, Diana E. (1996). Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: volume 5: Chichester: Bishops. Institute for Historical Research. http://british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=34293. Retrieved 13 January 2012. 
• Greenway, Diana E. (1996). 34297 Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: volume 5: Chichester: Chancellors. Institute for Historical Research. http://british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid= 34297. Retrieved 13 January 2012. 
• Maddicott, J. R. (2010). The Origins of the English Parliament, 924–1327: The Ford Lectures delivered in the University of Oxford in the Hilary Term 2004. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0=19-958550-2. 
• Moorman, John R. H. (1955). Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century (Revised ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 213820968. 
• Pegues, Frank (October 1956). "The Clericus in the Legal Administration of Thirteenth-Century England". The English Historical Review 71 (281): 529–559. doi:10.1093/ehr/LXXI.281.529. 
• Powell, J. Enoch; Wallis, Keith (1968). The House of Lords in the Middle Ages: A History of the English House of Lords to 1540. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. OCLC 463626. 
• Prestwich, Michael (2005). Plantagenet England 1225–1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-922687-0. 
• Vincent, Nicholas C. (1993). "The Origins of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer". The English Historical Review 108 (426): 105–121. doi:10.1093/ehr/CVIII.426.105. 
• Vincent, Nicholas (2002). Peter des Roches: An Alien in English Politics 1205–1238 (Reprint ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52215-3. 
• Warren, W. L. (1987). The Governance of Norman and Angevin England 1086–1272. The Governance of England. London: Edward Arnold. ISBN 0-7131-6378-X. 
• Young, Charles R. (1996). The Making of the Neville Family in England 1155–1400. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-668-1. 

Political offices
Preceded by Richard Marsh	Lord Chancellor 1226–1238 (Keeper of the Great Seal)	Succeeded by Richard le Gras
Preceded by Richard le Gras (Keeper of the Great Seal)	Lord Chancellor 1242–1244	Succeeded by Silvester de Everdon
Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Ranulf of Wareham	Bishop of Chichester 1224–1244	Succeeded by Robert Passelewe
Preceded by Richard le Grant	Archbishop-elect of Canterbury 1231–1232	Succeeded by John of Sittingbourne
Preceded by Peter des Roches	Bishop-elect of Winchester 1238–1239	Succeeded by William de Raley