John Melhuish explores the episcopacy of Bishop Walter de Merton. Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 1997-1998.

Of Walter de Merton, Chancellor to Kings Henry IlI and Edward I and founder of Merton College Oxford, whose six foot skeleton lies in Rochester Cathedrals North Quire transept, the Rochester Chronicle says that "though Merton was a man of great authority and power, he did no special good to the prior and Convent, though he gave them the manors of Chobambury and Middleton" o Merton was consecrated Bishop of Rochester on 21st October 1274 by his friend, Archbishop Kilwardby, at Gillingham. This was unusual, as noted by the monks so that no precedent should be set.

Merton's predecessor, Laurent of St. Martin, had spent some time in Rome trying to improve the finances of the poorest English see by securing the appropriations of additional churches. He failed and probably spent too much of the existing resources on litigation. Merton's executors were still chasing Bishop Laurence's executors for dilapidations three years after Merton's death.

They also found unpaid bills for the fish consumed at the consecration and enthronement feasts.

Merton probably chose Rochester diocese for its easy access to the Court and his house near St. Paul's. While an account of Merton's episcopate is not of great interest, Highfield's analysis of Merton College's archives and Chancery rolls illuminates the career pattern and opportunities of able royal servants of the C13th and, indirectly the fragmented ownership that had overtaken some manors of the Conqueror's settlement through legacies, sales of rights and debts.

Merton was a skilled negotiator on the King's and his own account. In acquiring the portfolio of fifteen manors and lands and fifteen and a half advowsons that were to support the foundation of Merton College, Walter demonstrated an eye for a bargain and mastery of the legal and financial procedures for unlocking properties, subject to debts and multiple ownership. He worked closely with his Jewish bankers, who would discharge mortgages against long term loans to Merton. (4).

Walter was born at Basingstoke between 1200 and 1205 and was known as "Walter of Basing" until about 1238 when be became "Walter de Merton", having been presented to the Merton Priory living of Cuddington in 1233.

Walter was named after his grandfather, Walter Cook, who was of the kin of Richard de Herried, the very distinguished royal servant of the times of Kings Richard I and John. Merton's mother, Christina Fitzace, was an important person in Basingstoke where she had inherited land. Merton added other small local properties and by 1238, these made up "the small, if respectable holding of a freeholder of a royal manor". ».

Throughout his life Walter de Merton never forgot his kin. His first foundation, the hospital at Basingstoke, commemorated his mother. As an only son, with seven sisters, they and their children were the preoccupations of his life.

Providing for the education of his nephews and the marriage settlements of his sisters motivated his property acquisitions that were to lead to the founding of Merton College.

The Merton Priory Register ( lists a number of deeds witnessed by "Walter the clerk of Basingstoke". Thus by about 1230 at the latest, Walter was associated with the Priory, which Henry I had founded in 1117 as a house of Austin canons. Becket had been educated there and Hubert Walter was a member of the community. Two notable Bologna trained lawyers had been canons:

Richard, later prior of Dunstable, and Thomas Tynemouth, whose name is found alongside Walter's witnessing a Priory deed. There seems to have been a tradition of legal studies and it has been conjectured that Merton was educated at the Priory. It is not certain whether Walter went to Oxford, though probable, as a letter from Adam Marsh commends Merton (whom the D.N. B. suggests was Adam's pupil), to Brother Adam Bechesoveres. Merton is said to have been going to Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, whose diocese then included Oxford, for admission to the subdiaconate. Marsh's letter associates Merton with two of the outstanding scholars of his day, its author and Grosseteste.

Though Merton was not a scholar, he was a friend of scholars.

Merton Priory was probably then at the height of its powers as a centre of influence. It had had close contacts with the court circles of Richard I and John and between 1231 and 1263, King Henry III showered lavish gifts on the Priory.

The King was such a frequent guest that the Priory fitted up special rooms for the Chancery and Wardrobe. It is not therefore surprising that the prior's clerk from a royal manor, with skills in conveyancing and the law should have joined the royal Chancery.

The first notice of Merton's presence in the Chancery is the enrolment in the close rolls in late May 1238 of the inquisition into his late mother's lands and his own at Basingstoke. The record noted that the conclusions were endorsed by a royal charter, which would not have been available to a clerk outside the Chancery. In August 1238, Merton secured a grant of land in Basingstoke and the first witness was the Bishop of Chichester, the King's Chancellor. Merton's first known employment in the royal service came on 11 July 1240 when he began an inquisition through the king's demesnes in the counties of Kent, Essex, Hertford and Middlesex.

In October 1240, approval of Merton's purchase of three manors in Surrey suggests continuing and growing royal favour.

From 1241/2 to 1247 Merton served as Chancellor to Bishop Farnham of Durham, a notable scholar of philosophy and medicine, who had made a name for himself in Paris and Bologna. Merton was one of a group of men from the South who joined the Bishop's service soon after his arrival in Durham. These included Mr William of Kilkenny, the Chancery Clerk, who became Keeper of the Great Seal in 1250 and later Chancellor in 1253 and Bishop of Ely 1254-64.

Merton's time at Durham coincided with the rebuilding of the Cathedral's East end and the reconstruction of Finchale Priory. At one time or another Merton held three valuable livings in the diocese. In 1247, Merton acquired the debt encumbered manor of Stillington in Co. Durham from Ralph Amundeville, who called Walter, who had discharged the debt, his "special friend", which suggests relief from a burden.

Merton returned to London in c. 1247 with a lasting affection for Durham. He revisited it in the last year of his life when Bishop Robert de Insula marked Merton's contribution as Bishop's chancellor, to the diocese, and particularly to the Cathedral, by ordering the Durham Treasury to pay Walter £40 annually.

Between 1247 and 1255, Walter's life is only documented through his private transactions and it is assumed he was a Chancery clerk in Kilkenny's household.

With Henry Wingham's promotion to the Chancellorship on 5 January 1255, Merton's position becomes clear. In February he sealed one of Wingham's private bonds. In November came the first of a succession of perquisites of roval service: gifts of deer and firewood from the royal forests.

On 16 August 1257, Merton sealed diplomatic letters with Prince Edward's seal and from May 1258 Merton became Wingham's normal Deputy.

In 1258, King Henry III employed Merton in negotiating with Pope Alexander IV the purchase of the grant of the Kingdom of Sicily for Henry's nine year old second son, Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster (1245-96), whom the Papal Legate invested with the title in 1254. Baronial opposition to the project's open ended cost and improbable prospects forced its abandonment.

In 1259, after the death of Bishop Basset of London, Merton was presented to a canonry of St Paul's with a prebendal house off Paternoster Row. "The cathedral was a valuable club to which a chancery clerk might belong". • He was also given an annual grant to maintain a household.

By July, Wingham had been elected Bishop of London, but as he had good relations with both the King and the Baronial reformers, he remained Chancellor. Merton continued to act as his Deputy until September 1260, when his authorisation ceased and the Baronial Council appointed Nicholas Ely, He held the Chancellorship until the royalist recovery in 1261, when Ely surrendered the seal to the King, who handed it to Merton.

Merton retained this office until he was replaced by Ely in June 1263 when the Baronial party reasserted its authority. In 1264, the mob plundered some of Merton's properties because of his support for the King.

In January 1264, Henry III crossed to France to secure Louis IX's support against the Monfortian Baronial opposition. He took Merton to represent the royal cause before Louis. "His opponent was Thomas Cantelupe. It was an outstanding and very dissimilar pair who confronted each other - the highly professional and experienced clerk and the aristocrat who, as bishop, was to become the sharpest thorn in the flesh of Archbishop Peckham and ultimately a saint." © Merton was successful and the decision of the Mise of Amiens was favourable to Henry III.

After the royal victory of 1265 at Evesham, Merton was not restored to the Chancery but was referred to as 'justiciar' in documents and employed on public business, as well as on his own. However, after Henry's death in November 1272, the Council appointed Merton to act as Chancellor until King Edward I returned from his Crusade to Acre. (Unlike King Henry III, Edward I had the support of the Barons and had been told that there was no need to hurry home).

From November 1272 until August 1274, Walter de Merton stood in place of the King-not only Chancellor, but virtually regent, in fact, Thus Thomas Cantelupe put it in letters in 1273. As Chancellor, an immense amount of formal business passed before him. A number of letters survive from King Edward I and Queen Eleanor, the two archbishops and others, but they tell little of him personally. An exception is one from the King of 9th August 1273, expressing his special thanks for his services. He promised him support in whatever Merton's sense of justice might dictate. It is perhaps even more significant that Edward felt able to spend a year in France restoring order in his French territories before returning to England.

Shortly after King Edward I arrived back in August 1274, Merton resigned the Chancellorship and was enthroned at Rochester.

Merton's great legacy was his foundation of Merton College and therefore in a sense of the collegiate system that was to mould the future of Oxford and Cambridge in particular. In 1261, Merton obtained a charter empowering him to assign his manors at Farley and Malden in Surrey to the Priory of Merton, for the support of scholars residing at the 'schools', an expression that probably meant scholars at Oxford. In 1263, Merton published a deed of assignation of these and other lands, making special provision for the education of his eight nephews under a warden and chaplains. The care of his nephews seems to have been the first object of the foundation. In 1264, a charter of incorporation established the 'House of Scholars of Merton' at Maldon in Surrey, with power to maintain twenty scholars at Oxford or any other place of general learning. "0);

During the following years, Merton acquired the site of the present College, together with the advowson of St John's and other property in Oxford. In August 1274, Merton's final statutes transferred the college to Oxford as its permanent home. A number of Merton's royal and aristocratic friends, including 'Montfortians' added their own benefactions to the College.

Provision was made for such number of scholars as revenues would support and for their common life as a corporate body under the rule of a warden.

Merton's intention appears to have been to provide for the training of secular dergy. He forbade the taking of vows and any who entered a regular order forfeited his scholarship. The College was to be a place of study, in the first place of philosophy and the liberal arts, and afterwards of theology.

The establishment of Merton College was the beginning of the true collegiate sistem. Though there were earlier benefactions, they did not provide for regular corporate bodies and the establishment of University and Balliol Colleges followed Merton's. In Cambridge, Merton College was avowedly the model of the collegiate system for the licence establishing Peterhouse, expressly stated it was to be for 'studious scholars who shall in everything live together as students in the University of Cambridge, according to the rule of the scholars of Oxford who are called of Merton'. (1)

Merton's episcopate only lasted three years, much of it spent away from Rochester at Court or keeping in touch with his friends and his interests, particularly his Oxford foundation, his will and instructions to his executors. It is uncertain whether he ever lived at Rochester, though there is a record of a stay at the episcopal manor at Halling, some six miles up-stream from Rochesters in January 1277.

On 25th October 1977, Merton's horse stumbled and fell while fording the Medway, perhaps by the Pilgrims Way ford from Snodland to Burham Court (2)

Though his servants rescued him, he died from the effects of the accident two days later on October 27th. The Osney annalist speaks of Merton as a man of liberality and great worldly learning who had always been very ready in his assistance to the monastic orders and elsewhere preserves some complimentary verses on his character." (3)

Merton was buried in Rochester Cathedral in the North transept of the choir, near the tomb of St. William. The original tomb of Limoges enamel was brought to Rochester on a carriage from Limoges, at a cost of £40-5-6. The masonry stonework of the canopy and windows cost £22 and the ironwork brought from London cost 7 marks (46/8) and glazing the windows, 11/-," This tomb was damaged in Edward VI's reign.

In 1598, the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, replaced the earlier tomb when they removed Merton's chalice from it to Oxford. The College no longer has this chalice which they presume was lost to the Royalists when they occupied Oxford in the Civil War and seized silver to mint coin.

It is the figure on the restored tomb that is so interesting. Although the figure is wearing a cope and mitre, they are over a rochet and chimere and not of a figure like John of Sheppey, in full canonicals as it would have been originally.

This indicates that when the alabaster figure was made, the sculptor did not have any knowledge of pre-Reformation work or the College authorities did nor want it or had forgotten how a medieval prelate would have been vested " ns.

Walter De Merton had the talents and qualities to have risen to the top in any age. At a time when the Church provided the civil service, membership of Merton Priory, with its royal links, and an appointment to the Chancery offered a recognisable route to power. In Merton's case, his success as Chancellor to Bishop Farnham at Durham marked him for further promotion. He seems to have had the gift of making friendships and sustaining them into old age. He remained loyal to King Henry III throughout the struggle with the baronial opposition, but retained their respect and some were to be benefactors of the new college.

In Merton's property dealings, he is recognisable to us, with his nose for a bargain, willingness to plan for the long term, his expertise in unlocking land burdened by debts and his sophisticated use of the banking system of his age.

At the same time, the deals analysed by Highfield, convey an impression that Merton's purchases could bring relief to burdened owners.

The Council's unanimous appointment of Merton to act for King Edward I until his return to England, reflected the wide confidence that must have been felt in Merton's capacity and judgement. After King Edward returned, perhaps he discussed the constitutional reforms he was considering with Merton. They had shared the chaos of the baronial wars.

John Melhuish

Footnotes

1 "The Early Rolls Of Merton College Oxford" Edited by I.R.L. Highfield, Fellow, Librarian, and Archivist of Merton College Clarendon Press 1964. Where this book conflicts with the much earlier entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, this paper relies on Highfield;

2 Highfield, p. 3 and "Faith and Fabric- A History of Rochester Cathedral* Edited by Nigel Yates and Paul Welsby 1996. P. 206 "In 1848, Merton's tomb was again opened... This time much of the vestments still adhered to the feet and legs, but in black clotted masses... skeleton of a man of six foot in height. The forehead was low and the eye sockets near one another.";

3 Edmund Haddenham, "Monk Historian of Rochester Priory", Highfield, p. 30;

4 Highfield pp. 12-14 describes the purchase of the Surrey manors of Malden, with Chessington and Farleigh, which involved liquidating the estates' debts to the bank of Aaron, son of Abraham of London (Merton's banker) and buying out the interests of ten people, who had "no more than a rentier's interest in the estates and lived far away from them". The whole process took seventeen years and involved some eight deeds;

5 Ibid, p.6;

6 The Priory's remains lie in the Borough of Merton beneath the area of the A24 (Merantun Way. Its stones were used in building Nonsuch Palace and elsewhere in South London. Its memory survives in local names incorporating Priory' or 'Abbey': By the early C19th the only visible remains were the precinct walls enclosing the Priory's sixty-five acres. The National Trust maintain fragments along the banks of the Pickle ditch between Merantum Way and Merton High Street in 914, a Norman doorway was found within a house being demolished. It has been re erected in the churchyard of St. Mary's at Merton Park. There have been three archaelogical explorations, the results of the last, (1986-91) await publication. The excavated Chapter House Walls and other remains are preserved in a special building beneath Merantum Way - Morden Library's Local Studies Centre's "Notes on Local History, No. 23";

7 The Sicilian Venture', In 1254, Pope Innocent IV was engaged in a struggle with Manfred King of Sicily, illegitimate son of the Emperor Frederick Il, and offered King Henry Ill the 'grant of the Sicilian Crown for Henry's second son, Edmund Crouchback Earl of Lancaster, to enlist England's wealth against the Hoenstauffens. Henry was to pay for the grant which offered no more than Papal permission to overthrow Manfred. (When Henry Ill's brother, Prince Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans (1209-72) was offered Sicily on these terms, he had said it was like being invited to buy the moon. "The History Today Companion to British History.*), Henry Ill was undeterred and agreed to pay Innocent IV's successor, Alexander IV, 135,000 marks, to cover the cost of the Pope's war with the Emperor. Henry could not raise the money for the grant or the cost of an expedition and was forced by the baronial opposition to withdraw from the arrangement.

8 Highfield p. 19;

9 Ibid p. 23;

10 D.N.B. and Highfield;

11 D.N.B.;

12 From Patrick Thornhill's article in Archeoligica Cantana Vol. LVII, 1974 on 'The Medway Crossings of the Pilgrims Way', it seems that the most likely ford used by Merton was that two km. up-stream from Snodland to Burham Court.

13 D.N.B.;

14 Walter de Merton's Executor's accounts, audited May 1282 and held at Merton College, Oxford;

15 D.A.H. Cleggett.

Visit Rochester Cathedral →

Join the Friends →

Friends Annual Reports →

The Friends of Rochester Cathedral were founded to help finance the maintenance of the fabric and grounds. The Friends’ annual reports have become a trove of articles on the fabric and history of the cathedral.