Bishop Walter Langton - benefactor

     Walter de Langton, 1243–1321, was Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (and nominally Chester), 1296–1321. He was a considerable benefactor to the cathedral and oversaw much of its construction. Harwood called Langton another founder of this church.[1]

            It has been stated he was born in West Langton or Church Langton, Leicestershire, but it could have been any of the five Langton villages.[2] Langton named himself as the son and heir of Simon Peverel.[3] Copies of charters state his paternity.[4] Early on he owned land in the area. There were past members of the family in the church. An uncle became Dean of York in 1262 and was elected to be archbishop in 1265 only to be quashed by the pope. 

Walter Langton from the third row of the west front of the cathedral. He is holding a model of the Lady Chapel.

             He became a clerk of the wardrobe, 1281–2 in Edward I’s royal chancery. He was in Gascony with the king in 1286 and 1289. In 1290 he was made Bishop of Ely and keeper of the wardrobe. In that position he was responsible for improving the wardrobe's methods of accounting for its expenditure and receipts. During this time, he obtained many ecclesiastical preferment's, bringing him wealth. At some time during his early career Langton was clerk to Robert Burnell, Bishop of Bath and Wells and the treasurer of the exchequer and this must have brought him close to the office of treasurer. In 1292, he was made the temporary treasurer before John Langton's appointment.[5] In September 1295, he became treasurer of the exchequer and retained it until 22 August 1307. A year after becoming treasurer he was made Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield.[6] He arranged for his enthronement to take place at Coventry on 4 January and at Lichfield on 11 January 1299. According to letters in his register this was the first time in his episcopate that Langton visited his diocese. He stayed at Coventry until at least 6 January and was at Lichfield on 8 January, remaining there until the day after his enthronement. 

Edward I from the second row of the west front of the cathedral. He is holding a poisoned arrow said to have wounded him from an attempted assassination on his holy crusade in 1272. His Queen Eleanor sucked the poison from his wound. There are variations of this story.

             It was his close associations to the king for which Langton is remembered. The Queen described him as  'the king's right eye’.[7]  He attended the marriage of Edward I to Margaret of France in September 1299, and on the following Saturday at Canterbury he celebrated Mass for the queen. His devotion to Edward regardless of ecclesiastical considerations caused a rift with Archbishop Robert Winchelsey. He also became unpopular with particular barons and in 1301 they asked Edward to dismiss him with accusations of murder, adultery and simony.[8] He was suspended and went to Rome to be tried before Pope Boniface VIII. The Bishop of Lincoln and royal letters were sent to the Pope supporting Langton in his inquisition.  The pope referred the case back to the archbishop and although Winchelsey possibly disliked him, some think the animosity was more targeted at Edward, and surprisingly he found Langton innocent. By 1303, he was reinstated. Paradoxically, Langton visited Pope Clement V for his consecration in 1305 and persuaded him to suspend Winchelsey. With Archbishop William Greenfield of York, Langton was appointed keeper of the realm during Edward I's absence in Scotland. He was not at Edward's death on 7 July 1307, but on accompanying his body to London he was arrested and imprisoned in The Tower. His lands and much of his considerable wealth were seized with the accusation of misappropriation and venality. Edward II had long held a grudge against Langton, but he may have been provoked by envy and financial necessity as well as personal enmity.[9] There has been an alternative narrative that Edward’s close friend, Piers Gaveston, demanded the arrest, but this is unlikely. An account in 1307 showed Langton held land in sixteen counties and probably six more.[10] 

Drawing of Langton now lost in a window in the cathedral . Drawing 1762–98 in S. Shaw, 1798.

            Langton was ordered to appear before a panel of justices to answer for trespass, misprision, losses inflicted on the king and many other wrongdoings. He was released in March 1309, pardoned in January 1312 and again became the treasurer. After Gaveston had been executed, Langton became a favourite of Edward II. Excommunicated by Winchelsey, he again appealed to the pope which was revoked on the archbishop’s death. He was a member of the royal council from this time until his dismissal at the request of parliament in 1315. In 1316 to 1317, he appeared again to be on the Council. In 1318, he was trying to retrieve a wealth of £20,000; he had obtained very many benefices and was owed much.[11] He died in November 1321 at his palace in The Strand, London, and was buried in Lichfield cathedral. His defaced monument in Derbyshire marble rests in the south aisle of the cathedral choir. His executors spent decades securing the return of his wealth. He left land and houses in eleven counties, mostly in the Midlands and the East.

            It is clear Langton schemed unscrupulous financial dealings, was ruthless when embroiled in considerable litigation and very good at conniving to make personal gain. This was only possible with royal support and in return Langton was totally loyal to the crown. 

Langton’s original monument. Line drawing, 18th-century, held in the National Portrait Gallery. In Public Domain curtesy of the Gallery. This is an artistic reconstruction.

 

Tomb slab from the south choir aisle. His tomb was plundered in the Civil War, 1643, and this sculpture is much defaced. The effigy matches a drawing held in the William Salt collection at Stafford and titled Bishop Langton.

     Langton gave his vestments and books to the cathedral for use or sale. He paid for a chalice and two cruets of gold, silver plate, and a bejewelled gold cross worth £200 for the cathedral. He gave houses in exchange for service from the vicars choral  and provided 20s. a year for their commons. He organised the building of the Lady Chapel and gave 904 marks in his will for its completion. His store of money at Lichfield and Eccleshall was left in his will (value unknown) to be used for the completion of the building of the cathedral. He probably had a hand in reordering the great west window and the west towers which were being built in his time. The vaulted stone roofs of the transepts might have been reordered in his episcopacy.[12] Within the retroquire he paid £2120 for a shrine to be made in Paris to house the relics of Chad. Chantries at the altars of St. Mary and St. Nicholas were endowed and given pensions. Emulating Wells Cathedral, Langton built a wall 15 m high with battlements around the Close. It had two fortified gates, four large towers and a moat and ditch.[13] This fortification must have come immediately prior to the first use of cannon; 1324 in the siege of Metz, France, and possibly in 1327, when used in battle by the English against the Scots. Probably the wall had to be reinforced soon after the age of cannon began. He constructed a new palace on the east edge of the Close and adorned it with embellishments celebrating Edward I. 

Reconstruction of the fortified cathedral occupied by the Royalists

Within the town he built causeways over the pool (Dam Street and Bird or Bridge Street) and obtained a licence to levy tolls on goods brought into the city for sale over a seven-year period and with the money provided pavement in the town and Close. He repaired his London house, and completely rebuilt his residences at Eccleshall Castle and Haywood, Shugborough.

How effective was Walter Langton as a bishop?

The traditional view has been there is a little evidence he visited Lichfield and many of his episcopal mandates were made outside of the diocese. He had little time for the diocese[14] and left its organisation to archdeacons. For most of his time he was undertaking the king’s business and was often abroad. He has therefore been criticised for being distant, unspiritual, more administrator than churchman and even negligent.[15] His great gifts to the cathedral might be seen as offsetting his neglect.

Recent analysis has shown a very different narrative. Apart from a protracted dispute over the visitation of certain prebends, his relations with the cathedral were very good. When Langton was suspended by Boniface VIII the Dean and Chapter wrote to the Pope in his defence, testifying that he was a God-fearing man, devoted to his ministry and had performed notable services for the cathedral.[16] Copies of letters in his register reveal he was a conscientious bishop transacting diocesan business whenever possible. Whether through personal choice or prevailing custom, Langton only employed vicars-general when he went abroad and to cover two absences in England.[17] During Langton's two terms of imprisonment in 1307-8 and in 1311 he again remained in contact with his diocese and appointed a vicar-general only for the first occasion.[18] He personally conducted the majority of ordination services held all over the diocese; five were in the cathedral. Had he been neglectful he would have employed a suffragan bishop more frequently. He was in Lichfield from 27–30 May 1300. In January 1310, Langton absolved Richard Leghton from a sentence of excommunication in the consistory court at Lichfield. On 12 January 1319, he was recorded as visiting Farewell Priory and staying in Lichfield. On the 14th he passed through Lichfield again. His burial in the cathedral testifies to his loyalty and veneration of Chad. His tomb was probably totally destroyed in the Civil War and a stone effigy in the south choir aisle is unlikely to be of Langton.

    In 2011, a list was made of the 250 richest people that had lived in Britain since 1066 and Langton was 53rd with a calculated wealth of £11.099 billion in today's currency.[19] He owned land in eleven counties[20] and many houses, palaces and a castle.[21]

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[1] T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield. (London: 1806). 10–1.

[2] Langton's mother, Amicia Peverel, was buried at Langton which suggests he could have been born in one of the Langton villages. He held three acres of land in Church Langton at his death and this may indicate his place of birth.

[3] Until recently, he was said to be of lowly birth and loosely connected with the Peverel family. See J. Blackwell Hughes, ‘The episcopate of Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1296-1321, with a calendar of his register’, Unpub. thesis, University of Nottingham, 1992, 198.

[4] Langton granted land and the advowson of the church of Adlingfleet, Yorkshire, to Selby abbey in his family name. It is stated in his register for 1291–3.

[5] Not thought to be a close relative. Also with Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury.

[6] His consecration by Béraud de Got, cardinal-bishop of Albano, took place on 23 December 1296, at Cambrai, where he was engaged in peace negotiations with the papal nuncios. On his return he made his profession of obedience to the Archbishop before the high altar at Canterbury.

[7] N. Denholm-Young, The liber epistolaris of Richard de Bury,  (Roxburghe Club Oxford: 1950) 317. He was appointed the principal executor of the king’s will.

[8] The accusation was he was living in adultery with his stepmother and had murdered her husband. Another was communicating with the devil, which was witchcraft.

[9] A. Beardwood, ‘The trial of Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield, 1307–1312’. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. (1964), 54, 3, 5. 

[10] Ibid, 33.

[11] By 1295, before he became treasurer, it has been estimated his benefices gave him £1000 annually. See A. Hamilton Thompson, 'The College of St Mary Magdalene, Bridgnorth, with some account of its Deans and Prebendaries', Archaeological Journal, (1927), 84, 68.

[12] J. Britton, The history and antiquities of the See and cathedral church of Lichfield. (London: 1820) 28.

[13] It is possible the bishop employed Henry Ellerton, master of the king's works, as his master mason at Lichfield.

[14] See T. F. Tout, ‘Langton, Walter’. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Volume 32. 130. The diocese of Coventry and Lichfield stretched south from the river Ribble in Lancashire to Edgehill in south-east Warwickshire, and from the western borders of the present county of Cheshire, including parts of the former counties of Flintshire and Denbighshire, to the boundary of the diocese of Lincoln. It had five archdeaconries; Chester, Coventry, Derby, Shrewsbury and Stafford.

[15] T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England, ii (Manchester, 1920) 16, 21.

[16] M. W. Greenslade and R. B. Pugh (eds.) 'House of secular canons - Lichfield cathedral: To the Reformation', in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 3, (London, 1970), 140–166.

[17] J. Blackwell Hughes (1992), 268. See note 3.

[18] Ibid. 270.

[19] P. Beresford and W. D. Rubinstein, The richest of the rich. The wealthiest 250 people in Britain since 1066. (Petersfield: 2011), 117. 

[20] Calendarium Inquisitionum post mortem, Parliamentary Writs, I, 300.

[21] H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i, (1691), 442 and 447.