:Robert Winchelsey

Image:Laurentius de Voltolina 001.jpg, second half of the 14th century. Robert would have taught much like this.]]

Winchelsey studied and taught at the universities of Paris and Oxford, and became the Rector of Paris, and Chancellor of Oxford. While in Paris, he read, and possibly met, Thomas Aquinas, and his own theology was thereafter purely scholastic.Denton "Winchelsey, Robert" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

In 1283, he was appointed canon of St. Paul's in London, but it is unclear exactly when he returned to England. He held the prebend of Oxgate in the diocese of London,Greenway "Prebendaries: Oxgate" Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 1: St. Paul's, London and was made Archdeacon of Essex, also in the London diocese, in about 1288.Greenway "Archdeacons: Essex" Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 1: St. Paul's, London

John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, died in December 1292. On 13 February 1293, Winchelsey was elected as his successor.Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 233 Unusually, neither the pope nor the king had a hand in his election. On 1 April, Winchelsey left England for Rome to get papal confirmation. He was not consecrated immediately because of a papal vacancy; Celestine V eventually performed the ceremony at Aquila on 12 September 1294.Greenway "Canterbury: Archbishops" Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 2: Monastic Cathedrals (Northern and Southern Provinces)

Winchelsey was a fearless opponent of Edward I. When he swore his oath of fealty to Edward, he offended the king by adding a declaration that he was only swearing fealty for the temporalities, not the spiritualities. All through his term as archbishop he refused to allow Edward to tax the clergy beyond certain levels, and withstood severe pressure to change his mind. In August 1295, he offered the king a tenth of all ecclesiastical revenues, less than Edward had hoped to collect from the clergy. Winchelsey did concede though that if the war with France, which was what the money was requested to fund, continued into the following year, then the clergy would be amenable to making further contributions.Prestwich. Edward I p. 405

Following the issue of the papal bull Clericis laicos in 1296, forbidding the payment of taxes to a secular power, Winchelsey urged his clergy in 1297 to refuse payments to Edward. However, the clergy of the province of York paid a tax of a fifth of their revenues. Edward then declared clerics who refused to pay outlaws, and ordered their property to be seized. He conceded that the clergy could return to his protection if they paid a fine of a fifth of their revenues, exactly what the northern clergy had offered in the way of taxation. The royal clerks and many other clergy paid the fines, and in March, the southern clergy met again, and after a long debate, Winchelsey instructed each clerk to decide for himself whether or not to pay the fine. It appears that most chose to pay,Prestwich. Edward I pp. 415–17. but the archbishop still refused to make any contribution, and so Edward seized his lands. They were returned to him in July 1297, when the king and prelate were reconciled at Westminster.Powell and Wallis House of Lords pp. 232–35 Winchelsey then tried to mediate between Edward and the earls, who also objected to Edward's tax demands.Prestwich Edward I p. 420

Winchelsey further irritated Edward with his opposition to the Bishop of Lichfield, Walter Langton, who was the king's treasurer. The king was not the only one to be upset by the archbishop; the abbot of Oseney, in 1297, was so affected by a rebuke from him that he suffered a fatal heart attack.Prestwich Edward I pp. 412–413 In 1299, Winchelsey and the king briefly reconciled, and the archbishop presided at the king's second marriage, to Margaret of France, at Canterbury.Prestwich Edward I p. 521 Winchelsey vigorously asserted his authority over his suffragan, or subordinate bishops, quarrelled with Pope Boniface VIII over a Sussex living, and was excommunicated by one of the pope's clerks in 1301. He was absolved in 1302.

Winchelsey and the barons joined in demanding reforms from the king at the parliament of Lincoln in 1301, but Winchelsey's support of Boniface VIII's claim to be the protector of Scotland broke the alliance. One of the reasons which led the archbishop to ally with the barons was his hostility to Edward's adviser, Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield. The king took no action against Winchelsey until the Gascon and former royal clerk Bertrand de Got was named Pope Clement V in 1305.Prestwich Edward I pp. 540–41 Edward then sent two envoys – Langton and Henry Lacy – to the pope, to press his claim that Winchelsey was plotting against him. Clement suspended the archbishop on 12 February 1306. Winchelsey left England and went to the papal court at Bordeaux, where he stayed until Edward's death in July 1307. Only Antony Bek, Bishop of Durham supported the archbishop.

After the death of Edward I, the new king, Edward II, asked that Winchelsey be restored,Powell and Wallis. House of Lords, p. 266 which the pope agreed to on 22 January 1308. Soon after his return to England in early 1308 the archbishop joined the king's enemies.Weir. Queen Isabella p. 42 The archbishop, along with the Earl of Warwick, were the only people to object to the return of the new king's favourite Piers Gaveston to England in 1309.Weir Queen Isabella p. 49 Winchelsey aided the barons in their prosecution of Edward II by sentencing their enemies to excommunication.Weir. Queen Isabella p. 55 He was appointed an Ordainer in 1310,Powell and Wallis House of Lords pp. 275–276 and died at Otford on 11 May 1313.

Winchelsey was a preacher of some note, and when preaching at St. Paul's he attracted large crowds to his sermons and lectures.Moorman Church Life pp. 162–163 Winchelsey's theological writings date primarily from his time at St. Paul's, where he delivered a number of quodlibeta. The quaestiones disputatae from those sessions survive, and illustrate his highly orthodox trinitarian views and his scholastic method. Miracles were said to have been worked at his tomb in Canterbury cathedral, but efforts to have him declared a saint have been unsuccessful.

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• {{cite encyclopedia|author=Denton, J.H.|encyclopedia=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|title=Winchelsey, Robert (c. 1240–1313)|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29713|access-date=7 April 2008|year=2004|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi= 10.1093/ref:odnb/29713}} {{ODNBsub}}
• {{cite book|author1=Fryde, E.B.|author2=Greenway, D.E.|author3=Porter, S.|author4=Roy, I.|title=Handbook of British Chronology|edition=Third revised|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, UK|year=1996|isbn=978-0-521-56350-5}}
• {{cite book|author=Greenway, Diana E.|section=Canterbury: Archbishops|title=Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300|volume=2: Monastic Cathedrals (Northern and Southern Provinces)|year=1971|publisher=Institute of Historical Research|section-url=http://british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=33853|access-date=6 March 2008}}
• {{cite book|author=Greenway, Diana E.|section=Archdeacons: Essex|title=Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300|volume=1: St. Paul's, London|year=1968|publisher= Institute of Historical Research|section-url=http://british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=33803|access-date=6 March 2008}}
• {{cite book|author=Greenway, Diana E.|section=Prebendaries: Oxgate|title=Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300|volume=1: St. Paul's, London|year=1968|publisher=Institute of Historical Research|section-url=http://british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=33829|access-date=6 March 2008}}
• {{cite book|author=Moorman, John R.H.|author-link=John Moorman|title=Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century|year=1955|edition=Revised|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, UK|oclc=213820968}}
• {{cite book|author1=Powell, J. Enoch|author-link1=Enoch Powell|author2=Wallis, Keith|title=The House of Lords in the Middle Ages: A History of the English House of Lords to 1540|year=1968|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|location=London|oclc=463626}}
• {{cite book|author=Prestwich, Michael|author-link=Michael Prestwich|title=Edward I|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven, CT|year=1997|isbn=978-0-300-07157-3}}
• {{cite book|author=Weir, Alison|author-link=Alison Weir|title=Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery and Murder in Medieval England|publisher=Ballantine Books|location=New York|year=2005|isbn=978-0-345-45319-8}}

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• {{cite book|author=Denton, J.H.|title=Robert Winchelsey and the Crown, 1294–1313: A Study in the Defence of Ecclesiastical Liberty|year=1980|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location= Cambridge, UK|isbn=978-0-521-22963-0}}

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{{s-bef| before=John Peckham }}

{{s-ttl| title=Archbishop of Canterbury | years=1294–1313}}

{{s-aft| after=Walter Reynolds|after2=(Thomas Cobham|as=archbishop-elect)}}

{{s-aca}}

{{s-bef|before=Hervey de Saham}}

{{s-ttl|title=Chancellor of the University of Oxford|years=1288–1289}}

{{s-aft|after=William de Kingescote}}

{{s-end}}

{{Archdeacons of Essex}}

{{Archbishops of Canterbury}}

{{Chancellors of the University of Oxford}}

{{Authority control}}

{{Good article}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winchelsey, Robert}}

Category:1240s births

Category:1313 deaths

Category:University of Paris alumni

Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford

Category:Archbishops of Canterbury

Category:Archdeacons of Essex

Category:People excommunicated by the Catholic Church

Category:13th-century English Roman Catholic archbishops

Category:14th-century English Roman Catholic archbishops

Category:English tax resisters

Category:English theologians

Category:Chancellors of the University of Oxford

Category:Place of birth unknown

Category:Year of birth uncertain