St. William of York (review)

St. William, William of York, William fitzHerbert, is best known as the archbishop of York who was—uniquely—elected to that office twice, the first time after a protracted election following the death of Archbishop Thurstan (1140), and the second six years after his own deposition by the pope. With historical scholarship to date concerned mainly with the controversies and polemical literature of the years of conflict, little attention has been given to William's career prior to 1143, as long serving canon of York Minster and its treasurer—the latter office held with the archdeaconry of the East Riding—or with his posthumous career as the North's answer to Thomas Becket. Even his career as archbishop has been overshadowed both by the "case of St. William of York" (the phrase used memorably by David Knowles) and by his death just a week after celebrating Mass in York Minster to mark his triumphal return, the circumstances of which contributed to suspicions of murder. Moreover, as Christopher Norton argues in this very welcome study of William, much of the literature has been colored by the propaganda of William's opponents, most notoriously the Cistercian abbot, Bernard of Clairvaux, who, among other choice phrases, described William as a man "who is rotten from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head." Norton demonstrates in this scholarly and engaging book that there is much more to be known of the entire spectrum of William's career than has previously been supposed. Norton meticulously mines the evidence to reconstruct and analyze William's thirty-five years or so at York prior to his election as archbishop in 1143, and to elucidate the importance of the growth of his cult and his canonization in 1226. William emerges as a prominent and important figure in the northern province; yet he did not appear at York in the time of Archbishop Thomas II (1109–1114) from nowhere. As Norton shows, his career path was made possible by his father, Herbert the royal treasurer; indeed, his appointment formed part of a "complex set of negotiations" between the summers of 1108 and 1109, with William's father, two archbishops, and King Henry I. Tracing William's career once he arrived at York is complicated by the existence of several archdeacons named William, but Norton confidently demonstrates that fitzHerbert is to be identified as William of Beverley, and thus played a part in the crucial embassy to Rome concerned with the primacy dispute between Archbishop Thurstan and his Canterbury counterpart. William's diplomatic skills must have been honed by his need to remain in favor with the king in view of both his support of Thurstan and his own father's fall from grace. Norton's rich exploration of this long period of William's life certainly rescues him from the effects of the dominance of the disputed election in the historiography, as does his analysis of the admittedly rather sparse evidence for William's activities as diocesan and metropolitan. Norton brings a fresh eye to the machinations of the 1140's, from William's election to his deposition in 1147 and beyond, and in his discussions William seems a figure of dignity in contrast to Bernard who "emerges from the affair with very little credit." Finally, Norton picks his way delicately through the rich but hitherto neglected sources for the cult and the canonization of St. William, and the posthumous career of this neglected figure. This book is of interest not only as a corrective to previous assessments of William of York, but for the rich picture of the northern diocese in this formative period.