Richard Martyn and the English bishops of
Lismore and Waterford in the fifteenth century
Niall C.E.J. O’Brien
In 1472 the long serving bishop
of Lismore and Waterford, Robert Poer, died. He was first appointed to the
diocese on 2nd September, 1446 and consecrated on 23rd
August, 1447.[1] On 9th March, 1472
Richard Martyn, Order Franciscans Minor (Greyfriars), was appointed by papal
provision.[2]
Yet it is said that Richard Martyn was
never consecrated and the diocese was left without an official bishop until
John Bulcombe was appointed on 17th March, 1475.[3]
Richard Martyn was not the first
English person to be appointed bishop of Lismore and Waterford since the union
of the two dioceses in 1363. Robert Read, O.P., was appointed on 9th
September, 1394 and stayed until 26th January, 1396 when he was
translated to Carlisle.[4]
The next bishop was Thomas Sparkford, B.C.L., from the diocese of Exeter. He
served in a number of parish positions in the west and south of England along
with holding two prebendaries in Wales.[5]
One of these parishes was the rectory of Saltwood, in the diocese of
Canterbury, which he resigned on his translation to Lismore. Master John
Fraunceys, B.C.L., papal writer and member of the pope’s household, succeeded
Sparkford at Saltwood.[6] He was appointed by papal provision on 26th
January, 1396[7]
and was consecrated by May 1396. Sparkford held the see for only a short time
as he died in June 1397.[8]
South transept of Lismore cathedral
The next bishop was John Deping,
O.P., and he was appointed on 11th July, 1397. His tenure was short
as he died on 4th February, 1400.[9]
The next bishop, Thomas Snell, was appointed on 26th May, 1400 and
stayed until 11th March, 1407 when he was translated to the diocese
of Ossory.[10] Thomas
Snell had previously served as archdeacon of Glendalough.[11]
Thomas Snell was succeeded in the
diocese of Lismore and Waterford before October 1407 by Roger of Appleby,
O.S.A.[12]
Another writer suggests that Roger was not an Augustinian cleric but a
Benedictine monk. Roger had previously served as bishop of Ossory (1400-1402)
and Dromore (1402-1407).[13]
His stay in Waterford was a brief one as he died before August 1409.[14]
The next bishop of Lismore and
Waterford was John Geese, Friar Carmelite, who was appointed on 23rd
August, 1409 by provision of Pope Alexander V.[15]
Some sources suggest that Geese may even have been bishop since 13th
August, 1408. The temporalities of the diocese were restored to Bishop Geese on
11th July, 1410. Geese had a Bachelor of Theology from Oxford
University but it is unclear if whether he was born in Ireland or England.[16]
This was the period of the pope
and anti-pope when a number of conflicting people claimed to be the one and
true pope. The battle for position was not just fought for the top position in
the church but benefices across Christendom came under attack from competing
parties. Thus on February 9, 1414 Bishop Geese was deprived of his position by
the Anti-Pope John XXIII.[17]
Thomas Colby, former bishop-designate of Elphin got the bishop’s chair.[18]
Leland suggested that Thomas Colby was first nominated to the see of Lismore
and Waterford by Richard II but that the appointment was not followed through.[19]
Thomas Colby was an English
cleric. He first joined the Carmelite Order at the Norwich convent. By 1384 he
had moved to the Oxford convent. It was in Oxford that Colby received his
Bachelor of Theology.[20]
On March 18, 1412 Colby was
appointed by papal provision to the diocese of Elphin. In February 1414 he was
translated to the diocese of Lismore and Waterford as said. Colby held the see
until 1421 when he was challenged at the Roman curia by John Geese. With
judgement passed against him, Colby surrendered the see. Thomas Colby died in
1423.[21]
The new bishop of Lismore and
Waterford was the successful claimant, John Geese. In an effort to strengthen
his position Bishop Geese impeached Richard O’Headian, archbishop of Cashel,
upon thirty articles concerning his conduct and administration in the
Parliament at Dublin in 1421.[22] In 1424 John Geese became
assistant bishop of London while still holding his Irish diocese. His death on
December 22, 1425 occasioned an election of a new bishop.[23]
The two cathedral chapters of the united diocese elected an Anglo-Irish cleric
called Richard Cantwell who was appointed on February 27, 1426.[24]
Richard Cantwell was formerly archdeacon of Lismore and so would have known the
diocese well.[25]
In the fifteenth century a number
of members of the extended Cantwell family became senior clerics in Ireland.
John Cantwell became archbishop of Cashel by papal provision on November 21,
1440. He was succeeded at his death in May 1452 by another John Cantwell who
was the former dean of Cashel. A third cleric, Simon Cantwell, from the Lismore
diocese, became successively dean of Limerick and archdeacon of Cashel before
his death in 1451 at Viterbo in Italy.[26]
Richard Cantwell, bishop of
Lismore and Waterford, established an air of stability following a period of
short encumberants. He held the diocese until his death on May 7, 1446 after
which Robert Poer became bishop for the succeeding forty-five years.[27]
In 1438 rumour circulated that Bishop Richard was dead and Henry VI appointed Thomas
Brid, Order of Predicants and professor of divinity, but on hearing that Bishop
Richard was very much alive the appointment was cancelled. Richard Cantwell was
buried in Waterford cathedral.[28]
Waterford cathedral
Robert Poer was a former dean of
Limerick. After his appointed to Lismore and Waterford, Bishop Robert obtained
a royal licence to purchase land to the value of £40 and add it to the
episcopal revenues. At about the same time the cathedral chapter got a royal
licence to increase their property portfolio by £100. In 1471 Robert Poer died.[29]
The appointment of Richard Martyn
in 1472 was therefore not a new departure of appointing English born clerics to
the diocese but an attempt to re-establish that provision. Yet the provision
was not for the benefit of the Irish diocese but to benefit the travelling
bishop. At some date Richard Martyn was made a suffragan bishop in the diocese
of Canterbury. He later became rector of All Saints Church, Lydd, one of the
most splendid churches in Romney Marsh.[30]
On 12th September 1484 Richard Martyn was given papal dispensation
not to reside at Lydd as he was bound to do so by the foundation charter of
Lydd parish church.[31]
On his appointment to Lismore and Waterford Richard Martyn was described as a
professor of divinity.[32]
At many times in the fifteenth
century English friars, searching for an episcopal title, arranged for their
appointment to an Irish see. They had little interest in Ireland or their see.
Instead, having become a bishop they could earn a better living in England as a
suffragan bishop or absentee assistant-bishop in some English diocese. This
traffic in Irish dioceses was facilitated by the loose control exercised by
English bishops and Irish archbishops.[33]
It would appear that Richard
Martyn didn’t spend much time in the diocese. In May 1472 he was living in
London where he was asked by papal mandate with two other bishops to judge that
disputed marriage between Richard Lessy and Agnes Cokkesson.[34]
By June 1475 Richard Martyn had resigned from Lismore and Waterford by which
time he was succeeded by John Bulcombe, another English cleric.[35]
For more on John Bulcome see = http://celtic2realms-medievalnews.blogspot.ie/2018/05/john-bulcombe-bishop-of-lismore-and.html
The succession of English clerics
holding the bishopric of Lismore and Waterford caused a reaction during the episcopal
of John Bulcombe when in 1480 Nicholas O’Hennessy challenged for the bishopric.[36]
Nicholas O’Hennessy was supported as bishop by the clergy of the Diocese of
Lismore while the clergy of the Diocese of Waterford, along with Waterford Corporation,
continued to support John Bulcombe as the legitimate bishop. In 1483 Thomas
Purcell, an Anglo-Irish cleric, became bishop of Lismore and Waterford and
spent the next twenty years trying to reunite the united diocese of Lismore and
Waterford.
===========
End of post
[2] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 26
[4] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 25; Ware, J., the Complete Works (), p. 534; www.wikipedia.bishop-of-Waterford-and-Lismore
accessed on 20 October 2011
[5] A.B.
Emden, A biographical register of the
University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (3 vols. Oxford, 1989), vol. 3, p. 1739
[6] W.H.
Bliss & J.A. Twemlow (eds.), Calendar
of Papal Letters relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Volume IV, 1362-1404 (Stationery
Office, London, 1902), p. 531
[7] W.H.
Bliss & J.A. Twemlow (eds.), Calendar
of Papal Letters relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Volume IV, 1362-1404 (Stationery
Office, London, 1902), p. 539
[8]
A.B. Emden, A biographical register of
the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (3 vols. Oxford, 1989), vol. 3, p.
1739; Ware, The Antiquities and History
of Ireland, p. 25; Ware, The Complete
Works, p. 534
[9] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 25
[11] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 26
[13]
Dom Hubert Janssens de Verebeke, O.S.B., ‘Benedictine Bishops in Medieval
Ireland’, in Etienne Rynne (ed.), North
Munster Studies: Essays in Commemoration of Monsignor Michael Moloney
(Limerick, 1967), p. 249
[14] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 26
[15] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 26
[16]
A.B. Emden, A biographical register of
the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol. 2, p. 752
[17]
A.B. Emden, A biographical register of
the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol. 2, p. 752
[19] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 25
[20]
A.B. Emden, A biographical register of
the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol. 1, p. 459
[21]
A.B. Emden, A biographical register of
the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol. 1, p. 459
[22]
A.B. Emden, A biographical register of
the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol. 2, p. 752
[23]
A.B. Emden, A biographical register of
the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol. 2, p. 752
[25] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 26
[26]
A.B. Emden, A biographical register of
the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol. 1, p. 351
[28] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 26
[29] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 26
[31] Twemlow,
J.A. (ed.), Calendar of Entries in the Papal
Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, volume XIV, 1484-1492 (London,
1960), p. 317
[32] Ware,
J., The Antiquities and History of
Ireland (), p. 26
[33] Rev.
Aubrey Gwynn, S.J., The medieval province
of Armagh (Dundalgan Press, Dundalk, 1946), p. 133
[34] Twemlow,
J.A. (ed.), Calendar of Entries in the Papal
Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, volume XIII, 1471-1484 (London,
1955), p. 309
[35] Twemlow,
J.A. (ed.), Calendar of Entries in the Papal
Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, volume XIII, 1471-1484 (London,
1955), p. 40
[36] James
F. Lydon, Terence B. Barry, Robin Frame and Katherine Simms (eds.), Colony and frontier in medieval Ireland:
essays presented to J.F. Lydon (Dublin, 1995), p. 147
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