4 - Archbishop William: The Second Archiepiscopate

Summary

William retired to Winchester, the city of his youth which he had left almost forty years before to pursue his career at York. It was a natural choice of refuge. The principal estates of his family were in Hampshire, and his brother Herbert held a number of properties in the city – albeit of considerably lesser value than those held by his father Herbert the Chamberlain c. 1110. And it was at Winchester that he would find his closest ecclesiastical ally in the southern province, his cousin, Henry of Blois. Although no longer holding the pre-eminent position within the English church which he had enjoyed as papal legate, as bishop of Winchester and brother of the king Henry of Blois was still a force to be reckoned with in the affairs of the realm, and was a dominant presence in the life of the city. And he was always inclined to help the members of his wider family when it lay within his power to do so. Henry received William with honour, gave him a house and provided for his daily needs.

The house where William stayed, to begin with at least, can be located from the 1148 survey of Winchester carried out for Henry of Blois. It stood at the very centre of the city, on the south side of High Street and on the northern edge of the cathedral precinct, near the church of St Lawrence (Fig. 16). William had known this part of the city intimately in his youth, and it must have evoked memories both sweet and painful not only of his own early years but also of his father's successes and final humiliation, for the house where William stayed had been built on part of the site of the former royal palace in the centre of Winchester, which Herbert the Chamberlain must have frequented on official business for years on end. The palace site, indeed the whole area between the cathedral and the High Street, had undergone extensive redevelopment since the start of the century (Fig. 3). The New Minster community, hard up against the north side of the Old Minster, had been preparing to move to their new site at Hyde around the time William was appointed to his position at York, and the land which they vacated was added to the cathedral precinct.