Although Alexander was known for his ostentatious and luxurious lifestyle, he founded a number of religious houses in his diocese and was an active builder and literary patron.

He also attended church councils and reorganised his diocese by increasing the number of archdeaconries and setting up prebends to support his cathedral clergy.

Under Henry's successor, King Stephen, Alexander was caught up in the fall from favour of his family, and was imprisoned together with his uncle Roger in 1139.

[6] The historian Martin Brett feels that Alexander probably served as a royal chaplain early in his career, although no sources support this conjecture.

While occupying that office he was credited with writing a glossary of Old English legal terms in the Anglo Norman language,[8] entitled the Expositiones Vocabulorum.

[16] Although Alexander was a frequent witness to royal charters and documents, there is no evidence that he held an official government position after his appointment as bishop, unlike his relatives Roger and Nigel.

[20] Besides these reorganisations, Alexander had a number of clerics in his personal household, including Gilbert of Sempringham, who later founded the Gilbertine order.

Other members of the bishop's household were Ralph Gubion, who became abbot of St Albans, and an Italian Bible scholar named Guido or Wido, who taught that subject while serving Alexander.

But Matilda was less sanguine and secured the support of the Scottish king, David, her maternal uncle, and in 1138 that of her half-brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Henry I.

[17] In early 1139 Stephen may have named William d'Aubigny as Earl of Lincoln,[d][26] perhaps in an effort to limit Alexander's influence in Lincolnshire.

[27] Another possible explanation for the arrests is offered by the Gesta Stephani, a contemporary chronicle, which reported the king's fear that Roger and his nephews were plotting to hand their castles to the Empress Matilda.

[33] Alexander then successfully applied to Pope Innocent II in 1139 for support in his efforts to recover Newark castle from Earl Robert.

[34] Stephen's brother, Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and one of the king's main supporters, had recently been appointed papal legate.

[37] Alexander was present at Oxford in July 1141, when the Empress Matilda held court and attempted to consolidate her hold on England.

[38] The citizens of London objected to Matilda's rule when she arrived in their city, and drove her away; Robert of Gloucester was captured shortly afterwards.

[46] The author of the Gesta Stephani claimed that Alexander's additions made Lincoln Cathedral "more beautiful than before and second to none in the realm".

[47] Traditionally, Alexander has been credited with the commissioning of the baptismal font in Lincoln Cathedral, made of Tournai marble.

Recent scholarship, however, has cast doubt upon this theory and suggests that the font was carved on the orders of Alexander's successor, Robert de Chesney.

[3] The medieval chronicler William of Newburgh wrote that Alexander founded a number of monasteries, "to remove the odium" that he had incurred because of his castle building.

Alexander himself stated explicitly that his foundation of Louth was intended to secure the remission of his sins, as well as the salvation of King Henry I, his uncle Roger of Salisbury, and his parents.

[52] Alexander spent most of 1145 and 1146 at the papal court in Rome,[3] although some time during that period he was in England as one of the witnesses to the peace accord signed between the earls of Chester and Leicester.