Gerard (archbishop of York)

Gerard was appointed Lord Chancellor by William I, and he continued in that office under Rufus, who rewarded him with the Bishopric of Hereford in 1096.

Partly because of such rumours, and his unpopular attempts to reform his cathedral clergy, Gerard was denied a burial inside York Minster after his sudden death in 1108.

The mission departed for Rome in February 1095 and returned by Whitsun with a papal legate, Walter the Cardinal Bishop of Albano, who had Anselm's pallium.

The legate secured Rufus' recognition of Urban, but subsequently refused to consider Anselm's deposition.

[9] Although not yet ordained, Gerard was rewarded with the Bishopric of Hereford,[4] and he was consecrated by Archbishop Anselm on 8 June 1096;[10] his ordination as a deacon and priest had taken place the previous day.

[16] At Whitsun in 1101 King Henry I, with Anselm's support, deprived Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, of the lands of the see of Durham, because Ranulf had defected to Henry's elder brother Robert Curthose, who also claimed the English throne.

[18] He travelled to Rome in 1102 to receive his pallium from the pope,[1] to whom he presented the king's side against Anselm in the controversy surrounding investitures.

In this correspondence, Gerard complained that some of the York canons refused to be ordained as priests, thereby hoping to avoid taking the vow of celibacy.

He also accused them of accepting prebends but refusing to live or work at the cathedral, and of focusing on a narrow legal definition of celibacy without actually being celibate.

[32] Gerard was an associate of the anonymous author of the Quadripartitus and the Leges Henrici Primi, two 12th-century law books.

The medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury charged Gerard with immorality, avarice and the practice of magic.

[34] Some chroniclers considered his ownership of a Hebrew psalter to be disturbing, seeing it as a sign of heresy or secret Judaism.

[37][e] A collection of his letters circulated in the mid-12th century, part of a bequest made to Bec Abbey in 1164 by Philip de Harcourt, the Bishop of Bayeux, but it is now lost.

[2] His canons refused to allow his burial within his cathedral,[33] but their hostility probably owed more to Gerard's attempts to reform their lifestyle than to his alleged interest in sorcery.

Gerard was at first buried beside the porch at York Minster, but his successor, Thomas, moved the remains inside the cathedral church.