Jocelin (or Jocelyn) (died 1199) was a twelfth-century Cistercian monk and cleric who became the fourth Abbot of Melrose before becoming Bishop of Glasgow, Scotland.

Jocelin was responsible for promoting the cult of the emerging Saint Waltheof, and in this had the support of Enguerrand, Bishop of Glasgow.

Among other things, he has been credited by modern historians as "the founder of the burgh of Glasgow and initiator of the Glasgow fair",[1] as well as being one of the greatest literary patrons in medieval Scotland, commissioning the Life of St Waltheof, the Life of St Kentigern and the Chronicle of Melrose.

[2] There are some indications that his family held land in South Lanarkshire, namely because they seem to have possessed rights in the church of Dunsyre.

For Jocelin's contemporary and fellow native of the Borders, Adam of Dryburgh, this part of Britain was still firmly regarded as terra Anglorum (the "Land of English"), although it was located inside the regnum Scottorum (the "Kingdom of the Scots").

He obviously successfully completed his one-year noviciate, the year in which a prospective monk was introduced to monasticism and judged fit or unfit for admittance.

Under the year of his accession, it was reported in the Chronicle of Melrose that: The tomb of our pious father, sir Waltheof, the second abbot of Melrose, was opened by Enguerrand, of good memory, the bishop of Glasgow, and by four abbots called in for this purpose; and his body was found entire, and his vestments intact, in the twelfth year from his death, on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June [22 May].

Duncan argued that Jocelin commissioned the entries dealing with the period between 731 and 1170, putting the writing in the hands of a monk named Reinald (who later became Bishop of Ross).

G. W. S. Barrow, writing before Duncan advanced these arguments, noted that down to the end of King William's reign "the chronicle of Melrose Abbey ... represents a strongly 'Anglo-Norman' as opposed to a native Scottish point of view".

[citation needed] After his election to the prestigious bishopric of Glasgow in 1174, Jocelin would continue exerting influence on his home monastery.

[17] Jocelin was required to go to France to obtain permission from the General Chapter of the Cistercian order at Cîteaux to resign the abbacy.

Conveniently, it was at Cistercian house of Clairvaux that, sometime before 15 March 1175, Jocelin was consecrated by the Papal legate Eskil, Archbishop of Lund and Primate of Denmark.

[19] Jocelin had returned to the Kingdom of Scotland by 10 April, and it is known that on 23 May he had consecrated a monk named Laurence as his successor at Melrose.

The reason it was awakened was that in the summer of 1174 King William had invaded northern England, and on 13 July, having been caught underprotected during a siege at Alnwick, was captured and taken into English custody.

[22] Worse still, and more significantly for Jocelin, in the following year King Henry II of England forced William to sign the Treaty of Falaise, a treaty which made William Henry's vassal specifically for Scotland and sanctioned the subordination of the kingdom's bishoprics to the English church.

On 10 August 1175, along with many other Scottish-based magnates and prelates, Jocelin was at Henry's court giving his obedience to the king as stipulated in the treaty.

The Pope lifted the interdict, absolved the king and appointed two legates to investigate the issue of the St Andrews succession.

In 1186, Jocelin, along with the abbots of Melrose, Dunfermline and Newbattle, excommunicated Hugh on the instructions of Pope Lucius.

[28] Hugh travelled to Rome in 1188, and obtained absolution, but he died of the pestilence in that city a few days later, thus allowing the issue to be resolved.

When a son was born to William and Ermengarde, the future King Alexander II, it was Jocelin who performed the baptism.

[citation needed] His years at Glasgow left a mark on history that can be compared favourably with any previous or future bishop.

[39] It was built in the Romanesque manner, and although little survives of it today, it is thought to have been influenced by the cathedral of Lund, the archbishop of which had consecrated Jocelin as bishop.

At some point between the years 1175 and 1178, Jocelin obtained from King William a grant of burghal status for the settlement of Glasgow, with a market every Thursday.