[1] He taught at the University of Bologna as a teacher of medicine before moving to England.
Farnham came to England because of King Henry III's offers of teaching chairs at Oxford to those displaced by the riots.
[1] He was elected to the see of Durham on 2 January 1241 and at first he wanted to decline the office, but Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln persuaded him to accept.
In 1244, he almost died, and had to go to the south of England where he received a miraculous cure from drinking water which had had bristles from the beard of Saint Edmund of Abingdon soaked in it.
Once more in 1248, his health declined, and it was this illness that caused Farnham to seek a licence to resign his see from the pope.