Robert of Jumièges
He was a good friend and adviser to the king of England, Edward the Confessor, who appointed him bishop of London in 1044, and then archbishop in 1051.
Cnut subsequently married Æthelred's widow Emma of Normandy, Edward's mother, and had a son with her, Harthacanute.
[2] Some Norman chroniclers state that he visited Normandy on this trip and informed Duke William the Bastard that he was the childless King Edward's heir.
[15] According to these chroniclers, the decision to make William the heir had been decided at the same lenten royal council in 1051 that had declared Robert archbishop.
In refusing to consecrate Spearhafoc, Robert may have been following his own interests against the wishes of both the king and Godwin, as he had his own candidate, a Norman, in mind.
[2][26] Robert also discovered that some lands belonging to Canterbury had fallen into Godwin's hands, but his efforts to recover them through the shire courts were unsuccessful.
[27] Canterbury had lost control of some revenues from the shire of Kent to Godwin during Eadsige's tenure as archbishop, which Robert unsuccessfully attempted to reclaim.
[23] Events came to a head at a council held at Gloucester in September 1051, when Robert accused Earl Godwin of plotting to kill King Edward.
[33] Although Robert refused to consecrate Spearhafoc, there is little evidence that he was interested in the growing movement towards Church reform being promulgated by the papacy.
In 1049 Leo IX declared that he would take more interest in English church matters and would investigate episcopal candidates more strictly before confirming them.
It may have been partly to appease Leo that Edward appointed Robert instead of Æthelric, hoping to signal to the papacy that the English crown was not totally opposed to the growing reform movement.
[34] There are also some indications that Spearhafoc was allied to Godwin, and his appointment was meant as a quid pro quo for the non-appointment of Æthelric.
[39] The entire history of the various missions which Robert is alleged to have made is confused, and complicated by propaganda claims made by Norman chroniclers after the Norman Conquest in 1066,[35][40][e] leaving it unclear if Robert visited Normandy on his way to receive his pallium or after Godwin was in exile, or if he went twice or not at all.
[50] Robert's personal property was divided between Earl Godwin, Harold Godwinson, and the queen, who had returned to court.
Various dates are given, with Ian Walker, the biographer of Harold arguing for between 1053 and 1055,[39] but H. E. J. Cowdrey, who wrote Robert's Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry, says on 26 May in either 1052 or 1055.
[56] These included the relic of the head of Saint Valentine only recently given to the monks of Winchester Cathedral by Emma of Normandy.
[57] Two of the four most important surviving late Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts went the same way,[i] thus probably preventing their destruction in a series of fires that devastated the major English libraries.
[63] Before he came to England, Robert had begun the construction of a new abbey church at Jumièges, in the new Romanesque style which was then becoming popular,[64] and introduced to Normandy the two-towered western facade from the Rhineland.
[67] Robert probably influenced Edward the Confessor's rebuilding of the church at Westminster Abbey, the first known building in the Romanesque style in England, which is so described by William of Malmesbury.
