William Bateman (bishop)
[6] By his desire, Bateman took up his residence at the Papal Court at Avignon, where he rose through various lucrative and dignified offices until finally, in that or the succeeding pontificate, he was appointed auditor of the palace.
He retained the same high reputation with John's successor, Benedict XII (1334), by whose provision he was made dean of Lincoln, which dignity we find him holding in 1340.
[6] Edward III's wars with France had now begun, and Bateman speedily entered the long series of diplomatic negotiations which characterised the last decade of his life.
A few months after his consecration, he was commissioned by the king to present letters to Clement for a final peace, and once more to treat with the ambassadors of Philip before the pope as mediator.
His repeated selection by the king for these difficult and delicate negotiations is evidence of the confidence reposed in his wisdom, statesmanship, and intimate acquaintance with the tortuous policy of the papal court.
He appealed to the council called by Archbishop John de Stratford at St Paul's, on 25 September 1347, against this invasion of the privileges of the spirituality by the temporal power.
During the whole of this time of pestilence, Bishop Bateman remained unflinchingly at his post, never leaving his diocese for a single day, often instituting as many as twenty clergy at once.
Bishop Bateman applied to Pope Clement VI for direction, who issued a bull authorising him to ordain sixty young men two years under the canonical age, a permission of which he availed himself to a very small extent’.
The bishop's object in this foundation, which was designed solely for students of canon and civil law, was to recruit the thinned ranks of the clergy of his diocese with men trained in those studies.
For this purpose he became possessor of a hostel which had been purchased by John of Crawden, prior of Ely, as a place to which the monks of his house might retire for study, giving them in exchange six rectories in his diocese.
His intention had been to found a master and twenty fellows, besides scholars, who were each to say a prescribed office, De Trinitate, on rising and going to bed, always to speak Latin, to dispute three times a week on some point of canon or civil law, and have the Holy Scripture read aloud during meals.
Two years previously, in 1348, a clergyman of Bateman's diocese, Edmund Gonville, rector of Terrington, had obtained licence from Edward III to found a college for twenty scholars in honour of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin.
He removed the college to its present site, near his earlier foundation, and substituted for Gonville's statutes a selection from those of Trinity Hall, by which the requirement of an almost exclusively theological training was abolished.
[6] On 17 September 1353 Bateman, as founder of the two societies, ratified an agreement of fraternal affection and mutual help between them ‘as scions of the same stock,’ the precedence, however, being assigned to the members of Trinity Hall, tanquam fratres primogeniti.
He was again commissioned, 30 March 1354, with William de Clinton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, and others, to negotiate a final peace with France; and again, on 28 August of the same year, to treat with the French ambassadors before the pope.
[8] He was buried before the high altar of Avignon Cathedral, the patriarch of Jerusalem officiating, and the whole body of cardinals attending the obsequies with the exception of one detained by illness.
