# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ghent, Simon de

​GHENT, SIMON de (d. 1315), bishop of Salisbury, was born at Westminster (Matt. of Westm. p. 431). In 1284 he was archdeacon of Oxford, and was present in this year when Devorguila assigned lands to her newly founded college of Balliol (Tanner, p. 307; Wood, v. 72). Archbishop Winchelsey gave him a prebend in Salisbury Cathedral on 27 April 1284, when he was already archdeacon of Oxford. He was elected chancellor of the latter university in December 1290 or 1291, and continued to hold the office till 1293 (Tanner, p. 307). He was also a canon of Salisbury and York before his election to the bishopric of Salisbury on 2 June 1297, on the death of Nicholas Longespée (Le Neve, ed. Hardy, iii. 599). At this time he was ‘magister … vir in arte Theologica peritus’ (Matt. of Westm. p. 431). Archbishop Winchelsey consecrated him at Canterbury on 20 Oct. 1297 (Stubbs, p. 49, from Cant. Profession Rolls). In June 1299 Edward I employed him as his envoy, when the Bishop of Vicenza, at the instance of Boniface VIII, was arranging a peace between France and England (Rymer, ii. 841). Owing to Winchelsey's illness he was one of the three prelates who crowned Edward II on 25 Feb. 1308 (Annales Paulini, p. 260; cf. Rymer, iii. 52). Next year he was summoned to Newcastle for military service against the Scots at Michaelmas 1309 (Rymer, iii. 149). By this time he was one of the leading English politicians. His name is third on the list of the ordainers in March 1310, and on 17 March he was one of the thirty-two nobles who pledged themselves that the king's concessions on this occasion should not be turned into a precedent (Ann. Lond. pp. 170, 172). He died on 31 March 1315 in his London house, near St. Bridget's Church, and was buried at Salisbury, in the north part of the choir, where his tomb was already an object of pilgrimage in the days of his successor, Robert de Mortivaux (Annales Paulini, pp. 277–8; Salisbury Register, quoted in Jones, Fasti, p. 92).
Simon's episcopate is remarkable for his refusal to admit the pope's nominee, Cardinal Reymund, to the deanery of Salisbury (Jones, p. 92; Diocesan Hist. p. 117). He was an ardent reformer, and is found instituting inquiries as to pluralists and lay vicars, suspending prebendaries for neglect of duty, and admonishing his chancellor for neglecting the cathedral fabric, and his treasurer for not reading the divinity lectures he was bound to give (ib. pp. 117–18). Early in his episcopate he addressed letters of remonstrance to Boniface VIII, because of the intrusion of foreigners into cathedral stalls. These letters (dated 29 March 1302) are preserved in Balliol College Library, No. 169 (Jones, p. 92; Coxe, Catalogue, i. 46). In 1305 Simon was at variance with the burgesses of Salisbury, from whom, according to his rights, he claimed a tallage whenever the king had one from his towns. The citizens resisted, and rather than make the payment renounced their privileges (April 1305). Ultimately, however, they prayed for the restoration of the old dues. A charter (8 May 1306) restored the bishop's right of tallage, a gild-hall was established under Simon's patronage, and the city was strengthened by a wall and a moat running through the episcopal demesne. A curious document shows the bishop's anxiety for the townsmen's spiritual welfare, and another recounts the steps he took to preserve the privileges of his close from infringement at the great tournament of 1305 (Hatch, pp. 70–80, 737–43; Godwin, p. 347).
Simon's writings are: 1. ‘Regula Anchoritarum, sive de Vita Solitaria,’ in seven or eight books (manuscripts at Magdalen College, Oxford, No. 67, and in the British Museum, Vitell. E. vii. 6, Nero A. xiv., is an old English translation, addressed to the nuns at Tarent in Dorsetshire). 2. A ‘Meditatio de Statu Prælati’ (Tanner, p. 307). 3. ‘Statuta ecclesiastica,’ by which at the ​beginning of the seventeenth century the church of Salisbury was still in a great measure ruled (Godwin, i. 347). 4. The letters to the pope mentioned above.
[Annales Paulini, Bridlingtonienses, Londonienses, ap. Chron. of Edward I and II (Rolls Ser.), ed. Stubbs; Matt. of Westminster, Frankfort, 1601; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy; Fasti Ecclesiæ Sarisberiensis, ed. the Rev. W. H. Jones; Diocesan Histories, Salisbury, by the Rev. W. H. Jones; Stubbs's Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum; Rymer's Fœdera, ed. 1705–6; Hatch's Hist. of Salisbury, 1843; Dodsworth's Cathedral Church of Salisbury, 1814, pp. 42, 141–2; Godwin, De Præsulibus, ed. Richardson, vol. i. 1743; Planta's Cat. of Cotton. MSS. p. 205.]
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