# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nigel (d.1169)

​NIGEL (d. 1169), bishop of Ely, statesman, was a nephew of Roger, bishop of Salisbury [q. v.], by whom he was committed for education to Anselm, abbot of Laon (Hermannus, p. 539), and there trained for official work (Will. Malm. ii. 558). Although born, it would seem, scarcely later than 1100, he is not mentioned in England till nearly 1130. His earliest attestation is to an Abingdon charter (Chron. Abb. ii. 164), which is assigned to 1124, but which belongs to 1126–1130 (Add. MS. 31943, fol. 60). He also attests an Abingdon charter of 1130 (Chron. Abb. ii. 173), one granted at Rouen in May 1131, two granted at the council of Northampton in September 1131 (Sarum Documents; Mon. Angl. iv. 538), one of 1132 (ib. vi. 1271), and one of 1133 (Cart. Riev. p. 141), always as ‘nepos episcopi.’ He is also so styled in the Pipe Roll of 1130, where he occurs as connected with the Norman treasury, and as owning over fifty hides of land in various counties, besides property at Winchester, where doubtless he had official work. He was already a prebendary of St. Paul's (Le Neve, ii. 377), when in 1133 he was promoted to the wealthy see of Ely, as Henry I was leaving England for the last time, and consecrated on 1 Oct. He was present, as bishop, at the king's departure (Madox, i. 56). Resenting as a court job the selection of ‘the king's treasurer,’ the monks of Ely have left us, through their spokesman Richard, no favourable picture of his rule.
Residing at London, as treasurer and administrator, he left the charge of his see to a certain Ranulf, who soon quarrelled with the monks. Nigel, however, from his official position, was able to recover, at the end of Henry's and the beginning of Stephen's reign, several estates which his see had lost, and which he enumerated in his charter (Cotton MS. Tib. A. vi. fol. 111), but when he turned his attention to the treasures of his cathedral church the strife between Ranulf and the monks became acute. For two years they were oppressed by his exactions till, about the beginning of 1137, a mysterious conspiracy in which he was involved, and which, says Orderic, was revealed through Bishop Nigel himself, caused Ranulf's sudden flight with some of his ill-gotten wealth, whereupon Nigel and his monks became reconciled. His hands were strengthened by Pope Innocent, who in successive bulls and letters (1139) insisted on the complete restoration to his see of all her possessions, however long they had been lost (ib. 110 b–14).
Meanwhile the bishop, with his uncle and brother, had accepted Stephen's succession, and were all three present at his Easter court in 1136, and witnessed shortly afterwards his charter of liberties at Oxford (Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 262). His uncle is said to have bought for him the office of treasurer at the beginning of the reign (Will. Malm. p. 559). The wealth and power of the three prelates, however, exposed them to the jealousy of the king, and it was feared by Stephen that they were intriguing for the support of the pope. Dr. Liebermann holds that they actually attended the Lateran council of April 1139, but this is improbable. On their sudden arrest at the council of Oxford on 24 June 1139 Nigel alone escaped (Ann. Mon. iv. 23), and fled to his uncle's stronghold of Devizes, which, however, he was forced to surrender (Will. Malm. p. 549). The breach between the king and the prelates was now virtually irreparable, and Nigel was tempted by the strong position of Ely to embrace the cause of the empress on her arrival in England. He began to fortify the isle, and secured local allies (Historia Eliensis, p. 620). The king hearing of this sent forces against him, but they besieged the isle in vain till Stephen himself, after Christmas 1139, came to their assistance (Hen. Hunt. p. 267), and with the help of boats and a floating bridge crossed the water. At the onset of his troops Nigel's followers gave way at once, and he himself, with three companions, fled to the empress at Gloucester (Historia Eliensis, p. 620). Forfeited by the king, he found himself in poverty, and appealed to the pope for assistance. Innocent thereupon wrote on 5 Oct. 1140 to Theobald, the primate, complaining that Nigel was ‘absque justitia et ratione a sede sua expulsum et rebus propriis spoliatum,’ and insisting on his reinstatement and the submission of all his foes clerical and lay (Cotton MS. Tib. A. vi. ut supra).
But his fortune was now suddenly changed by the king's capture at Lincoln on 2 Feb. 1141. Accompanying the empress in her advance from Gloucester, he entered Winchester with her on 3 March, was with her at Reading in May, and at Westminster during her short visit in June. When her scattered followers reassembled at Oxford in July he was still with her, but after the release of the king he realised the hopelessness of her cause. Early in 1142, his knights having reassem​bled in the meanwhile at Ely, Stephen sent against them the Earls of Pembroke and Essex, who dispersed them; but after this the king restored him to possession of his see, and his monks and people received him with great rejoicing after his two years' absence. For a time he applied himself quietly to the affairs of his see, but having condemned a clerk, named Vitalis, for simony, the latter appealed against him to the London council of March 1143, where the legate (Bishop Henry of Winchester) favoured him, and also allowed Nigel to be accused of raising civil war, and of squandering the estates of his see on knights. Nigel, cited to appear before the pope, resolved to consult the empress first. At Wareham, on his way to her in Wiltshire, he was surprised and plundered by the king's men, but succeeded in reaching her, and after many narrow escapes returned in safety to Ely. He now brought pressure to bear on the monks, desiring to use the treasures of his church to influence the court of Rome. Succeeding at length in this, with great difficulty, he made his way to Rome (whither the legate had preceded him), where, supported by Archbishop Theobald and his own treasures, he cleared himself before Pope Lucius II, who wrote several letters (24 May 1144), acquitting him of all offences, and confirming to him all the possessions of his see (Cotton MS. Tib. A. vi. fol. 117).
Nigel's triumph, however, was shortlived. During his absence the Earl of Essex (Geoffrey de Mandeville) had seized upon Ely, and made it the centre of his revolt against the king. The bishop, hearing of this at Rome, had induced Lucius to protest, and, hearing on his return of the ruin brought upon the isle, complained further to the pope, who again wrote in his favour. Such of his possessions as had escaped Geoffrey had been forfeited by Stephen, who, mindful of Nigel's previous treason, accused him of connivance in the revolt. Geoffrey's death had now strengthened Stephen's hands, and the bishop was unable for some time to make his peace. At length a meeting was arranged at Ipswich, but it was only on paying 200l., and giving his beloved son Richard Fitzneale (afterwards bishop-treasurer) as hostage for his good behaviour, that Stephen forgave and restored him (Cotton MS. Titus A. i. fol. 34 b). To raise the above sum he further despoiled his church; and the subsequent raids upon its treasure, with which he is charged by the monks, may have been due to eagerness to purchase favour at court, the cause of the empress seeming hopeless. There are clear traces of his regaining an official position before the close of the reign. He appears as a president of the Norfolk shiremoot (Blomefield, Norfolk, iii. 28), and is addressed in royal documents (Mon. Angl. iv. 120, 216). He was also a witness to the final treaty between Stephen and Duke Henry on 6 Nov. 1153 (Rymer); he was present at the consecration of Archbishop Roger on 10 Oct. 1154 (Anglia Sacra, i. 72), and he attended the coronation of Henry on 19 Dec. 1154.
With Henry's accession begins the most important period of his life. The sole survivor of his great ministerial family and depository of its traditions, he was at once called upon by the young king to restore his grandfather's official system. He also purchased the office of treasurer for his son Richard, to whose ‘Dialogus de Scaccario’ we are indebted for information on his official work. The king, we learn from the preface, sent to consult Nigel on the exchequer, his knowledge of which was unrivalled (i. 8), and he was at once employed to restore it to its condition before the civil war. He is represented as having been very zealous for the privileges of its officers (i. 11). From the earliest pipe rolls of Henry II his official employment is manifest, but Eyton's belief that he was chancellor at Henry's accession (p. 2) was based on an error exposed by Foss. Meanwhile the monks had gained the ear of the new pope, Adrian IV [q. v.], who (22 Feb. 1156) threatened Nigel with suspension, unless within three months he restored to his church all that had been taken from it since his consecration (Jaffé, 10149; Cotton MS. Titus A. i. fol. 48). Nigel pleaded the absence of the king from England as an obstacle to restitution, and a further bull (22 March 1157) granted him an extension of time (Jaffé, 10265; Cotton MS. Titus A. i. fol. 48 b). The king, Theobald, other bishops, and John of Salisbury (Epist. pp. 14, 30, 31) interceded warmly on his behalf, but it was not till 1159 (16 Jan.) that Adrian at length relaxed his suspension, on condition of his swearing, in the presence of Theobald, to make complete restitution (Jaffé, 10535; Cotton MS. Titus A. 1, folios 49, 50). The monks implied that he never did so, and could not forgive him for despoiling their church. His crowning offence in their eyes was that he did this in the interest of his son Richard, for whom they alleged he bought the office of treasurer for 400l. when Henry II was in need of money for his Toulouse campaign. But the pipe rolls do not record the transaction. It may be that John of Salisbury's indignant rebuke to him (Epist. 56) is connected with this scandal, for he charges Nigel with evading the canons of the church. Another scandal was caused by his making a married ​clerk sacrist of Ely. Archbishop Thomas wrote to him strongly on this matter, and at last cited him to appear before him for disregard of his letters (Cotton MS. Titus A. i. folios 53, 53 b).
Meanwhile he is proved by charters to have been in constant attendance at court, and he was also present at Becket's consecration (3 June 1162), and at the great council of Clarendon (January 1164). But his chief work was at the exchequer, and it is as ‘Baro de Scaccario’ that he directs a writ to the sheriff of Gloucester (Nero, c. iii. fol. 188). He also appears as the presiding justiciar in the curia regis, Mich. 1165, at Westminster (Madox, Formulare, p. xix). In the great Becket controversy he took no active part, his sympathies being doubtless divided between the privileges of his order and the prerogatives of the crown. Struck down by paralysis, it would seem, at Easter 1166, he passed the last three years of his life in quiet retirement at Ely, where he died on 30 May 1169.
A churchman only by the force of circumstances, his heart was in his official work, and the great service he rendered was that of bridging over the era of anarchy, and restoring the exchequer system of Henry I. By training his son Richard Fitzneale [q. v.] the treasurer in the same school, he secured the continuance of the elaborate system with which his name will always be identified.
J. H. R.