page_title: Gilbert Foliot
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Gilbert Foliot / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Excerpt from a mosaic in the church Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome. Pope Innocent II stands at the far left, beside Sts. Lawrence and Calixtus. The Pope is depicted as the founder of the new building of Santa Maria, holding it in his arms. the mosaic is from the building of the church by Innocent II, thus is 12th century
context_page_description: Gilbert Foliot was a medieval English monk and prelate, successively Abbot of Gloucester, Bishop of Hereford and Bishop of London. Born to an ecclesiastical family, he became a monk at Cluny Abbey in France at about the age of twenty. After holding two posts as prior in the Cluniac order he was appointed Abbot of Gloucester Abbey in 1139, a promotion influenced by his kinsman Miles of Gloucester. During his tenure as abbot he acquired additional land for the abbey, and may have helped to fabricate some charters—legal deeds attesting property ownership—to gain advantage in a dispute with the Archbishops of York. Although Foliot recognised Stephen as the King of England, he may have also sympathised with the Empress Matilda's claim to the throne. He joined Matilda's supporters after her forces captured Stephen, and continued to write letters in support of Matilda even after Stephen's release.
  Foliot accompanied Theobald of Bec, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to a papal council at Reims in 1148. During his time there he was appointed to the Diocese of Hereford by Pope Eugene III.
context_section_description: Foliot was probably the son of Robert Foliot—steward to David, Earl of Huntingdon, heir to the Scottish throne—and Robert's wife Agnes, sister of Robert de Chesney, Bishop of Lincoln. Whatever his parentage, Gilbert was certainly Robert de Chesney's nephew; another of his uncles, Reginald, was a monk of Gloucester Abbey and Abbot of Evesham Abbey. Other ecclesiastics in his family included Robert Foliot, a later Bishop of Hereford perhaps from an Oxford branch of the family, and two earlier Bishops of London, Richard de Beaumis the elder and Richard de Beaumis the younger, Gilbert also referred to Richard of Ilchester, later Bishop of Winchester, as a kinsman, but the exact relationship is unknown. William de Chesney, a partisan of Stephen's and a leading Oxfordshire layman, was another of Foliot's uncles, and Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford, was a cousin. In about 1145 Foliot intervened to secure the release of a knight to whom he was related, Roger Foliot, but their precise relationship is unknown.
  Born about 1110, Foliot became a monk of Cluny, probably in about 1130. He became Prior of Cluny Abbey, then Prior of Abbeville, a Cluniac house. There are some indications that he studied law at Bologna, and he may have studied under Robert Pullen, the English theologian, either at Oxford or Exeter. He also acquired a knowledge of rhetoric as well as the liberal arts. The names of two of his early teachers are known, but nothing else of them. Foliot also learned biblical exegesis, probably from Pullen.
  Foliot attended the Second Lateran Council, called by Pope Innocent II. It opened on 4 April 1139, and among other matters heard an appeal from the Empress Matilda concerning her claim to the throne of England. Matilda was the daughter and only surviving legitimate child of King Henry I, but following her father's death in late 1135 her cousin Stephen, the son of Henry's sister, had seized the crown. By 1139 Matilda had gathered supporters and was contesting Stephen's right to the throne.
  In about 1143 Foliot wrote an account of the proceedings of the council in a letter to one of Matilda's supporters. No action was taken on her claim, and no conclusion was reached as to its validity. The papacy continued to accept Stephen as king, and the pope ordered the English Church to make no changes to the status quo. According to Foliot's letter the council's deliberations centred on the legitimacy of the marriage between Matilda's parents. Matilda's mother, Edith-Matilda, had been educated at a convent, and there was some uncertainty over whether she had taken vows before her marriage to Henry I. At the time of the council, the question caused some concern, although in time most were persuaded that the marriage was valid because Anselm of Canterbury had performed the ceremony. Foliot seems to have had some doubts in 1139, but before writing his letter of 1143 he had come to believe that Matilda was indeed the legitimate heiress, and he supported the Angevin cause, as Matilda's claim was known.
caption: Pope Innocent II (left) from a mosaic in Rome
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