ABSTRACT
Various observations on the personnel of the episy copate, made in the course of the last section, provide the starting-point for examining the conduct of elections in the period 1215–72. The episcopate, it seemed, was a kind of senate of professional men recruited from the royal court, the papal curia, the Oxford and Paris schools, the monasteries and the secular cathedrals. The proportions in which these communities were represented were considered. A further analysis of the groups within the episcopate showed that during the minority of Henry III a group of old counsellors of King John, alongside Stephen Langton and other former teachers at Paris, was appointed. In the next period of the reign we find a group or Oxford magistri who had come under the influence of St. Edmund or Grosseteste, together with conflicting little sets from the royal court, foreigners, household officials, and men from the established administrative departments. Finally, in the last period of the reign, we find curiales prepared to support the Crown against the baronage, together with monks, interested only in local affairs, and magistri who became notorious through their adherence to Simon de Montfort. The groups, in other words, corresponded roughly to changes in political and ecclesiastical leadership: taken together, they include a very miscellaneous gathering of churchmen, differing as much in their achievements as bishops as they did in native ability, social background, and professional experience.
