ABSTRACT
The study of medieval Episcopal residences has tended to concentrate on individual houses and particularly the central palace next to the cathedral. This chapter presents a different approach and seeks to establish the scale and function of such residences on a single estate, that of the Diocese of Winchester. This approach should cast light on the function of different types of Episcopal residence, contribute to wider studies of housing provision, display, and artistic patronage among the elites of medieval England, and provide a suitable context for the more frequent scholarly examinations of individual residences. The Diocese of Winchester seems particularly suitable for such a study. It possesses a series of substantial remnants of its Episcopal residences; above all it offers a mass of exceptional documentary evidence relevant to them. Henry of Blois's investment in buildings fell into three main phases. Early in his episcopate, his buildings included the two-storey chapel at Bishop's Waltham and a new hall at Wolvesey Palace.
