John Carpenter (bishop of Worcester)

15th-century Bishop of Worcester

For other people named John Carpenter, see John Carpenter (disambiguation).

John Carpenter

Bishop of Worcester
Appointed| 20 December 1443
Term ended| July 1476
Predecessor| Thomas Bourchier
Successor| John Alcock
Orders
Consecration| 22 March 1444
Personal details
Born| 4 May 1399

Westbury on Trym, Bristol, England

Died| after July 1476
Northwick, Worcestershire, England
Denomination| Catholic

John Carpenter (1399–1476) was an English bishop, provost, and university chancellor.

## Early life

[edit]

Carpenter's father was John Carpenter the elder, born around 1362 to Richard or Renaud Carpenter of Cambrai and his wife Christina of London. John Carpenter the bishop was also known as John Carpenter the elder.[1] He had three siblings, Margery, John the younger, and William. His two brothers were baptised in Hereford. He was baptised on 4 May 1399 in St Peter's Church, Westbury on Trym, Bristol, England.[2][unreliable source?] He had a notable uncle also called John Carpenter, town clerk of London.

According to Douglas-Smith, Carpenter was Warden of St. Anthony's Hospital, London and Rector of St. Mary Magdalen.[3] A Master John Carpenter, then King's clerk, is referred to in Patent Rolls of 17 March 1433 and 9 July 1435, the first being a grant for life of the wardenship. John Carpenter, bishop of Worcester, appears as a plaintiff in the Plea Rolls of the Common Pleas, in 1450, and is also described as the warden of the Hospital of St Anthony.[4]

## Bishop and chancellor

[edit]

Carpenter was Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, from 1428 to 1444,[5] and Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1437.[6] Carpenter was nominated on 20 December 1443 and consecrated as Bishop of Worcester on 22 March 1444. He resigned the see in July 1476.[7] Carpenter died in 1476 in Northwick, Worcestershire, England, and was buried in Westbury on Trym.[2][unreliable source?]

## Church at Westbury on Trym

[edit]

Carpenter was buried at Holy Trinity Church, Westbury on Trym, in 1476. He had been baptised at the same church, which at that time was dedicated to St Peter and St Paul. Soon after Carpenter became bishop he sought to raise the status of St Peter's to that of a joint cathedral with Worcester, and styled himself "Bishop of Worcester and Westbury".[6][8] He had the building rededicated to the Holy Trinity.[8] Carpenter added a chancel, and a chapel dedicated to St Oswald, to the fabric.[9] He also refounded and rebuilt Westbury College.[10]

Carpenter was buried in the crypt underneath the altar. His memorial was originally a cadaver tomb, with the bishop in full episcopal attire above an enclosure containing a sculpture of a cadaver or skeleton. This tomb was broken up in 1646, during the Civil War, by soldiers from the Bristol garrison.[6] In 1851 the stone cadaver was found in the crypt of the chapel. This was incorporated in 1853 into a new canopied memorial of Purbeck marble,[10] marked on top with a bishop's crozier. Over the porch entrance doorway is a statue of Bishop Carpenter, of unknown date. At some time headless, the statue was restored in the early 20th century.[6]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ This family had Flemish/Du Nord French ancestry in its names. Translations of Jean/Jehan/Jehannes become John in English. Jean & Jehan being the diminutive form became John the younger while some Jehan and all Jehannes became John the elder or rarely John the older. For more details see Jenkin.
2. ^ a b Carpenters' Encyclopedia of Carpenters 2009 DVD, which contains Carpenter Family genealogy. John the elder Carpenter, Bishop – the subject of the article above is listed as RIN 4678.
3. ^ "The City of London School" By A. E. Douglas-Smith, 2nd Edition, 1965, Oxford.
4. ^ "IMG_0687". National Archives. University of Houston Law Center. Retrieved 30 October 2013. "Entry number 6"
5. ^ H. E. Salter and Mary D. Lobel, ed. (1954). "Oriel College and St Mary Hall". A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 3: The University of Oxford. Victoria County History. pp. 119–131.
6. ^ a b c d Westbury-on-Trym Parish Church and College. From the information framed at the entrance of the church and containing the history of the vicars etc. Info also from "Bishop Carpenters Monument" in the chancel of the parish church and directly over the sepulchre in the little chapel beneath the chancel.
7. ^ Powicke Handbook of British Chronology p. 261
8. ^ a b "'College: Westbury-on-Trym', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 2 (1907), pp. 106–108". British History Online. Retrieved 27 July 2010.
9. ^ "Westbury on Trym: The Church". About Bristol, England, UK. Retrieved 30 October 2013.
10. ^ a b Little, Bryan (1978). Churches in Bristol. Bristol: Redcliffe Press Ltd. p. 32\. ISBN 978-0905459066.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Powicke, F. Maurice and E. B. Fryde Handbook of British Chronology 2nd. ed. London:Royal Historical Society 1961
* Peasants And Landlords In Later Medieval England by Fryde, 1996. There is major material on Bishop John Carpenter within. The author says that, "He appears to have come from Westbury near Bristol and to have descended from a family of Episcopal tenants there." (p. 169)
* Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: The Estates of the Bishopric of Worcester, 680–1540, Cambridge, 1980. by Dyer.
* Burton, Edwin. "Ancient Diocese of Worcester". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 23 April 2009.

## External links

[edit]

* Alvechurch where Bishop Carpenter resided.
* Bishop Carpenter's Injunctions to the Diocese of Worcester in 1451. From: Historical Research – Volume 40, Issue 102, pages 203–207, November 1967.
* Aspects of the Episcopate of John Carpenter, Bishop of Worcester 1444–1476. By Roy M. Haines, Associate Professor of History, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. From: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History April 1968 19 : pp 11–40, Cambridge University Press 1968. doi:10.1017/S002204690005942X – Published online: March 2011.

Academic offices

Preceded by

Nicholas Herry

|  Provost of Oriel College, Oxford
1428–1435  | Succeeded by

Walter Lyhert

Preceded by

Thomas Bourchier

|  Chancellor of the University of Oxford
1437–1438  | Succeeded by

Richard Praty

Catholic Church titles
Preceded by

Thomas Bourchier

|  Bishop of Worcester
1443–1476  | Succeeded by

John Alcock

* v
* t
* e

Provosts of Oriel College, Oxford

Predecessors|

* Adam de Brome
* William de Leverton
* William de Hawkesworth
* William de Daventre
* John de Colyntre
* John de Middleton
* John de Maldon
* John Possell
* John Rote
* William Corffe
* Thomas Leyntwardyn
* Henry Kayle
* Nicholas Herry
* John Carpenter
* Walter Lyhert
* John Hals
* Henry Sampson
* Thomas Hawkyns
* John Taylor
* Thomas Cornysh
* Edmund Wylsford
* James More
* Thomas Ware
* Henry Mynne
* William Haynes
* John Smyth
* Roger Marbeck
* John Belly
* Antony Blencowe
* William Lewis
* John Tolson
* John Saunders
* Robert Say
* George Royse
* George Carter
* Walter Hodges
* Chardin Musgrave
* John Clarke
* John Eveleigh
* Edward Copleston
* Edward Hawkins
* David Monro
* Charles Shadwell
* Lancelot Phelps
* David Ross
* George Clark
* Kenneth Turpin
* Michael Swann
* Zelman Cowen
* Ernest Nicholson
* Derek Morris
* Moira Wallace
* Neil Mendoza

* v
* t
* e

Bishops of Worcester

Early medieval|

* Bosel
* Oftfor
* Egwin of Evesham
* Wilfrith (I)
* Milred
* Waermund
* Tilhere
* Heathured
* Denebeorht
* Heahbeorht
* Ealhhun
* Werferth
* Æthelhun
* Wilfrith (II)
* Koenwald
* Dunstan
* Oswald
* Ealdwulf

High medieval|

* Wulfstan (I)
* Leofsige
* Beorhtheah
* Lyfing
* Ælfric Puttoc
* Lyfing
* Ealdred
* Wulfstan (II)
* Samson
* Theulf
* Simon
* John de Pageham
* Alured
* Roger
* Baldwin of Forde
* William of Northall
* Robert FitzRalph
* Henry de Sully
* John of Coutances
* Mauger
* Randulf of Evesham
* Walter de Gray
* Sylvester
* William de Blois
* Walter de Cantilupe
* Nicholas of Ely
* Godfrey Giffard

Late medieval|

* John St German
* William Gainsborough
* Walter Reynolds
* Walter Maidstone
* Thomas Cobham
* Wulstan Bransford
* Adam Orleton
* Simon Montacute
* Thomas Hemenhale
* Wulstan Bransford
* John of Thoresby
* Reginald Brian
* John Barnet
* William Whittlesey
* William Lenn
* Walter Lyghe
* Henry Wakefield
* Robert Tideman of Winchcombe
* Richard Clifford
* Thomas Peverel
* Philip Morgan
* Thomas Polton
* Thomas Brunce
* Thomas Bourchier
* John Carpenter ("Bishop of Worcester and Westbury")
* John Alcock
* Robert Morton
* Giovanni de' Gigli

Early modern|

* Silvestro de' Gigli
* Girolamo Ghinucci
* Hugh Latimer
* John Bell
* Nicholas Heath
* John Hooper, Bishop of Worcester and Gloucester
* Nicholas Heath
* Richard Pate
* Edwin Sandys
* Nicholas Bullingham
* John Whitgift
* Edmund Freke
* Richard Fletcher
* Thomas Bilson
* Gervase Babington
* Henry Parry
* John Thornborough
* John Prideaux
* Episcopacy abolished (Commonwealth)
* George Morley
* John Gauden
* John Earle
* Robert Skinner
* Walter Blandford
* James Fleetwood
* William Thomas
* Edward Stillingfleet
* William Lloyd
* John Hough
* Isaac Maddox
* James Johnson
* Brownlow North
* Richard Hurd

Late modern|

* Folliott Cornewall
* Robert Carr
* Henry Pepys
* Henry Philpott
* John Perowne
* Charles Gore
* Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs
* Ernest Pearce
* Arthur Perowne
* William Wilson Cash
* Mervyn Charles-Edwards
* Robin Woods
* Philip Goodrich
* Peter Selby
* John Inge

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template