CORBEIL, WILLIAM OF

Archbishop of Canterbury; b. Normandy, France, between 1060 and 1080; d. Canterbury, Kent, England, Nov. 21, 1136. First known as a clerk in the service of Ranulf Flambard (d. 1128), Bishop of Durham, he took Flambard's children to the schools at Laon perhaps between 1107 and 1109. He was a friend of anselm of canterbury and in 1116–17 accompanied Anselm's pupil and successor Ralph d'Escures on his disastrous journey to Rome in the attempt to settle the Canterbury-York dispute. In 1118 William became an augustinian canon at the house of the Holy Trinity, Aldgate, London, possibly as a result of a vision described in the Dicta Anselmi. In 1119 he became first prior of St. Osyth's in Essex, and on Feb. 4, 1123, he was elected archbishop of canterbury, to the great distress of the English black monks who had hoped for one of themselves, and after some controversy his election was confirmed by callis tus ii on the direct intervention of Emperor henry v. He refounded the houses of St. Gregory's, Canterbury, and Minster-in-Sheppey, Kent, and attempted to refound the house of secular canons in Dover as a house of regular canons, but in this he was defeated by the monks of Canterbury. He was appointed papal legate in 1126, held legatine councils in 1127 and 1129, and acted as judge delegate in the dispute concerning the See of llandaff. In his time Canterbury effectually lost its claim to be supreme over york, and papal influence made considerable headway in England. He completed and dedicated the cathedral at Canterbury in 1130, and in 1135 he crowned stephen as king. Thirty-three of his acta survive.

Bibliography: d. l. bethell, The Archiepiscopate of William of Corbeil 1123–1136 (unpub. diss. Bodleian Library, Oxford). t.f. tout, The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900, 4:1120–23. k. leyser, "England and the Empire in the Early Twelfth Century," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, ser. 5, 10 (1960) 61–85.

[d. l. bethell]