Hugh de Nonant, Bishop of Coventry (d. 1198)
Hugh de Nonant was one of the most controversial churchmen of late twelfth-century England. Elected to the see of Coventry in 1185 and consecrated on 31 January 1188,[i] his rise was closely tied to royal service. He acted as a diplomat for Henry II, including a mission to Rome in 1186 to secure papal permission for Prince John’s coronation as King of Ireland. He later accompanied both Henry and Richard I abroad, and even purchased the shrievalties of Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and Staffordshire in 1189 for 200 marks, along with minting rights at Lichfield.[ii] Such offices contravened canon law, and he was soon suspended by Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury for this overreach.
Hugh’s episcopate is most remembered for his violent hostility toward monks. Soon after his consecration he expelled the monastic chapter at Coventry and replaced them with secular canons, destroying the monks’ charters by force of arms.[iii] De Nonant is alleged to have torn down the monastic buildings to their foundations while lodgings for his newly-created canons were erected in their place.[iv] His sentiments were clear: Gervase of Canterbury records him declaring that “in two months there would be no monks in any cathedral in the land”.[v] This made him a leading figure in the wider anti-monastic movement among the secular clergy in England.[vi]
Politically, Hugh was deeply enmeshed in the struggles of Richard I’s reign. Initially allied with William Longchamp, the powerful Chancellor and papal legate, Hugh turned against him in 1191, becoming an ardent supporter of Prince John. He played a prominent role in the council at St Paul’s in October 1191 that deposed Longchamp as justiciar.[vii]Peter of Blois ascribed Hugh’s actions to jealousy of Longchamp’s greater wealth and authority, for Ely far outstripped impoverished Coventry.[viii] During Richard’s captivity in Germany, Hugh worked with John’s faction, even helping to seize castles at Nottingham and Tickhill from Longchamp.[ix] Tried with John on Richard’s return in 1194, Hugh was only restored to royal favour in 1195 after paying a heavy fine of 5,000 marks, and he subsequently retired to Normandy.
Hugh’s death in March 1198 brought little redemption to his reputation. Roger of Wendover records that a Coventry monk seized the moment to petition Pope Innocent III for the convent’s immediate restoration, which Hubert Walter oversaw in January 1198.[x] Accounts of Hugh’s final days stress his notoriety: on his deathbed at Bec Abbey, clothed in the Benedictine habit, he confessed a lifetime of sins so grave that no priest was willing to absolve him.[xi] Modern historians have echoed the ambivalence of his contemporaries: A. L. Poole called him a “dexterous and unprincipled politician,” while John Gillingham quipped that he was “Prince John’s chief propagandist and, in his spare time, bishop of Coventry.”[xii]
Hugh de Nonant remains a vivid example of the twelfth-century bishop whose political ambitions and secular entanglements eclipsed his pastoral duties. To friends and enemies alike, he epitomised the monk-hating prelate and opportunistic courtier—an eloquent but divisive figure whose stormy career ended in both scandal and repentance.
[i] Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 253
[ii] L. Stewartby, “Lichfield and Chichester,” The Numismatic Chronicle (1966–) 161 (2001). p. 293.
[iii] Franklin, cited in Monasticon Anglicanum; McGrory, 2022, 40.
[iv] Ric. of Devizes, Chron. (Medieval Texts), pp. 69–70.
[v] D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, 332.
[vi] P. J. Dunning, “The Arroasian Order in Medieval Ireland,” Irish Historical Studies 4, no. 16 (1945): 297–315, at 310.
[vii] Balfour, D. (1997). The Origins of the Longchamp Family. Medieval Prosopography, 18, 76.
[viii] U. Everett, Bishop and Chapter in Twelfth-Century England: A Study of the Mensa Episcopalis (Cambridge, 1994), 370.
[ix] F. Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England, 1042–1216, 4th ed. (London: Longman, 1999), 373–376.
[x] K. Norgate, “The Date of Composition of William of Newburgh’s History,” The English Historical Review 19, no. 74 (1904): 296.
[xi] A. L. Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087–1216 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), 357.
[xii] Balfour, D. (1997). The Origins of the Longchamp Family. Medieval Prosopography, 18, 75.