Gerard la Pucelle

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Gerard la Pucelle
Denomination   Catholic
Senior posting
See   Diocese of Coventry
Title   Bishop of Coventry
Period in office   1183–1184
Predecessor   Richard Peche
Successor   Hugh Nonant
Personal
Date of birth   c 1117
Place of birth  
Date of death   January 13 1184

Gerard la Pucelle was an Anglo-French scholar of canon law, clerk, and Bishop of Coventry.

Contents

[edit] Life

Gerard (Girard) La Pucelle (c. 1115/20 –1184) was an Anglo-French scholar, possibly born in England, who taught canon law[1] at the University of Paris in the 1150s, when the study of the discipline of the Church was first differentiated from theology, spurred by the collections of church decretals that began with the Decretum Gratiani assembled by a monk at the University of Bologna. Among his surviving texts are glosses on the Decretum Manuscripts, among the manuscripts of Durham Cathedral[2] and, in the Summa Lipsiensis[3] marked with the siglum 'Magister G. Coventris Episcopus' ("Doctor G. Bishop of Coventry"), and occasionally in the Summa Parisiensis[4], and elsewhere (See Pennington). Gerard La Pucelle added to the standard collection from which he taught. Among his pupils were Lucas of Hungary, Ralph Niger, master Richard, a certain Gervase who retired to Durham, and the English scholar Walter Map (Pennington).

Gerard was a member of Thomas Beckett's entourage, his extended familia, and a close friend of John of Salisbury. He undertook a mission to the Empire in 1165/66 even though Frederick Barbarossa was under a ban of excommunication. In 1168 GĂ©rard returned to England and took the oath of fealty to Henry II which Becket had rejected. With papal permission and that of Louis VII of France he was permitted to reside—and doubtless teach— in Cologne, which was one of the most important centers of canon law scholarship in the 1160s and 1170s.

From about 1174 he was once again in England, serving as a principal clerk to Becket's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Richard of Dover.

Perhaps already a canon, in January of 1183, he was appointed Bishop of Coventry (later known as Coventry and Lichfield)[5][6], which made him the vassal of Henry II of England[7], but he died the following year on January 13 1184.[5]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ leges et decreta according to John of Salisbury.
  2. ^ MS C.III.1 marked with the siglum `Ger.' (Pennington)
  3. ^ The collection of decretals with commentary, as used in Leipzig
  4. ^ The decretals and commentaries collected at the Univerrsity of Paris.
  5. ^ a b Powicke Handbook of British Chronology p. 233
  6. ^ The two dioceses were combined, 1121–1188.
  7. ^ Throughout the latter part of the twelfth and early part of the thirteenth century, the bishop owed the service of fifteen knights, according to Victoria County History: Warwick, vol 2 (1908) {http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=36487 (on-line])

[edit] References

Religious titles
Preceded by
Richard Peche
Bishop of Coventry
1183–1184
Succeeded by
Hugh Nonant
Persondata
NAME La Pucelle, Gerard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gerard Pucelle, Girard la Pucelle
SHORT DESCRIPTION Bishop of Coventry
DATE OF BIRTH c1117
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 1184
PLACE OF DEATH
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