In his Historia de rebus Anglicis, William of Newburgh, the twelfth-century English Augustinian canon and chronicler, recounted an amazing, and possibly apocryphal, story of two bishops going to war. One, Bishop Wimund, was portrayed as a villainous rogue; the other, an unnamed Scottish bishop, was the very model of episcopal humility and fortitude. What these two bishops had in common was that they both led armies onto the field of battle and personally fought. Whereas Bishop Wimund aggressively fought for plunder and conquest, the humble bishop fought against him in order to defend his flock. Both bishops used military violence to achieve their ends, but William judged each very differently. He opted to use the story to demonstrate the dangers of worldliness and avarice among churchmen, rather than to make a commentary on clerics involved in war. Modern historians, such as Nancy Partner, have seen William as a largely traditional cleric bemoaning the lure of worldly service among the prelates of his time. John Gillingham elaborates by pointing out that, while William was generally opposed to clerics taking on active secular jurisdictions in violation of the Third Lateran Council, he also praised Bishop Hubert Walter of Salisbury – himself an active warrior bishop and chancellor of England (who is discussed in chapter 8).

For Gillingham, Newburgh’s praise of Hubert is incongruous, based on the general ideology that clerics should not be interested in ‘secular’ activities; but, as will be seen in this book, simply engaging in military activities was not the same as being ‘secular’ or ‘worldly’, provided a cleric did so for salutary reasons. Observers often complained about clerics becoming too ‘worldly’ or even ‘knightly’, but this condemnation did not necessarily encompass all warrior-clerics. If a cleric’s primary identity and manner of behavior remained humble (rather than materialistic or ‘knightly’) he could avoid condemnation (or even garner praise) while utilizing the levers of secular and military power. Men such as William of Newburgh could clearly see active military violence by churchmen as a morally neutral activity, being either condemnable or laudable depending on the circumstances. On the other hand, many clerical reformers, who were seeking to disassociate clerics from warfare, did not generally make such distinctions.