Gerard (archbishop of York) - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Gerard was an associate of the anonymous author of the Quadripartitus and the Leges Henrici Primi, two 12th-century law books. The medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury charged Gerard with immorality, avarice and the practice of magic. Gerard encouraged at least one of his clergy to study Hebrew, a language not normally studied at the time. Some chroniclers considered his ownership of a Hebrew psalter to be disturbing, seeing it as a sign of heresy or secret Judaism. Among the sins that Malmesbury imputed to him was the study of Julius Firmicus Maternus, a late Roman astrologer, every morning, which to Malmesbury meant that Gerard was a sorcerer. Malmesbury further claimed that Gerard was "lewd and lustful". In Gerard's favour, Anselm regarded him as learned and highly intelligent. Some verses composed by Gerard survive in unpublished form, now in the British Library manuscript collection as part of manuscript Cotton Titus D.xxiv. A collection of his letters circulated in the mid-12th century, part of a bequest made to Bec Abbey in 1164 by Philip de Harcourt, the Bishop of Bayeux, but it is now lost.

Gerard died suddenly on 21 May 1108, at Southwell, on his way to London to attend a council. His body was found in an orchard, next to a book of "curious arts", his copy of Julius Firmicus. His canons refused to allow his burial within his cathedral, but their hostility probably owed more to Gerard's attempts to reform their lifestyle than to his alleged interest in sorcery. Gerard was at first buried beside the porch at York Minster, but his successor, Thomas, moved the remains inside the cathedral church.