Godfrey Giffard - Bishop of Worcester

Bishop of Worcester

Giffard was still Chancellor when the monks of Worcester elected him as Bishop of Worcester about 13 June 1268, on the translation of Bishop Nicholas of Ely to the See of Winchester. Henry III accepted his appointment, and he received the temporalities on 13 June 1268. After some little resistance, Archbishop Boniface of Savoy confirmed his election, but it was not until 23 September that he was consecrated by the archbishop at Canterbury and he was enthroned in Worcester Cathedral on Christmas Day 1268.

He retained the chancellorship until October 1268, and in 1268 received a grant of five hundred marks a year for the support of himself and the clerks of the chancery.

In 1272 he acted with Roger de Meyland Bishop of Lichfield in treating with Llywelyn the Last of Wales. In May 1273 he was sent abroad with Nicholas of Ely, Bishop of Winchester, and Walter Bronescomb, Bishop of Exeter, to meet King Edward I on his return from the Holy Land. He was made a commissioner along with Roger Mortimer to investigate certain grievances of the Oxford scholars, and in 1278 acted as an itinerant justice in Hertfordshire and Kent.

In 1279 he succeeded to the very extensive property of his brother the Archbishop of York. He was also one of the four negotiators selected in 1289 by King Edward I of England to treat at Salisbury with the Scottish and Norwegian envoys about sending Margaret of Norway to Scotland.

Giffard ruled over the See of Worcester for more than thirty-three years, and his activities were almost confined to his own diocese.