William de Corbeil - Primacy Dispute

Primacy Dispute

William, like every other Canterbury archbishop since Lanfranc, maintained that Canterbury held primacy—in essence, overlordship—over all other dioceses in Great Britain, including the archbishopric of York. Thurstan had claimed independence, and refused to consecrate William when the latter demanded recognition of Canterbury's primacy; the ceremony was performed instead by William's own suffragan bishops on 18 February 1123. Previous popes had generally favoured York's side of the dispute, and the successive popes Paschal II, Gelasius II, and Calixtus II had issued rulings in the late 1110s and early 1120s siding with York. Calixtus had also consecrated Thurstan when both King Henry and William's predecessor had attempted to prevent Thurstan's consecration unless Thurstan submitted to Canterbury.

After travelling to Rome to receive his pallium, the symbol of his authority as an archbishop, William discovered that Thurstan had arrived before him, and had presented a case against William's election to Pope Callixtus II. There were four objections to William's election: first that he was elected in the king's court; second that the chapter of Canterbury had been coerced and was unwilling; third that his consecration was unlawful because it was not performed by Thurstan; and fourth that a monk should be elected to the see of Canterbury, which had been founded by Augustine of Canterbury, a monk. However, King Henry I and the Emperor Henry IV, Henry I's son-in-law, persuaded the pope to overlook the irregularities of the election, with the proviso that William swore to obey "all things that the Pope imposed upon him." At the conclusion of the visit the pope denied the primacy of Canterbury over York, dismissing the Canterbury cathedral chapter's supposed papal documents as forgeries. The outcome was in accordance with most earlier papal rulings on the primacy issue, which involved not taking sides and thus reinforcing papal supremacy. William returned to England, and was enthroned at Canterbury on 22 July 1123.

The archbishop's next opponent was the papal legate of the new Pope Honorius II, Cardinal John of Crema, who arrived in England in 1125. A compromise between York and Canterbury was negotiated, which involved Canterbury allowing York the supervision of the dioceses of Bangor, Chester, and St Aspah in return for Thurstan's verbal submission and the written submission of his successors. The pope, however, rejected the agreement, likely because he wished to preserve his own primacy, and substituted his own. The papal solution was that Honorius would appoint William papal legate in England and Scotland, which was done in 1126, giving William the position over York, but it was dependent on the will of the pope, and would lapse on the pope's death. The arrangement merely postponed the problem however, as neither Thurstan nor William renounced their claims. That Christmas, at a royal court, Thurstan unsuccessfully attempted to claim the right to ceremonially crown the king as well as have his episcopal cross carried before him in Canterbury's province. As a result of his lengthy dispute with Thurstan, William travelled to Rome more frequently than any bishop before him except for Wilfrid in the 7th century.