Acerca de

Elias of Dereham 'incomparable artificer'

Dereham, Elias of (d. 1245), ecclesiastical administrator, was a native of West Dereham, Norfolk. His earliest patron was Hubert Walter (d. 1205), later archbishop of Canterbury, a fellow native of West Dereham and founder there of a Premonstratensian abbey whose charters are witnessed by Master Elias, perhaps as early as 1188. Between 1193 and 1201 it is possible that he is to be identified with a Master Elias, steward to Gilbert de Glanville, bishop of Rochester (d. 1214), a close friend and kinsman of Hubert Walter. Less likely, but by no means impossible, is the suggestion that he is to be identified with a man named Master Elias the Engineer, or Elias of Oxford, who before 1201 had charge of the king's houses in Oxford and of various castle-building operations across southern England. The only certainty is that by 1201 Dereham was attached to the household of Hubert Walter at Canterbury, being credited at least once with the title of archbishop's steward. At about this time he acquired the churches of Brightwalton, Berkshire, and Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, gifts from the monks of Battle and Lewes.

​

Hubert Walter's death in 1205 forced Dereham to transfer to the household of Bishop Jocelin of Wells (d. 1242), again as steward. With the imposition of the papal interdict in 1208 Jocelin and Elias went into exile in France, together with Jocelin's brother, Bishop Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1235). Hugh promoted Elias to the Lincoln prebend of Lafford and in November 1212 appointed him executor of his will. The most important of Dereham's contacts made in exile was with Archbishop Stephen Langton (d. 1228). He was twice employed as Langton's envoy to England, and in 1213, at the end of the interdict, returned to Canterbury as Langton's steward. In the next year he had custody of Rochester Castle. Following the award of  Magna Carta in 1215 Dereham helped distribute the charter around the shires, becoming an enthusiastic adherent of the rebel barons and preaching their cause at Paul's Cross in London. As a result he was despoiled of his various churches and exiled to France when the royalist party triumphed in 1217. By 1220 he was pardoned and allowed to return to Langton's household; he assisted in the construction of a new shrine to Thomas Becket in Canterbury, in which context he is described by the chronicler Matthew Paris as an 'incomparable artificer'.

​

Before 1222 Dereham had acquired the prebend of Potterne in Salisbury under Langton's pupil, Bishop Richard Poor (d. 1235). For the remainder of his life he was to be closely associated with the building of Salisbury's new cathedral. He is said to have served for twenty-five years as rector of the cathedral fabric fund, and is undoubtedly found in association with the cathedral's masons and workshops. Before 1234 he had supervised the construction of a model dwelling place for himself within the cathedral close, the profits from whose sale he later put towards Salisbury's fabric fund. Elsewhere he renewed his contacts with Bishop Jocelin of Wells, then in the process of rebuilding the cathedral church in Wells. He served three successive archbishops of Canterbury—Langton, Richard Grant (d. 1231), and Edmund of Abingdon (d. 1240)—either as steward or executor. In 1228 Bishop Richard Poor was translated from Salisbury to Durham, whereafter Dereham is found witnessing deeds relating to both these sees. He was later to serve as Poor's executor and, perhaps as proxy for Poor, as the executor of William (I) Marshal, earl of Pembroke (d. 1219). He also found service with Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester (d. 1238), a leading political rival of Langton and Poor, whom Elias none the less assisted with the foundation of monastic houses in Selborne and Titchfield, both in Hampshire, and for whom he subsequently acted as executor. Probably under Archbishop Edmund he was promoted to the Canterbury peculiar of Harrow, Middlesex, the chancel of whose church he was repairing in 1242.

​

Throughout these years Dereham's services were much in demand at court. Between 1233 and 1238 he had charge of royal building work at the great hall of Winchester Castle, besides supervising the installation of windows and pavements at Clarendon Palace, Wiltshire, helping to construct a tomb used for the burial of Joan, queen of Scots(who died in 1238, and was buried at Tarrant in Dorset), and being sent to direct the enclosure of an anchoress in Britford, Wiltshire.

​

Inevitably, given his association with building projects, his work on Becket's shrine, the fact that Matthew Paris preserved Dereham's drawing of a wind-rose, and since most of his employers were renowned as patrons of cathedral or monastic architecture, Elias of Dereham has been canvassed as one of the principal influences in the development of early thirteenth-century English Gothic. Specifically, an attempt has been made to present him as the architect of Salisbury Cathedral. The attempt has failed, through scepticism that one man could have supervised such a major project while still discharging Dereham's functions as steward and administrator elsewhere. The best that can be said is that to appeal to such a wide diversity of patrons he clearly possessed some very rare talent indeed. It is more likely that such a talent lay in site administration and the guidance of taste rather than in any practical work as craftsman, architect, or mason. Dereham died shortly after April 1245, whereupon his benefices were seized for the use of a papal nuncio.

Sources

A. H. Thompson, ‘Master Elias of Dereham and the king's works’, Archaeological Journal, 98 (1941), 1–35
Google PreviewWorldCat
J. Harvey and A. Oswald, English mediaeval architects: a biographical dictionary down to 1550, 2nd edn (1984)
Google PreviewWorldCat
C. R. Cheney and E. John, eds., Canterbury, 1193–1205, English Episcopal Acta, 3 (1986)
Google PreviewWorldCat
J. Thorpe, ed., Registrum Roffense, or, A collection of antient records, charters and instruments … illustrating the ecclesiastical history and antiquities of the diocese and cathedral church of Rochester (1769)
Google PreviewWorldCat
H. M. Colvin, ed., The history of the king's works, 6 vols. (1963–82)
Google PreviewWorldCat
Fasti Angl., 1066–1300 [Lincoln]
Fasti Angl., 1066–1300 [Salisbury]
Paris, Chron., vols. 4, 6