William Warelwast - Work As Bishop

Work As Bishop

As a bishop, Warelwast attended the Council of Reims in 1119 along with three other bishops from England, as well as the Council of Rouen in 1118, a provincial synod for Normandy. In his diocese of Exeter he began the construction of a new cathedral in about 1114; it was consecrated in 1133. The existing two towers in the transepts date from that period. He also replaced the secular clergy staffing collegiate churches with regular canons: at Plympton in 1121 with canons from Aldgate in London, and in 1127 at the church in Launceston in Cornwall. In addition he founded a house of regular canons at Bodmin. Royal charters survive that granted several churches in Cornwall, Devon, and Exeter to Warelwast.

Warelwast's relations with his cathedral chapter were good, and no disputes arose during his episcopate. It was not until late in his bishopric that the diocese was split into multiple archdeaconries, which appears to have happened in 1133. Warelwast instituted the two offices of treasurer and precentor for the cathedral chapter, as well as the first sub-archdeacons, who were under the archdeacons. Sub-archdeacons are not attested again at Exeter until the episcopate of Bartholomew Iscanus, who was bishop from 1161–1184. William of Malmesbury felt that during Warelwast's episcopate the cathedral chapter relaxed its communal living, which previously had been strong. It is likely that during Warelwast's episcopate the canons of the cathedral chapter quit living in a communal dormitory.

Warelwast went blind in his later years, starting in about 1120, which William of Malmesbury regarded as a fitting punishment for Warelwast's alleged attempts to remove his predecessor from office early. He died on about 26 September 1137, and was buried in the priory at Plympton. He may have resigned his see prior to his death. The 16th-century antiquary John Leland thought that Warelwast resigned his see before 1127, became a canon at Plympton, and died in 1127. Although Leland's year of death is incorrect, it is possible that Warelwast became a canon shortly before his death. The Annales Plymptonienses records that Robert of Bath, the Bishop of Bath, gave Warelwast his last rites on 26 September 1137, and records that the dying bishop was made a member of the collegiate church at Plympton. Warelwast's nephew Robert Warelwast succeeded as Bishop at Exeter in 1138; Robert had been appointed archdeacon of Exeter by his uncle.

The historian C. Warren Hollister described William Warelwast as a "canny and devoted royal servant".