Osmund (bishop of Salisbury) - Life

Life

Osmund held an exalted position in Normandy, his native land, and according to a late fifteenth-century document was the son of Henry de Centville, Count of Sées, and Isabella de Conteville, daughter of Robert, Duke of Normandy, who was the father of William the Conqueror (Sarum Charters, 373). He certainly accompanied William to England, proved a trusty counsellor, and was made Chancellor of the realm about 1070. The same document calls him Earl of Dorset. He was employed in many civil transactions and was engaged as one of the Chief Commissioners for drawing up the Domesday Book. He became Bishop of Sarum, virtually William's choice, by authority of Gregory VII, and was consecrated by Lanfranc (Archbishop of Canterbury) about 3 June 1078. This diocese comprised the Counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, and Berkshire, for in 1058 the old Bishoprics of Sherborne and Ramsbury had been united under Bishop Hermann and the see transferred to Old Sarum. William of Malmesbury described as a fortress rather than a city, placed on a high hill, surrounded by a massive wall, and Peter of Blois refers to the castle and church as "the ark of God shut up in the temple of Baal."

Henry I's biographer C. Warren Hollister suggests the possibility that Osmund was in part responsible for Henry's education; Henry was consistently in the bishop's company during his formative years, around 1080 to 1086.

In 1086 Osmund was present at the Great Gemot held at Old Sarum when the Domesday Book was accepted and the great landowners swore fealty to the sovereign.

Osmund died in the night of 3 December 1099, and was succeeded, after the see had been vacant for eight years, by Roger of Salisbury, a statesman and counsellor of Henry I. His remains were buried at Old Sarum, translated to New Salisbury on 23 July 1457, and deposited in the Lady Chapel, where his sumptuous shrine was destroyed under Henry VIII. A flat slab with the simple inscription MXCIX has lain in various parts of the cathedral. In 1644 it was in the middle of the Lady Chapel. It is now under the eastern-most arch on the south side.