Anthony Kitchin (22 July 1471 – 31 October 1563), also known earlier as Dunstan Kitchin, was a mid-16th-century

Abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...

Eynsham Abbey Eynsham Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, in England between 1005 and 1538. King Æthelred allowed Æthelmær the Stout to found the abbey in 1005. There is some evidence that the abbey was built on the site of an ea ...

and then,

Bishop of Llandaff The Bishop of Llandaff is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff. Area of authority The diocese covers most of the County of Glamorgan. The bishop's seat is in the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (the site of ...

in the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

under Henry VIII and eventually under

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. He Seems to have had no qualms about the breach with Rome under Henry VIII, the Protestant Reformation under

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first E ...

and though reconciled as a Catholic under Mary I, accepted to serve when Protestantism returned under

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is ...

. Kitchin was a

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

under the monastic name Dunstan at

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...

, before becoming Prior of

Gloucester Hall Gloucester College, Oxford, was a Benedictine institution of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England, from the late 13th century until the Dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. It was never a typical college of the Universit ...

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. He was appointed Abbot of Eynsham in 1530, but lost the post at his abbey's

dissolution Dissolution may refer to: Arts and entertainment Books * ''Dissolution'' (''Forgotten Realms'' novel), a 2002 fantasy novel by Richard Lee Byers * ''Dissolution'' (Sansom novel), a 2003 historical novel by C. J. Sansom Music * Dissolution, in mu ...

in 1539, receiving an unusually large pension of £133-6s-8d pa. Six years later, in 1545, Kitchin was made Bishop of Llandaff. He was subsequently said to have impoverished the

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

by selling off much of its property. He retained his see under Henry VIII,

Mary I Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, and as "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain from January 1556 until her death in 1558. She ...

and

. Alone of all the

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s, he took the oath of Royal supremacy on the accession of the last named. His willingness to follow the opinion of whichever monarch reigned has led many to accuse Kitchin of being spineless. Indeed, one historian has written of Kitchin that he was a 'timeserver who would doubtless have become a Hindu if required, provided he was allowed to hold on to the See of Llandaff' (

Eamon Duffy Eamon Duffy (born 1947) is an Irish historian. He is a professor of the history of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow and former president of Magdalene College. Early life Duffy was born on 9 February 1947, in Dundalk, I ...

, 'Fires of Faith', p. 23). However, he showed some backbone in opposing Elizabeth's appointment of

Matthew Parker Matthew Parker (6 August 1504 – 17 May 1575) was an English bishop. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England from 1559 until his death in 1575. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder (with a p ...

to the

See of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Just ...

(cf. Nag's Head Fable); apparently, his acquiescence in religious matters had its limits. Kitchin died at the Bishop's Palace in Mathern on 31 October 1563 at the age of 92 and was buried there. He was one of the last known people born in the reign of Edward IV, and he is also one of the few known to have been born before the accession of Henry VII and to live into the reign of Elizabeth I.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kitchin, Anthony Abbots of Eynsham Bishops of Llandaff 16th-century Welsh Anglican bishops 1471 births 1563 deaths