James Berkeley (died 1327) was

Bishop of Exeter The Bishop of Exeter is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Exeter in the Province of Canterbury. The current bishop is Mike Harrison (bishop), Mike Harrison, since 2024. From the first bishop until the sixteent ...

for a period of three months in 1327, a term of office cut short by his death.

Origins

Berkeley was a younger son of

Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley (c. 1245– 23 July 1321), ''The Wise'', English feudal barony, feudal baron of Berkeley, of Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, England, was a Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer, soldier and diplomat. His e ...

(1245-1321), ''The Wise'', feudal baron of Berkeley of

Berkeley Castle Berkeley Castle ( ; historically sometimes spelled as ''Berkley Castle'' or ''Barkley Castle'') is a castle in the town of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England. The castle's origins date back to the 11th century, being designated by English ...

in Gloucestershire, by his wife Joan de Ferrers, a daughter of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby by his wife Margaret de Quincy, a daughter of

Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester ( – 25 April 1264), (Roger de Quincy is a subarticle in his father's article.) His dates are given as 1195?-1265 at the beginning of the subarticle, but his death date is given as 25 April 1264 near ...

Career

Berkeley was elected bishop on 5 December 1326 and was consecrated on 22 March 1327.

Death

Berkeley died on 24 June 1327,Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 246 having been murdered and having suffered the destruction and despoliation of his manors, according to the account by his successor John de Grandisson.

Burial

Bishop JamesBerkeley Died1327 ExeterCathedral

Berkeley was buried in

Exeter Cathedral Exeter Cathedral, properly known as the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Exeter, Devon, in South West England. The presen ...

, against the north wall of the south

ambulatory The ambulatory ( 'walking place') is the covered passage around a cloister or the processional way around the east end of a cathedral or large church and behind the high altar. The first ambulatory was in France in the 11th century but by the 13t ...

, where survives his chest tomb. It is devoid of the

monumental brass A monumental brass is a type of engraved church monument, sepulchral memorial once found through Western Europe, which in the 13th century began to partially take the place of three-dimensional church monument, monuments and effigy, effigies carve ...

which originally adorned the

Purbeck marble Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone. Geology S ...

Erskine, p.104

ledger stone A ledger stone or ledgerstone is an inscribed stone slab usually laid into the floor of a church to commemorate or mark the place of the burial of an important deceased person. The term "ledger" derives from the Middle English words ''lygger'', '' ...

top, in the form of a demi-effigy of a bishop wearing a

mitre The mitre (Commonwealth English) or miter (American English; American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, see spelling differences; both pronounced ; ) is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of ...

, the indent of which is still visible. Following the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

the brass was stripped away in 1561 on the orders of the Cathedral authorities. The antiquarian John Leland (c. 1503-1552) saw the monument complete and recorded in his writings that it bore inscribed Latin verse of which one line was: ''In Barkley natus, jacet hic Jacobus tumulatus'' ("In

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

(Castle) he was born, here lies James covered"). This is similar to the eight-line

leonine verse Leonine verse is a type of versification based on an internal rhyme between a word within the line before a caesura and a word at the end, and commonly used in Latin verse of the European Middle Ages. The proliferation of such conscious rhymes, ...

(or "jingling verse") on the ledger stone of Sir

Peter Courtenay Peter Courtenay may refer to: *Peter Courtenay (bishop) (c. 1432–1492), English bishop and politician *Sir Peter Courtenay (KG) (1346–1405), soldier and knight *Sir Peter Courtenay (died 1552), of Ugbrooke, Sheriff of Devon in 1548/9 *Peter Co ...

(1346–1405), KG, situated a few feet away from the bishop's tomb on the floor of the south ambulatory (but originally part of the Courtenay

chantry chapel A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a set of Church service, Christian liturgical celebrations for the dead (made up of the Requiem Mass and the Office of the Dead), or # a chantr ...

in the nave) which commences: ''Devoniae natus, comitis (comes) Petrusque vocatus'' ("Born of the Earl of Devon, called Peter"). The bishop's monument although now very plain, is of interest as it was constructed whilst the Norman nave was being demolished and rebuilt in the Gothic style, and it was made from some of the stones from the Norman building, alternate squares of pink and cream coloured stone, of which some similar survive in the south aisle of the nave marking the responds of the Norman arcade.Erskine, Audrey; Hope, Vyvyan & Lloyd, John, ''Exeter Cathedral: A Short History and Description'', Exeter, 1988, p.36

Citations

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Berkeley, John Bishops of Exeter 1327 deaths 14th-century English Roman Catholic bishops 14th-century English clergy James Younger sons of barons Year of birth unknown