Baldwin

, archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I. was born of obscure parents at Exeter, where he received a liberal education, and in his younger years taught school. Afterwards, entering into holy orders, he was made archdeacon of Exeter; but soon quitting that dignity and the world, he took the habit of the Cistertian order in the monastery of Ford in Devonshire, and in a few years became its abbot. From thence he was promoted to the see of Worcester (not Winchester, as Dupin says), and consecrated August 10, 1180. Upon the death of Richard, archbishop of Canterbury in 1184, he was translated to that see, with some difficulty, being the first of his order in England, that was ever advanced to the archiepiscopal dignity. He was enthroned at Canterbury the 19th of May 1185, and the same day received the pall from pope Lucius III. whose successor Urban III. appointed him his legate for the diocese of Canterbury. Soon after he was settled in his see, he began to build a church and monastery at Hackington, near Canterbury, in honour of St. Thomas Becket, for the reception of secular priests but, being violently opposed by the monks of Canterbury, supported by the pope’s authority, he was obliged to desist. The 3d of September 1189, he solemnly performed the ceremony of crowning king Richard I. at Westminster. The same year, the king having given the see of York to his bastard brother Geoffry bishop of Lincoln, archbishop Baldwin took this occasion to assert the | pre-eminence of the see of Canterbury,' forbidding the bishops of England to receive consecration from any other than the archbishop of Canterbury. The next year, designing to follow king Richard to the Holy Land, he made a progress into Wales, where he performed mass pontifically in all the cathedral churches, and induced several of the Welsh to join the crusade. Afterwards embarking at Dover, with Hubert bishop of Salisbury, he arrived at the king’s army in Syria where being seized with a mortal distemper, he died at the siege of Acre, or Ptolemais, and was buried there. Giraldus Cambrensis, who accompanied this prelate, both in his progress through Wales and in his expedition to the Hgly Land, tells us, he was of a dark complexion, an open and pleasing aspect, a middling stature, and a spare, but healthful, constitution of body modest and sober, of great abstinence, of few words, and not easily provoked to anger. The only fault he charges him with is a remissness in the execution of his pastoral office, arising from an innate lenity of temper whence pope Urban III. in a letter addressed to our archbishop, began thus, “Urban, &c. to the most fervent monk, warm abbot, lukewarm bishop, and remiss archbishop” intimating, that he behaved better as a monk than as an abbot, and as a bishop than as an archbishop. His principal works were, 1. “Of the Sacrament of the Altar.” 2. “Faith recommended.” 3. “Of Orthodox Opinions. 4.” Of Heretical Sects.“5.” Of the Unity of Charity.“6.” Of Love.“7.” Of the Priesthood of John Hircanus.“8.” Of the Learning of Giraldus.“9.” Thirty-three Sermons.“10.” Concerning the Histories of Kings.“11.” Against Henry bishop of Winchester.“12.” In praise of Virginity.“13.” Concerning the Message of the Angel.“14.” Of the Gross.“15.” Concerning Mythology.“16.” A Devotionary Poem.“17.” Letters," These were collected and published by Bertrand Tissier, in 1662. ¹