Thurstan

Thurstan or Turstin († February 6, 1140 ) was Archbishop of York from 1114 or 1119 to 1140. He was a son of a certain Anger or Auger, Prebendary in London St Paul 's Cathedral, and a brother of Audoin († 1139 ), Bishop of Evreux.

He was also Prebendary of St Paul's, moreover, a clerk in the service of the English Kings William II and Henry I.. Latter reached 1114 Thurstans election as Archbishop of York.

He got into a big fight, which occupied him much of his tenure and even forced out of the country for several years. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Ralph d' Escures, refused to promote him until Thurstan be subordinating him. This Thurstan refused to ask the king for permission to travel to Rome to confer with Pope Paschal II. Henry I forbade him to travel, Paschal II in turn stood up against Archbishop Ralph. At the Synod of Salisbury ( 1116), the king ordered Thurstan to submit, however instead resigned from his post, without this being actually effective.

Paschal 's successor, Pope Gelasius II and Calixtus II supported the position of the wayward Thurstan, who was ordained by Calixtus II in Reims in October 1119 without making I. obey the orders of Henry. The king forbade him to return to England, whereupon Thurstan remained in the wake of the Pope. Later succeeded his friends, to reconcile him and Henry I, so that Thurstan, after he had served the king in Normandy, was able to return to England early in 1121.

A major weakness of the archbishopric of York was the lack of suffragan sees. Thurstan tried to address this weakness, and reached at least the founding of the Diocese of Whithorn; it is possible that he made arrangements with Fergus of Galloway establishing further suffragans, which would have also increased the prestige of the Kingdom of Galloway. The establishment provoked countermeasures of the Scottish Bishop Wimund, at its expense was the new diocese, but eventually had to accept its existence.

As recognized Thurstan William of Corbeil, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, not as his superiors, he did not participate in the consecration. Later, both archbishops carried their complaints twice in Rome.

1138 he mediated a ceasefire in Roxburgh between England and Scotland, and had an active part in the exhibition of the army which defeated the Scots in the standards battle on August 22. Beginning of 1140 he joined the Cluniac monastery of Pontefract, where he died on February 6.