Arnoul de Lisieux

Arnoul de Lisieux (between 1105 and 1109-1184), was bishop of Lisieux in 1141. The King d' Angleterre and Duke of Normandy, Henri II Plantagenêt, did one of its advisers of them. He resigned of sound évêché in 1181, and withdrew himself in the Abbaye Saint-Victor of Paris where he died.

Biography

Arnoul belonged to a family of ecclesiastics who supported his rise. His/her older brother Jean de Neuville was bishop of Sées, while his/her uncle occupied the episcopal see of Lisieux. But Arnoul succeeds because he was a brilliant intellectual. Its Treated Schism , the sermons which he pronounced with the Concile of Turns (1163) and its correspondence attest of its level.

In 1141, the canons of Lisieux chose it to succeed his/her brother Jean with the head of évêché of Lisieux. Arnoul appeared a burning prelate reforming, at the same time anxious to correct manners dissolues of part of the clergy and to draw aside laic religious loads. Its reform rested in particular on the regular canons. Moreover, the bishop of Lisieux undertook about 1160-1170 the rebuilding of his cathedral. He showed himself particularly innovative by adopting for the new building the Gothic style whereas the Normandy remained at the Romance age.

The King d' Angleterre and Duc of Normandy Henri II Plantagenêt noticed it. The sovereign entrusted laic loads to him of which that important of Justicier. These new functions posed in Arnoul a dilemma. A dilemma similar to that which its contemporary Thomas Becket knew, archbishop of Canterbury. As a reforming bishop, it was to defend the rights of the church vis-a-vis the appetite of the laic ones while in as long as servant of king d' Angleterre, it was to support it in the assertion of the royal capacity. This irreconcilable position, reinforced by the assassination of Thomas Becket, caused a degradation of the relationship between Arnoul and Henri II. As from 1173, these reports/ratios turned in quarrel when the bishop of Lisieux chooses to support the revolt of the son of the king, Henri the Young person, against his father.

In addition to this problem, the end of the episcopate was wasted by a conflict with the canons who showed it to waste the goods of the Church. The ostentation in which Arnoul lived woke up criticisms of the monks but according to him, the size of episcopal dignity was to go hand in hand with richness and magnificence. Finally, Arnoul obtained from the pope and Henri II to withdraw itself in the Abbaye Saint-Victor of Paris. There remained there three years until its death in 1184.

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