In about 1091 Herbert de Losinga made William Rufus an extraordinary financial offer. Herbert became Bishop of Thetford, while his father, Robert, was installed as abbot of New Minster at Winchester. According to the medieval chronicler Simeon of Durham, the transaction cost Herbert £1,000. Later accounts sometimes increase the figure to £1,900.
Even £1,000 was a colossal amount of money. It raises a question that tends to disappear behind the familiar story of Herbert buying his bishopric: where did a Benedictine monk get that sort of money?
The obvious answer might be that Herbert came from a wealthy Norman family. There is little evidence that he did. Another possibility is that he accumulated wealth while a monk and later prior of the great Norman abbey of Fécamp. That is not particularly convincing either. The most promising explanation lies elsewhere, in the four years immediately before Herbert became bishop, when he controlled one of the richest monasteries in England.
Was it £1,000 or £1,900?
The first difficulty is establishing exactly what Herbert paid. The figure of £1,900 appears repeatedly in later histories and has become attached to Herbert’s story. There is, however, good medieval evidence for £1,000. Simeon of Durham gives that amount for the transaction by which Herbert obtained the bishopric and his father received the abbacy at Winchester. Modern scholarship has consequently tended to treat £1,000 as the safer figure.
It was still an astonishing payment. The annual revenue of Herbert’s new bishopric has been estimated at about £396 6s 8d. If that estimate is approximately correct, Herbert was offering the king a sum equivalent to about two and a half years of the bishopric’s entire gross income.
The transaction was not completely exceptional in the England of William Rufus. The king notoriously exploited vacant bishoprics and abbeys for revenue, while wealthy churchmen could advance themselves through payments and royal patronage. Herbert later travelled to Rome and sought absolution for the simony involved in obtaining his bishopric.
Yet explaining Rufus’s willingness to sell an ecclesiastical office does not explain Herbert’s ability to buy one.
Was Herbert’s family rich?
Surprisingly little is known about Herbert’s family background. He was probably born at Exmes in Normandy, the son of Robert Losinga. His father later became abbot of New Minster, but there is no convincing evidence that Robert had previously possessed a fortune capable of financing his son’s ambitions.
Herbert certainly had advantages. He entered Fécamp, one of Normandy’s greatest Benedictine houses, received a good education, and rose to become prior. That tells us something about his intelligence, ability, and connections. It does not demonstrate that he personally owned hundreds of pounds.
Indeed, there is a basic problem with looking for Herbert’s fortune at Fécamp. Monasteries could be extremely wealthy, but Benedictine monks were not supposed to accumulate vast private fortunes. It is possible that Herbert had access to patrons, gifts, and family resources, but there is no evidence that he left Normandy carrying anything approaching £1,000.
His financial circumstances changed dramatically after he crossed the Channel.
“Ramsey the Rich”
In about 1087 or 1088 Herbert became abbot of Ramsey in Huntingdonshire. He remained there until his elevation to the bishopric around 1091. Those few years may hold the answer to the mystery.
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Ramsey was enormously wealthy. Generations of benefactors had endowed the abbey with extensive estates, and by the time of Domesday Book in 1086 it was among the richest monasteries in England. Its wealth came from land, rents, agriculture, fisheries, mills, tolls, and other rights scattered across a substantial estate.
One estimate places Ramsey’s gross annual income at Domesday at approximately £358. That figure needs to be handled carefully. Gross income was certainly not disposable profit. The abbey had monks to maintain, estates to administer, servants to support, buildings to repair, hospitality to provide, and obligations to the Crown. Nevertheless, it gives some idea of the scale of the institution Herbert suddenly controlled.
There is a revealing comparison. Four years of gross income at £358 a year would amount to about £1,432. Herbert’s reported payment of £1,000 therefore becomes rather less mysterious once we place his four years at Ramsey between Fécamp and Thetford.
The important distinction is between asking whether Herbert personally owned £1,000 and asking whether Herbert could raise £1,000. As abbot of Ramsey, he had access to an economic organisation generating hundreds of pounds every year.
Herbert the entrepreneur
There is stronger evidence than mere coincidence. Historian Susan Edgington has examined what she describes as Herbert’s “entrepreneurial activities” while he was abbot of Ramsey. Her research draws particular attention to his promotion of the cult of St Ivo.
The relics of St Ivo were associated with Slepe, an estate belonging to Ramsey Abbey which subsequently became St Ives. The location had considerable commercial potential because it stood at an important river crossing. Pilgrims visiting a shrine needed food, accommodation, transport, animals, and other goods. Traders were attracted by the crowds. A successful cult could therefore generate considerable economic activity around a religious centre.
Herbert appears to have understood this relationship particularly well. He promoted St Ivo and encouraged the development of the associated commercial opportunities. The famous St Ives fair was more securely established under Henry I after Herbert’s departure from Ramsey, so we should be cautious about attributing its later success entirely to him. Nevertheless, Edgington’s research connects Herbert’s promotion of St Ivo and commercial activity at Ramsey with the substantial resources that subsequently enabled him to obtain his bishopric.
This presents Herbert in a rather different light. He was not simply an ambitious monk who somehow found a large bag of silver. He appears to have been a remarkably capable administrator who understood the relationship between religious patronage, pilgrimage, markets, property, and income.
Did Herbert use Ramsey’s money?
Here we reach the uncomfortable possibility at the centre of the story. Did Herbert use the wealth of Ramsey Abbey to buy himself a bishopric?
There is no surviving document saying that Herbert took £1,000 from Ramsey’s treasury and handed it to William Rufus. It would therefore be wrong to accuse him of straightforward embezzlement. The financial arrangements of an eleventh-century abbey were also considerably different from those of a modern institution. An abbot could control particular revenues, draw upon resources attached to his office, borrow money, make promises against future income, and use networks of wealthy patrons and associates.
The chronology nevertheless deserves attention. Herbert arrived from Fécamp and became head of one of England’s wealthiest monasteries. He controlled Ramsey for roughly four years and apparently encouraged activities capable of increasing its income. During the same period, he entered the royal household and served William Rufus as a royal sewer, or server, giving him direct experience of the king’s court and its system of patronage.
Then, around 1091, Herbert was suddenly able to make an enormous financial payment which advanced both himself and his father.
It is difficult to believe that Ramsey had nothing to do with it.
Perhaps there was no single source
We should also be wary of imagining that the entire £1,000 had to come from one place. A medieval statement that someone “paid” a large sum does not necessarily mean that the purchaser already possessed the whole amount in coined silver.
Credit was widely used in medieval society. Kings, aristocrats, bishops, monasteries, and merchants borrowed, pledged assets, anticipated revenues, and entered into financial obligations. Herbert may therefore have assembled his payment from several sources.
Some could have come from revenues accumulated during his abbacy. Commercial income connected with Ramsey and St Ivo may have contributed. Herbert might also have borrowed against his position or anticipated the revenues he would receive once he became bishop. Personal resources, family money, gifts, and assistance from associates cannot be excluded.
William of Malmesbury’s hostile account of Herbert is interesting here. He presents Herbert as a man who used wealth and promises to secure advancement. Whatever we make of the chronicler’s moral judgement, it suggests someone adept at manipulating networks of money, influence, patronage, and obligation rather than simply spending an inherited fortune.
What about Herbert’s father?
Robert Losinga remains a tantalising possibility. Since the transaction advanced father and son simultaneously, perhaps Robert contributed to the payment. If the Losingas were already rich, the £1,000 could even have represented a family investment in two extremely valuable ecclesiastical positions.
The problem is evidence. We know too little about Robert’s earlier circumstances to demonstrate that he possessed substantial independent wealth. His sudden promotion to the wealthy Winchester abbacy may actually point in the opposite direction. Rather than Robert’s fortune financing Herbert’s advancement, Herbert’s newly acquired financial power may have secured Robert’s promotion.
On present evidence, therefore, inherited family wealth remains possible but does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the scale of the payment.
Ramsey changes the story
Herbert’s subsequent career makes his years at Ramsey particularly interesting. Once bishop, he repeatedly demonstrated an extraordinary ability to mobilise money and resources. He transferred the centre of his diocese from Thetford to Norwich, founded Norwich Cathedral Priory, and began construction of the great Romanesque cathedral in 1096. He also developed other religious institutions across his diocese, including establishments at Lynn and Great Yarmouth.
These were expensive undertakings. Whatever judgement we make about the way Herbert originally obtained his bishopric, he was clearly an exceptionally energetic ecclesiastical administrator with a talent for turning institutional resources into ambitious projects.
Ramsey may have been where that talent first became apparent on a large scale.
The most convincing reconstruction is therefore that Herbert did not arrive from Fécamp possessing an enormous personal fortune. Fécamp gave him his education, monastic connections, and experience. Ramsey subsequently gave him access to very substantial economic resources, while service at the royal court brought him close to William Rufus and the machinery of royal patronage.
During his four years as abbot, Herbert also appears to have developed additional income associated with St Ivo, pilgrimage, and commerce. By 1091 he was consequently in a position to raise a sum which would previously have been beyond his reach.
Whether he actually took money belonging to Ramsey Abbey cannot presently be demonstrated. The £1,000 may have been assembled from abbey revenues, income available personally to the abbot, commercial profits, borrowing, anticipated income, private resources, and promises of future payment. Susan Edgington’s work nevertheless gives serious scholarly support to the idea that Herbert’s entrepreneurial activities at Ramsey helped finance his episcopal ambitions.
There is one tantalising way of testing the theory further. We need to know what happened at Ramsey immediately after Herbert left. If the abbey’s records reveal unusual debts, depleted resources, alienated property, financial complaints, or difficulties inherited by his successor, we might get much closer to discovering how Herbert de Losinga found the money to buy himself a bishopric.
Update after further research
Did Herbert leave Ramsey in obvious financial difficulties after buying his bishopric?
On the evidence I have found, no. There is presently no clear evidence of bankruptcy, an emptied treasury, extraordinary debt, or an immediate financial crisis after 1091.
Was Ramsey property released from the abbey’s control during the period encompassing Herbert’s abbacy?
Yes. Henry I’s 1102 charter proves that sufficiently serious alienations had occurred since Alfwine’s time for the king to order Herbert’s later successor Bernard to recover them.
Can those property releases presently be attributed to Herbert?
No. They could belong to the administrations of Alsi, Herbert, Aldwin, or more than one of them.
Does the evidence nevertheless strengthen the idea that Ramsey enabled Herbert to finance his bishopric?
I think it does, but in a subtler way than originally proposed. The strongest case is not that Herbert plundered Ramsey, but that becoming abbot of Ramsey gave an exceptionally able and ambitious man access to the revenues, commercial opportunities, connections, and credit necessary to operate financially on an entirely different scale.
© James Rye 2026
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References
Edgington, Susan. “The Entrepreneurial Activities of Herbert Losinga, Abbot of Ramsey (1087–91) and First Bishop of Norwich.” In Anglo-Saxons: Studies Presented to Cyril Roy Hart, edited by Simon Keynes and Alfred P. Smyth, 266–74. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006.
“Herbert de Losinga.” Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography%2C_1885-1900/Losinga%2C_Herbert_de
Simeon of Durham. Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia. Edited by Thomas Arnold. 2 vols. London: Longman, 1882–85.
William of Malmesbury. Gesta Pontificum Anglorum. For William’s account of Herbert’s acquisition of ecclesiastical office.
University of East Anglia. Pilgrimage in Medieval East Anglia. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/63940/