Robert of Jumieges

Robert of Jumièges (d. c. 1070), archbishop of Canterbury, was a Norman who became prior of St Ouen at Rouen and then abbot of Jumièges[?].

A close friend of the future king of England, Edward the Confessor, he crossed over to England with Edward in 1042, and in 1044 became bishop of London.

In English history Robert appears as the most trusted and the most prominent of the king's foreign friends, and as the leader of the party hostile to the influence of Earl Godwine. In 1051, although the chapter had already made an election, Edward appointed him archbishop of Canterbury.

He seems to have been sent by the king on an errand to Duke William of Normandy, and on the return of Godwine from exile in 1052 he fled in great haste from England. He was outlawed and deposed, and he died at Jumièges about 1070. The treatment of Robert by the English was put forward by William the Conqueror as a pretext for invading England.

See Two Saxon Chronicles, edited by J Earle and C Plummer (Oxford, 1892); and EA Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1870—76).

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.