Thomas le Reve

Thomas le Reve (died 1394) was the first Bishop of Waterford and Lismore following the unification of the two sees in 1363, and was also Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He was a strong minded and combative individual, who was not afraid to clash with his superiors.

Little is known of his early life, but a reference to his "great age" when he died suggests that he was born in the early years of the fourteenth century. His name is an early form of Reeves, which later became common in Ireland. He was prebendary at Killaloe and then at Lismore.

He became Bishop of Lismore in 1358. In 1363 Pope Urban V united the sees of Lismore and Waterford with le Reve as first bishop. The union been decreed as early as 1327 by Pope John XXII; it was to take effect on the death of whichever bishop died first, but for reasons which are unclear it did not take place in 1354 on the death of John Leynagh, le Reve's predecessor as Bishop of Lismore. It may well be that le Reve used his influence to ensure that he, not Roger le Cradock, Bishop of Waterford, who should have succeeded on Leynagh's death, would be the first bishop. Although King Edward III ordered that the temporalities be delivered to le Cradock, this was not done; and four years later, when le Cradock was translated to Landaff, le Reve was confirmed as joint bishop without a formal election.

He spent part of 1363 at the Papal Court in Avignon, where he sought a number of benefits for himself and the clergy of his dioceses, few of which were granted.

He was briefly Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1367–8. Few records of his tenure in the office survive, but he was accused of improper conduct in using the Great Seal of Ireland to retrospectively appoint his own candidates to certain offices, and this may have been the reason for his removal from office. A brief power struggle developed between Le Reve's friends at Court and those of his rival for the office, Thomas de Burley, Prior of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, who had the advantage of long experience in the office, having already been Lord Chancellor in 1359–64.

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