Walkelin

Walkelin
Bishop of Winchester
Church	Catholic
Appointed	23 May 1070
Term ended	3 January 1098
Predecessor	Stigand
Successor	William Giffard
Orders
Consecration	30 May 1070
Personal details
Died	3 January 1098 Winchester

Walkelin (or Walchelin; Norman-French or Gauquelin)) (died 1098) was the first Norman bishop of Winchester.

Walkelin was of noble birth and related to William the Conqueror, whom he served as a royal chaplain. Before the Norman Conquest he had probably been a canon at Rouen Cathedral. He took up office at Winchester in 1070, having been nominated on 23 May and consecrated on 30 May. A year later, in 1071, Abbot Ealdred of Abingdon, who was being held for support of insurrection, died in Walkelin's custody, and the following year he signed the Accord of Winchester, formulated in the city.

Walkelin made his brother Simeon the Prior of Winchester and then influenced Simeon being made Abbot of Ely in 1082, where he began the new Ely Abbey in 1093 (the same year that Walkelin completed his cathedral at Winchester) before dying the following year. Walkelin also advanced his nephew Gerard, Archbishop of York.

Walkelin began work on a new cathedral church, the current Winchester Cathedral, in 1079. His transepts and crypt, though little else, are retained in the present building. King William II granted Walkelin half a hide in the Isle of Wight with license to search for and excavate stone for his new cathedral "throughout the plain and the forest: if the forest is sufficiently small that the horns of a deer may be seen passing through it".

...
Wikipedia