Baldwin

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Baldwin (d. 1190). Archbishop of Canterbury. Native of Exeter, after a spell as archdeacon of Totnes, where he became a celebrated canonist, Baldwin entered the Cistercian monastery at Ford, Devonshire (c.1170), becoming abbot and then bishop of Worcester (1180). He was Henry II's own choice as archbishop in 1184, after an election disputed by the Benedictine monks of Canterbury whose hostility he soon provoked in a struggle famous throughout Europe. He took the cross (1188), preaching the crusade in Wales with ‘the energy and style of Bernard of Clairvaux’. Henry sent him unsuccessfully to patch up a peace with Philip Augustus, as a prelude to the crusade. After attending Henry on his death-bed and crowning Richard I, he set out for the East. Heading the English advance guard, he arrived at the siege of Acre (October 1190), deputized for Patriarch Heraclius, but died soon after.

Revd Dr William M. Marshall

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