John Grandisson

Arms of Bishop Grandisson: Paly of six argent and azure, a bend sable charged with a mitre upon a priest's stole between two eagles displayed argent. Grandisson's Psalter, British Library. These are his paternal arms with a difference of a bishop's mitre substituted for the third eagle The John Grandisson Triptych, displaying on two small escutcheons the arms of Bishop Grandisson. British Museum

John de Grandisson (1292 – 16 July 1369), also spelt Grandison, was Bishop of Exeter, in Devon, England, from 1327 to his death in 1369. Several works of art associated with him survive in the British Library, the British Museum and the Louvre in Paris.

Biography Grandisson was born in 1292 at Ashperton near Hereford, the second son of five of Sir William Grandisson (died 1335). Sir William was the heir of Otto de Grandson (died 1328), close personal friend of King Edward I, and head of the English branch of a family that was based at Grandson Castle, now in Switzerland. His mother, Sybil (died 1334), was a younger daughter and co-heir of Sir John de Tregoz.

He studied at Oxford in 1306, then from 1313 to 1317 he studied theology at the University of Paris under Jacques Fournier, who later became Pope Benedict XII. He returned to study at Oxford 1326–7. Later in Avignon he became the chaplain and friend of Pope John XXII, who mentored him and sent him on diplomatic missions. The Pope rewarded Grandisson by making him prebendary at York, Wells, and Lincoln, and, in October 1310, Archdeacon of Nottingham.

Grandisson donated the tenor bell in the south tower of Exeter Cathedral. Named "Grandison" and re-cast at least three times, most recently in 1902 by John Taylor & Co, the current bell bears the inscription "EX DONO IOHANNIS GRANDISON EPISCOPI EXON GVLIELMVS EVANS FECIT 1729".

During his episcopacy, he faced a number of anticlerical movements in Devon. For example, the Order of Brothelyngham—a fake monastic order of 1348—regularly rode through Exeter, kidnapping both religious and laymen, and extorting money from them as ransom. He also outlawed a popular cult that was being promoted by a house of canons at Frithelstock Priory.

Death and burial Grandisson died at Chudleigh on 16 July 1369 and was buried in the chapel on the south side of the central doorway of the west front of Exeter Cathedral, a chapel that he had caused to be built.

Surviving works of art There survive two ivory triptychs and a diptych made in England in the 1330s for private devotion and inscribed with the emblems of John Grandisson as Bishop of Exeter. One of them, now known as the John Grandisson Triptych, held at the British Museum in London, is considered a masterpiece of English mediaeval carving. The diptych is in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

An important psalter known as the Grandisson Psalter, owned by Bishop Grandisson, survives in the British Library in London. It records Grandisson's death and the fact that he bequeathed it to royalty.

When Grandisson's looted tomb was reopened in 1956, a small enamelled gold ring was discovered. It shows the Virgin and child and has similarities with enamels created in Paris around the 1330s. It has been suggested that as it is too small to be worn over a glove it may have been one of his most treasured possessions, probably worn hidden from view on his little finger.