Richard Barre

Richard Barre (c. 1130 – c. 1202) was a medieval English justice, clergyman, and scholar. He was educated at the law school of Bologna and entered royal service under King Henry II of England, later working for Henry's son and successor Richard I. He was also briefly in the household of Henry's son Henry the Young King. Barre served the elder Henry as a diplomat and was involved in a minor way with the king's quarrel with Thomas Becket, which earned Barre a condemnation from Becket. After King Henry's death, Barre served as a royal justice during Richard's reign and was one of the main judges from 1194 to 1199. After disagreeing with him earlier in his career, Barre was discharged from his judgeship during John's reign as king. Barre was also archdeacon of Ely and the author of a work of biblical extracts dedicated to one of his patrons, William Longchamp, the Bishop of Ely and Chancellor of England.

Early life Whether Barre was a native of England or of Normandy is unknown, but his surname appears to derive from the Norman village of La Barre, near Bernay, in the present-day department of Eure. After finishing his schooling, Barre seems to have worked for either Robert de Chesney, the Bishop of Lincoln, or Nicholas, Archdeacon of Huntingdon; the main evidence for this is that Barre witnessed charters for both men from 1160 to 1164. By 1165, Barre had joined the household of King Henry II of England.

Service to King Henry Barre served King Henry during the king's quarrel with Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had gone into exile in 1164 over the dispute about the limits of royal authority over the English Church. Because of Barre's close ties to King Henry, Becket considered him one of the king's "evil counselors", and Barre was the subject of denunciations by the archbishop. (This group advising the king included two continental archbishops—from Rouen and Bordeaux, a number of bishops—including all the Norman bishops, other French bishops and an English bishop, and abbots from Norman, Breton, and English monasteries.) The assemblage was rounded out by scholars such as Geoffrey of Auxerre and royal clerks such as Geoffrey Ridel and John of Oxford. However, although Gilbert Foliot, one of the main opponents of Becket was in the area, he was not able to consult with the king because he was excommunicate.

During January and February 1170 the king sent Barre on a diplomatic mission to the pope in Rome, on a matter related to the king's dispute with Becket. The mission attempted to secure the rescinding of the excommunication of those whom Becket had placed under clerical ban, but it was unsuccessful; Barlow thinks it possible that Barre received a verbal agreement from the pope in January to allow the coronation, but there is no written evidence that Alexander agreed to allow the coronation in 1170.

Barre was one of the main royal justices between 1194 and 1199. He also served as a lawyer for the new Bishop of Ely, Eustace, But Barre had incurred the hostility of the king's younger brother Prince John, and when John succeeded Richard as king in 1199, Barre ceased to be employed as a royal justice, instead returning to Ely and business in his clerical office. His last sure mention in the historical record is on 9 August 1202, Barre maintained his friendship with Stephen of Tournai, who corresponded with him later in their lives.

Literary work Barre wrote a work on the Bible entitled Compendium de veteri et novo testamento, which he dedicated to Longchamp. The work arranged passages from the Bible under topics, and then annotated the passages with marginal notations such as were done with glosses on Roman law. The Harley manuscript is shorter than the Lambeth manuscript. Richard Sharpe, a modern historian who studied both works, stated that the Harley manuscript "provides well structured and systematic (though not complete) coverage of the whole Bible." Because of the dedication to William Longchamp as "bishop, legate, and chancellor", it is likely that the work was composed between January 1190 and October 1191, as Longchamp only held those three offices together during that period. The prologue to the work describes it as something to be used privately, and thus Sharpe feels that it was not intended to be a publicly published work; instead Barre may have intended it for Longchamp's private use in preparing sermons.

A third copy of Barre's Compendium may have existed at Leicester Abbey, where a late-15th-century library catalogue records a work by Barre on the Bible, titled "Compendium Ricardi Barre super utroque testamento". The title and contents make this manuscript likely to be a copy of the Compendium. The same catalogue also records five books once owned by Barre—copies of Gratian's Decretum, Justinian's Codex, glossed copies of the Psalter and some of the Epistles of Paul, as well as Peter Lombard's Sentences. Also, another Leicester Abbey manuscript records some satirical verses that were said to have been written by Barre.