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 known as a strong minded and combative individual, who was not afraid to clash with his superiors.

Life

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.

Bishop

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.^[1] 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.^[2]

Lord Chancellor

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 positions, and this may have been the reason for his removal from office.^[3] 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.

Le Reve attended the Irish Parliament held at Kilkenny in 1367, which passed the celebrated Statutes of Kilkenny, an attempt to enforce a rigid legal and cultural separation between the Old Irish and the Anglo-Irish. Le Reve gave his full support to the Statutes.^[4] He was also present at the Parliament of 1371, where he quarreled with both the Lord Treasurer of Ireland, Stephen de Valle, Bishop of Limerick and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, William de Windsor. Relations with Windsor remained bad throughout the latter's tenure in office; it has been suggested that Windsor took his revenge in the Parliament of 1375, where Le Reve was assigned the notoriously unpopular task of collecting taxes.

He remained a member of the Privy Council of Ireland and despite his advancing age attended its meetings occasionally.

Quarrel with Archbishop of Cashel

Perhaps the best insight into le Reve's character comes from the glimpse we get of him in the written account of visitation of Philip Torrington, Archbishop of Cashel in 1374. Le Reve emerges from this account as a formidable and quarrelsome individual, as indeed was Torrington. We have only Torrington's side of the story, which may not be entirely objective;^[5] but that le Reve could be quarrelsome is clear from his clashes with Windsor and de Valle.

According to Torrington, le Reve resisted the visitation by armed force, and, although already an old man by medieval standards, he physically assaulted the Archbishop. He then looked on with approval as the Archdeacon of Cashel, who has accompanied Torrington, was attacked and seriously wounded by armed men in le Reve's retinue.^[6]

Surprisingly little seems to have come of the episode. Torrington excommunicated le Reve, but this seemingly drastic step had no obvious effect on le Reve's career. In 1377 while in England he attempted to persuade the Crown to take action against the bishop, but again nothing seems to have come of it,^[7] and when Torrington died in 1380 le Reve was still in possession of his see.

Death

He died at an advanced age in September 1394.

References

1. Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 John Murray London 1926 Vol.1 p. 85
2. Bliss Calendar of Papal Registers Vol.1 1342-1419 pp. 438–9
3. Ball p. 85
4. Gilbert, Sir John History of the Viceroys of Ireland Dublin 1865 pp. 224–7
5. Logan, F.D. editor The Visitation of the Archbishop of Cashel to Waterford and Limerick 1374-5 Archivium Hibernicum Vol.34 (1977) pp. 50–55
6. Logan p. 50
7. Logan p. 50