Province Canterbury Cathedral Wells Cathedral First incumbent Athelm | Diocese Bath and Wells Residence Bishop's Palace, Wells Formation 909 | |
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The Bishop of Bath and Wells heads the Church of England Diocese of Bath and Wells in the Province of Canterbury in England.
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The present diocese covers the vast majority of the (ceremonial) county of Somerset and a small area of Dorset. The Episcopal seat is located in the Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew in the city of Wells in Somerset.
The current bishop, since his confirmation of election on 4 March 2014, is Peter Hancock, the seventy-eighth Bishop, who signs Peter Bath: et Well:. He fully took up his duties upon his installation in a service at Wells Cathedral on 7 June 2014. The see had been vacant since Peter Price's retirement on 30 June 2013, during which time Peter Maurice (Bishop suffragan of Taunton) had acted as diocesan bishop.
The Bishop's residence is The Palace, Wells. In late 2013 the Church Commissioners announced that they were purchasing the Old Rectory, a Grade II-listed building in Croscombe for the Bishop's residence. However this decision was widely opposed, including by the Diocese, and in May 2014 was overturned by a committee of the Archbishops' Council.
History
Somerset originally came under the authority of the Bishop of Sherborne, but Wells became the seat of its own Bishop of Wells from 909. King William Rufus granted Bath to a royal physician, John of Tours, Bishop of Wells and Abbot of Bath, who was permitted to move his episcopal seat for Somerset from Wells to Bath in 1090, thereby becoming the first Bishop of Bath. He planned and began a much larger church as his cathedral, to which was attached a priory, with the bishop's palace beside it.
In 1197 Bishop Savaric FitzGeldewin officially moved his seat to Glastonbury Abbey with the approval of Pope Celestine III. However, the monks there would not accept their new Bishop of Glastonbury and the title of Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury was used until the Glastonbury claim was abandoned in 1219. His successor, Jocelin of Wells, then returned to Bath, again under the title, Bishop of Bath. The official episcopal title became Bishop of Bath and Wells under a Papal ruling of 3 January 1245.
By the 15th century Bath Abbey was badly dilapidated. Oliver King, Bishop of Bath and Wells, decided in 1500 to rebuild it on a smaller scale. The new abbey-church was completed just a few years before Bath Priory was dissolved in 1539. Then Henry VIII considered this new church redundant, and it was offered to the people of Bath to form their parish church; but they did not buy it, and it was stripped of its glass and lead. The last bishop in communion with Rome was deprived in 1559 but the succession of bishops has continued to the present day.
The diocese and the episcopate are today part of the Anglican Communion.
In popular culture
Fictional bishops of this title repeatedly appear in the BBC television comedy Blackadder, in which the bishop is portrayed as an obese, blasphemous, self-confessed pervert who eats children. Others are mentioned in at least two skits by Monty Python and yet another in the BBC radio comedy Absolute Power. Neil Gaiman's 2008 work The Graveyard Book features a character named the Bishop of Bath and Wells – he is one of a trio of ghouls who spirit the main character away.