ROGER (d. 1139), bishop of Salisbury, was originally priest of a small chapel near Caen. The future King Henry I., who happened to hear mass there one day, was impressed by the speed with which Roger read the service, and enrolled him in his own service. Roger, though uneducated, showed great talent for business, and Henry, on coming to the throne, almost immediately made him chancellor (I 101). Soon after Roger received the bishopric of Salisbury. In the Investitures controversy he skil fully managed to keep the favour of both the king and Anselm. Roger devoted himself to administrative business, and remodelled it completely. He created the exchequer system, which was man aged by him and his family for more than a century, and he used his position to heap up power and riches. He became the first man in England after the king, and was in office, if not in title, justiciar. He ruled England, while Henry was in Normandy, and succeeded in obtaining the see of Canterbury for his nominee, William of Corbeil. Duke Robert seems to have been put into his custody after Tinchebrai. Though Roger had sworn allegiance to Matilda, he disliked the Angevin connection, and went over to Stephen, carrying with him the royal treasure and administrative system (1135). Stephen placed great reliance on him, on his nephews,
both bishops and on his son Roger, who was treasurer.
Roger himself had built at Devizes a splendid castle. He and his nephews seem to have secured a number of castles outside their own dioceses, and the old bishop behaved as if he were an equal of the king. At a council held in June 1139, Stephen found a pretext for demanding a surrender of their castles, and on their refusal they were arrested. After a short struggle all Roger's great castles were sequestrated. This quarrel with the church, which immediately preceded the landing of the empress, had a serious effect on Stephen's fortunes. Roger died at Salisbury in December 1139. He was a great bureaucrat, and a builder whose taste was in advance of his age. But his contemporaries were probably justified in regarding him as worldly, ambitious, avaricious, unfettered by any high standard of personal morality.
See Sir J. Ramsay's Foundations of England, vol. ii., and J. H. Round's Geoffrey de Mandeville.