THURSTAN or TURSTIN (d. 140), archbishop of York, was the son of a certain Anger, or Auger, prebendary of St. Paul's, London, and a brother of Audoen (d. 1139), bishop of Evreux. He himself was a prebendary of St. Paul's, and was also a clerk in the service of William II. and then of Henry I., who secured his election as archbishop of York in Aug. 1114. He now entered upon the great controversy which occupied him during a large part of his subsequent life and made him for several years an exile from England. Archbishop Ralph of Canterbury refused to consecrate him unless he made a profession of obedience to the southern see ; this Thurstan refused and asked the king for permission to go to Rome to consult Pope Paschal II. Henry I. declined to allow him to make the journey, while Paschal declared against Archbishop Ralph. At the Council of Salisbury in 1116 the English king ordered Thurstan to submit, but instead he resigned his archbishopric, although this did not take effect. The
new pope, Gelasius II., and also his successor, Calixtus II., es poused the cause of the stubborn archbishop, and in Oct. 1119, he was consecrated by Calixtus at Reims.
Enraged at this the king refused to allow Thurstan to enter England, and he remained for some time in the company of the pope. At length, however, his friends succeeded in reconciling him with Henry, and, after serving the king in Normandy, he was recalled to England. In 1138 he made a truce at Roxburgh between England and Scotland, and took active part in gathering together the army which defeated the Scots at the Battle of the Standard in Aug. 1138. Early in 1140 he entered the order of the Cluniacs at Pontefract and here he died on Feb. 6, 114o. Thurstan dis played marked generosity toward the churches of his diocese dur ing his bishopric and was also the founder of a number of religious houses.