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THE ELECTION OF JOHN OF MONMOUTH, BISHOP OF LLANDAFF, 1287-97 by W. GREENWAY ON 10 February 1297 Archbishop Robert Winchelsey, assisted by the bishops of St. David's, Rochester and Clonfert, consecrated John of Monmouth as bishop of Llandaff.1 The primate was to perform several similar con- secrations in the course of his duties as head of the metropolitan province of Canterbury, but this particular ceremony may well have given him more than usual personal satisfaction. In the first place, the new prelate had been one of Winchelsey's most brilliant pupils at Oxford, where a close and lasting friendship between the two men had grown out of mutual respect and admiration. Secondly, the consecration ended what must, in the archbishop's view, have been a scandalous state of affairs, for during the previous ten years the see of Llandaff had been unoccupied. The vacancy was the outcome of circumstances which none could have foreseen, but it was clear that its effect on the religious life and discipline of the diocese could only be harmful. When William de Braose, the former bishop, died in March 1287 it had seemed unlikely that the appointment of his successor would be long delayed. The canons of the cathedral evidently intended that the vacancy should be of short duration a meeting of the chapter was quickly convened and Philip de Staunton chosen as bishop. He was himself a canon of Llandaff, having held the prebend of Llangwm since 1269, and had additional experience of life in a secular cathedral as precentor of Wells 1 W. de Gray Birch, Memorials of the See and Cathedral of Llandaff (Neath, 1912), r 313.