Alexander of Lincoln was a medieval English Bishop of Lincoln. He was the nephew of Roger of Salisbury, a Bishop of Salisbury and Chancellor of England under King Henry I, and was also related to Nigel, Bishop of Ely. Unlike his relatives, he held no office in the government before his appointment as Bishop of Lincoln in 1123. Alexander became a frequent visitor to King Henry's court after his elevation to the episcopate, and he served as a royal justice. Although Alexander was known for his ostentatious and luxurious lifestyle, he founded a number of religious houses in his diocese and was an active builder and literary patron. He also attended church councils and reorganized his diocese by increasing the number of archdeaconries and setting up prebends to support his cathedral clergy. Under Henry's successor, King Stephen, Alexander was imprisoned in 1139. He subsequently briefly supported Stephen's rival, Matilda, but by the late 1140s Alexander was once again working with Stephen. He spent much of the late 1140s at the papal court in Rome, but died in England in early 1148. Alexander was the patron of medieval chroniclers Henry of Huntingdon and Geoffrey of Monmouth, and served as an ecclesiastical patron of the medieval hermit Christina of Markyate and Gilbert of Sempringham, founder of the Gilbertines. ( more...)

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The 1318-km Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway opens after 39 months of construction.

Amid heavy protests, the Greek parliament passes austerity measures in order to obtain the latest tranche of a 110 billion euro loan of the EFSF.

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