a member of the French royal family might become Duke of Normandy. He therefore asked the King for time to consider his position, but the King was firm and seized the temporalities of the Archbishop. Pierre was forced to go to Paris, where an agreement was worked out that, should someone other than a member of the royal family become Duke, then the Archbishop would swear fealty directly to the King. As Archbishop of Rouen, Roger was one of the Peers of France and he was a member of the embassy sent by King Philip to his son John, in 1333, to swear in their name to take the cross and serve in a crusade in the Holy Land. Later in the year, in Paris in the Prés des Clercs, the King received the cross personally from the hands of Archbishop Roger. It is said that he was promoted to the office of Chancellor of France, though there is no documentary proof. The earliest claim that he was Chancellor is made by Alfonso Chacon (Ciaconius) (1530–1599). In 1333, the issue of the beatific vision, which had been under discussion since a sermon of Pope John XXII in 1329, reached a serious stage. The French Royal Court had been hearing complaints from various quarters, and the King and Queen finally decided to seek competent advice. The Pope knew that the University of Paris was hostile to his ideas, and so he sent Gerard Odonis, the Minister General of the Franciscans, and a Dominican preacher, to Paris to preach the Pope's views in public. King Philip responded to the general indignation by summoning the Masters of Theology of the University to Vincennes just before Christmas 1334, where it appeared that there was general agreement against the Pope. The King privately informed the Pope of their opinions, but the Pope harshly responded to the King that he should stop favoring an opinion which the Pope had not yet definitively settled. The Pope ordered the Archbishop of Rouen, Pierre Roger, to set the Pope's view down in writing and explain it to the King. Ironically, Pierre Roger was not on the Pope's side of the argument. A committee, which included Archbishop Roger, the theologian Pierre de la Palud (Petrus Paludensis), the Chancellor of France Guillaume de Sainte-Maure, the Archdeacon of Rouen Jean de Polenciac, and others, attempted to talk the Pope out of his