 He administered for the king a large proportion of the vacant ecclesiastical offices . He personally managed sixteen abbeys or bishoprics . Eventually he obtained the wealthy see of Durham for himself in May 1099 , being consecrated on 5 June 1099 . He had been the custodian of the see since the death of the previous bishop in early 1096 . At his consecration , he managed to avoid giving a profession of obedience to Thomas the Archbishop of York , just as his predecessor had done . William of Malmesbury , a medieval chronicler , accused Ranulf of paying 1 @,@ 000 pounds for the bishopric . He was given ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Carlisle and Cumbria , because his predecessors had done so as bishops of Lindisfarne , but he only exercised this for a short time , as after the accession of Henry I jurisdiction over these areas was transferred to the diocese of York . 
