Life

Some historians say John's ancestry is unknown, but others give it as the son of a canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

, or priest. Although Greenford is a location in Middlesex, no contemporary record gives him the name, and it not known when the surname was first attached to John. He was a prebend of London, and Dean of Chichester, holding the office of dean for over 20 years. He was elected to the see of Chichester in late April 1173, and consecrated on 6 October 1174. As he was a son of a priest, he obtained a papal dispensation

Dispensation (Catholic Church)

In the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, a dispensation is the suspension by competent authority of general rules of law in particular cases...

 in the summer of 1174. He died 26 April 1180. Besides his profession of obedience to the archbishop of Canterbury, another 13 documents of John's survive.

Further reading

}}