There is very little direct evidence about Grosseteste's education. He may have received a liberal arts education at Lincoln and appears as a witness for the bishop of Lincoln at in the late 1180s or early 1190s, where he is identified as a Master. From about 1195 he was active in the household of the Bishop of Hereford William de Vere ; a letter from Gerald of Wales to William extolling Grosseteste's skills survives. Grosseteste appears not to have received any form of benefice from Bishop William, and on the latter's death in 1198, the household dissolved. There is no evidence that Grosseteste held any position in the households of William's successors, but it is possible that he was supported by Hugh Foliot, Archdeacon of Shropshire in the north of Hereford diocese. Grosseteste's movements are not clear in the next two decades or so, but he seems to have spent some time in France during the years of the interdict over England (1208–14), and acted as a papal judge-delegate, in company with Hugh Foliot, in or around 1216.