The Church and Northern English Society in the Fourteenth Century: the Archbishops of York and their Records 1914049152, 9781914049156

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The Church and Northern English Society in the Fourteenth Century

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS York Medieval Press is published by the University of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies in association with Boydell & Brewer Limited. Our objective is the promotion of innovative scholarship and fresh criticism on medieval culture. We have a special commitment to interdisciplinary study, in line with the Centre’s belief that the future of Medieval Studies lies in those areas in which its major constituent disciplines at once inform and challenge each other. Editorial Board (2024) Peter Biller, Emeritus (Dept of History): General Editor Tim Ayers (Dept of History of Art) Henry Bainton: Private scholar K. P. Clarke (Dept of English and Related Literature) K. F. Giles (Dept of Archaeology) Shazia Jagot (Dept of English and Related Literature) Holly James-Maddocks (Dept of English and Related Literature) Richard McClary (Dept of History of Art) Harry Munt (Dept of History) Jessica N. Richardson (Dept of History of Art) L. J. Sackville (Dept of History) Elizabeth M. Tyler (Dept of English and Related Literature): Director, Centre for Medieval Studies Hanna Vorholt (Dept of History of Art) Sethina Watson (Dept of History) J. G. Wogan-Browne (English Faculty, Fordham University) Stephanie Wynne-Jones (Dept of Archaeology) All enquiries of an editorial kind, including suggestions for monographs and essay collections, should be addressed to: The Academic Editor, York Medieval Press, Department of History, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD (E-mail: [email protected]) Details of other York Medieval Press volumes are available from Boydell & Brewer Ltd.

The Church and Northern English Society in the Fourteenth Century The Archbishops of York and their Records

Edited by Paul Dryburgh and Sarah Rees Jones

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS

© Contributors 2024 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2024 A York Medieval Press publication in association with The Boydell Press an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com and with the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York ISBN-13: 9781914049156 (hardcover) ISBN-13: 9781805432111 (ePDF) ISBN-13: 9781805432128 (ePUB) A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate Cover image: Borthwick Institute for Archives, YDA/2/Reg. 9A, fol. 326v. The second entry relates to the runaway nun, Joan of Leeds.

In memory of Professor David M. Smith (1947–2022) and Professor W. Mark Ormrod (1957–2020)

Contents List of Illustrations ix List of Contributors xiii Acknowledgements xvi List of Abbreviations xviii Map: The Ecclesiastical Province of York, c. 1304–1405 xx Introduction 1 Paul Dryburgh and Sarah Rees Jones 1

The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405 Sarah Rees Jones

12

2

The Archbishops of York and the Government of Fourteenth-Century England Paul Dryburgh

80

3

Support or Scourge? Archbishop William Melton and the Tradition of Loyal Opposition to the English Crown, 1317–1340 †W. Mark Ormrod

109

4

Beyond the Border: The Influence of York Clerks in the Two Edwards’ Scottish Administrations, 1332–1357 Jenny M. McHugh

128

5

Responding to Royal Requirements: Clerical Taxation in the Province of York, 1304–1405 Rosemary C. E. Hayes

151

6

Ad insolenciam ipsius rebellis salubrius reprimendam: William Thorntoft, the Abbey of Rufford and Significations of Excommunication in the Northern Province Jonathan Mackman

7

Blood, Sex and Holy Water: Reconciling Churches and Churchyards in the Medieval Diocese of York Katherine Harvey

172

191

viii    Contents

8

Structuring Episcopal Authority: Palaces and Residences of the Archbishop of York Stefania Merlo Perring

9

Medieval Parks of the Archbishops of York John S. Lee

10

Northern Ways? Pilgrimage, Politics and Piety in the Fourteenth-Century Administrative Records of the Archdiocese of York John Jenkins

11

12

Underexplored Sources for Gender History: New Approaches to the Fourteenth-Century York Archbishops’ Registers Marianne Wilson Joan of Leeds and other Apostate Nuns in the Province of York, 1300–1350 Helen Watt

208 225

247

268

285

Bibliography of Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405 309 Index 313

Illustrations

Tables 0.1

Figures

Dryburgh and Rees Jones, Introduction Archbishops of York, and vacancies, 1304–1405

5–6

Rees Jones, The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405

1.1

Registers of the archbishops of York, average number of folios per annum, 1222–1452

71

1.2

Registers of the archbishops of York, number of registrations per annum, 1304–40

72

1.3

Registers of the archbishops of York, number of registrations per annum, 1341–73

73

1.4

Registers of the archbishops of York, number of registrations per annum, 1374–1405

74

1.5

Average number of registrations per annum, archdeaconries and other jurisdictions. Rounded to nearest whole number

75

1.6

Archdeaconry of York, number of registrations per month, 1349–50

76

1.7

Number of records relating to the probate of last wills and testaments 77

1.8

Average number of licences for non-residence and of records relating to exchanges of benefices, per annum

78

1.9

Places of dating in the series TNA, C 85, Significations of Excommunication, 1304–1405

79

Tables 1.1

List of sections found in archbishops’ registers in the fourteenth century 64–5

1.2

Numbers of loose documents inserted into registers (mean average per annum)

65

1.3

Numbers of records in surviving registers of the archbishops of York, 1304–1405; archdeaconries, diverse jurisdictions and vicars-general

66

x    Illustrations 1.4

Numbers of records in surviving registers of the archbishops of York 1304–1405; common sections other than archdeaconries

67

1.5

Average number of registrations per annum, 1304–1405

68

1.6

Average registrations per annum (three sections relating to temporalities) 68

1.7

Average registrations per annum (sections relating to spiritual administration, excluding archdeaconries)

69

1.8

Average number of registered documents per annum, archdeaconries and other jurisdictions. Rounded to nearest whole number

69

1.9

Most frequent places of dating in the registers of the archbishops of York (archdeaconries of York and Nottingham)

70

Tables 4.1

Tables 5.1

Figures 8.1

8.2

Figures

McHugh, Beyond the Border: The Influence of York Clerks in the Two Edwards’ Scottish Administrations, 1332–1357 Chancellors and Chamberlains in Scotland 1333 to 1357

149–50

Hayes, Responding to Royal Requirements: Clerical Taxation in the Province of York, 1304–1405 Convocation of the whole clergy of the province of York

169–71

Perring, Structuring Episcopal Authority: Palaces and Residences of the Archbishop of York Bishopthorpe Palace from the east; the thirteenth-century phases are the first-floor hall in the centre, double-chapel at the high end (left), chambers and solar at the lower end of the hall (right); with later redevelopments

223

York, Dean’s Park. The thirteenth-century Archbishop’s Chapel

224

Lee, Medieval Parks of the Archbishops of York

9.1

The archbishop’s parks and woodland in the Vale of York, as depicted in 1577

226

9.2

The archbishop’s moated manor at Rest Park

232

Illustrations  xi 9.3

Waterways for moving timber from the archbishop’s parks and woodland in the Vale of York

242

The archbishop’s parks and associated residences

228

Tables 9.1

Figures 12.1

Watt, Joan of Leeds and other Apostate Nuns in the Province of York, 1300–1350 Gary Brannan at the New Diorama Theatre, London, where he and ‘The Northern Way’ team attended a performance of Breach Theatre’s play ‘Joan of Leeds’, on 20 December 2019

301

Results of analysis of Logan’s register of apostate nuns for his entire period, compared with the period under investigation, also showing results for York Province only

294

12.2

Results of analysis of Logan’s register of apostate nuns for entries including further details, also showing results for York Province

295

12.3

Breakdown of the reasons for apostasy given in Logan’s register for his entire period and the period under investigation

Tables 12.1

296–7

Full credit details are provided in the captions to the images and tables in the text. The editors, contributors and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and individuals for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copy­right. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

Contributors Paul Dryburgh is principal records specialist (medieval) at The National Archives. He was co-investigator of The Northern Way Project. His research interests lie in government, warfare, politics and the economy in the British Isles in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Paul’s publications include four volumes of The Calendar of Fine Rolls of the Reign of Henry III, 1216–1272 (Boydell) of which he was co-editor. Katherine Harvey is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, and teaches for the Open University. Her publications include Episcopal Appointments in England, c. 1214–1344: From Episcopal Elections to Papal Provision (Farnham, 2014) and The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages (London, 2021). Katherine is currently working on a book about the episcopal body in medieval England. Rosemary C. E. Hayes is an honorary visiting research fellow at the University of York. She is a historian and archivist, whose main areas of interest are the fifteenth-century English episcopate, clerical taxation and the reign of Henry VI. Together with Professor William Sheils, Rosemary co-directed the University of York project, ‘The Records of Central Government Taxation in England and Wales: Clerical Taxes 1173–1664’, and edited Clergy, Church and Society in England and Wales c. 1200–1800, Borthwick Texts and Studies 41 (York, 2013). John Jenkins is a medieval historian with a particular interest in pilgrimage and cathedrals and has published extensively on the later medieval cult of St Thomas Becket. His recent works include an edition and translation of The Customary of the Shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral (Leeds, 2022). John is co-director of the Centre for Pilgrimage Studies at the University of York. John S. Lee’s research interests are in the economy and society of medieval England, and local and regional history. His work has ranged from studies of merchants and fairs, and towns and their hinterlands, to religious commemorative practices and the estates of the Knights Templar. John’s publications include The Medieval Clothier (Woodbridge, 2018) and Commemoration in Medieval Cambridge (Woodbridge, 2018), co-edited with Christian Steer. He is a research associate at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York.

xiv    Contributors

Jonathan Mackman is a historical and archival researcher who has contributed to many research and publication projects over the past twenty-five years. His work has focused on the records of the late-medieval royal government, and on subjects including immigration, taxation, parliament and the law, with a particular focus on Yorkshire and the East Midlands. Jonathan is a co-­author of Immigrant England, 1300–1550 (Manchester, 2018) and is currently a research assistant at the History of Parliament Trust and an honorary visiting fellow at the University of York. Jenny M. McHugh is a medieval historian based at Lancaster University. She researches the political allegiance of Scottish bishops during the Anglo-Scottish conflict, predominantly focusing on the period 1332 to 1357. Jenny’s most recent article, published in Historical Research (2022), examined the careers of English clerics in the Scottish administration and argued that Edward III of England did not seek to ‘anglicise’ territories under his control in the mid-fourteenth century. Stefania Merlo Perring has research interests in medieval archaeology and history with a particular focus on the development of European cathedral city landscapes, for which she was awarded an EU Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of Girona, Spain. She is also a research associate of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York. Stefania has published several scholarly articles on the archaeology and architecture of York Minster and the Minster Close. She is a contributor to UK Historic Towns Atlas: vol. v, City of York (2015). †W. Mark Ormrod, late professor emeritus of medieval history at the University of York, was a distinguished historian of later medieval English politics and society with an exceptional record of publication and research project management. Mark’s biography of Edward III was published by Yale University Press in 2011. It will be regarded by many as his major publication, although the breadth of his publications, each revealing an extensive mastery of archival sources, is rivalled by few. Sarah Rees Jones is professor emeritus of medieval history at the University of York. Her research interests lie in medieval social history, and she has been the principal investigator of several projects in digital archives. She is a trustee of the UK Historic Towns Trust. Sarah’s major publications include York: the Making of a City, 1068–1350 (Oxford, 2013), with Sethina Watson, Christians and Jews in Angevin England: the York massacre of 1190 (York, 2013) and she was a contributor to the UK Historic Towns Atlas: volume v, City of York (Oxford, 2015).

Contributors  xv

Shelagh Sneddon is tutor in Old French at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, and also a freelance translator of medieval Latin and French documents. Her research interests are in the fields of medieval English petitions and heresy trials from medieval Languedoc. With Peter Biller and Caterina Bruschi, Shelagh published Inquisitors and Heretics in Thirteenth-­ Century Languedoc: Edition and Translation of Toulouse Inquisition Depositions, 1273–1280 (Leiden, 2010), and is currently working on a volume of earlier inquisition depositions, The Genesis of Inquisition Procedures. Helen Watt is a qualified archivist and researcher and has taken part in several government-funded historical research and archival cataloguing projects, including the Welsh Manorial Documents Database Project, the E 179 Records of Lay and Clerical Taxation Projects and several projects examining the registers of the archbishops of York. Her publications include, with Anne Hawkins, Letters of Seamen in the Wars with France, 1793–1815 (Woodbridge, 2016). Helen is currently working for the University of Oxford, Bodleian Library, as project archivist: medieval charters and early modern manuscripts. Marianne Wilson is currently Research Development Manager at the British Library. She is also a visiting fellow at the University of Lincoln and outreach officer for the Lincoln Record Society. Marianne’s research interests are in the medieval and early modern Church in England, with a particular focus on gender. She is the author of ‘A Reformation of Remembrance? Devotional Practices of Female Testators in Lincolnshire 1509–1558’, published in Midland History in 2019.

Acknowledgements This volume arises out of a research project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (ref. AH/S001565/1): The Northern Way: Archbishops of York and the North of England, 1304–1405. This project created accessible online resources from the administrative archives of the archbishops of York between 1304 and 1405. We are immensely grateful to the AHRC for their generous funding, as well as for some additional funding provided by UK Research and Innovation as part of their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The project ran from February 2019 to February 2022. The project was a partnership between the University of York and The National Archives (TNA) and received additional support from York Minster. We are grateful to the staff of the research support offices in all these institutions for their support of the project. The principal investigator on the project was Professor Sarah Rees Jones (York) and the co-investigator was Dr Paul Dryburgh (TNA). We were blessed with a very able research team led by Helen Watt (research fellow) and including Jonathan Mackman, Marianne Wilson, Shelagh Sneddon and Stefania Merlo Perring (research assistants). The team coped magnificently with the challenges of working through the Covid pandemic and showed tremendous dedication to completing the major tasks of the project without compromise. Without their efforts the project would never have been completed to such a high standard, as is evident in their contributions to this volume. The project built on the successes of earlier research projects led by the University of York and the Borthwick Institute for Archives. Particularly notable was the contribution of Professor David Smith’s foundational work on English episcopal registers, without which this project would not have been possible. David also supported the work of The Northern Way by completing the transcription and indexing of all the lists of ordinations in the registers from his home in Romania. No doubt he would have contributed more were it not for his untimely death in 2022. A previous project, ‘York Archbishops’ Registers Revealed’ (2014–15), funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, conserved the medieval and early modern York archbishops’ registers and created the high-quality digital images of the registers on which The Northern Way depended and that proved invaluable when we had to shift to working from home in 2020. The imaging project was completed while Dr Chris Webb was keeper of the Borthwick Institute and led by the late Professor Mark Ormrod (d. 2020). It was Mark Ormrod who conceived the idea for The

Acknowledgements  xv i i

Northern Way project and he would, no doubt, have led a successful bid had his own ill-health not forced him to retire in 2016. Mark, however, continued to support the new research team as is evident by his posthumous contribution to this volume, based on a lecture that he delivered in early 2020. We are sad to have lost two great scholars, but we are grateful for their labours and pleased to dedicate this volume to them. The project also benefited from the dedicated labours of many other staff and volunteers. Gary Brannan, now keeper of archives at the Borthwick Institute, provided essential management support, latterly assisted by Laura Yeoman as the access archivist at the Borthwick. It was Gary who thought of using the story of Joan of Leeds, which attracted such global attention, as publicity for the project. David Robinson, retired archivist and now an independent scholar, allowed us to use and adapt his unpublished transcriptions of sections of Melton’s register. The York Information Services team led by Sebastian Palucha and Frank Feng provided all the IT support to the project. Alan Robiette, an independent scholar and formerly of the Joint Information Systems Committee, provided invaluable insight into users’ needs and guidance for user design. Three students (Kirstin Barnard, Stephen Huws and Mollie Proud) contributed to the project funded by internships provided by the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past (University of York). In preparing this volume for publication we are grateful to the editorial team at Boydell and Brewer, in particular Caroline Palmer and Laura Bennetts. We are also grateful to Aubrey Steingraber for drawing the map and to Gillian Galloway of the Centre for Medieval Studies at York for administrative support. Finally, we have benefited immensely from the wise scholarly counsel of Professor Peter Biller, the general editor of York Medieval Press, who has improved this volume in many small but significant ways. June 2023

Abbreviations BIA

Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York

BL

British Library, London

BIHR CChR CCR

CCW CDS

CFR CIM

CIPM CPL

CPR

EcHR

EETS EHR ERY FCE

Foedera JEH

JMH

NRY

ODNB OED

OMT

Proctors

Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research Calendar of Charter Rolls Calendar of Close Rolls

Calendar of Chancery Warrants

Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland Calendar of Fine Rolls

Calendar of Inquisitions: Miscellaneous Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers: Papal Letters Calendar of Patent Rolls

The Economic History Review Early English Text Society

The English Historical Review East Riding of Yorkshire

Fourteenth Century England

Foedera, conventiones, litterae et cujuscunque generis acta publica, 4 vols. in 7 parts (London, 1816–69) Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of Medieval History North Riding of Yorkshire

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition: https://www.oxforddnb.com

Oxford English Dictionary, online edition: https://www.oed.com/ Oxford Medieval Texts

Proctors for Parliament, Clergy, Community and Politics, c. 1248– 1539 (The National Archives, Series SC 10), ed. A. K. McHardy and P. Bradford, 2 vols., Canterbury and York Society 107 and 108 (Woodbridge, 2017)

Abbreviations  x i x PROME Reg. Greenfield Reg. Melton

Rot. Scot. RP RS

TNA

TRHS VCH

WRY YAJ

YDA

YMA

Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 1275–1504, ed. P. Brand, A. Curry, C. Given-Wilson, R. Horrox, G. H. Martin, W. M. Ormrod and J. R. S. Phillips, 16 vols. (Woodbridge, 2005)

The Register of William Greenfield, Lord Archbishop of York, 1306–1315, 5 vols., ed. W. Brown and A. H. Thompson, Surtees Society 145, 149, 151–3 (Durham, 1931–40) The Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York, 1317–1340, 6 vols., Canterbury and York Society 70–1, 76, 85, 93, 101; vols. I–II, ed. R. M. T. Hill (Torquay, 1977); III, ed. R. M. T. Hill (York, 1988); IV, ed. R. Brocklesby (Woodbridge, 1997); V, ed. T. C. B. Timmins (Woodbridge, 2002); VI, ed. D. B. Robinson (Woodbridge, 2011)

Rotuli Scotiae in Turri Londinensi et in Domo Capitulari Westmonasteriensi asservati, ed. D. Macpherson, J. Caley and W. Illingworth, 2 vols. (London, 1814–19)

Rotuli Parliamentorum ut et Petitiones et Placita in Parliamento, ed. J. Strachey et al., 7 vols. (London, 1783–1832) Rolls Series

The National Archives, London

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Victoria County History of England West Riding of Yorkshire

Yorkshire Archaeological Journal York Diocesan Archive York Minster Archives

The Ecclesiastical Province of York, c. 1304–1405

Introduction Paul Dry b ur g h and Sarah Ree s Jone s On 8 October 2020 Yorkshire poet Ian McMillan took to Twitter to comment, in verse, on the news that swathes of northern England were to enter Tier 3 lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic: I am The North. I am various I contain multitudes Except when I am glimpsed Through a long telescope From The Seat of Power. Then I am one terraced street Where Batley Is next door to Egremont And I talk funny And the cry comes: ‘Lock ’em down, boys, Lock ’em down!’1

McMillan, ‘the Bard of Barnsley’, neatly captures that cultural and political dissonance of long standing in England (or at least a perception thereof ) between the centre, the capital, and those areas at geographical removes. In some senses, he is reaching for that ‘Grim up north’ trope beloved of playwrights and screenwriters. Principally, of course, his is a furious response to the government’s perceived mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, its lack of empathy for, and experimentation on, communities with large pockets of deprivation where the Conservative Party had made significant gains in the General Election of December 2019. It conveys a sense that the North is seen as an amorphous mass whose economy, culture and communities have again been thrown to the wolves. Since then, of course, the abandonment of the northern extension of the High Speed 2 railway into Yorkshire and Greater Manchester has driven another nail into improved connectivity between north © Ian McMillan, https://twitter.com/IMcMillan/status/1314416924038778885 (accessed 13 November 2020).

1

2   Paul Dr yburgh and Sarah Rees Jones

and south and east and west. That is a far cry from the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ agenda espoused by former Conservative chancellors George Osborne and Philip Hammond that built on the civic regionalism developed under the Blair government, which itself contained many who would describe themselves as ‘northerners’, and aimed (perhaps still aims) to achieve a connected, competitive economy and transport infrastructure alongside a focus on education and skills. Ian McMillan, though, also taps into the centuries’ old debate about the place of ‘the North’ and what constitutes northernness and northern identity. This collection of essays takes us back to a formative period for both the North and the kingdom of England as political-cultural entities: a century during which northern England was exposed to Scottish raids (causing the northern Church to mobilise material supplies, soldiers and bureaucrats), famine, epidemics (human and animal) and widespread poverty, as attested by higher rates of remission of government and papal taxation. Our focus is the archbishopric and metropolitan province of York, which exercised spiritual jurisdiction over most places north of the Trent through the cathedral churches of York, Durham and Carlisle, and some vestigial but fast-waning claims to authority over the Church in southern Scotland. It is debatable whether the Northern Province provided a coherent or common identity for its residents, divided as it was into smaller units of both secular and spiritual jurisdiction, as well as by topography, language and culture. Nevertheless, it remained a focus for spiritual jurisdiction and the projection of archiepiscopal authority throughout the Middle Ages, and the effects of this organisation can be seen not just within the province but also in the influence of northern Church leaders and clergymen on national affairs and especially within secular, royal administration. Our period ends with the execution in 1405 of Archbishop Richard Scrope of York for his treason in joining a northern rebellion against the new Lancastrian king, Henry IV.2 Scrope’s execution (he was the first post-Conquest English prelate to suffer such a fate) created an international scandal and a northern cult around the dead archbishop that conditioned northern identity and royal government of the North for centuries. It was all the more cataclysmic since Scrope and all of his fourteenth-century predecessors as archbishops of York had acted not only as spiritual, political, economic and, occasionally, military leaders in the North but also as figures of national political and administrative importance. The interests, ambitions and concerns of Church and Crown frequently aligned. The eight archbishops from William Richard Scrope: Archbishop, Rebel and Martyr, ed. P. J. P. Goldberg (Donington, 2007).

2

Introduction  3

Greenfield to Richard Scrope were conspicuous in their service to the Crown, occupying senior administrative posts over long periods, and in their personal relationships with individual monarchs. Perhaps as importantly, it was during the long fourteenth century that these senior churchmen introduced successive generations of educated men of northern birth, who were often linked by family and geography, into the main departments of royal government.3 This set of circumstances raises interesting questions about the relationship between royal government and the north of England over the century before 1405. How close were these administrative ties and what were their consequences? Some of the answers lie in the voluminous administrative archives of the archbishops of York, both those curated within the province and those deposited elsewhere and, in particular, in the archives of the royal government now held by The National Archives (TNA) at Kew. This volume arises out of a research project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (ref. AH/S001565/1) that created accessible online resources from these diverse records dating between 1304 and 1405. The two aims of the project were to create partial indices, and summaries in English, of all the records in the surviving registers of the archbishops of York for that period,4 and to create summaries in English of archiepiscopal acts and other business relating to the relationship between Church and State issued by and for the Crown surviving in TNA, combining them in a single searchable website. Thus, the project brought together the administrative records of the archbishops in one place, online, for the first time since their creation. These resources can be found at https://archbishopsregisters.york.ac.uk/.5 The records emanating from the administrative office or household of the archbishops fall into three broad categories. The first, and most extensive, includes records of provincial and diocesan administration copied or inserted into the surviving registers of the archbishops. These are discussed in greater detail in a chapter in this volume by Sarah Rees Jones. The second are records See Chapters 2 and 4 by Paul Dryburgh and Jenny McHugh, this volume. BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, 7–16; YMA, L1/2 vol. 1 section ii, pp. 3–21; BL Cotton MSS Galba E x, fols. 91–120, 121–30. 5 Further guidance is provided on the site about how these resources were created and how to use them. The best way of searching the English summaries online for specific types of information is to use the ‘free text’ search box provided on the main page. An ‘advanced search’ option supports a Boolean search method. In addition, certain types of information are systematically indexed for all records. This includes Register Number or TNA Department Type, Date, and Section Type (for the registers only). Every entry is also provided with an ‘entry type’, a ‘summary’, and a ‘place’ and ‘date’ ‘of dating’ (where given). Other indexing categories, where indicated (such as person, place and subject), are not yet completed. 3 4

4   Paul Dr yburgh and Sarah Rees Jones

directed from the archbishop’s office to one of the offices of royal government, which are now found in TNA; these include, for example, petitions to the Crown from religious houses or diocesan officials in the North or, as Jonathan Mackman demonstrates in an analysis of Significations for Excommunication, assistance from the secular arm in bringing offenders against ecclesiastical law to justice.6 In addition, the project team also searched and indexed a wide range of TNA record series for references to the relationship between the Crown and the Northern Province among records originating with the royal government. These include well-known and long-published series such as the Chancery Patent Rolls (series C 66), first calendared and printed over a century ago, and around 17,000 petitions to the Crown digitally indexed and accessible through TNA catalogue, Discovery, thanks to another York-TNA archival collaboration on the Ancient Petitions (SC 8) project led by the late Professor Mark Ormrod.7 They also, crucially, include extracts from series that are completely unpublished, such as the various series of warrants and writs emanating from Chancery that processed legal cases throughout the century. Finally, letters and other records from the archbishop’s administration can be found in the archives of many other institutions with whom the archbishops corresponded, such as religious houses, other bishops or corporate bodies. These last ‘acta’ were not included in the project. The chapters published in this volume seek to provide a context for the further analysis of these original records. The chapter by Rees Jones addresses the administrative context for the production of the archbishops’ registers, and provides a new and detailed statistical analysis of their contents, both of which are made possible by their digitisation and indexing through the project. Chapters by Dryburgh, Ormrod and McHugh explore the clerical personnel of Church and State, the creation of networks of clerical administrators in royal government in England and Scotland, and the impact of those networks on local society (Dryburgh) and royal affairs (Ormrod). The chapters by Hayes, Mackman, Harvey, Merlo Perring and Lee each examine specific classes of record contained within the larger collections, and the insight that they provide into particular aspects of the very wide-ranging spiritual and temporal responsibilities of the archbishops, from consecrating sacred spaces, to raising taxes, administering justice and maintaining their estates. The chapters by Jenkins, Wilson and Watt address themes in social history that the records were not necessarily designed to illuminate but nevertheless provide 6 7

Listed in Chapter 1, this volume. For a detailed discussion of which, see Medieval Petitions: Grace and Grievance, ed. W. M. Ormrod, G. Dodd and A. Musson (York, 2009).

Introduction  5

rich sources for study. Jenkins examines popular religion through the practice of pilgrimage, while Wilson and Watt explore the wide range of ways in which women’s lives are recorded in the records. Finally, and in a change of direction, Watt also explains some of the public engagement work that the project did in relation to the story of Joan of Leeds, an apostate nun recorded in the register of William Melton. Such outreach is a common feature of publicly funded projects in the United Kingdom, but in this case the audiences that we reached and the impact that we had on their understanding of the Middle Ages truly exceeded our expectations. Of all the chapters only one, by Ormrod, addresses the life and achievements of a particular archbishop; namely, William Melton (archbishop 1317–40). There were eight archbishops of York between 1304 and 1405 (Table 0.1). Each has an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and most are deserving of much fuller biographies, since all played significant roles in both the ecclesiastical and political affairs of the English kingdom and occasionally in the international Church, too. Only two, Thomas Arundel and Richard Scrope, are the subject of full-length studies.8 Table 0.1. Archbishops of York, and vacancies, 1304–1405.

Name

Vacancy, 1304–06

Elected/ Translated

William Greenfield 4 December 1304

Vacancy, 1315–17

Consecrated/ Temporalities Restored

†Died/ Translated

30 January 1306

6 December 1315†

William Melton

21 January 1316

25 September 1317

4 April 1340†

William Zouche

2 May 1340

7 July 1342

19 July 1352†

17 November 1352 (translated)

8 February 1353

6 November 1373†

Vacancy, 1340–42 Vacancy, 1352–53 John Thoresby

Vacancy, 1373–74

M. Aston, Thomas Arundel: a Study of Church Life in the Reign of Richard II (Oxford, 1967), although only one chapter addresses his time as archbishop of York and that mainly observes his frequent absence from his province; Richard Scrope, ed. Goldberg.

8

6   Paul Dr yburgh and Sarah Rees Jones

Name

Alexander Neville Thomas Arundel

Vacancy, 1396–97 Robert Waldby Vacancy, 1398

Richard Scrope

Elected/ Translated

‘early’ November 1373

Consecrated/ Temporalities Restored 4 June 1374

†Died/ Translated

3 April 1388 (translated)

3 April 1388 (translated)

3 April 1388

25 September 1396 (translated)

5 October 1396 (translated)

1397

27 December 1397†

15 March 1398 (translated)

8 June 1405†

The relative absence of such biographical approaches, at least in this volume, is explained in part by the nature of the records and the administrative system that produced them. In the past, scholars often associated the production of an (archi)episcopal archive with the diligence, or otherwise, of individual archbishops or bishops. However, our understanding of the production and use of these records has since shifted to think rather more in terms of their co-production (at the very least) through social networks consisting of both clergy and laity, officials and clients, all of whom influenced and shaped their contents. Rees Jones explores these issues in her chapter and demonstrates that by 1304 archbishops already delegated nearly all their powers to officials of their household, of the diocese or of the ecclesiastical courts of York, and that this delegation was increased and streamlined over the course of the century. Indeed, the very process of registration played a significant role in enabling such delegation, such that it could be seen as a core reason for the original creation of the archbishops’ registers. The presence or absence of an archbishop did have some practical impact on record keeping, but over time a growing responsiveness to public demand for registration (among both clergy and laity) had a greater impact on the contents and composition of the registers. The extent to which the administrative archives of the Church were the product of the delegation of archiepiscopal duties to other officials certainly colours the ways in which they can be used. One of the strongest areas for possible new research is the composition of the class of clerical administrators, their social origins and networks, and their patterns of office holding, as both Dryburgh and McHugh demonstrate in their chapters. Such literate and often highly educated administrators were in high demand as servants of both the Church and the State (as well as lay patrons), and over time much of the

Introduction  7

wealth of the Church (in the form of benefices) was diverted to reward and support such officials. The new availability of the full run of archiepiscopal records from the fourteenth century greatly increases the possible scope of such research. McHugh’s chapter addresses the administrative organisation of the territories in Scotland that fell within the jurisdiction of the kings of England between 1332 and 1357. She demonstrates how many of the English royal administrators in Scotland were recruited from among the clergy of the north of England. Dryburgh refines older studies to expose the density of clerical recruitment from a very specific region in the North, within southern Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. This coincides exactly with the region that Rees Jones shows was the location of the major administrative centres for the diocese and province. The spatial distribution of the four Minster churches and major archiepiscopal residences defined the area and provided a pool of valuable benefices that were exploited for the recruitment of clerks into both royal and ecclesiastical administration. Family connections also mattered. Avuncular relationships between clerics from the region were strong, and spanned both administrations, only waning a little in the last couple of decades in favour, perhaps, of networks created through education. Even as this administrative bureaucracy was refined and consolidated, Dryburgh also shows how, far from running as a smoothly oiled machine, its operation depended on the personalities and personal connections of individuals. Using the case study of John of Markenfield, a canon of both Ripon and York Minsters, and a senior official of the royal Exchequer in the first two decades of the fourteenth century, he explores how local family interests dominated Markenfield’s career. Not only was his initial progression facilitated by an older clerical member of his family, William Hambleton, who himself occupied senior positions in both State and Church, but throughout his career Markenfield continued to act in the interests of his local family, both in his substantial financial dealings and in the prosecution of acts of dubious legality, including at least one instance of ‘rape’. In his case, his high office did not detach him from a set of intensely local ambitions, some of which are still tangibly visible in the remarkably well preserved Markenfield Hall, an early fourteenth century fortified manor house near Ripon, that was enlarged under his patronage.9 A similar conclusion is reached by Jonathan Mackman who, unlike most other contributors to this volume, focuses in particular on a series of records (Significations of Excommunication) that were not registered but were sent directly to, and deposited among, the archives of the royal Chancery. In Historic England, Official Listing for Markenfield Hall: https://historicengland. org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1293954?section=official-list-entry (accessed 13 September 2023).

9

8   Paul Dr yburgh and Sarah Rees Jones

particular, he chooses a case study relating to the abbey of Rufford (Nottinghamshire), which, incidentally, provides us with an unusually detailed insight into the residents of that house in 1314–15. In this case he shows how a powerful local cleric, William Thorntoft, who was also a senior clerk in the royal Chancery, was able to manipulate the process of excommunication against the abbey to his own private advantage in a dispute over the payment of tithes. The argument is constructed from a close examination of sources distributed across several series of records in TNA and the archbishops’ registers, pursuing the intersections between the different archives. Rather like Markenfield, Thorntoft was well connected with families of local landowners and well versed over a long career in exploiting the benefices of the local church for his own enrichment. Locality, thus, turns out to be immensely important to understanding the significance of these records, and much more work remains to be done on, inter alia, the provenance of those using the processes and seeking either registration of records or the intervention of senior diocesan administrators in their personal affairs (Rees Jones). The two chapters by Stefania Merlo Perring and John Lee also pursue questions relating to the visible impression of the archbishops in the North through their investment in residences and hunting parks. Both concur that the archbishops were acting as members of the lay aristocracy in these investments, reflecting their wider role in northern society. Nevertheless, Merlo Perring argues in particular that spiritual concerns always coloured their architectural investments, both in the provision of sacred spaces but even in the development of facilities such as prisons at a time of heightened concerns about heresy. Lee also suggests that there was no clear division between their secular and ecclesiastical identities: even poachers might invoke spiritual sanctions. Indeed, the inseparable intersection of spiritual and secular identities is a theme of several chapters in the volume. Mark Ormrod’s magisterial study of William Melton’s negotiation of his often-uncomfortable position between Church and State provides us with an entirely new assessment of his achievements and, perhaps more importantly, the dilemma that eventually shaped his life. As a loyal servant of Edward II, the dilemma was how to respond to that king’s deposition and death, eventually followed by rumours that he was in fact still alive in 1330. Ormrod suggests that Melton responded with some skill, both buying off the Crown with judicious and generous loans that demanded considerable financial prowess, but also standing up, as best he could, for the interests of the northern Church. He walked a tightrope. By distinguishing between Melton’s personal loyalty to Edward II and his political loyalty to Edward III, Ormrod enlarges our understanding of the nature of political service in this period by emphasising the personal qualities

Introduction  9

of Melton’s decision-making that encompassed both spiritual influences and secular means. By contrast Rosemary Hayes’ chapter at first sight appears to focus on the temporal aspects of archiepiscopal duties though an analysis of the levying of clerical taxation over the period 1304–1405. She draws on both the newly digitised records of archiepiscopal administration and on records of clerical taxation in the series TNA, E 179. Royal pressure for increased taxation from the northern clergy was heavy and did not let up throughout the century, and its effects were worsened early in the century by concurrent demands by the papacy and throughout the century by the constant damage to Church property inflicted by both Scottish and English campaigning armies and frequent natural disasters such as famine and plague. Resistance was often evident and perhaps increased after 1398. While the chapter is entirely temporal in its focus, Hayes nevertheless suggests that this constant pressure for taxation inflamed grievances among the northern clergy about the oppressive nature of royal government that fed into their righteous rebellion (and Archbishop Richard Scrope’s leadership and eventual ‘martyrdom’) in the rising against Henry IV in 1405. The re-consecration of polluted churches and churchyards was a more obviously spiritual duty, and that is the subject of Katherine Harvey’s chapter. If a sacred space was polluted by the spilling of bodily fluid, such as blood or semen, in theory only a bishop could reconsecrate it, although this duty was often delegated. It thus became just another of the delegated duties efficiently recorded in the archbishop’s registers and maintained as a (small) source of income for them. And so, a spiritual obligation was transformed into an administrative process. Or was it? Gradually it was accepted that another priest might reconsecrate, but only using chrism and holy oil provided by a bishop. Harvey suggests that this practice emphasised the importance of a corporeal link with the archbishop whose specially consecrated touch was never entirely eclipsed by his administrative responsibilities and powers. The ‘administrative efficiency’ perhaps evidenced in the registers and other administrative records should not obscure the continuing importance of the archbishop’s special grace and spiritual essence, at least as a figurehead. John Jenkins also warns against a simple reading of archiepiscopal registers that were ‘designed to project a display of control over practices which were in reality only imperfectly controllable’.10 He surveys the incomplete evidence for popular pilgrimage in the registers and in other cognate ecclesiastical sources. The official church, led by the archbishops, favoured certain saints’ shrines, particularly (and unsurprisingly) those associated with the minster churches 10

See below, p. 267.

10   Paul Dr yburgh and Sarah Rees Jones

of the diocese, as popular pilgrimage destinations. He contrasts this with the treatment of unofficial cults, in particular that of Thomas, earl of Lancaster (d. March 1322). A hitherto largely undiscussed set of archiepiscopal injunctions against the popular cult was issued as early as October 1322 and copied into Melton’s register. They focused in particular on large crowds of pilgrims gathering at his tomb in Pontefract and there coming into conflict with the constables of the castle. Jenkins considers, as does Ormrod, Archbishop Melton’s motivations in both issuing these injunctions and the later U-turn that he had to perform when the cult was approved in 1327 and Melton wrote to the pope recommending canonisation. Both suggest a certain pragmatism in Melton’s actions, but Jenkins also adds that there were limits to even an archbishop’s spiritual authority faced with strong evidence of popular lay support. So far as the registers are concerned, Jenkins brings us back to the observation that the records included in the registers cannot be simply understood as reflecting the particular diligence or even opinion of individual archbishops, but arose out of a more complex set of circumstances, events and actors of which they were only incompletely in control. The last two chapters are less concerned with the nature of the evidence provided by the records and other administrative records, and instead focus on the very different ways in which their contents relating to women can be exploited. Marianne Wilson’s chapter surveys the ways in which secular women’s power and agency might be explored through the registers with a particular focus on the previously unpublished register of Archbishop William Zouche (1342–52). Cases involving secular women are a notably small proportion of registered records and they are less well represented there than in some other sets of church records. However, those that are recorded occupied notable positions of social influence, such as landowners acting as patrons for livings and founders of chantries, women of wealth acting as testators and women judged to be financially independent becoming vowesses. This observation once again points to the significance of locality in our interpretation of the registers and the special influence of those enjoying the status of landowners, the control of natural resources being one of the enduring indications of a position of power in medieval society. It also raises questions about the impact of plague, given the relatively large number of registered wills made by both married and widowed women of property in the wake of the Black Death. As Wilson points out, the digitisation of the fourteenth-century registers provides an important new resource for studying such religious lay women. Helen Watt’s chapter brings the volume to a fitting conclusion by considering the story of Joan of Leeds, a nun who faked her own death and burial in order to run away from her convent in York in 1318 and to pursue (allegedly) a life of ‘carnal lust’ in the deanery of Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Introduction  1 1

We first encountered Joan in a mandate composed by Archbishop William Melton, requesting her recovery, but Watt herself later discovered a second, previously unknown, letter apparently representing Joan’s own point of view. Watt’s discussion sets all of this in a careful analysis of the evidence for apostate nuns throughout the registers, concluding that Joan’s case was somewhat unusual, not least in the detail provided. While leaving historians with several questions, this perhaps helps explain why her story captured the global public imagination in 2019. It was among the least expected outcomes of the project that Joan would end up with her own Wikipedia page, or that she would become the subject of an ‘obscene medieval mystery play set to live music’ on the London stage, in which the team’s translations of medieval records were sung verbatim.11 It is notable that the chapters in this volume do not fully answer the research questions posed by the project concerning the influence of the archbishops of York on royal government throughout the fourteenth century, or the impact of royal government on the northern region. These questions will, no doubt, be the topic of further research and publications. However, all the chapters do raise issues and explore topics that are essential towards considering the relationship between not just Church and State, but between their institutions and local society. Several authors wrestle with the issue of detecting an individual cleric’s opinions and intentions. Some focus solely on secular matters, others ask broader questions about the relationship between the spiritual and the secular, often reasserting the importance of popular faith in constituting that relationship. Central to most chapters is the very nature of the records and the circumstances of their creation. The project and these essays have begun the process of making those records more accessible and the method of their compilation a little more transparent. We hope that many others will follow us in exploiting these resources towards a better understanding of medieval northern English society.

11

Breach Theatre website: https://www.breachtheatre.com/shows/joan-of-leeds/ (accessed 13 September 2023).

1 The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405 Sarah Ree s Jone s The registers of the fourteenth-century archbishops of York are among the best preserved episcopal registers in the United Kingdom, both in terms of their survival as a series and in terms of the range of their contents.1 David Smith’s survey of both surviving and lost materials remains the fullest account of the range and location of the manuscripts.2 While the majority are now housed in the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, some strays are to be found in the British Library and some copies of lost materials are in York Minster Archives. Further small quantities of material relating to the archbishop’s jurisdiction, especially ordinations, can be found in the diocesan archives at Carlisle and Durham. By 1304, the archbishops of York were endowed with many powers and responsibilities in the spiritual administration of both the diocese of York and the Northern Province, and in the secular administration of their temporal estates. However, they did not usually exercise this authority in person. Their surviving registers provide a detailed record of the ways in which their powers were delegated to many other officials who exercised authority and provided I am grateful to Ian Forrest, Philippa Hoskin and Sethina Watson for their comments on drafts of this chapter, and for those of my co-editor Paul Dryburgh. All errors remain my own. I also wish to record a debt to the many publications of the late Professor David M. Smith (1947–2022). David Smith’s work on episcopal registers provides excellent foundations for all later studies, including this one. He was immensely supportive of our project and his untimely death is a great loss to our work. 1 BIA, YDA/2/ Reg. 5A, Reg. 7–16. 2 D. M. Smith, A Guide to Bishops’ Registers in England and Wales: a Survey from the Middle Ages to the Abolition of the Episcopacy in 1646, Royal Historical Society, Guides and Handbooks series 11 (London, 1981); D. M. Smith, Supplement to the ‘Guide to Bishops’ Registers’: a Survey from the Middle Ages to the Abolition of Episcopacy in 1646, Canterbury and York Society (York, 2004).

The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405   1 3

spiritual services on their behalf. Indeed, the selection of records for registration became fundamental to the process through which archbishops delegated power and yet retained authority. Registered records provided evidence of entitlement to office, a framework for consistency of governance and enabled officials to be held accountable. These registered records were, however, far from the totality of records produced by members of the archbishop’s administration; there were many other series of court records and papers to which they contributed, as will become clearer as this chapter progresses.3 Many administrative records that emanated from the archbishops’ household (familia) can be found as originals and copies in other archives, with the largest concentration being in TNA. Other archiepiscopal acta from the period survive in the cartularies and archives of other institutions with whom the archbishops corresponded and conducted business, such as other diocesan archives and those of religious houses and borough governments. It is on such survivals that the distinguished series of publications of episcopal acta for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are based.4 The Northern Way project indexed records in the registers and archived in TNA; other more widely dispersed acta were not addressed and are not included in the assessment here. The technical language that developed in the Middle Ages in order to provide consistent and accountable governance is one that has largely passed from our everyday knowledge, but it is very necessary for an understanding of the records. This chapter aims to provide an introductory context for that understanding in four parts, as follows: 1. the organisation of the archives; 2. the territorial structure and administrative scope of the archbishops’ jurisdiction; 3. the officials acting on behalf of the archbishops; 4. a statistical analysis of registrations by section type, date and place.

C. R. Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries 1100–1250 (Manchester, 1950), pp. 112– 30. 4 English Episcopal Acta: York 1070–1154, ed. J. E. Burton (Oxford, 1988); English Episcopal Acta: York 1154–1181, ed. M. Lovatt (Oxford, 2000); English Episcopal Acta: York 1189–1212, ed. M. Lovatt (Oxford, 2004). 3

14   Sarah Rees Jones

The organisation of the archives, 1304–1405

The registers of the archbishops of York contain records relating to the administration of the personal official responsibilities of the archbishops of York.5 Rather than discussing their organisation entirely in the abstract, we will start with a single registered record and use that as an example to aid our understanding of the nature and purpose of record-making and registration: In December 1368 an agreement was made between Robert de Bolton of Easthorpe (Yaresthorp) near Londesborough in the East Riding of Yorkshire and his wife Hawise.6 Hawise petitioned the court of the archbishop that she no longer dared to remain in her husband’s household on account of his excessive cruelty, and she asked the archbishop to assign her a suitable portion of their joint goods for her food and clothing.7 Following mediation through their friends, it was agreed that Hawise would live separately from her husband for the next three years at any place of her choosing, except in the town of Malton or elsewhere on Robert’s manor of Easthorpe, and that Robert would pay her twelve marks (£8) per year. Hawise also agreed that she would not continue to accuse Robert in his own household or raise her case before another judge in another court. Hawise also appointed one John Ashton as her representative in the case and her deputy in receiving Robert’s promised maintenance payments, of which the first instalment of six marks was paid immediately. The agreement was sworn by the couple in person before the archbishop in his great chamber at Cawood Palace, and witnessed by Master John de Waltham, official of the court of York, John de Irford, the archbishop’s chancellor, and Nicholas de Burton, registrar.8

The record of the agreement was then copied into the register of Archbishop John de Thoresby in the section for the Archdeaconry of Cleveland.

A. H. Thompson, ‘The Registers of the Archbishops of York’, YAJ 32 (1936), 245–63; E. F. Jacob, The Medieval Registers of Canterbury and York, St Anthony’s Hall Publications 4 (York, 1953). The many publications of Alexander Hamilton Thompson (1873–1952) provide a detailed description of the extent and structure of church jurisdictions. 6 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fol. 187v, entry 3. A verbatim transcription and literal translation of this case is provided in Appendix 1 at the end of this chapter by Shelagh Sneddon. 7 Excessive cruelty was one of three grounds on which separation was permitted in canon law. The separated couple remained married: R. H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (New York, 1974), pp. 100–7. 8 For discussion of the officials named in this case, see pp. 36, 37, 39, 40. 5

The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405   1 5

This agreement concerning a marital separation illustrates the central purpose of the registration of documents. Registers contained copies of legal decisions, executive appointments and mandates that were registered as lasting evidence, and the registers were organised so that materials could be found and cited in the future. To this end they contain different kinds of finding aids. First, the registers are divided into sections, each dealing with different types of business (Appendix 2, Table 1.1). The separation agreement of the Boltons, for example, was included among records of the archdeaconry of Cleveland, presumably because that was where the husband lived, in Malton, even though his estate at Easthorpe lay in the archdeaconry of the East Riding. The different sections were originally compiled as separate fascicules and were bound into single registers only after a particular archbishop had died or left his office.9 As well as being divided into sections, marginal headings indicate the content of each record. In the Boltons’ case the heading in Latin reads ‘Agreement made between Robert de Bolton and Hawise his wife’, again emphasising the identity of the husband while enabling the quick location of the record. The most noteworthy records were further annotated with signs such as manicules (pointing hands). At least 125 such manicules can be found in the registers.10 Organising the materials according to section was not always straightforward and sometimes cross-references are provided, or records were moved from one section to another. For example, in 1349, an entry was cancelled because it had been entered under the wrong archdeaconry and a new copy was made in the correct section.11 Such amendments were carefully documented. These finding aids seem to have been effective. Both officers of the Church and the Crown often issued instructions to search the registers and archives for specific information about both particular or more general matters, and these searches could range over many decades of information.12 For example, in 1316 King Edward II issued a writ to the dean and chapter of York, ordering them to search their archives for anything relating to Robert Bruce, the king’s enemy, and the Scottish matter, and to send anything they found BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fol. 231r, entry 2; Smith, Guide, x. They are spread relatively evenly across the period, but the largest concentrations are under Greenfield, Melton and Thoresby, indicating their greater activity in these matters. Based on a simple search for the word ‘manicule’ in the online database on 12 September 2022. There was no use of indices during our period. 11 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 10, fols. 40r, entry 2, 200r, entry 3. 12 A. K. McHardy, ‘Kings’ Courts and Bishops’ Administrations in Fourteenth-­ Century England: a Study in Cooperation’, Studies in Church History 56 (2020), 152–64, at pp. 155–7. 9

10

16   Sarah Rees Jones

to the Exchequer at Westminster. He also wrote to the executors of William Greenfield, the recently deceased archbishop of York, to search his treasury (where presumably the registers were then stored).13 More commonly, enquiries related to titles to benefices and offices. In 1342, for example, Archbishop Zouche reported that he had searched the registers of Archbishops Gray, Romeyn and Greenfield, and that of the dean and chapter for the vacancy after the death of Archbishop Melton, in response to a request from the king regarding rights of presentation to the church of Rotherham, and that he had found various relevant entries.14 For the most part documents that were registered were copied onto the folios of the parchment quires prepared for each section. Occasionally, also, loose documents (including some drafts) were inserted into the binding of the section to which they belonged (Appendix 2, Table 1.2).15 The earlier registers in our series (and particularly that of Greenfield starting in 1306) were thus treated as portable archives of documents, but as the period progressed copies entirely replaced inserts as the only form of registration, with inserts not being used at all after 1373. By far the greatest number of insertions were under Archbishop Greenfield (1306–15), and none are recorded after the time of Archbishop Thoresby (d. 1373). This parallels a contemporary movement in the treatment of titles to property in secular courts, in which increasingly it was the creation of a registered or enrolled copy of a charter that provided the more secure form of title in law since, unlike an original document, it could not so easily be lost or amended.16 The largest numbers of inserts were found in the sections relating to the administration of the archbishop’s estates (Ballive and Intrinseca Camere) and in those relating to the administration of the archdeaconries within the diocese of York, which tended to be the largest sections in the registers (Appendix 2, Table 1.3). It is thought that both the separate sections and older complete registers were transported with the archbishops’ household as it moved from one residence to another while the archbishops were in their province, at least at the beginning of our period, but later they were perhaps increasingly likely to BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fol. 205v, entry 7. TNA, C 260/55/81. 15 Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries, p. 104. 16 From the thirteenth century landowners frequently sought the greater security of either enrolling their charters in the royal courts (for example, on the dorse of the Close rolls) or registering them in boroughs: G. H. Martin, ‘The Registration of Deeds of Title in the Medieval Borough’, in The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, ed. D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (Oxford, 1971), pp. 151–73. 13 14

The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405   1 7

be kept in repositories in a more select number of residences (see more on this below, pp. 46–47, 54–58).17 By 1316, as we have seen, the registers of the archbishops seem to have been kept in their treasury and other documents (and not just those relating to financial matters) were certainly kept there in 1327 and 1361.18 In contrast, the probate registers were, at least by 1398, kept in the chancery.19 When an archbishop died or left office the registers were transferred to the dean and chapter of York Minster as they took over the administration of the archbishop’s responsibilities during the vacancy. So, in 1398, following the death of Archbishop Robert Waldby, the archbishop’s receiver-general delivered to the dean and chapter nine registers of testaments held in the chancery together with the keys to the chancery, and the vicar-­ general delivered all the registers of all previous archbishops of York from those of Walter de Gray to the register of the vicar-general of Archbishop Robert Waldby (and an itemised list was included in this record).20 The matrices for the seals of the former archbishop were destroyed, those of his staff were surrendered, and a new register was kept for the period of the vacancy.21 York is unusual in having so many registers surviving for vacancies. Before 1342 vacancy registers maintained a similar form of organisation as the other registers and were divided into sections according to the type of business, but this practice was abandoned later in the century (see Appendix 2, Tables 1.3 and 1.4 below). When a new archbishop was appointed, the registers were passed into the care of his household, new officials were appointed and new personal seal matrices made. Both the description of the registers searched in 1342, and the list of surviving registers made in 1398, indicate that the practice of registration began under Archbishop Walter Gray (1215–55).22 The oldest surviving register was begun in 1225 and together with the registers of the bishops of Lincoln those of York are the earliest episcopal registers surviving in Britain.23 Gray’s register is in the form of rolls of parchment membranes sewn head and foot. The M. Burger, Bishops, Clerks and Diocesan Governance in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 112–14. 18 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 9B, fol. 719r, entry 3; Reg. 11, fol. 290v, entry 3. 19 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fol. 231v, entry 2. 20 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fol. 231r, entry 2; D. M. Smith, ‘Lost archiepiscopal registers of York: the evidence of five medieval inventories’, Borthwick Institute Bulletin 1/1 (1975), 31–8. 21 J. P. Dalton, The Archiepiscopal and Deputed Seals of York, 1114–1500, Borthwick Texts and Calendars 17 (York, 1992), p. 15. 22 TNA, C 260/55/81; BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fol. 231r, entry 2. 23 This is also the consensus of secondary scholarship: Smith, Guide, p. vii. 17

18   Sarah Rees Jones

registers of Sewal de Bovil and Godfrey Ludham are presumed lost and the earliest surviving register in the form of a codex (a bound volume of parchment quires) is that of Walter Giffard (1266–70).24 Scholars have suggested that registration developed in imitation of both royal and papal practice, the latter perhaps being particularly influential in the adoption of the codex format (bound volume) later in the thirteenth century.25 The earliest registers show considerable variations in their composition, but scholars have identified a pattern of greater consistency in their organisation emerging between the archiepiscopacies of William Wickwane (1279–85) and William Greenfield (1306–15).26 By far the largest volume of documents registered recorded the appointment to administrative offices and to benefices of the church. Their development can thus be interpreted as a response to solving the fundamental problem that no archbishop could directly undertake the administration of their diocese or province without considerable employment of large numbers of intermediary officials, and this in turn raised the issue of the accountability of those intermediaries, an issue that was not unique to the Church and that encompassed financial obligations as well as the proper acquittance of their executive and judicial responsibilities.27 However, the proliferation of written processes also created further problems in the growing volume, complexity and variety of the records employed. How could clerks maintain consistency in the wording and therefore, crucially, the legal interpretation of documents? This problem was addressed by a secondary use of the registers as formularies; that is, places where the common form of legal documents could be recorded as precedents for future use.28 Registration was thus not only a mechanism for recording the names of those to whom power was delegated but also enabled

BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 2. G. Barraclough, Public Notaries and the Papal Curia (London, 1934), pp. 122–31; Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries, p. 103; Smith, Guide, p. viii. 26 Thompson, ‘Registers’, 249; P. M. Hoskin, ‘Authors of Bureaucracy: Developing and Creating Administrative Systems in English Episcopal Chanceries in the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century’, in Patrons and Professionals in the Middle Ages, ed. P. Binski and E. A. New (Donington, 2012), pp. 61–78. 27 Barraclough and Cheney discuss the possible relationship of registers to other early records, including those relating to the financial obligations of clergy and laity due to both bishop and the pope: Barraclough, Public Notaries, pp. 122–31; Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries, pp. 112–30; Smith, Guide, p. viii. 28 Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries, pp. 103, 119–30; P. M. Hoskin, ‘Delineating the Development of English episcopal chanceries through the Signification of Excommunication’, Tabularia (2011), 35–47, at p. 40; eadem, ‘Authors of Bureaucracy’, pp. 69–72. 24 25

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the collective processes through which they could be trained and disciplined to adhere to newly emerging institutional norms.29 The deliberate curation of registered documents has indeed aided their preservation. However, the run of registers that survives for the period 1304– 1405 remains incomplete.30 Registers that are entirely missing include those for vacancies before and after Archbishop Alexander Neville (1373–74 and 1388) and the entire register of Archbishop Thomas Arundel (1388–96) (only the register of his vicar-general survives). Sections of registers are missing for Melton (ordinations and judicial business), Thoresby (vicar-general) and Neville (diocese of Durham, and most of his vicar-general’s register). Part of the vacancy register for 1352 is also missing, although copies of material that were made from it in the seventeenth century do survive.31 In other cases there are clear absences of material or inconsistencies in the chronological range of sections within the same register. While we are left with a very substantial and quite remarkable run of material these losses do need to be borne in mind when analysing or comparing the contents of the registers. The registers, by their very nature, do not contain all the administrative records arising from the administration of the archbishop’s personal responsibilities in office either. As we have noted, other archepiscopal acta survive as both originals and as copies in other archives, particularly in TNA, and the latter were included among the records indexed for The Northern Way project between 2019 and 2022.32 They include a range of different types of record documenting aspects of the relationship between Church and State. Series of record that include documents originating from the archiepiscopal administration include TNA, C 84 (ecclesiastical petitions); C 85 (significations of excommunication); C 270 (ecclesiastical miscellanea, Chancery); E 179 (particulars of account for clerical taxation); E 135 (miscellaneous ecclesiastical documents, Exchequer); E 40 (Ancient Deeds, Treasury of Receipt); E 326 and E 328 (Ancient Deeds, Court of Augmentations); SC 1 (Ancient Correspondence); SC 8 (Ancient Petitions); and DL 25 (Ancient Deeds, Duchy of For a broader discussion of these issues in comparative perspective, see J. Sabapathy, Officers and Accountability in Medieval England, 1170–1300 (Oxford, 2014), pp. 229–60. 30 Smith, ‘Lost registers’, passim. 31 YMA, L1/2, vol 1, section ii, pp. 3–21. D. M. Smith, ‘A Reconstruction of the York ‘sede vacante’ register 1352–1353’, Borthwick Institute Bulletin 1/2 (1976), 75–90. 32 See https://archbishopsregisters.york.ac.uk/ (accessed 1 September 2023). ‘The Northern Way’ project also indexed other classes of record in TNA that did not originate from the archbishops’ administration but do shed light on the archbishops’ affairs (see above, p. 4). 29

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Lancaster). Many of the records surviving in TNA were instrumental (rather than evidential) in their purpose and so essentially ephemeral. They included necessary instructions on those occasions where the archbishop’s spiritual authority intersected with that of the State (for example in Significations of Excommunication) or correspondence (such as petitions to the Crown) seeking responses over various matters.33 Records of taxes collected, or copies of legal instruments such as title deeds were provided as evidence of duties completed, or of titles claimed. Although different in character from registrations, in many instances records from both TNA and the registers relate to the same action or event.34 In this chapter the sources from TNA are used primarily to shed light on the nature of the bureaucracy of the archbishops’ household. We next therefore need to consider the overall structure of the archbishops’ responsibilities.

The administrative structure of the diocese and province of York

The way in which the medieval Church was organised and governed was complex. The focus here is primarily on its spiritual jurisdictions, although as major landowners the officers and institutions of the Church often exercised secular authority over their estates as well, while many of our archbishops held high offices in royal government.35 Under Canon Law the spiritual government of the Church was divided into three types of power: legislative (the power to make law); executive (the enforcement of law); and judicial (the power to make judgments according to law). The surviving records of the archbishops reflect all three types of power.36 Officials of the Church were broadly divided into two kinds: those who were entitled to govern by virtue of their office (known as ‘ordinaries’) and those who enjoyed some powers of government because an ordinary had delegated them For Significations of Excommunication, see Hoskin, ‘Signification’; and Mackman in this volume. 34 For examples see the chapters by Dryburgh, Ormrod, Hayes and Mackman in this volume. 35 A. K. McHardy, ‘Bishop’s Registers and Political History: a Neglected Resource’, in The Foundations of Medieval English Ecclesiastical History: Studies presented to David Smith, ed. P. M. Hoskin, C. N. L. Brooke and R. B. Dobson (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 173–93. 36 D. M. Owen, The Records of the Established Church in England excluding Parochial Records, British Records Association, Archives and the User, no. 1 (Leicester, 1970), pp. 7–11. 33

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to him. Ordinaries could also be replaced in certain contexts by vicars; that is, by men who exercised their power vicariously on their behalf on a permanent basis. Within the medieval Latin Church, the pope, who was the bishop of Rome and who was also known as the ‘vicar of Christ’, was the ordinary for the whole Church on Earth. His power originated by delegation from Jesus himself to the apostle Peter, the first bishop of Rome, and descended from Peter to all bishops by divine grace. The pope presided over the entire episcopacy of the Church and over the church councils, which were a main venue for legislation. Executive and judicial powers for the grass-roots government of the Church were entrusted largely to the episcopacy, which was organised territorially through a hierarchy of provinces divided into dioceses, although the pope could and did intervene if requested in a very wide variety of matters from appointments and taxation to adjudicating in cases of marital separation, and popes could also hear appeals from both the archbishops’ courts and those of his subordinate officers and peculiar jurisdictions. The archbishop’s administrative records and registers therefore included correspondence with the papacy over many areas where their jurisdictions intersected, or where the archbishop was acting as a papal legate (that is as a delegate of the pope).37 In medieval England there were two provinces: Canterbury and York. At the beginning of our period, as in earlier centuries, the archbishops of York disputed the primacy of Canterbury within England. This dispute was resolved in 1352 by Pope Innocent VI, but the primacy of Canterbury was not fully confirmed until after the Reformation in the sixteenth century.38 In the fourteenth century the province of York consisted of the three northern English dioceses of York, Carlisle and Durham: an area that coincided in extent with the historic northern counties of Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Westmorland, Cumberland and northern Lancashire.39 The southern part of Lancashire and the whole of Cheshire lay in the diocese For an overview of papal governance of the later-medieval Church in England see R. N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 1989), pp. 11–16; idem, ‘Papal letters among the ecclesiastical archives at York, 1378– 1405’, Borthwick Institute Bulletin 1 (1975–8), 165–93; A. D. M. Barrell, The Papacy, Scotland and Northern England, 1342–1378 (Cambridge, 1995). 38 Swanson, Church and Society, p. 6; R. M. Haines, ‘Canterbury v York. Fluctuating Fortunes in a Perennial Conflict’, in idem, Ecclesia Anglicana: Studies in the English Church of the Later Middle Ages (Toronto, 1989), pp. 69–106. 39 For the origins of the diocese and province, see T. Pickles, Kingship, Society and the Church in Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire (Oxford, 2018), pp. 107–8, 218–19, 223–43. They can be traced back to gifts made to archbishops of York in the seventh to tenth centuries and were therefore older than the northern counties whose creation mostly dated after the Norman Conquest after 1068. 37

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of Lichfield and the province of Canterbury. The archbishops of York also claimed authority over the bishops of Whithorn (Candida Alba) in Galloway in Scotland, although this power was no longer exercised by the fourteenth century and was ended officially in 1359.40 As the metropolitan judge of his province the archbishop’s powers included, in theory, taking charge in the suffragan dioceses of Carlisle and Durham during vacancies, overseeing all stages in the appointment of their bishops, receiving their oath of obedience and carrying out visitations.41 The archbishop also presided over his provincial council, which became known as convocation, a meeting of all the higher clergy and heads of religious houses in the province to discuss ecclesiastical matters. A particular focus of convocation was often the taxation of the clergy, but the archbishops could and did use it to issue mandates concerning the conduct of the faith.42 In 1364 Archbishop Thoresby published six new constitutions (rules) in his provincial council for the government of both the laity and clergy.43 These included such matters as the unhindered collection of tithes and the conduct and dress of the clergy, but also more secular matters such as the requirement for mothers to put their babies in safe places to sleep and a ban on the playing of games on the eve and the day of funerals. The archbishop also exercised superior jurisdiction over bishops’ diocesan ecclesiastical courts, particularly in appeals, but also could hear cases in his own court. Lastly, he could prove testaments (wills) of those of his province who had goods over a certain value in more than one diocese of his province.44 The section of the archbishops’ registers known as ‘Suffragans’ included some of the materials relating to the archbishop’s metropolitan powers, but such business could find its way into other sections too, as the archbishops’ authority was often delegated for execution to other officials.45

K. J. Stringer, The Reformed Church in Medieval Galloway and Cumbria: Contrasts, Connections and Continuities (Stranraer, 2003), pp. 18–21, 35. Archbishops did sometimes appoint suffragan bishops of Whithorn after 1359 (see below, p. 42). 41 R. Brentano, ‘Late Medieval Changes in the Administration of Vacant Suffragan Sees; Province of York’, YAJ 38 (1952–55), 496–503. 42 For taxation see Hayes in this volume. 43 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fol. 130r, entry 1. 44 D. M. Smith, ‘The Exercise of the Probate Jurisdiction of the Medieval Archbishops of York’, in Life and Thought in the Northern Church, c. 1100–c. 1700: Essays in Honour of Claire Cross, ed. Diana Wood (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 123–44. 45 The archbishop’s household staff, such as the official and chancellor, could, and in practice did, deputise for him in almost all these responsibilities, including acting as his proctor at meetings of convocation. See below, p. 38. 40

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The new constitutions of 1364, for example, were copied in the section for the archdeaconry of York. There were, however, some limitations in the powers that the archbishops of York were able to exercise in practice as metropolitans, particularly within the diocese of Durham. The younger diocese of Carlisle offered few challenges to their metropolitan, and the bishop of Carlisle was often a close colleague of the archbishop (see below, p. 38). The bishops of Durham, on the other hand, resisted attempts at visitation by the metropolitan during our period and often resisted summons for the clergy of their diocese to attend the provincial convocation.46 So, in 1348, it was reported to the king that whereas the archbishop of York, the bishop of Carlisle and the clergy of those dioceses, meeting in convocation on 13 June 1348, had agreed that the payment dates for two taxes granted in the 1347 convocation, should be brought forward by three months; the bishop and clergy of Durham had refused to agree to this in their diocese.47 The assertion of independence by Durham thus diminished both the spiritual jurisdiction of the archbishops within the province, and complicated their relationship with royal government. Indeed, the bishops of Durham exercised a powerful palatine independence in the secular administration of their county.48 Within the province the archbishops also acted as the ordinary (iudex ordinarius) or normal judicial authority for the very large diocese of York.49 Their powers were more extensive in relation to the diocese than the province, with the result that there is a much greater quantity of records relating to the diocese of York in their surviving registers (Appendix 2, Tables 1.3 and 1.4). As diocesan ordinary they had responsibility for the religious life of both clergy and laity. This included the confirmation of the laity, the ordination of priests, their institution to benefices, the dedication of churches and the appointment of heads of some religious houses and hospitals. As bishop they also presided over diocesan synods. These were meetings of the clergy of the whole diocese at which they would be consulted about current affairs and instructed. Finally, they carried out periodical visitations of religious houses (although some were exempt), of deaneries and parishes uncovering lapses and identifying necessary reforms, with a tendency to focus on the assets of the church (benefices A. H. Thompson, The English Clergy and their Organization in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947), pp. 1–3; R. M. Haines, ‘Thomas Hatfield (c. 1310–1381)’, ODNB online; Brentano, ‘Suffragan Sees’. 47 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 10, fol. 247v, entry 1. 48 C. D. Liddy, The Bishopric of Durham in the Late Middle Ages: Lordship, Community and the Cult of St Cuthbert (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 1–24. 49 Thompson, English Clergy, p. 41. 46

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and buildings) alongside issues of morality.50 The records relating to these processes might be included in separate sections of the registers, and indeed the whole of Register 13 relates to Archbishop Neville’s attempts at visiting the chapter of Beverley Minster.51 However, records relating to visitations and the correction of errors reported there can be found throughout the registers. By the end of the twelfth century the diocese was subdivided for administrative purposes into archdeaconries, rural deaneries and parishes.52 There were five archdeaconries in the diocese of York: Cleveland, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Richmond and York (Appendix 2, Table 1.1). The clergy presiding over these divisions were known as archdeacons, deans and rectors, each of whom could appoint vicars. One of the primary functions of the registers of the archbishops was to keep a record of appointments to these positions, although the appointment of vicars was usually treated as a matter for the office holder rather than the archbishop. Even so, evidence of appointment could still be requested. For example, in 1304 (during a vacancy in the archbishopric) the official of the archdeacon of York was ordered to cease a visitation of the archdeaconry of York that had been started on the authority of one Gerard de Sysiriaco, who claimed to be the vicar of the archdeacon and to have the power to conduct the visitation, but who had shown no evidence of his appointment. The visitation was to cease until the dean and chapter of York Minster (acting in the absence of an archbishop) were shown evidence of Sysiriaco’s appointment.53 This case alone indicates the extent to which written records of appointments were required by c. 1300 for D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1948), I, 78–96; II, 204–18; Swanson, Church and Society, pp. 163–5; I. Forrest, ‘The Transformation of Visitation in Thirteenth-Century England’, Past and Present 221 (2013), 3–38; The Visitation of Hereford Diocese in 1397, ed. I. Forrest and C. Whittick, Canterbury and York Society 111 (Woodbridge, 2021), pp. xv–xvii. 51 R. B. Dobson, ‘Beverley in Conflict: Archbishop Alexander Neville and the minster clergy, 1381–8’, Medieval Art and Architecture in the East Riding of Yorkshire, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions 9 (1983), 149–64; Kirstin Barnard, ‘1380s Conflict in Beverley: The relationship of the town and minster with the Archbishops of York’, TNA, Blog, 11 December 2022, https://blog.national archives.gov.uk/1380s-conflict-in-beverley-the-relationship-of-the-town-andminster-with-the-archbishops-of-york/ (accessed 1 September 2023). 52 A. H. Thompson, ‘Diocesan organisation in the Middle Ages: archdeacons and rural deans’, Proceedings of the British Academy 29 (1943), 153–94; Swanson, Church and Society, pp. 2–5. 53 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fol. 79v, entry 9. This event occurred during a vacancy in the archbishopric when the dean and chapter was responsible for archiepiscopal administration. 50

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any official claiming to exercise ordinary authority and that requirement for evidence of appointment was a major factor in the creation of the registers of the archbishops. It also illustrates the point that appointments recorded in the registers were normally those reserved to the archbishops (or their personal delegates) rather than those made by lesser officials of the diocese. Archdeacons, deans of rural deaneries and parochial clergy undertook the routine work of the administration and pastoral care of the diocese that was not reserved specifically to the archbishop’s office. They maintained oversight of moral conduct, worship and canon law among both laity and clergy within the deaneries and their parishes on a day-to-day basis. Archdeacons (whose office had originated as deputed bishops) had rights of visitation over this work; that is, they had the right to visit parishes to enquire into problems in their management or conduct and claimed fees (‘procurations’) from them in support and recognition of this work.54 The archdeacons’ officials dealt with testamentary and matrimonial disputes, defamation, immorality and neglect of religious duties. Much of this work passed unrecorded or was committed to records within each archdeaconry that rarely survive.55 This absence of surviving records created within the lowest levels of spiritual jurisdiction must always be kept in mind when using the registers and other records of archiepiscopal government. We usually see the work of the archdeacons, rural deans and parochial clergy in the records of the archbishops only when they were appointed to posts and benefices, or when proctors were appointed to act on behalf of absentees. For example, in 1309 a licence from Pope Clement V to Aymo de Savoy, archdeacon of York, to visit the archdeaconry of York by proctors for three years was stitched into Greenfield’s register along with a commission to those proctors to ensure that the archdeacon received procurations at visitations during those three years.56 The business of managing benefices occupied the major portion of the archdeaconry sections, which were the largest in the registers (Appendix 2, P. M. Smith, ‘Procurations and the English Church’, Ecclesiastical Law Journal 4/19 (1996), 566–79. 55 A later copy of the registers of the archdeaconry of Richmond survives for the period from 1361: BL, Harley MS 6978; A. H. Thompson, ‘The registers of the archdeaconry of Richmond, 1361–1442’, YAJ 25 (1920), 129–268. For other survivals from other dioceses, see Lower Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in England: the Courts of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln, 1336–49 and the Deanery of Wisbech, 1458–84, ed. L. R. Poos, Records of Social and Economic History, new series, p. xxxii (Oxford, 2001); I. Forrest, ‘The archive of the official of Stow and the “machinery” of church government in the late-thirteenth century’, Historical Research 84/223 (2011), 1–13. 56 BIA, YDA/2/ Reg. 7, fol. 114r, entry 1. 54

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Tables 1.3 and 1.4). Benefices were the endowments of property and other income assigned to the rectors of parish churches and some other church positions.57 The gift of such a ‘living’ was usually in the hands of either a lay or religious patron who owned the advowson of the church and therefore had the right to nominate candidates to vacancies, but the processes of institution and induction, and indeed collation, were the right of the diocesan ordinary. By 1300 many parochial benefices had been assigned (‘appropriated’) to monastic houses who (as the rector) appointed vicars to serve in these parishes instead. Many other benefices were used to reward and support clerks working in both ecclesiastical and royal administrative offices or serving noble households. These rectors were also therefore not resident in their parishes, and they too appointed vicars to take their place. Institution to benefices, transferring and exchanging them generated many registrations. By contrast the appointment of parochial vicars was only registered in the case of churches appropriated to monasteries, or in cases relating to the provision of benefices to poor clerks.58 For example, in 1307 Richard de Foston, poor clerk, was collated to the church of St Helen Stonegate in York following receipt of papal letters, and three years later the patron of the church (the priory of Moxby) was still expected to find him a living.59 The awarding and holding of benefices was often a contentious matter, not least because of the significant wealth attached to some of these livings. Disputed claims to both benefices and advowsons of churches are frequently found in the registers. In 1348, for example, the chancellor of the archbishop arbitrated on his behalf in a dispute between the abbot and convent of Coverham (Yorkshire NR) and Henry de Askrigg, a chaplain, concerning a moiety of the church of Kettlewell. Henry renounced his claim and, in recompense the abbot and convent provided him with an annual pension and a corrody for the rest of his life.60 While the territorial structure and administrative hierarchy of the archdeaconries seems relatively simple there were several institutions and areas within the diocese that were either exempted from archidiaconal oversight or lay Swanson, Church and Society, pp. 40–82; A. D. M. Barrell, ‘The Effect of Papal Provisions on Yorkshire Parishes, 1342–1370’, Northern History 28/1 (1992), 92–109; The Register of John Salmon, bishop of Norwich 1299–1325, ed. E. Gemmill, Canterbury and York Society 109 (Woodbridge, 2019), pp. xxiv–xxvii, xxviii–xxxiv. 58 P. McDonald, ‘Poor clerks’ provisions: a case for reassessment?’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 30 (1992), 339–49. 59 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 7, fols. 131r, entry 4, 157r, entry 5. 60 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 10, fol. 27r, entry 1. A moiety was a share in the advowson (or patronage) of a church. 57

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largely outside the archbishop’s jurisdiction altogether. These areas are known as ‘peculiars’ because they did not fully conform to ordinary jurisdiction.61 (In the fourteenth-century records they are also sometimes described as ‘spiritualities’). As specially exempted areas, peculiars are less well documented in the archbishops’ registers since many processes were completed and recorded in their own separate archives. In all cases these peculiars were established before 1304. Nevertheless, they continued to be refined and often provided occasions for conflict throughout the fourteenth century, with the result that their scope is often described in some detail in the archbishops’ registers. These disputes over jurisdiction have generally been treated on an individual basis in the past: from the dispute over precedence between York and Canterbury down to some archbishops’ insistence on their rights of visitation in relation to individual peculiars. A future study employing a more comparative approach to the archiepiscopal negotiation of peculiars would therefore be desirable. For the present it is enough to note that the authority of neither the archbishop nor of his archdeacons was evenly exercised across the whole diocese and geographical coverage of business registered in the archbishops’ registers is therefore uneven.62 First, it is useful to note that the parishes where the archbishop was the proprietor of the church, mainly those on his temporal estates, were excluded from the oversight of ordinary archdeacons and rural deans and remained within the spiritual control of the archbishop.63 These churches were organised into special rural deaneries grouped around the administrative centres of the archbishops’ temporal possessions. There were five such deaneries in the diocese of York: Beverley, Otley, Ripon, Sherburn and Southwell. It was to his dean of Beverley, for example, that Archbishop William Melton wrote about the runaway nun, Joan of Leeds, in 1318, as Helen Watt discusses in more

Swanson, Church and Society, pp. 21–4, including a simplified map for the county of Yorkshire. 62 For information on the location of individual parishes within spiritual jurisdictions including peculiars, see J. Ecton, Thesaurus Rerum Ecclesiasticarum: Being an Account of the Valuations of All Ecclesiastical Benefices in the Several Dioceses in England and Wales (London, 1742); G. Lawton, Collectio Rerum Ecclesiasticarum de Diœcesi Eboracensi: Collections Relative to Churches and Chapels within the Dioceses of York and Ripon, 2nd edn (London, 1842). 63 A. H. Thompson, ‘Introduction’, in The register of William Greenfield, lord archbishop of York, 1306–1315, part I, ed. W. Brown and A. H. Thompson, Surtees Society 145 (Durham, 1931), p. xxvii. The archbishop also exercised jurisdiction over the chapel of St Mary and Holy Angels, adjoining the nave of York Minster within the Minster Close in York (no longer extant). 61

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detail elsewhere in this volume.64 The administration of these deaneries was included within the registers, normally within the sections known as ‘Ballive’. Two further special deaneries of Churchdown in Gloucestershire and Hexham in Northumberland were formed for the archbishop’s possessions in those counties, thus creating enclaves of spiritual lordship for the archbishops of York within the dioceses of Worcester and Durham, and their business is included in sections often headed ‘Diverse Jurisdictions’. Among those peculiars lying largely beyond the regular administration of the archbishops as diocesans, was the archdeaconry of Richmond whose archdeacons enjoyed unusually extensive powers that were more like those of a bishop.65 The archdeaconry extended as far south as Nun Monkton near York, northwards through the Vale of York to the diocese of Durham and west as far as the Irish Sea along the Cumbrian coast. It included around seventy-­ nine parishes, some of which included dozens of villages, towns and smaller settlements. While parts of this region were lightly populated uplands, the more lowland regions included more prosperous agricultural areas and several small market towns. The archbishop, as the diocesan ordinary, was almost entirely excluded from this archdeaconry, except during vacancies. In 1331 a formal agreement established their respective powers.66 The list of rights conceded to the archdeacon, which were normally reserved to the diocesan, was long and extensive. Twenty-three different powers relating to financial, legislative and pastoral management that normally accrued to the diocesan ordinary were conceded to the archdeacon, including extensive rights over the management of appointments to benefices within his archdeaconry.67 The archbishop retained only a few inalienable episcopal duties (such as confirmation, ordination and the consecration of churches) and also a right of episcopal visitation. This last was perhaps the most crucial in establishing that, despite all its privileges, the archdeaconry of Richmond was still part of the diocese of York. Nevertheless, visitations could be difficult to complete. Melton’s proposed visitation in 1322 was partly thwarted by invaders from Scotland, while in 1346 armed men disrupted a visitation due to be conducted by Archbishop Zouche’s chancellor in parts of the archdeaconry within Lancashire, by seizing

BIA, YDA/2/ Reg. 9A, fol. 326v, entry 2; see below, pp. 285–308. Hamilton Thompson, ‘The Registers of the Archdeaconry of Richmond’. 66 BIA, YDA/2/ Reg. 9B, fol. 574r, entry 2; R. M. T. Hill, The Labourer in the Vineyard: the Visitations of Archbishop Melton in the Archdeaconry of Richmond, Borthwick Paper 35 (York, 1968). 67 Hamilton Thompson, ‘Richmond’, 136–7. 64 65

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the dean of Amounderness and others, and by attacking Lancaster priory and consuming provisions.68 Chief among the remaining ‘ecclesiastical republics’, as A. H. Thompson described the peculiars, were the spiritualities of the four minster churches at York, Ripon, Beverley and Southwell that claimed a similar independence to that of the archdeacon of Richmond, both in the spiritual government of their internal affairs and over the parishes of their proprietary churches.69 Not only did the dean and chapter of York Minster claim many powers usually reserved to the ordinary (such as institution to benefices, the collection of papal taxes and the subjection of their spirituality to capitular rather than archiepiscopal instruction (mandates)), but they also claimed and exercised the right for appeals from their jurisdiction to go directly to the pope, rather than the archbishop.70 The spiritual jurisdiction of York Minster extended over 134 parishes and townships, of which forty-two belonged to the chapter itself and the remainder to one of its thirty-six prebendaries or five senior dignitaries.71 For each of these either the chapter, or individual prebendaries, provided a full hierarchy of church courts.72 These parishes did not form a contiguous block within the diocese but still encompassed a considerable area, and a number lay within twenty miles of York Minster, including some within the city of York itself. City centre parishes might be small but densely populated, while some rural parishes were exceptionally large. To take just one example, the parish of Kirkby Malzeard was appropriated (together with the similarly large neighbouring parish of Masham) to the prebend of Masham in York Minster and exempted from the oversight of the archdeacon of Richmond in the 1190s.73 This single parish extended BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 9B, fol. 562v, entry 3, Reg. 10, fol. 68r, entry 1. Hamilton Thompson, ‘Introduction’, pp. xiv–xx; Swanson, Church and Society, p. 22. 70 S. Brown, ‘The Peculiar Jurisdiction of York Minster during the Middle Ages’ (unpublished D. Phil. thesis, University of York, 1980), pp. 142–65; eadem, ‘A Dispute between Archbishop Melton and the Cathedral Church at York, 1336–1338’, BIHR 54 (1981), 110–19. 71 A prebend was the estate endowed on one of the canons of the collegiate churches at York, Beverley, Ripon and Southwell. Each prebend was usually named after one of the key manors in its possession. Canons holding these prebends are referred to as prebendaries. 72 K. M. Longley, Ecclesiastical Cause Papers at York: Dean and Chapter’s Court 1350– 1843, Borthwick Texts and Calendars: Records of the Province of York 6 (York, 1980), pp. vii–ix; S. Brown, The Medieval Courts of the York Minster Peculiar, Borthwick Paper 66 (York, 1984), including a map. 73 Both lay within the archdeaconry of Richmond: John Fisher, The History and Antiquities of Masham and Mashamshire (London, 1865), pp. 34, 211, 475–6, 542; H. 68 69

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approximately thirty miles from east to west (the size of a smaller southern county) and included at least fifteen towns and villages, as well as many smaller settlements, extending from the agricultural lowlands of the West Riding of Yorkshire to the higher hill pastures and forests around Nidderdale as far as Wharfedale. ‘Mashamshire’ (as the whole spirituality of the prebend was known) held its own peculiar court, under the authority of its vicar, as did other prebends of York Minster. The liberty of the chapter at Ripon Minster, which extended over another large parish of around forty square miles, also nominally within the archdeaconry of Richmond, was similarly exempt from archidiaconal oversight and operated its own spiritual courts.74 The provostship and prebends of Beverley Minster enjoyed similar liberties over thirteen parishes in East Yorkshire, while the spiritual peculiar of the common estate and prebends of Southwell Minster extended over some twenty-three parishes in Nottinghamshire.75 Archiepiscopal business relating to these four minster churches and their spiritualities tended to be copied into the ‘Chapters’ sections of their registers. Its importance is indicated by the frequent use of manicules: 100 of 125 such annotations are found in these sections.76 By 1304 there were also three areas within the territorial boundaries of the county of York that fell to the secular jurisdiction of the bishop and priory of Durham as a result of historical proprietary arrangements.77 The smallest area was the relatively small parish of Crayke in North Yorkshire, a possession of the bishop of Durham, who treated it as if it were part of the see of Durham, although the archbishops of York did try, occasionally, to assert their right to visitation. In 1332 the Crown ordered Archbishop Melton not to attempt anything in the manor and chapel of Crayke contrary to the bishop B. McCall, ‘The Peculiar of Masham cum Kirkby Malzeard’, YAJ 20 (1909), 233–53 (p. 250); Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 6, York, ed. Diana E. Greenway (London, 1999), p. 87. 74 For the complex and sometimes contested relationship between the archbishops and the chapter of Ripon over their respective Ripon liberties, both secular and spiritual, see T. S. Gowland, ‘The manors and liberties of Ripon’, YAJ 32 (1936), 43–85; G. R. Jones, ‘The Ripon estate: landscape into townscape’, Northern History 37 (2000), 13–30. 75 Thompson, English Clergy, p. 73; R. T. W. McDermid, ‘The constitution and the clergy of Beverley minster in the middle ages’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Durham University, 1980), pp. 123–5; Visitations and Memorials of Southwell Minster, ed. A. F. Leach, Camden Society, new series XLVIII (London, 1891), pp. xxxi–xxxiii. 76 See above, n. 10. 77 K. Emsley, ‘The Yorkshire enclaves of the bishops of Durham’, YAJ 47 (1975), 103– 8.

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of Durham’s liberty without consulting the king.78 The order continued that the manor and chapel were granted to St Cuthbert by King Ecgfrith and were held free of all ordinary jurisdiction, but Melton now intended to conduct a visitation of that place. Larger groups of parishes belonging to Durham centred around the market towns of Howden and North Allerton. Unlike Crayke, they were treated as peculiars only in so far that they constituted their own archdeaconries within the diocese of York, and their business was entered in a discrete section of the archbishops’ registers sometimes headed ‘Diverse Jurisdictions’. By 1240 it was confirmed that the prior of Durham exercised archidiaconal powers in Howden and Allertonshire but that archbishops of York retained their full powers as the diocesan ordinary.79 The ‘Spirituality of St Cuthbert of Howden and Howdenshire’ included some six parishes and the collegiate church of Howden; an area of just under fifty square miles along the northern banks of the Humber estuary to the south-east of York.80 ‘Allertonshire’ consisted of around thirty-six parishes centred on the town of North Allerton in north Yorkshire, extending across the Vale of York from the North York Moors to the eastern boundaries of the archdeaconry of Richmond. It lay within the archdeaconry of Cleveland.81 This arrangement was also challenged within the context of the broader conflict between Durham and York, especially under Archbishop Melton. In 1329 Bishop Louis Beaumont of Durham, in a petition to the Crown, asserted his rights of visitation in Allertonshire while, perhaps in retaliation, Archbishop Melton challenged Durham’s lay rights.82 Both also requested writs to the sheriffs of Northumberland and Yorkshire to prevent anyone coming with arms to assist them, indicating perhaps (as in attacks in Lancashire noted above) the degree to which local sentiments could be inflamed by such conflicts. Some monastic houses and orders also enjoyed various degrees of autonomy for themselves and even the tenants of their estates from aspects of diocesan oversight and visitation. The Benedictine abbey of Selby maintained peculiar jurisdictions over Selby and Snaith (where it maintained a priory) and its five dependent chapelries. It was subject to visitation by the ordinary but CCR 1330–33, p. 567. Durham Cathedral Library, Durham Cathedral Muniments, 1.1. Archiep. 21a. 80 Howden and Howdenshire. The Victoria History of the Counties of England, A History of the County of York: East Riding, vol. X, part 1, ed. D. Crouch (London, 2019), pp. 1, 3–4. 81 J. L. Saywell, The History and Annals of North Allertonshire, Yorkshire (Northallerton, 1885), p. 3. 82 TNA, SC 8/296/14775. 78 79

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otherwise all spiritual jurisdiction, including probate, was subject to officials of the spirituality.83 From the discussion above it is evident that not only was the administration of the archbishops’ authority unevenly distributed and interrupted by many peculiars within their diocese but that those peculiars were not all the same in the extent of their autonomy, the clearest broad distinction being between those that were exempted almost completely from episcopal oversight, and those that exercised their own archidiaconal powers but remained within the higher jurisdiction of the ordinary. In all cases, however, most archbishops strove to retain their right to visitation, even though this was a relatively new power originating largely in the thirteenth century.84 It was the right to visitation, if not the practice of it (an important distinction), that most completely defined their perception of their diocesan and even metropolitan authority. Having established the complexity of the administrative structure of the diocese, we will now turn to a consideration of the archbishops’ administrative staff.

The archbishop’s staff: his household (familia) and the diocese of York

By 1304 the creation of the administrative records of the archbishops was the work of many officials of the archbishop’s familia (or household) and of the diocese, and did not depend on the presence of the archbishop in person. The archbishop’s responsibilities can be divided into two broad types. There were acts of grace, that is executive actions (such as appointments to office or confirmations) carried out as and when the need arose. And there was also their role as a judge under canon law. The registers contain records of the delegation of both kinds of power to officials of the household and diocese. These were often figures of considerable substance who effectively managed the diocese entirely on behalf of the archbishops. From Greenfield onward archbishops usually appointed a vicar-general who would deputise for them in all their duties, except those requiring episcopal orders, whenever they were absent from their diocese.85 The vicar-general Evidence of visitation is particularly strong under Greenfield and Melton: BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 7, fols. 115r, 115v, 118v, 150r; Reg. 8, fols. 93v, 94r; Reg. 9A, fols. 158v, 159r, 199r, 221r, 221v, 250r, 254v, 278v, 357r; Reg. 12, fol. 3v; Knowles, Religious Orders, pp. 94–5. 84 Forrest, ‘Transformation of Visitation’, p. 36. 85 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 7, fol. 192r, entry 8; K. F. Burns, The Administrative System of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese and Province of York. Part 1: The Medieval Courts 83

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was usually a senior member of the chapter at York Minster and the records registered through his execution of episcopal duties were maintained as a separate section, or even a separate register. The importance of the vicar-general, and the scope of his activity increased from the time of Zouche (Appendix 2, Table 1.3, Table 1.8), and from the time of John Thoresby vicars-general were routinely appointed from the beginning of an archbishop’s term, even when the archbishop was in residence.86 The registers of the vicars-general of Thoresby and Neville are largely missing, but from 1385 to 1405 registrations were made in the vicar-generals’ registers every year, whereas such registrations were much more episodic under archbishops Greenfield to Zouche.87 The man appointed as vicar-general often already held another post in diocesan administration. To take just three examples: in January 1306 Master John de Crowcombe, archdeacon of the East Riding, and in January 1321 Master Denis Avenel, archbishop’s official of York, were appointed as vicar-general during their archbishop’s absence.88 By 1391, the canon lawyer, John de Neuton, was both official to the archbishop and his vicar-general.89 Neuton was initially appointed by Arundel and served under four successive archbishops until shortly before his death in 1414.90 He was rewarded with the post of treasurer of York Minster, one of the most generously endowed dignitaries in the chapter, and one that added to his considerable wealth. From 1393 it was common for a second vicar-general to be appointed alongside him and this was usually the archbishop’s chancellor.91 The combination of the offices

86



87



88



89



90

91



(Leverhulme Research Scheme, 1962, typescript in BIA), p. 208. The use of a vicar-­ general in the province of Canterbury began in the later thirteenth century: I. T. Churchill, Canterbury Administration: The Administrative Machinery of the Archbishopric of Canterbury illustrated from Original Records (London, 1933), I, 26–7. BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fol. 2v, entry 2; Reg. 16, fol. 168r, entry 1; Thompson, English Clergy, p. 53. The register of the vicars-general for Thoresby is lost, as is part of that for Neville’s vicar-general. Appointments were still made at the archbishop’s pleasure but the increasing continuity in their activity is striking. At Canterbury vicars-general continued to be appointed only when archbishops were absent: Churchill, Canterbury, pp. 29–35. The difference may be explained by the location of Westminster within the province of Canterbury, meaning that archbishops of Canterbury did not need to leave their province so often. BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 7, fol. 192r, entry 8; Reg. 9A, fol. 19v entry 1. At Canterbury vicars-general usually also already held other diocesan positions. BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 14, fol. 27v, entry 2. BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 16, fol. 168r, entry 1; J. Brundage, ‘Neuton, John (c. 1350–1414), canon lawyer’, ODNB. BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 14, fol. 44v, entry 3; Reg. 16, fol. 168r, entry 1.

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of archbishop’s official and chancellor with that of vicar-general represented a significant concentration of authority. Who were the official and the chancellor? These offices had their origins in the household of the archbishops before 1304. Three of the most senior of these household personnel are listed as witnesses to the case involving Hawise and Robert in 1368: the official of the court of York, the archbishop’s chancellor and his registrar. These three officers presided over larger staffs of scribes, lawyers and clerks. They played the key role in maintaining and developing the format of the archbishop’s registers and the composition of other episcopal acta. The archbishop’s court in the diocese was generally referred to as the Court of York (Curia Eboracensis), although it could also be referred to as the ‘court of the archbishop’. It developed into two distinct branches: the consistory court and the court of audience. The Official (Officialis) of the Court of York rose to prominence during the thirteenth century and was in all respects the most senior of the archbishop’s employed administrators.92 Primarily he acted as deputy to the archbishop in judicial matters and he presided over the branch of the archbishop’s court that came to be known as the consistory court. By the time of Archbishop Greenfield, the consistory court was coming into use as the term for the court sitting without the archbishop, but presided over by his official and the official’s deputy, the commissary-general.93 Definitive constitutions for the Curia Eboracensis were issued by Archbishop Greenfield in 1311.94 The official used his own seal,95 and his authority in acting for the archbishop was complete, to the extent that no appeal to the archbishop from his judgement was possible.96 The consistory court also kept its own records so D. M. Smith, ‘The Officialis of the Bishop in Twelfth and Thirteenth-Century England: problems of terminology’, in Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy M. Owen, ed. M. J. Franklin and C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 1995), pp. 201–20. It can be confusing to modern readers that a term we use to describe a generic position (‘official’) is in this context used to describe a particular senior administrative post (the Officialis). 93 This court was nearly always referred to as the Court of York (Curia Eboracensis). There are just seven references to it as the consistory court in the registers in the period 1304–1405, although two of these refer to the location of the court in York Minster, suggesting that it may have been known as ‘the consistory’ in common speech: BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fol. 258r, entry 3; Reg. 7, fol. 56r, entry 12; Reg. 8, fols. 34r, entry 2, 37r, entry 5, 40v, entry 1, 202r, entry 3; Reg. 11, fol. 114v, entry 1. 94 Burns, Ecclesiastical Courts, pp. 117–200. 95 Dalton, Seals, pp. 71–2. 96 Thompson, English Clergy, p. 51; D. M. Smith, Ecclesiastical Cause Papers at York: the Court of York, 1301–1399, Borthwick Texts and Calendars 14 (York, 1988), p. iii. 92

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its judgments are not included in the archbishops’ registers but kept in separate court books.97 The consistory court became the major place of resort for cases under canon law, whether instituted by the archbishops or by plaintiffs. The court’s jurisdiction extended to disputes over benefices, tithes and violations of jurisdictions, breach of faith and apostasy, defamation and immorality, matrimonial and testamentary disputes. Papers relating to the prosecution of these cases sometimes survive and are known as ‘cause papers’. Among York’s surviving cause papers, over 50% involved appeals either from an inferior ecclesiastical jurisdiction or related to appeals to the papal curia.98 The dioceses of Carlisle and Durham established their own consistory courts, as did some peculiar jurisdictions within the diocese of York, such as the dean and chapter and all those peculiars exercising ordinary powers.99 Business in all such courts could be generated de officio, that is arising out of the execution of the duties of the office, or it could arise by ‘instance’, that is by petition from individual members of the church, both lay and clerical. Archbishops also regularly delegated the correction of faults found in episcopal visitations, as well as other disputes, to the adjudication of the official (or sometimes the chancellor). However, the official was also a ‘maid of all work’ and could take responsibility for any administrative tasks of the archbishop, including institution to benefices or financial affairs.100 It is these latter activities that are primarily recorded in the archbishops’ registers because they were tasks that required special authorisation since they involved the delegation of archiepiscopal duties. The ‘official of the archbishop’, or ‘official of the court of York’, is frequently referred to in the registers between 1304 and 1405, although the frequency of references peaks under Melton and then declines. Whereas references to the office occur only on average about twice per year under Greenfield this rises to more than ten times per year under Melton.101 By contrast, only six references to the official are found in the whole of Register 16 (1398–1405), fewer than one per year. The employment of the official for ad hoc business declined after 1340 because of the increasing emphasis placed on the office The court books of the various consistory courts and their cause papers were not included in The Northern Way project. They have survived, although not as complete series, and can be found in the Borthwick Institute for Archives, York Minster Library, Carlisle Record Office and Durham Cathedral Library, as well as some strays elsewhere. 98 Smith, Cause Papers, p. vii. 99 See above, pp. 27–29. 100 Burns, Ecclesiastical Courts, pp. 77–8. 101 This calculation is based on searching the online databases of Registers 7–16 for references to the phrases ‘official of the archbishop’ or ‘official of the court of York’. 97

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of vicar-general and their eventual combination after 1390 in the hands of a single individual. Correspondence between the archbishop and the official was mostly registered in the ‘Officiality’ section of the archbishops’ registers down to the time of Thoresby. From 1353 onwards a separate section for the Officiality is absent and records relating to the official are distributed throughout other sections, while the section for the vicar-general largely replaced it in scope. Other peculiars exercising ordinary powers appointed their own officials, as did the suffragan sees. Their records are of course not registered in the archbishops’ registers but there was often an overlap in personnel between the administrative staff of the archbishop and those of other spiritualities. For example, Michael de Harclay, a canon lawyer who served as official to the archdeacon of Richmond in 1313, also occupied other judicial positions in the administrations of the bishops of Carlisle and Durham, the archbishop of York and the Crown between 1310 and 1323.102 The official was often at the heart of archiepiscopal patronage networks. The official named in our Burton case of 1368 was John de Waltham. He is recorded as the archbishop’s chancellor in 1366, and as official on multiple occasions between May 1367 and 1373.103 He was the nephew of Archbishop John Thoresby and the uncle of his namesake, John de Waltham junior, who rose to prominence in the administration of King Richard II as keeper of the rolls of Chancery and later Lord Privy Seal and Lord Treasurer between 1381 and his death in 1395.104 Such groups of kinsmen, and in particular avuncular relationships, are found quite often among diocesan administrators, many of whom also secured promotion to royal positions under the patronage of the archbishops.105 The authority of the official in such a case was no doubt informally strengthened by his familial and administrative connections. Earlier in our period the figure of John Nassington was at the heart of a similar family network of administrators who served several successive archbishops from Wickwane to Zouche.106 At the end of our period John Neuton, perhaps in contrast, was closely associated with patronage networks developed by Thomas

BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 8, fol. 218v, entry 3; D. J. Higgins, ‘A canon lawyer and his practice: Master Michael de Harclay, c. 1310–1323’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 60 (2016), 123–59. 103 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fols. 65v, 142v, 190r, 192v, 227v, 267v, 312r, 324v, 327r. 104 J. Hughes, ‘Thoresby, John (d. 1373), archbishop of York’, ODNB; R. Davies, ‘Waltham, John (d. 1395), administrator and bishop of Salisbury’, ODNB. 105 See Chapter 3 below. 106 M. Sullivan, ‘The Role of the Nassington Family in the Medieval English Church’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 37 (1993), 53–64. 102

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Arundel but forged through education and diocesan appointments rather than kinship. He maintained his influence in York well into the fifteenth century. So great were the regular responsibilities of the official that he also had deputies, in particular the archbishop’s commissary-general, who could also conduct archiepiscopal business by delegation, used his own official seal and could preside over the court of York in the absence of the official.107 Additional commissaries could also be appointed ad hoc to deal with specific matters. Other personnel included examiners (auditores), registry clerks, advocates and proctors. It was common for clerks trained or experienced in law to move between these positions and to work simultaneously in the courts of other peculiar jurisdictions as well as those of the archbishop. In 1350–51 Master Adam Twistleton, for example, was both auditor of causes to the dean and chapter and commissary-general in the court of York.108 Another such was perhaps John Ashton, the representative chosen by Hawise Burton in 1368, even though he is not explicitly identified as such. A magister Johannes de Ashton was frequently mentioned in the early 1360s as both a commissary and a commissary-general of the archbishops.109 He was the kind of experienced lawyer that most litigants such as Hawise would hire to act as a proctor in such a case.110 As the official’s ad hoc duties were subsumed into the post of vicar-­general, the chancellor’s duties as an ad hoc deputy increased but extended well beyond routine business. The archbishops’ chancery had been developing since the twelfth century and it originally acted as a secretariat producing written documents, including those found in registers.111 The position of chancellor was held usually by a graduate clerk who was rewarded with benefices, often prebends in one of the archdiocese’s minster churches.112 Already by the later thirteenth century it had become common for the chancery of a bishop to act independently of the presence of the bishop in issuing some documents, particularly those of a more routine nature.113 The newly indexed records from Dalton, Seals, p. 73; Burns, Ecclesiastical Courts, p. 103. There are two examples of the commissary-general determining sentences in the court of York in 1327 and 1344: BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 9B, fol. 439r, entry 5; TNA, E 135/19/38. 108 Longley, Ecclesiastical Cause Papers, p. vii; BIA, YDA/2/Reg.10, fol. 207v, entry 2. 109 TNA, C 85/183/32; BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fols. 105r, 105v, 178v, 206r, 250v, 281v, 315r. 110 Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, pp. 147–50. 111 Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries; Hoskin, ‘Authors of Bureaucracy’, pp. 61–78. 112 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 7, fol. 17v, entry 1. 113 Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries, p. 42; P. M. Hoskin, ‘How to travel with a bishop: thirteenth-century episcopal itineraries’, in Princes of the Church; Bishops and 107

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1304–1405 enable us to see the growth of this role and its extension into more significant matters. Early references to the chancellor are sparse, but in 1320 the archbishop’s chancellor (Master William Stanes) deputised for him in requesting collation to a benefice, and in 1331 the archbishop’s chancellor (Master Adam de Haselbech) was one of three clerics commissioned to undertake a visitation.114 During the archiepiscopacy of William Zouche the evidence accumulates. Between 1345 and July 1349 Master Gilbert de Welton was identified as the archbishop’s chancellor and acted for him in a number of routine matters including hearing oaths of obedience, delivering arbitration, administering benefices and presiding over a change of guardianship, but also more significant political duties such as travelling to London to discuss a royal request for a loan at the king’s council.115 Welton later deputised for the archbishop by presiding over a meeting of the provincial convocation in the archbishop’s absence.116 In this case the notable responsibility of the tasks undertaken by Welton clearly prepared him for episcopal office, and he was elected to the diocese of Carlisle as bishop in 1353.117 Like the official, the chancellor also developed a judicial function. The court of York when sitting with the archbishop in person was originally known as the ‘court of audience’. As the archbishop’s legal adviser, the chancellor was often employed as the auditor (examiner) of causes coming before this court.118 By the 1340s the chancellor could preside over audience business, as we saw in the arbitration over the disputed advowson of Kettlewell in 1348. Judgments from this court could still be copied into the archbishops’ registers, even if the archbishop was not present. Welton was replaced as chancellor by John de Burton and he is the first chancellor recorded as routinely presiding over the archbishop’s court of audience from 1359, in addition to acting as its auditor of causes.119 By the end of our period the offices of chancery and the court of audience were increasingly seen as two names for the same institution, such that the ‘court of audience’ became known as the Chancery Court.120 As with other administrative officials it was during the archiepiscopacy of their Palaces ed. D. Rollason (London, 2017), pp. 169–78. BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 9B, fols. 556v, entry 1, 724r (3 entries). 115 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 10, fols. 10r, entry 1, 27r, entry 1, 30v, entry 1, 70r, entry 5, 119v, entry 3, 158r, entry 1, 261r, entries 1 and 3; TNA, SC 1/56/92. 116 TNA, C 270/14/5. 117 TNA, SC 7/54/1. 118 Burns, Ecclesiastical Courts, p. 218. 119 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fols. 87v, entry 11, 102, entry 4, 200r, entry 12. Burton also acted as vicar-general in 1365: fol. 216v, entry 1. 120 Burns, Ecclesiastical Courts, pp. 220–1. 114

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John Thoresby that the officials can be seen almost completely taking over the personal duties of the archbishops on a routine basis, even though movements in that direction were already apparent earlier, particularly under Zouche. Other clerks could also deputise for the chancellor. During the same period that Gilbert de Welton was the archbishop’s chancellor, but on single occasions, other clerks were also identified as the archbishop’s chancellor and deputised for the archbishop in matters such as visitation and hearing oaths of obedience. One such ‘acting chancellor’ was Simon de Beckingham, a clerk of the archbishop’s household, ‘learned in the law’ and a sometime auditor of the archbishop’s causes. Beckingham is noted during the 1340s in multiple legal positions, including auditor of causes in the archbishop’s court of audience, as well as being the official of the archdeaconry of Richmond, an occasional commissary-general of the archbishop and more than once as the recipient of individual commissions to conduct visitations and related business.121 On only one occasion, in 1348, he was also described as the archbishop’s chancellor.122 He eventually moved to the staff of the dean and chapter of York Minster, becoming its chancellor in 1349, and died in 1369.123 A second, somewhat later, example is John de Irford, who was named in the Boltons’ marital separation agreement in 1368 as ‘archbishop’s chancellor’, a position in which he is named on only one other occasion in 1367–68.124 Otherwise he is much more frequently encountered between 1357 and 1379 as the archbishop’s receiver-general.125 This confirms the impression that the post of chancellor was treated more as a function than a fixed position and that different men, with the right qualifications, could step in to fill the role as requested, or hold it simultaneously with other roles.126 The changing roles of the official and the chancellor contributed by 1353 to an increase in the importance of another position, that of the registrar. Registrars are mentioned much less frequently in the registers than officials or chancellors because their key role was in creating and conserving the Based on a search of the online registers conducted 14 December 2022. The earliest dated reference is to Beckingham as vicar-general of the absent archdeacon of Cleveland in 1344: BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 10, fol. 155r, entry 2. He was the archbishop’s auditor of causes in 1347: fol. 348v, entry 10. 122 Ibid., fol. 187r, entry 1. 123 Ibid., fol. 232r, entry 3; Reg. 11, fol. 67v, entry 3. 124 The other occasion is BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fol. 220r, entry 1. 125 Ibid., fols. 174r, 175r, 310v, 325v, 326r. 126 Smith and Hoskin found the same to be true of the offices of the official and chancellor in the thirteenth century: Smith, ‘officialis’; Hoskin, ‘Authors of Bureaucracy’, p. 67. 121

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documents, not appearing in them as deputies for the archbishops. The very first reference in our period to an archbishop’s registrar, in 1329, suggests that he might occasionally deputise for the archbishop, though this was unusual, since it refers explicitly to a permission to be non-resident in a benefice granted by the authority of the registrar (unnamed) rather than a letter from the archbishop.127 The next reference, in 1343, refers to him administering a debt owed to the archbishop.128 Both of these were minor routine matters and not of the same significance as the kind of delegated work undertaken by the official or the chancellor. By the election of John Thoresby in 1353 it was clearly regarded as standard practice for a new archbishop to appoint a registrar, alongside a vicar-general and a chancellor, to provide them with benefices and to notify the dean and chapter of York Minster.129 Robert de Hakthorpe was appointed registrar to the court of York in 1353 and more than twenty years later was referred to as the ‘registrar of the archbishop’.130 These two positions were almost certainly the same since in 1354 Thoresby clearly regarded it as his personal prerogative to appoint the registrar of the court of York (although he named a different individual in that role).131 The next earliest reference is again the case involving Hawise and Robert Bolton in 1368 when Nicholas de Burton was named among the witnesses as the archbishop’s registrar.132 This indeed, apart from keeping the registers, was their major function: registrars appeared after 1368 on only a handful of occasions, mainly as witnesses or subscribers. A different set of officials administered the archbishops’ temporal affairs, and like many great noble households, the archbishops had an exchequer.133 The most senior official was the receiver at York who collected revenue due from the archbishops’ estates from local officials and represented the archbishop at the highest level in the negotiation of his financial affairs. Receivers at York also managed the pecuniary aspects of his spiritual jurisdiction, and from 1369 were distinguished by the title of ‘receiver-general’.134 They participated in the correction of faults found during visitations and were asked to oversee the BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 9A, fol. 220v, entry 6. BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 10, fol. 347r, entry 6. 129 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fol. 2, entries 1–5, especially entry 2. 130 Ibid., fols. 3r, entry 1, 327r, entry 1. 131 Ibid., fol. 24r, entry 1. Like the title of ‘chancellor’, the title of ‘registrar’ was perhaps being used more in relation to function than office by Thoresby’s time. 132 Ibid., fol. 187v, entry 3. 133 L. H. Butler, ‘Archbishop Melton, his neighbours, and his Kinsmen, 1317–1340’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 2/1 (1951), 54–68. 134 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fol. 313r, entry 1. 127 128

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accounts of religious houses found to be misgoverned. They inducted clergy to the temporalities of their benefices and might consider the fiscal aspects of other spiritual matters such as a proposed union of churches. By the 1370s the receiver-general was usually a canon lawyer and could serve on a variety of commissions in addition to his more regular duties. In 1404, following a commission from the archbishop, John de Southwell, receiver-general at York, certified an inquisition into the vacancy and patronage of a perpetual chantry at the altar of St Mary in the church of St Sampson in York.135 Receivers, like other senior dignitaries of the archiepiscopal household, were generally rewarded with prebendal benefices in York Minster. Local receivers were also appointed for some of the archbishops’ more distant possessions, such as Hexhamshire in Northumberland and Churchdown in Gloucestershire. In these instances, their duties sometimes overlapped with those of lesser local officials such as stewards and bailiffs. For the most part, however, bailiffs were based locally, on one of the archbishop’s manors, while stewards were based in the larger residences that tended to be located in the small market towns of Otley (WRY), Ripon (WRY), Sherburn in Elmet (WRY), Beverley (ERY), Southwell (Nottinghamshire) and Hexham (Northumberland).136 Records from these offices were found primarily in the ‘Ballive’, ‘Intrinseca Camere’ and ‘Homages’ sections of the registers up to 1373, although the quantity and detail of material in these sections declines over time (Appendix 2, Tables 1.3 and 1.4). After 1373 such sections were not included in the archbishops’ registers, which became almost solely concerned with spiritual jurisdiction. This account of the archbishop’s household has emphasised the degree to which the personal responsibilities of the archbishops were delegated to intermediaries and that this practice developed and became more institutionalised by the end of the fourteenth century. The work undertaken by the official, chancellor, registrar, receiver, stewards and their staff focused primarily on the administrative, legal and financial duties of the archbishop. The practice of delegation did not end there. Liturgical duties that required a consecrated bishop, and could not be undertaken by a lesser priest, were commonly delegated to suffragan bishops who might confirm the laity, dedicate churches and altars, reconcile churchyards and churches polluted by bloodshed, consecrate chalices and patens, bless vestments and church ornaments, and confer the BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 16, fol. 42v, entry 1. C. Cross, ‘The Economic Problems of the See of York: Decline and Recovery in the Sixteenth Century’, in Land, Church and People: Essays presented to Professor H. P. R. Finberg, ed. J. Thirsk, Agricultural History Review 18 Supplement (1970), 64–83 (pp. 66–8).

135 136

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first tonsure on suitable persons of the diocese and to others bearing letters dismissory.137 Lawrence Butler has identified thirty such suffragans working in the diocese of York at some point during the fourteenth century.138 Suffragan bishops were mostly men who had been appointed to a titular bishopric overseas or in Scotland but who lived and worked in the diocese, as in 1336 when a commission was granted to Brother Benedict, suffragan bishop of Cardicium (Cardicensis) [Greece], to carry out the office of bishop in the deaneries of Ryedale and Cleveland.139 This business was recorded primarily in a separate section of the registers known as the ‘Suffragans’, which also included archiepiscopal business relating to the dioceses of Carlisle and Durham, since those bishops were also known as ‘suffragans’ and both bishops could, on occasion, also deputise for the archbishop in the diocese of York, particularly in the matter of ordinations. Following the Great Schism in the papacy after 1378, the archbishops also took the opportunity to revive their power to appoint a bishop of Whithorn (since England and Scotland supported opposing candidates to the papacy), although only to employ him as a suffragan within the diocese of York. Between 1388 and 1398 there are more than thirty surviving records of Brother Oswald, bishop of Galloway (or Whithorn) being commissioned as suffragan and presiding over ordinations and the profession of vowesses.140 In short, by the end of the fourteenth century, the proliferation of intermediary administrative staff deputising for the archbishops, and the growth of courts administering canon law under their jurisdiction, was well established. The registers of the archbishops of York are a unique source of information for these developments. Records included in the registers provided a lasting record of the appointment of various officials and their reward through the assignment of benefices; they defined their duties and they recorded the correspondence and processes of visitation and correction through which they were held accountable. Without the records this administration could not function,

The licence listing these responsibilities was issued to Boniface, suffragan bishop of Corbavia in 1340: BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 9B, fol. 688v, entry 2. 138 L. A. S. Butler, ‘Suffragan Bishops in the Medieval Diocese of York’, Northern History 37/1 (2000), 49–60. 139 BIA, YDA/2/ Reg. 9B, fol. 604v, entry 2. 140 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fols. 229v, 232r, 235v, 244v, 253r, 254r, 255r; Reg. 14, fols. 6r, 10r, 14r–v, 54v, 63r–v, 64r–v, 65r–v, 66v, 67v, 68r, 69r, 70r–v, 71r, 73r, 74v; Reg. 15, fols. 1v, 14r, 15r. 137

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but in their detail they also enable us to reconstruct and give us an insight into individual experience and influence.141 Indeed, despite the complexity of the system of peculiars and archdeaconries, there emerged a rather small number of men, trained in canon law, who held multiple administrative positions in different jurisdictions across the province either sequentially or concurrently as was deemed expedient. At the very apex of the system the archbishop’s vicar-general, chancellor, official and receiver-general were typically rewarded with prebends or offices at one of the Minster churches, and in particular at York Minster. Importantly this unification, in practice, of multiple administrative positions in different spiritualities in the hands of a smaller number of individuals rendered the governance of the province, the diocese and its cathedrals less fragmented in practice than it seemed in theory. Yet it was also true that this combination of offices placed significant weight on the conscience, character and abilities of these individuals. By the time of Archbishop Thoresby, it appears that the system of registering titles and mandates was no longer considered sufficient in the regulation of official behaviour. As Keith Burns notes: when Thoresby heard complaints in 1353 against his Official, his approach was that of a friend and counsellor, concerned both for his Official’s honour and about the ‘good direction’ of his Curia Eboracensis; and his advice to his Official was that the best way of stifling allegations was for the Official to be courteous and helpful, to stick to formal procedures in handling litigation and to render to everyone ‘exact justice’. Better, Thoresby concluded, that the wounds are inflicted by a friend than the false embrace of a flatterer.142

This appeal to morals perhaps reflected a realisation that registration of records alone was not sufficient to maintain high standards of conduct among those exercising delegated archiepiscopal powers. It could itself be explored as a maturation of the ways in which record keeping and registration may have underpinned the administrative system, but also had its limitations. It is perhaps not so surprising then that it was also under Archbishop John Thoresby that the number of records registered began to noticeably decline, but texts emphasising conscience and conduct, such as the Lay Folks

See Forrest, ‘Machinery’, for the argument that we should explore the human operation of local administrative processes. 142 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fol. 14r, entry 1; Burns, Ecclesiastical Courts, pp. 84–5. 141

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Catechism (1357) and new Constitutions (1364 and 1367), were included in the registers instead.143 The development of such an affinity of professionally qualified administrators enabled archbishops to withdraw personally from almost all aspects of the routine administration of their diocese, which in turn raises the question of how, when and why archbishops remained personally engaged in certain acts?144 Perhaps no more than 500 records explicitly mention the presence of the archbishop. This is a rough estimate based on a search for phrases such as ‘in the presence of ’ and ‘before’ the archbishop in the online indices. Not all of these might indicate his participation, since some refer to future appearances before the archbishop’s court that could be delegated to others. Equally, these phrases are not always noted in the indices, so a more thorough search of the originals is needed. However, those recorded acts where the presence of the archbishop is explicitly noted predominantly had a focus on his pastoral role.145 They included initiating (but not necessarily completing) visitation business,146 hearing oaths and vows (for example from lay vowesses),147 presiding at the baptism of a converted Jew (in 1335)148 and adjudicating in some marital cases. The case of the marital separation of Hawise and Robert Bolton in 1368 is one such. Yet this was not a role that Archbishop Thoresby necessarily insisted on. Just four years earlier he had commissioned the dean of Beverley to preside over matrimonial and separation causes among other pastoral duties.149 So why did he preside in this case? This in turn leads us on to a final set of questions about which records were registered and why.

BIA/YDA/2/Reg. 11 fols. 295r–298v, 130r, entry 1, 144r, entry 1. For Thoresby’s pastoral intentions in registering these texts see J. Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries: Religion and Secular Life in Late Medieval Yorkshire (Woodbridge, 1988), p. 156; P. J. P. Goldberg, ‘From Tableaux to Text: The York Corpus Christi Play ca. 1378–1428’, Viator 43/2 (2012), 264–6. 144 For the period 1250–1300 this question is also considered by Hoskin, ‘Authors of Bureaucracy’, pp. 72–7. 145 H. Birkett, ‘The Pastoral Application of the Lateran IV Reforms in the Northern Province, 1215–1348’, Northern History 43/2 (2006), 199–219; W. H. Campbell, The Landscape of Pastoral Care in 13th-Century England (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 265–71. 146 For example: BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fol.142r, entry 1. 147 For example: BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 16, fol. 21v, entry 3. This is one of four vows of chastity in Register 16 in which the vow is recited in English. 148 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 9B, fol. 676v, entry 2. 149 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fol. 211v, entry 7. 143

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Measuring supply and demand: the chronological and geographical range of the records

If the surviving, registered records represent only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in terms of the overall administrative records generated within the diocese, that ‘tip’ is still substantial. In total, just under 25,000 records survive within the archbishops’ registers for the period 1304–1405 (Appendix 2, Tables 1.3 and 1.4). Around 60% (14,102) were included in the sections of registers for the archdeaconries of the diocese of York, other diverse jurisdictions and the vicars-­general (Appendix 2, Table 1.3). The remainder (10,660 or 40%) came from the register sections that related to other aspects of the archbishops’ responsibilities, in particular his temporal estates (before 1373), his relationship with the four Minster chapters and his role as a provincial metropolitan, as well as correspondence of various kinds, ordinations and the probate of wills (Appendix 2, Table 1.4). The registers of the archbishops of York vary considerably in their size and composition. That of our second archbishop William Melton (1317–40) is the largest. It includes some 739 folios, now bound in two volumes, while that of our first archbishop William Greenfield (1306–15) has 525 folios split between several compilations.150 However, judgements based simply on the overall size of the registers are misleading since we need to take account of differences in both their chronological range and in their composition. If we were instead to calculate the size of registers by the average number of folios used each year then the register of Thomas Corbridge (1300–04), just before the period of our study, would be the ‘largest’ in the medieval series,151 while after 1304 the register of Greenfield would be ‘larger’ than that of Melton. This measure still takes no account of difference in the size of hand, spacing of the records or numbers of unused folios. The indexing of the records contained within the registers between 1304 and 1405 now permits us to count the number of surviving registrations, which we can analyse by date, provenance and content to reveal changing practices of registration across the period. A simple calculation of surviving registrations by date (year) indicates an overall downward trend across the whole century, with a particular decline after 1352 and a slight but not sustained recovery during the vacancies of 1397–98 (Appendix 3, Figures 1.2, 1.3, 1.4). We can also detect years when the number of surviving registrations deviates from the overall trend. Periods when more registrations are preserved than the trend Greenfield: BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, fols. 83–84, 142–74, Reg. 7, Reg. 8; Melton: Reg. 9A, 9B. 151 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 6; Appendix 3, Figure 1.1. 150

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include 1309–10, 1313–18, 1348–50, 1375 and 1397–98. Periods when fewer registrations survive include 1326, 1330–01, 1336–42, 1353–04 and the 1380s. What might lie behind this chronological variation? Did individual archbishops influence patterns of registration? The answer to this is, largely, that they did not. For the most part, bureaucratic trends were not the result of individual archiepiscopal initiative. However, it is certainly worth considering their influence in a little more detail since archiepiscopal diligence has often been assumed to lie behind the quantity of material surviving.152 A new archbishop’s first year in office could be marked by an increase in registrations as licences were renewed and new appointments made. In 1374– 75 an increase in registrations (Appendix 3, Figure 1.4) is largely accounted for by the relicensing of 114 oratories in private houses during Alexander Neville’s first year as archbishop.153 Peaks in the number of registrations in 1318 and 1398 also mark the first complete years in office of archbishops William Melton and Richard Scrope. Turning to each bishop in turn: Greenfield’s period in office (1306–15) coincided with the largest number of annual registrations between 1304 and 1405. An average of 566 records per annum were registered under Greenfield. This average fell to 339 a year under Melton and increased slightly to an annual average of 349 under Zouche. However, the pattern under Melton was far from consistent throughout his period in office, while the leap in registrations in 1349 raises the average for Zouche’s register (Appendix 3, Figure 1.3). There is a notable decline in the volume of registered material preserved from the 1350s onwards. The complete and partial loss of certain registers, particularly for the period 1374 to 1397, somewhat exaggerates this decline, although we can still conclude that the high levels of registrations seen in the first half of the century were never attained again after 1352. Under Thoresby (1353–73) there was an average of just 166 registrations per year, and just 140 per annum under Richard Scrope (1398–1405); that is just a quarter of the volume under Greenfield. The absence of an archbishop from his province resulted in a reduced level of registration (as well as a greater loss of materials), perhaps because of the practical difficulties of maintaining archives while his household was on the Hamilton Thompson repeatedly attributed the quantity and range of material in Greenfield’s register to his conscientious dedication to his duties: Reg. Greenfield, V, lix–lx. 153 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 12 passim. Such (re-)licensing of oratories in the first year of a bishop’s office was a common practice: K. Rawlinson, ‘The English Household Chapel, c. 1100–c. 1500: an Institutional Study’ (unpublished D. Phil. Thesis, Durham University, 2008), p. 167. 152

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move.154 Generally, the rate of registration was also lower during vacancies, when administrative responsibility passed to the dean and chapter of York. The vacancies before and after Greenfield, Melton and Zouche in particular stand out as low points in the volume of surviving registrations despite the fact that we have vacancy registers for those periods, and that they were organised into sections according to different types of business, suggesting that the overall method of registration continued (Appendix 2, Tables 1.3 and 1.4, and Appendix 3, Figures 1.2, 1.3, 1.4). On the other hand, by 1398 the volume of registrations during the vacancy was no less than that achieved under the next archbishop (Scrope), although this is due entirely to the large number of surviving records of ordinations (553) for that year (Appendix 2, Table 1.4). The low level of registration may suggest that the dean and chapter were, perhaps, more careless about keeping registered copies of records during vacancies than was the archbishop’s familia.155 Even in the early fourteenth century, when registrations were more numerous, it seems that the absence of an archbishop from his province might affect practices of registration. William Melton’s political career meant that there were several occasions when he both stayed in his province to avoid attendance at parliament and the court, and others when he chose to leave his province to participate in national affairs.156 One was in the winter of 1326–27 when he travelled to London to take an oath of loyalty to Isabella and Mortimer’s regime on 20 January 1327. Another was in 1330, when he attended parliament in Salisbury from 26 November to 9 December.157 No records survive in his registers coinciding with those absences. For the first there is a gap between mid-November 1326 and February 1327 in which just two registrations occurred (in December) and just one in the register of his vicar-general in January.158 In 1330 no registrations are preserved from mid-November until the end of the year. While vicars-general were supposed to conduct business during such absences, this evidence suggests that such transitions resulted in either a decline in the registration of records or their loss. No doubt this issue influenced the move towards the appointment of permanent vicars-general after 1353. The impact of political activities on patterns of registration would be worth investigating further.

Hoskin, ‘How to travel with a bishop’. Forrest, ‘The archive of the official of Stow’, pp. 4–7. 156 See Ormrod, in this volume, pp. 120–1. 157 Phillips, Edward II, p. 532 n. 66; PROME, iv, Parliament of November 1330. 158 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 9A, Reg. 9B. 154 155

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However, the absence of archbishops was far from being the major reason for the declining size of registers after 1352. Rather there was a substantial reduction in the diversity of documents registered. First, the earlier registers include three sections of administrative records relating to the temporalities of the archbishop: ‘Intrinseca camere’; ‘Ballive’; and ‘Homages’.159 This practice originated with the register of archbishop John Romeyn; however, in the fourteenth century such sections were only included in the registers of the first four archbishops (Appendix 2, Table 1.4), and even within that period the practice of registering such documents declined (Appendix 2, Table 1.6). Some material relating to ‘ballive’ continued to be included in later registers but was included in other sections: ‘diverse jurisdictions’; ‘miscellanea’; or ‘diverse letters’. In 1377 a commission to Robert of Leeds to act as bailiff and steward of the archbishop’s lordships and liberties of Ripon and Sherburn was copied into the section of diverse letters of Neville’s register.160 Similarly, there was less material relating to certain aspects of the spiritual administration of the diocese and province included in the registers from 1353 onwards. The sections relating to the Officiality, Chapters (the four Minster churches) and to suffragans almost disappeared, only to be partially revived, but on a smaller scale, under Scrope (Appendix 2, Table 1.4 and Table 1.7).161 Increasingly the registers of the later fourteenth century were dominated by the sections for the archdeaconries and other jurisdictions, and prominent among their contents are records documenting titles to benefices (including collations, institutions, inductions and exchanges, as well as licences for non-residence and the endowment of chantries). The archdeaconry sections are among the largest in each of the surviving registers (Appendix 2, Tables 1.3 and 1.4). The five main archdeaconries varied in size: York and the West Riding had 213 benefices, Nottinghamshire had 145 benefices, the East Riding of Yorkshire 127, Richmond 124 and Cleveland just eighty-three. If we calculate the volume of surviving material as an average number of records per annum then the number of registrations in each section can be shown to broadly reflect the number of benefices, with York having the largest number of registrations, then Nottinghamshire followed by the East Riding, then Hamilton Thompson suggested that the ‘Ballive’ section was revived under Scrope. but it was not: Thompson, ‘Registers’, 255; R. N. Swanson, A Calendar of the Register of Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, 1398–1405 (York, 1981), part 1, pp. iii–iv. 160 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 12, fol. 103v, entry 4. 161 There is no section headed ‘Officiality’ in Thoresby’s Register (BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11). However, there are at least ninety-five records of commissions to the official of the court of York distributed throughout the register, of which thirty-nine are in the section headed ‘Capitula’.

159

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Cleveland and finally Richmond (Appendix 2, Table 1.8; Appendix 3, Figure 1.5). Sections for the archdeaconry of Richmond have the least material largely because of the peculiar privileges of its archdeacon who, as we have seen, had the power to institute to benefices within his own archdeaconry, and the archbishop only stepped into the role of ordinary during periods of vacancy in the archdeaconry. At least superficially, then, the volume of surviving registered materials seems proportionate relative to the number of benefices in the archdeaconries. However, even this business declined in volume after 1352. Overall, the average number of registrations in the archdeaconry sections fell by more than 50% between Greenfield and Melton, revived a little under Zouche, but never reached similar levels again, even under Scrope. By contrast, the size of the registers of the vicars-general increased during the absences of Arundel and Waldby, but not to an extent that compensated entirely for the decline in the archdeaconry sections. The management of benefices, ordinations, probate and visitations continued to dominate the later registers, but the overall decline in registration in the later fourteenth century (coupled with the loss of some registrations), means that records relating to institutions to benefices are progressively less complete in the registers. We can take the parish of Kirk Bramwith in south Yorkshire as an example to illustrate this. Between 1306 and 1379 we can reconstruct the complete list of eleven clergy successively instituted to this rectory from Registers 7 to 12; however, no further institutions to this benefice are recorded in Registers 14 to 16, even though we know that new clergy were appointed.162 This raises the obvious point that in considering the range of registered records we should not only be considering the ‘supply’ of administrative services, as we have done so far, but also ‘demand’ for them (and for registration) by their users. The most obvious of these users were the clergy themselves in their demand for benefices and need for proof of entitlement to them, but we can also see changes in popular lay demand.163 Markets can be affected by many forces. To take one of the more obvious, the Black Death struck during Zouche’s archiepiscopacy and, as A. Hamilton Thompson has shown, took BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 7, fol. 109v, entry 3; Reg. 8, fol. 97v, entry 4; Reg. 9A, fols. 242v, entry 11, 247r, entry 7, 162v, entry 6, 172r, entry 7; Reg. 10, fols. 29v, entry 1, 34v, entry 4; Reg. 11, fols. 108r, entry 2, 117v, entry 4, 147v, entry 5. Institutions recorded in Register 16 were often associated with the exchange of benefices (see below). 163 For two important studies of the central role of the laity in the operation of ecclesiastical jurisdictions, see I. Forrest, Trustworthy Men: How Inequality and Faith made the Medieval Church (Princeton, 2018); and B. C. Kane, Popular Memory and Gender in Medieval England: Men, Women and Testimony in the Church Courts, c. 1200–1500 (Woodbridge, 2019). 162

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a considerable toll on the lives of beneficed clergy.164 We can gain a better impression of the impact of this event on the amount of business in the archbishops’ registers by taking as an example the archdeaconry of York in the ten years of Zouche’s archiepiscopacy between 1342 and 1352. There are 693 records surviving from the archdeaconry for the period 1342–52. Of these some 592 (85.4%) relate to the administration of benefices (including some 275 institutions, 177 licences and twenty-eight collations inter alia). The number of these records leapt in 1349–50, the year in which the plague first struck, so inflating the overall number of records in Zouche’s register (Appendix 3, Figure 1.4). The picture is even clearer when we look at the seasonal incidence (Appendix 3, Figure 1.6). The number of records increased significantly in the months following the outbreak of plague, with a substantial peak in the autumn of that year and with still-elevated numbers well into 1350. This increased activity under Zouche demonstrates very clearly the impact of external events on the processes of registration. However, it should be said that the keeping of these records at such a time of frighteningly high mortality is itself a testimony to some robustness in the system. The system of registration was not just abandoned in the face of the onslaught of the plague, it was maintained and adapted.165 Indeed, across the registers, a range of records documents responses to pestilence that went well beyond the filling of clerical vacancies on which Thompson focused. Numbers of wills and testaments, probate administrations, the licencing of new plague cemeteries and other liturgical and devotional responses provide a rich repository for future plague historians. Zouche’s register is the first in which a separate section of testamentary business is preserved, and it contains more than 400 original wills, many from the plague years, so documenting the chronology and geography of mortality (Appendix 3, Figure 1.7). Later epidemics are reflected in the registers too. In 1391 the registration of thirty-two wills (compared to nine the year before, and fourteen the year after) reflects the recurrence of plague that year.166 Increased mortality seems to have been matched by increased public demand for probate services: in 1369 the mayor of Hull petitioned for additional provision of probate services for the testaments of those who were going to die in the town of Hull and in A. H. Thompson, ‘The Pestilences of the Fourteenth Century in the Diocese of York’, The Archaeological Journal 71/1 (1914), 97–154. 165 For similar conclusions, see W. J. Dohar, The Black Death and Pastoral Leadership: The Diocese of Hereford in the Fourteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1995). 166 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 14; P. J. P. Goldberg, ‘Mortality and Economic Change in the Diocese of York, 1390–1514’, Northern History 24/1 (1988), 38–55 (p. 41). 164

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the deanery of Holderness, since the plague was taking a heavier toll on more and more people.167 The impact that recurrent epidemics of plague had on public demand for registration services is a clear indication that the processes of diocesan registration were responsive to ‘bottom up’ public demand as much as they were the result of ‘top down’ bureaucratic initiative. This provides a different perspective from which to view the case of the separation of Hawise and Robert Bolton noted above. The outcome could be said to favour Hawise, the petitioner (as was typical in such cases),168 who procured both a relatively generous settlement, a lasting record of that settlement through registration and the services of an experienced lawyer in both negotiating it and serving as an intermediary in collecting payments due from her husband. The maintenance granted to Hawise was a substantial sum compared to others granted in this period.169 The journey of some thirty miles from Bolton’s home in Malton to Cawood, itself an undertaking of some cost, was a worthwhile investment, just as the costs associated with probate were to those citizens of Hull demanding better probate services in 1369. Demand can also be detected in the use of registration services by the clergy. As we have seen in the case of Kirk Bramwith, the regular registration of institutions to benefices may have been in decline from the 1370s. It was undoubtedly the case that not all such acts were copied into episcopal registers.170 An interesting pattern emerges when we turn to other acts relating to benefices, such as licences for non-residence and exchanges of benefices, which were more likely to have been initiated by the clergy themselves and could, indeed, outnumber simple institutions. Two-thirds (21/35) of the surviving registrations for the benefice of Kirk Bramwith for the period 1306–88 were licences for non-residence.171 Absence from a benefice might be requested for BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 11, fol. 224r, entry 4. C. Donahue, ‘Female Plaintiffs in Marriage Cases in the Court of York in the Later Middle Ages: What can we learn from the numbers?’, in Wife and Widow in Medieval England, ed. S. S. Walker (Ann Arbor, 1993), pp. 183–213. 169 Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, p. 106; J. A. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987), pp. 479–80; S. M. Butler, The Language of Abuse: Marital Violence in Later Medieval England (Leiden, 2007), p. 111; eadem, ‘Maintenance Agreements and Male Responsibility in Late Medieval England’, in Boundaries of the Law: Geography, Gender and Jurisdiction in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. A. J. Musson (London and New York, 2007), pp. 67–83 (at p. 71). 170 Forrest, ‘Official of Stow’, pp. 4–7. 171 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 7, fols. 131r, entry 1, 170v, entry 1; Reg. 9A, fols. 244r, entry 2, 252v, entry 7, 257r, entry 4, 265v, entry 4; Reg. 9B, fol. 481r, entry 5; Reg. 10, 167 168

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a wide variety of reasons including attending university or going on pilgrimage, but a growing number were linked to the increasing employment of clergy by lay households and in administrative positions.172 Indeed, the rectors of Kirk Bramwith were near constantly licensed to be absent from the parish in order to serve the lay patrons of their living.173 Records documenting the exchange of benefices grew in the middle decades of the fourteenth century and barely declined in volume thereafter, especially allowing for the greater loss of materials from the 1373–96 period (Appendix 3, Figure 1.8). The sustained demand for exchanges, against an overall decline in registrations, is particularly indicative of the responsiveness of registration to clerical demand.174 We can do little more here than indicate the potential of this kind of analysis for understanding the responsiveness of the archbishops’ administration to demand for their services. It is thought-provoking, however, that as registration of official spiritual and temporal business declined in volume and range the use of registration by the laity and clergy for their personal needs seems to have increased. Not all areas of the huge diocese of York enjoyed equal access to the administrative services of the archbishop’s officials. At the beginning of our period the administration of Archbishop Greenfield was in near continual peregrination around the diocese and province, a pattern that is revealed by the places of dating of records in the registers and that reflected the archbishop’s own movements around his province.175 A fuller analysis of such place-dates enables us to map the presence of the archbishops’ administration across the century, and the patterns revealed suggest significant changes over time in the centres used for archiepiscopal administration, and consequently changes in their accessibility to potential users. The following analysis is based on all records included in those sections of the registers dedicated to the archdeaconries of York and Nottingham in fols. 2r, entry 6, 19v, entry 4, 29v, entry 2, 44r, entry 3; Reg. 11, fols. 87v, entry 13, 90v, entry 5, 98r, entries 2 and 8, 105v, entry 3, 106v, entry 10, 142r, entry 8, 147v, entry 6; Reg. 12, fol. 28r, entry 8; Reg. 14, fol. 1v, entry 3. 172 A. K. McHardy, ‘Ecclesiastics and economies: poor priests, prosperous laymen and proud prelates in the reign of Richard II’, Studies in Church History 24 (1987), 129–37. 173 Recorded successively as Henry de Lacy, third earl of Lancaster, his daughter, Lady Blanche Wake of Liddel, and John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. 174 Exchanges of benefices were a prominent feature of other later fourteenth-century registers: The Register of Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1375–1381, ed. F. Donald Logan, Canterbury and York Society 110 (Woodbridge, 2020), p. xvii. 175 Reg. Greenfield, V, 299–328.

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every register, plus the registers of vicars-general for archbishops Arundel and Waldby (Appendix 2, Table 1.9).176 This allows us to test whether the same administrative centres were used for different geographical divisions of the diocese. I have also analysed the place-dates found in TNA, C 85 (Significations of Excommunication) series (Appendix 3, Figure 1.9). These administrative records came from the archbishops’ office but were sent to the royal Chancery for execution. This enables us to ask whether administrative records not included in the registers, but generated for other purposes, were produced in the same administrative centres. Archbishops, their households and their chanceries were mobile, and Table 1.9 does not show, by any means, all the places at which records were dated. It includes places where more than five records were dated by more than one archbishop. Apart from London, these were all either manors on the archbishops’ estates or minster towns in which the archbishops also maintained palaces. Ten such sites are identified in Yorkshire and three in Nottinghamshire, while regular places of dating in the London area included Hackney and Westminster, as well as London itself. Across the whole century, between 70% and 90% of all registered records were dated in one of these sixteen places (Appendix 2, Table 1.9). Remaining registrations were of documents dated in very small numbers at a wide range of sites, although the number of these places declined over the century. Over the whole century, and across all three sources of data, two administrative centres stand out as the places where by far the largest number of administrative records were dated: the archbishops’ residences at Cawood and Bishopthorpe (Appendix 2, Table 1.9). Other frequently used centres included the archbishops’ residences at Bishop Burton, Ripon and York, Laneham and Scrooby.177 Bishopthorpe is around an hour’s walk from the city centre of York (making it virtually suburban), while Cawood is perhaps half a day’s travel down the River Ouse, eleven miles south of York.178 In addition, nearly all registrations during vacancies (when the dean and chapter of York Minster took responsibility for archiepiscopal administration), and most records in the registers of vicars-general (who were all canons of York Minster) were dated in These two archdeaconries were chosen for more detailed analysis because they are the two with the largest number of surviving registrations and are located in different counties within the diocese. 177 Places of dating in York included various sites within York Minster, the chapter house and the palace of the archbishops. Occasionally other sites (such as one of the friaries) might be used but the large majority were in buildings within the Minster Close. 178 See Chapter 8 by Stefania Merlo Perring in this volume. 176

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York. This concentration suggests the central importance of the region within easy commuting distance of the city of York. However, there were significant changes in this pattern over time. At the very beginning of our period Archbishop William Greenfield was the most mobile of our archbishops and was constantly on the move around the whole province due to both ecclesiastical and secular business. He spent relatively long periods of time in Nottinghamshire, for example, and of all our archbishops made the greatest use of several smaller archiepiscopal manor houses spread across east and west Yorkshire (such as Bishop Wilton, Bishop Burton, Bishop Monkton and Otley). Compared to some other archbishops, he made relatively limited use of Bishopthorpe for ecclesiastical administration and rather more use of Cawood. This is interesting because we know (from the intrinseca camere section) that Greenfield spent time at Bishopthorpe, invested in its buildings and estates, and indeed more records in that intrinseca camere section (though still fewer than fifty) were dated there. Under Greenfield, then, Bishopthorpe was a centre of administration for temporalities more than spiritualities. William Melton did not move around nearly as much as Greenfield, as an itinerary currently being compiled by David Robinson makes very clear.179 Yet use of administrative centres for ecclesiastical business during his period in office followed a similar pattern to Greenfield’s: it was still using many of the smaller rural archiepiscopal manors; however, there was a much greater use of Bishopthorpe for ecclesiastical business (Appendix 2, Table 1.9). Under both Greenfield and Melton, the smaller manors were more likely to be used to register business from the archdeaconry in which they lay. Bishop Monkton (WRY), Otley (WRY) and Sherburn (WRY) were all more likely to be used for the registration of documents relating to the archdeaconry of York, while Laneham (Notts) was more likely to be used for the registration of documents relating to Nottinghamshire. In all other cases, no such local selection was apparent. This indicates the relative inaccessibility of these houses compared to more frequented residences such as Scrooby (on the Great North Road) or Bishop Burton near Beverley. A significant change occurred under Archbishops Zouche and Thoresby in the middle decades of the century. Cawood continued to be a major centre for ecclesiastical administration but there was a sharp contrast in the use of Bishopthorpe. Zouche’s administration (like Greenfield’s) seems to have barely used it at all, while Thoresby used it more than anywhere else (Appendix 2, I would like to thank Dr David Robinson for sharing his ongoing work, undertaken in preparation for a forthcoming Canterbury and York Society edition of a section of Melton’s register.

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Table 1.9).180 Another significant change was the abandonment of the less frequented rural manors at Bishop Monkton, Bishop Wilton, Otley and Old Sherburn and the near abandonment of Laneham. These would never be used again as administrative centres for the archbishops. By contrast, Bishop Burton (near Beverley, ERY ) and Ripon (WRY ) were significant centres under Zouche for diocesan administration, while Thoresby’s administration was almost entirely based in Bishopthorpe, Cawood and London. To a perhaps significant extent, all the centres in Nottinghamshire (Laneham, Scrooby and Southwell) were used primarily for the registration of records relating to the archdeaconry of Nottingham, intensifying a trend already apparent under Greenfield. This brings us to our last four archbishops – Neville, Arundel, Waldby and Scrope. Arundel and Waldby (1388–98) were almost entirely absent from their diocese and the records in the registers of their vicars-general were overwhelmingly dated in York, although there are signs of administrative centres active at the other minsters of Beverley, Ripon and Southwell too (Appendix 2, Table 1.9). The near absence of records dated at Cawood and Bishopthorpe is particularly striking. Clearly these were centres that functioned only when an archbishop was present. Neville and Scrope were both resident in the diocese for periods of time. Registered records under Neville were dated primarily at Cawood, although Southwell and, to a lesser extent, Scrooby continued as regional centres for the archdeaconry of Nottingham (Appendix 2, Table 1.9). Under Scrope a slightly wider range of archiepiscopal residences came back into use including Bishop Burton and Scrooby. The relative lack of use of Bishopthorpe (at least compared with Melton and Thoresby) is notable. The new centre that appears is Rest Park near Sherburn in Elmet. This was an interesting development.181 Sherburn had been a manorial centre of the archbishops’ since before the Norman Conquest and the old hall occupied a site next to the parish church and original marketplace. However, it had not been used much by earlier fourteenth-century archbishops for ecclesiastical administration and had fallen out of use altogether by 1340. A new fortified residence was licenced and constructed at Rest Park, a hunting lodge to the east of Sherburn, for Neville after 1383 and there is some indication of its use as a centre for archiepiscopal administration under both Neville and Arundel. But it is with the revival of archiepiscopal administration (or at least of the surviving records) under Scrope that it emerges as a significant administrative centre for the diocese. For Thoresby’s new building work at Bishopthorpe, see Chapter 8, this volume. For more on the development of Rest Park, see Chapter 9 by John Lee, this volume.

180 181

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Our final category was the Significations of Excommunication sent from the diocese to Westminster (or to the royal Chancery) for action against excommunicates (Appendix 3, Figure 1.9). Overall, this reflects the pattern found in the registers with the exception that a larger proportion of records were dated in Westminster and York. We can therefore be confident that the same major centres of archiepiscopal administration were used for all kinds of administrative business but that in this case the type of business undertaken in the archbishop’s house in Westminster was in part determined by its proximity to the main administrative base of royal power. Overall, therefore, what we can trace in the fourteenth century is a gradual decline in the movement of the archbishops’ household and its settlement on a smaller number of administrative centres. The most significant change occurred mid-century under Zouche and Thoresby between 1342 and 1373 but the retreat was already noticeable under Melton. This reflects a similar pattern of concentration on a smaller number of larger residences by the English Crown and among the English lay and ecclesiastical aristocracy in the fourteenth century. The Bishops of Winchester similarly reduced the number of houses they used by 50% to just twelve, of which only six were used regularly for administrative business.182 The changing patterns in the use of centres had some consequences for the curation of the records themselves. The first thing we note is a greater tendency towards regionality in the functioning of some centres. At the beginning of our period the smallest houses were more likely to be used for the dating of records relating to the archdeaconry in which they were located and throughout the century the houses in Nottinghamshire became increasingly focused on processing business relating to that same county, although Scrooby (conveniently located right on the Great North Road) emerged as a more important centre again under Scrope (1398–1405). During vacancies and prolonged absences of archbishops York was the main administrative centre but there are also some signs by the end of the century of the emergence of other such regional centres, such as Bishop Burton (ERY), Ripon (WRY) and Southwell (Notts) (Appendix 2, Table 1.9). Bishopthorpe went in and out of favour with different archbishops, finding greatest favour under Greenfield, Melton and Thoresby. There are some signs that it was used as a centre for the administration of temporalities in particular, and its relative abandonment after 1373 may partly explain why those sections disappeared from the registers after Thoresby’s death. By contrast, Cawood remained a J. Hare, ‘Why so many houses? The varied functions of the episcopal residences of the see of Winchester, c. 1130–1680’, in Princes of the Church, pp. 195–215 (at pp. 200–1).

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major administrative centre throughout our century and was the centre where the most ‘Significations of Excommunication’ were dated. It was there, of course, in 1368 that Hawise’s marital separation agreement was confirmed. It emerges therefore as the most permanent centre of archiepiscopal administration and is sometimes recorded as the base of senior officials.183 Even Cawood, however, seems to have remained in use only during periods when an archbishop was in office and permanently resident in his diocese. Under the largely absent Arundel and totally absent Waldby it was little used. Although a robust administration had developed that could manage every aspect of the archbishop’s business by delegation, and his chancery did not necessarily move totally in step with him,184 his presence still influenced the location of his household administrators. When Alexander Neville became archbishop in 1374, his temporalities were restored on 4 June while he was resident in Clavering in Essex (an ancestral estate from his mother’s side of the family). For the first few months of his archiepiscopacy nearly all records, distributed across several different sections of his register, were either dated there or in London, while by mid-November he was in Nottinghamshire on his way up to York for his enthronement on 18 December.185 Certainly therefore archiepiscopal actions and choices influenced the movements of his administrators. And in this fashion and lifestyle also played a part. Cawood remained an official centre but later archbishops from Neville onwards preferred their new house at Rest Park with its easy access to a hunting park (and the always convenient Scrooby) to the (by then) older and possibly somewhat damp Bishopthorpe Palace on the banks of the Ouse. The larger administrative centres were all concentrated in the wealthier lowland and southern regions of the province of York.186 This is the very region from which John Grassi and Paul Dryburgh note that the majority of archiepiscopal administrators were drawn.187 We can therefore suggest that it is probable that the reach and impact of archiepiscopal administration was largely centred in that sub-region. Were the demands on registration services as regional as the recruitment of administrative staff was? This argument needs to be fully developed through an analysis of the places from which people sought BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 7, fol. 54v, entry 7. Hoskin, ‘How to travel’. 185 BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 12. 186 Although not analysed in detail here it is clear that by the time of Zouche (1342– 52) Bishop Burton had also emerged as a significant place of registration for business relating to the East Riding of Yorkshire as well as its role in diocesan administration; BIA, YDA/2/Reg.10, fols. 175–213. 187 See Dryburgh, in this volume, pp. 83–4. 183 184

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engagement with archiepiscopal processes: a significant project but one that is likely to demonstrate the uneven reach of ecclesiastical governance. Some of the examples that we have chosen during this chapter, such as the marital separation of the Boltons or the benefice at Kirk Bramwith, do indeed fall within this same lowland region, but does this reflect a wider pattern? If this were so, the implications could be very significant in relation to understanding patterns of lay engagement with the Church.188 Were there distinctive patterns between towns and countryside, perhaps particularly between minster towns and others? All this is suggestive of new research questions for the future. Most significantly, the relative withdrawal of the archiepiscopal administration from much of their diocese came at the same time as there was greater investment in the image-making of the archbishops as historic saintly northern leaders from Cuthbert to William, Paulinus and Wilfrid to Scrope.189 The administrative retreat from local society and perhaps declining knowledge of the actual north was replaced by a nostalgic and somewhat utopian image of a golden northern age. Whether that made the archbishops (and specifically Scrope) more inspiring figureheads is a question for another day.

Conclusions

This chapter has aimed to provide a context for new users of the archbishops’ registers and to indicate some of the new approaches that we can take as a result of the digitisation of the records and the creation of freely searchable indices to them. Earlier scholars, such as Alexander Hamilton Thompson, provided thorough descriptions of the extent of archiepiscopal jurisdiction, which we have both summarised and extended here. However, they were less likely to ask how and why registered records were created and used. Also, Thompson’s knowledge of and admiration for the administration of Greenfield, our first archbishop, was immense but his knowledge of the later registers was weaker, and he tended to be more disparaging of later archbishops, even Thoresby, whose register contains exceptionally interesting materials. Since Thompson’s time the registers of Waldby and Scrope and several parts of Melton’s have been calendared in print but all others from our period remain unpublished

For a discussion of the significance of place in relation to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, see Forrest, Trustworthy Men, pp. 209–20. 189 S. Rees Jones, ‘Debating authority between church and state: BL Harley MS 1808 and the legacy of the execution of Archbishop Richard Scrope in the medieval north of England’, in Normativa y autoridad en la ciudad medieval atlántica (y más allá), ed. J. Haemers and J. Solórzano Telechea (Logrono, 2022), pp. 93–116. 188

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in any form.190 Our statistical analysis of all the registers from 1304–1405 therefore enables us a more substantial insight into the nature and practice of registration than even Thompson was able to achieve. In brief, we can see that the archbishops’ registers supported a system of administration that facilitated the archbishops’ desire to delegate powers and responsibilities without delegating their authority, and for their pool of officials to develop a shared set of administrative values and procedures. Over the century the hierarchy of senior officials exercising these powers was refined and strengthened and they developed a greater autonomy in the exercise of their offices. The emergence of a permanent vicar-general after 1353 and the combination of his office with that of other core administrators such as the official and the chancellor was a particularly notable concentration of power. The occupation of not only these positions but also similar positions in the many peculiars and suffragan sees by a relatively small number of canon lawyers who moved between posts and fulfilled multiple roles simultaneously also meant that power was often more concentrated in practice across the province than it appeared to be in theory. Nevertheless, the fragmented structures of the diocese provided plenty of opportunities for individuals to attempt to ring fence their positions and develop rivalries over jurisdiction, on occasion, if they so wished. As Forrest has argued, and Dryburgh’s chapter in this volume evidences, the exercise of power was based on personal choices and circumstances, and provincial administration was far from functioning as a smooth machine. The archbishops’ response to this was, on the one hand, always to guard against potential actual fragmentation by continually asserting their right to visitation, even when success seemed against the odds, and on the other to reserve their personal participation for some of the most acute cases involving expressions of conscience and faith. This refinement of the administrative hierarchy coincided both with a substantial reduction in the number of physical centres used for administration and with a decline in the range and volume of records copied into the registers. These developments were interlinked and arguably represented a shift in the perceived value of registration. Indeed, even as official registrations were becoming less systematic, there is evidence for the growing use of the registers by both the clergy and laity in recognition of their evidential value (and for a wide range of business from the market in clerical benefices to matters relating to marriage and probate). Was responsiveness to public demand replacing official impetuses in the practice of archiepiscopal registration?

See Bibliography, in this volume, pp. 309–12.

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Scholars, such as Forrest and Kane, have recently explored in depth how local laity became well versed in ecclesiastical administrative procedures and used them for their own purposes.191 This provides an exemplary context for our sample registration of Hawise Bolton’s separation agreement in 1368. As minor landowners Hawise and Robert were clearly of the ‘middling sort’ that were most likely to resort to using the church courts.192 We may never know the full truth of the dispute between them, but only how they decided to use the archbishop’s court and present their case to it. This formal procedure followed the intervention of their unnamed friends and the clerical proctor John de Ashton. So, no doubt, previous conversations among this group had included not only the circumstances of the marriage but also how to get the best out of the ecclesiastical procedures and what their risks and benefits were. In this way, social knowledge of archiepiscopal registration became embedded in both lay and clerical culture.193 The registers of the archbishops of York can give us an insight into a very wide range of social history in addition to their value as a source for understanding ecclesiastical administration and administrators. Indeed, contemporaries valued and exploited them precisely because they bridged that imagined divide between Church and society, enabling one to subsist through the other. Our digitisation and indexing of these records will now allow those questions to be pursued in more substance.

Forrest, Trustworthy Men; Kane, Popular Memory. P. J. P. Goldberg, ‘Fiction in the archives: the York cause papers as a source for later medieval social history’, Continuity and Change 12/3 (1997), 425–45 (at p. 429); C. Donahue, Law, Marriage and Society in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2009), p. 65. 193 The role of friends in resolving marital disputes is discussed in S. McSheffrey, ‘Men and Masculinity in late medieval London Civic Culture: Civic Culture Governance, Patriarchy and Reputation’, in Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, ed. J. Murray (London, 1999), pp. 243–78 (at pp. 250–1); Butler, The Language of Abuse, pp. 198–201. 191 192

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Appendix 1. The case between Hawise and Robert Bolton, 1368. Transcribed and translated by Shelagh Sneddon BIA, YDA, Reg. 11, fol.187v, entry 3. Concordia facta int(er) Rob(er)tum de Bolton’ (et) Hawysiam vx(or)em sua(m) Me(moran)d(um) q(uo)d orta nup(er) dissensionis mat(er)ia int(er) Rob(er)tum de Bolton’ de yaresthorp’ Ebor’ dioc(esis) (et) Hawysiam vx(or)em sua(m) s(upe)r eo q(uo)d p(re)fata Hawysia in comitiua p(re)fati mariti sui / p(ro)pt(er) nimiam seuicia(m) eiusde(m) morari vt ass(er)uit non audebat / p(re)fata Hawysia petiit a reu(erendo) in (christ)o p(at)re (et) d(omi)no d(omi)no Ioh(ann)e dei gr(aci)a Ebor’ Archiep(iscop)o porc(i)o(n)em congruam ip(s)am de bonis eo(run)dem co(mmun)ib(us) contingentem / p(ro) suis victu (et) vestitu / sibi vt conuenit assignari / vt possit morari seorsum a comitiua eiusdem Rob(er)ti / de(m)um post tractatus varios h(ab)itos int(er) eosdem / ad mediac(i)o(n)em com(m)uniu(m) amicor(um) suor(um) / p(re)fati Rob(er)tus (et) Hawysia concordaru(n)t (et) consenseru(n)t / sub hac forma / videl(ice)t q(uo)d p(re)fata Hawysia moram trahet seorsum extra comitiua(m) eiusde(m) Rob(er)ti in loco quem dux(er)it eligend(um) p(re)t(er)q(ua)m in villa de malton (et) locis aliis in man(er)io d(i)c(t)i Rob(er)ti ap(u)d yaresthorp’ p(ro)pinquis p(er) t(ri)ennui(m) extunc immediate p(ro)x(imo) sequencium / (et) q(uo)d non int(er)im impet(er)et accusaret v(e)l molestaret d(i)c(tu)m Rob(er)tum cor(am) aliquo iudice occ(asi)one discenc(i)o(n)is memorat(e) / (et) q(uo)d d(i)c(t)us Rob(er)tus soluet d(i)c(t)e Hawysie v(e)l Ioh(ann)i de Essheton’ que(m) d(i)c(t)a Hawysia ibidem loco suo ad id no(m)i(n)auit (et) deputauit sing(u)lis annis d(i)c(t)i triennij duodecim m(ar)cas argenti ad festa s(an)c(t)i martini in yeme (et) Pent(ecostis) p(er) equales porc(i)o(n)es / v(e)l infra quindena(m) vtrumq(ue) f(estu)m p(re)d(i)c(tu)m inmediate secutur(am) sine vlt(er)iori dilac(i)o(n)e Et subse(quen)t(er) p(re)fati Rob(er)tus (et) Hawysia cor(am) d(i)c(t)o reu(erendo) p(at)re (et)c(etera) in Cam(er)a sua p(ri)ncipali apud Cawode sexto die mens(is) December(is) A(nn)o (et)c(etera) lxviij. Ind(iccione) septi(m)a Pont(ificatus) s(an)c(t)issimi in (christ)o p(at)ris (et) d(omi)ni n(ost)ri d(omi)ni Vrbani di(uin)a p(ro)uidencia p(a)pe quinti anno septi(m)o p(ersonali)t(er) comp(ar)ueru(n)t / (et) concordie h(u)i(usmodi) cor(am) d(i)c(t)o reu(erendo) p(at)re (et) pl(u)rib(us) aliis astantib(us) recitate vt p(re)mittitur mutuo in sing(u)lis consenseru(n)t / et ad maiorem securitatem p(re)missor(um) hincinde parand(am) p(re)fati Rob(er)tus (et) Hawysia ibidem cor(am) d(i)c(t)o Reu(eren)do p(at)re videl(ice)t d(i)c(t)us Rob(er)tus

62   Sarah Rees Jones

de soluendo fidel(ite)r p(re)d(i)c(t)as duodecim m(a)rc(as) t(ermin)is (et) loco de quib(us) p(re)mittit(ur) eidem Hawysie seu p(re)fato deputato suo durante d(i)c(t)o t(ri)ennio / et d(i)c(t)a Hawysia de obs(er)uando (et) adimplendo om(n)ia (et) sing(u)la sup(ra)d(i)c(t)a quatenus eam conc(er)nunt / iuramenta ad s(an)c(t)a dei Ewangelia p(er) eos corporalit(er) visa (et) tacta / p(re)stiterunt / ad quor(um) iuramentor(um) obs(er)uancia(m) / p(er) p(re)cepti s(e)n(tenc)iam / p(re)fati Rob(er)tus (et) Hawysia iudicial(ite)r ibidem extit(er)ant condempnati / iuravit insup(er) d(i)c(t)us Rob(er)tus statim ibidem q(uo)d solueret d(i)c(t)e Hawysie infra xiiijcim dies p(ro)x(imo) tunc sequ(entes) sex marc(as) p(ro) t(erm)i(n)o s(an)c(t)i martini p(ro)x(imo) tu(n)c p(re)cedenti p(ro) p(ri)ma soluc(i)o(n)e d(i)c(t)i trienij Act(a) (et)c(etera) Pres(entibus) discretis viris mag(ist)ris I. de Walth(a)m Offic(iali) (et)c(etera) I de Irford’ Canc(ellario) (et)c(etera) (et) N de Burton’ registr(ario) The agreement made between Robert de Bolton and Hawise his wife. Be it remembered that material for dispute having recently arisen between Robert de Bolton of Yaresthorpe [Easthorpe] in the diocese of York and Hawise his wife, over the fact that the aforesaid Hawise did not dare to remain in company with her aforesaid husband, as she claimed, because of his very great cruelty, the aforesaid Hawise asked the reverend father and lord in Christ, lord John, by the grace of God archbishop of York, that an appropriate portion, belonging to herself, of their common goods, might be assigned to her for her food and clothing appropriate, so that she might live apart from the company of the same Robert. At length, after various discussions had taken place between them, with the mediation of their common friends, the aforesaid Robert and Hawise agreed and consented to this form: namely that the aforesaid Hawise will live apart, away from the company of the same Robert in a place that she will choose, other than in the town of Malton and other places nearby, in the said Robert’s manor at Easthorpe, for three years beginning immediately, and that during that time she will not attack, accuse or harass the said Robert before any judge, by reason of the aforementioned dispute; and that the said Robert will pay the said Hawise, or John de Essheton’ [Ashton], whom the said Hawise named and deputed there for this in her place, twelve silver marks every year of the said three years, at the feasts of St Martin in winter and Pentecost in equal portions; or within the fifteen days immediately following either of the aforesaid feasts, without further delay. And subsequently the aforesaid Robert and Hawise appeared in person before the said reverend father etc., in his principal chamber at Cawood, on the sixth day of the month of December in the year etc. 68, in the seventh indiction, in the seventh year of the pontificate of our most holy father and lord in Christ,

The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405   6 3

lord Urban the fifth, pope by divine providence, and consented mutually to each article of this agreement, read as appears above before the said reverend father and many others standing by. And to provide greater security for the aforesaid on either side, the aforesaid Robert and Hawise took oaths there before the said reverend father on the holy Gospels of God, physically seen and touched by them: namely the said Robert that he would faithfully pay the aforesaid twelve marks to the same Hawise or her aforesaid deputy at the terms and place laid out above, during the said three years, and the said Hawise that she would observe and fulfil all and each of the aforesaid, insofar as they concern her; to the observation of which oaths, by the sentence of the precept, the aforesaid Robert and Hawise there judicially stood condemned. Furthermore, the said Robert swore there and then that he would pay the said Hawise six marks within the following fourteen days for the term of St Martin immediately past, for the first payment of the said three years. Done etc. in the presence of the discreet men masters J. de Waltham, the Official etc., J. de Irford, the Chancellor etc., and N. de Burton, registrar.

64   Sarah Rees Jones

Appendix 2. Tables Table 1.1. List of sections found in archbishops’ registers in the fourteenth century. Archdeaconry of Cleveland

Business relating to this part of the diocese of York in North Yorkshire.

Archdeaconry of Nottingham Business relating to this part of the diocese of York in Nottinghamshire. Archdeaconry of Richmond Archdeaconry of the East Riding of Yorkshire Archdeaconry of York Diverse Jurisdictions

Chapters Diverse letters

Extra diocesim Miscellaneous Officiality

Ordinations Suffragans Testamentary Vicar-general

Business relating to this part of the diocese of York in parts of North Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland. Business relating to this part of the diocese of York in East Yorkshire.

Business relating to this part of the diocese of York in the City of York and part of West Yorkshire. Business relating to other areas over which the archbishop had personal jurisdiction: (North) Allerton and Allertonshire; Howden and Howdenshire; Hexham, Northumberland (Diocese of Durham); Churchdown, Gloucestershire (Diocese of Worcester).

Business relating to the chapters of the minster churches of York, Beverley, Ripon and Southwell.

Unclassified by clerks (including correspondence). Business completed while the archbishop was out of the diocese. Unclassified by clerks.

Business related to the work of the ‘Official’, a senior officer of the archbishop. Records of ordination to the four holy orders: acolyte, subdeacon, deacon or priest. Business relating to suffragan bishops (those assisting the archbishop, for example in ordinations).

Business relating to the probate and execution of last wills and testaments.

Business carried out by the vicar-general acting as deputy to the archbishop.

The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405   6 5 Visitations

Business relating to visitations, of the clergy and people of the province of York, and of some religious houses.

Ballive

Business relating to the bailiwicks (‘ballive’) or manors of the archbishops and their officials.

Homages Intrinseca camere Occasional Sections

Admissions, Friars Condemnations

Homages paid by tenants on archiepiscopal estates.

Business relating to the archbishop’s household, estates and finances. Reg. 10 and Reg. 11. Admission of friars as penitentiaries.

Reg. 10. Records of payments ordered to be made for debts.

Catechism

Reg. 11. Records relating to the teaching of the catechism.

Fees Heads of Religious Houses Synodal Statutes

Vacancy, Carlisle

Reg. 9B. Fifteenth-century notes on fees for producing documents. Reg. 11. Relating to Whitby Abbey.

Reg. 10. Relating to a synod held by Greenfield at Ripon in 1306. Reg. 14. Business executed by the vicar-general during a vacancy in the diocese of Carlisle.

Table 1.2. Numbers of loose documents inserted into registers (mean average per annum). Register

Register 7 (1306–11) Register 8 (1311–15)

Registers 9 and 9B (1317–40)

Registers 10 and 10A (1342–52) Register 11 (1352–73)

Registers 12–16 (1373–1405)

Number of inserted documents 168 – average of 33.6 p.a. 55 – average of 13.75 p.a. 146 – average of 6.34 p.a. 27 – average of 2.7 p.a. 19 – average of 0.9 p.a. 0

66   Sarah Rees Jones

Vac 1304–06

31

18

29

22

2

1

0

Total

Vicar-general**

Diverse Jurisdictions

Adn Richmond

Adn Cleveland

Adn ERY

Adn Nott

Adn York

Table 1.3. Numbers of records in surviving registers of the archbishops of York, 1304–1405; archdeaconries, diverse jurisdictions and vicars-general.*

103

Greenfield

735

735

509

408

121

32

121

2661

Melton

1334

949

749

530

179

122

60

3923

Zouche

693

547

375

230

135

41

24

2045

Thoresby

855

514

425

261

63

50

0

2168

Neville

242

199

158

103

33

45

35

815

Arundel

0

0

0

0

0

0

554

554

0

168

168

Vac 1315–17 Vac 1340–42 Vac 1353 Vacancy Vacancy

Vac 1397

Waldby

Vac 1398 Scrope

98

61 0

0 0 0

0 0

218

4267

59

58 0

0 0 0

0 0

170

3249

46

20 0

0 0 0

0 0

122

2433

37

16 0

0 0 0

0 0

47

1654

10 4

0

0 0 0

0 0

16

563

6 3

0 0

0

318

0

0

0 0

0

41

341

0

52

170 89

1591

256

162

318 0 0

52

170

703

14098

* Sources for Table 1.3 and Table 1.4: BIA, YDA/2/Reg. 5A, 7–12, 14–16; YMA, L1/2 vol. 1, section ii, pp. 3–21; BL, Cotton MS Galba E x, fols. 91–120, 121–30. ** The register of the vicar-general for Thoresby is lost, as is part of the vicar-general’s register for Neville.

The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405   6 7

0

0

0

0

5

0

827

531

63

69 124

Melton

522

127 194 1557

719

61

107

Zouche

299

90

72

102

131

12

Thoresby

608

0

14

187

245

Neville

96

0

0

0

0

Arundel

0

Vac 1340–42

Vac 1353

Vac

Vacancy

Vac 1397

Waldby

Vac 1398

Scrope

26

31 0

0

0

0

0

0

71

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

11

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

3

9

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

280 311

0

86

2

53

0

0

0

0

36

0

0

67

255

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

203 0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

81

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

TOTAL

45

210 222

ordinations

0

388

testamentary

0

Greenfield

Vac 1315–17

extra diocesim

0

diverse letters

0

0

visitations

20

0

homages

0

0

ballive

0

intrinseca camere

0

miscellaneous

2

suffragans

Vac 1304–06

officiality

chapters

Table 1.4. Numbers of Records in surviving registers of the archbishops of York 1304–1405; common sections other than archdeaconries.*

47

0

2434

1

3879

0

0

0

0

0

426 146

49

45

1364 0

0

163

1310

0

56

474

0

11

11

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

77

0

0

0

553 39

1741 731 533 2673 1638 136 415 193 805 311 503 969

0

0

0

756

279

10648

* In addition, Register 11 (Thoresby) has eight entries relating to the catechism, and Register 14 (Arundel’s vicar-general) has five entries relating to a vacancy in the diocese of Carlisle.

68   Sarah Rees Jones

Table 1.5. Average number of registrations per annum, 1304–1405.

Register

Greenfield (1306–15)

Total number of registrations

Average number of registrations per annum (rounded to nearest whole number)*

7802

339

5095

Melton (1317–40)

Zouche (1342–52)

566

3413

Thoresby (1353–73)

341

3478

Neville (1374–88)

166

1289

Arundel (1388–96)

128

565

Waldby (1397–8)

47

168

Scrope (1398–1405)

84

982

Total (all registers including vacancies)

140

24,750

245

* In all tables mean averages are calculated by dividing the number of surviving registered records by the number of years covered by the register sections, not by the number of years the archbishop was in office. Numbers are then rounded to the nearest whole integer.

Table 1.6. Average registrations per annum (three sections relating to temporalities).

Greenfield Melton

Zouche

Thoresby

After 1373

Intrinseca Camere

Ballive

Homages

71

31

3

92

10 10 0

59

13 13 0

7 1 1 0

The Administrative Records of the Archbishops of York, 1304–1405   6 9

Suffragans

Misc

Visitations

43

23

25

8

62

Zouche

30

9

7

0

0

Melton

23

Thoresby

6

55

Neville

0

7

Arundel

0

Waldby

10

5

4

0