We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2014
During the later Middle Ages in England both church and state were multiplying their pretensions and powers. The growth of spiritual and temporal administration alike depended upon the availability of bureaucrats willing and able to serve the two powers in the fields of finance, law, administration, and diplomacy. In the absence of cash for paying for services of this kind, popes, prelates, and princes developed means for subsidizing their civil services from sources of revenue to which they were able to invent and enforce claims. This reliance upon the community of the clergy for official service and upon benefices of the church for their maintenance and compensation had the effect of coloring certain ecclesiastical offices down to the Reformation. Prebendal canonries, archdeaconries, and even parish churches came to be viewed more and more as simply sources of emolument — as sinecures to be bestowed upon members of the clergy for the performance of services other than those demanded by the offices given them. For identical reasons English kings, Roman popes, and native prelates laid claim to a variety of ecclesiastical offices and the revenues attached to them in order to obtain the services and skills without which neither church nor state could function effectively in the increasingly complex world of the later Middle Ages. All of this is, of course, well known, and modern scholars have explored rather thoroughly the composition and growth of royal and ecclesiastical administration and the major ways in which each was subsidized.
1. The term is from Pantin, W. A., The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1955), p. 30Google Scholar.
2. For an explanation of the association of papal reformism and episcopal visitation of the diocese, see Cheney, C. R., Episcopal Visitation of Monasteries in the Thirteenth Century (Manchester, 1931), pp. 17 ffGoogle Scholar. See also Gibbs, M. and Lang, J., Bishops and Reform, 1215-1272, with Special Reference to the Vatican Council of 1215 (London, 1934), p. 151Google Scholar.
3. Styles, D., “The Early History of the King's Chapels in Staffordshire,” Birmingham Archaeological Journal, Transactions and Proceedings, LX (1936), 56 ff.Google Scholar
4. Calendared by Potthast, A. (ed.), Regesta Pontificum Romanorum (Berlin, 1874–1875), No. 4911Google Scholar; printed by Wilkins, D. (ed.), Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (London, 1737), II, 499–500Google Scholar.
5. Article 46 of the grievances presented to the King in 1295, in Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R. (eds.), Councils & Synods, with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, II, A.D. 1203-1313 (Oxford, 1964), p. 1146Google Scholar.
6. For St. Mary's, Hastings, see Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1272-81, p. 9Google Scholar, and ibid., 1281-92, pp. 362, 505; for St. Oswald's, Gloucester, Calendar of Close Rolls, 1302-07, pp. 87, 88Google Scholar.
7. Pantin, , English Church, p. 30Google Scholar.
8. In 1342 the King presented a clerk to the prebend of Tamworth vacated during the period of royal guardianship of the temporalities of the heir of a tenant in chief. C.P.R., 1340-43, p. 515.
9. C.C.R., 1313-18, p. 596.
10. For Scarborough, , see Calendar of Chancery Warrants, 1244-1326, p. 386Google Scholar; for St. Buryan's, Cornwall, C.P.R., 1354-58, p. 636Google Scholar; for St. Mary's, Guernsey, ibid., 1358-61, p. 448; for St. Thomas Martyr, Bedford Bridge, ibid., p. 252; for St. Mary Graces by the Tower, ibid., 1350-54, p. 465.
11. Thompson, A. Hamilton, The English Clergy and Their Organization in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947), p. 81Google Scholar, and “Notes on Colleges of Secular Canons,” Archaeological Journal, LXXIV (1917), 139–239Google Scholar.
12. Styles, , “King's Chapels in Staffordshire,” Birmingham Arch. Jour., LX, 63–13Google Scholar. Ibid.,
13. LX, 66-67.
14. Ibid., LX, 71. See also Styles, D., “The Early History of Penkridge Church,” Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 1950-51 [Staffordshire Record Society], pp. 1–52Google Scholar.
15. C.P.R., 1381-85, p. 537. See also ibid., p. 362; ibid., 1385-89, pp. 123, 367.
16. Thompson, A. Hamilton, “The Jurisdiction of the Archbishops of York in Gloucestershire with Some Notes on the History of the Priory of St. Oswald at Gloucester,” Transactions of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, XLIII (1921), 89 ff.Google Scholar
17. Ibid., XLIII, 140-50.
18. Thompson, , English Clergy, p. 82Google Scholar and n. 6.
19. In 1313 the bishop of Chichester was warned not to try to exercise his jurisdiction over Bosham church, since it belonged to the bishop of Exeter. C.C.W., 1244-1326, p, 390. This was the subject of a case heard before the king's bench in Trinity term, 1323. Sayles, G. O. (ed.), Select Cases in the Court of King's Bench under Edward II [Selden Society](London, 1957), IV, 111–22Google Scholar. See also Thompson, , “Colleges of Secular Canons,” Archaeological Journal, LXXIV, 189Google Scholar.
20. Dawson, C., History of Hastings Castle (London, 1909), I, 21Google Scholar.
21. Ibid., I, 85, 107.
22. Styles notes that secular jurisdiction was granted the pre-Conquest free chapels. Styles, , “King's Chapels in Staffordshire,” Birmingham Arch. Jour., LX, 65Google Scholar.
23. Thompson's efforts to distinguish particular churches falling into these two categories are not entirely clear. Thompson, , English Clergy, pp. 81–82Google Scholar.
24. Powicke, F. M., The Thirteenth Century, 1216-1307 (Oxford, 1953), pp. 450–55Google Scholar; Callus, D. A. (ed.), Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop: Essays in Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of His Death (Oxford, 1955), pp. 151 ff.Google Scholar
25. Douie, D., Archbishop Pecham (Oxford, 1952), pp. 147–49Google Scholar; Graham, R. (ed.), Registrum Roberti Winchelsey Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, A.D. 1294-1313 (Oxford, 1952–1956), I, xiv–xviGoogle Scholar; Churchill, I. J., Canterbury Administration: The Administrative Machinery of the Archbishopric of Canterbury Illustrated from Original Records (London, 1933), I, 84–85Google Scholar.
26. For a survey of the spectacular disputes between bishops and their cathedral chapters over the right of visitation in the thirteenth and fourteen centuries, see Edwards, K., English Secular Cathedrals in the Middle Ages: a Constitutional Study with Special Reference to the Fourteenth Century (Manchester, 1949), pp. 128–34Google Scholar.
27. Shirley, W. (ed.), Royal and Other Historical Letters Illustrative of the Reign of Henry III (London, 1862–1866), II, 60–61Google Scholar.
28. Powicke, and Cheney, , Councils & Synods, pp. 446–47Google Scholar.
29. Rymer, T. (ed.), Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae (London, 1816–1869), I, Pt. 1, 261Google Scholar. The Pope wrote to the archdeacon of Stafford ordering him not to exact procurations from the collegiate church at Bridgnorth, “quae ipsius Regis specialis existit, et in quam nullam jurisdictionem obtinet ordinariam, vel etiam delegatam, ab ipsa procurationem extorquere nititur, earn interdicere, ac ipsius capellanos suspendere at excommunicare praesumit, in ejusdem Regis praejudicium et gravamen.”
30. For the nature and history of the prohibitory writ, see Flahiff, G. B., “The Use of Prohibitions by Clerics against Ecclesiastical Courts in England,” Mediaeval Studies, III (1941), 101–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Writ of Prohibition to Court Christian in the Thirteenth Century,” ibid., VI (1944), 261-313, and VII (1945), 229-90. For comments on the use of the prohibition to curtail canonical justice and the gravamina of the English clergy, see Jones, W. R., “Bishops, Politics, and the Two Laws: the Gravamina of the English Clergy, 1237-1399,” Speculum, XLI (1966), 209–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an example of a general prohibition against persons opposing the king's collation to the deanery of a free chapel, see C.P.R., 1327-30, p. 183.
31. Powicke, and Cheney, , Councils & Synods, pp. 687–88Google Scholar (article 3).
32. Douie, , Archbishop Pecham, pp. 48, 95 ff.Google Scholar
33. Ibid., pp. 145-49.
34. Ibid., p. 150.
35. Ibid., p. 146.
36. For correspondence between Pecham and the King, see Martin, C. T. (ed.), Registrum Epistolarum Fratris Johannis Peckham, Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis (London, 1882–1885), I, 109, 111–13, 130–32, 147–50, 178–79, 179–80, 180–81, 181–83, 183–84, 184–85Google Scholar.
37. Powicke, and Cheney, , Councils & Synods, pp. 853–54Google Scholar. The editors ascribe the document to Robert Burnell. Ibid., p. 855, n. 1. Its importance has been noted by Powicke, F. M., King Henry III and the Lord Edward (Oxford, 1947), II, 715–16Google Scholar; also Pantin, , English Church, pp. 45–46Google Scholar.
38. Henry III obtained papal bulls in 1247 and 1252 permitting his clerks not to reside in their benefices. Rymer, , Foedera, IGoogle Scholar, Pt. 2, 268, 285. In 1289 Edward I obtained indults from Pope Nicholas IV allowing thirty of his clerks to enjoy exemption from residence and from the necessity of proceeding to higher orders. Calendar of Papal Registers, Letters, I, 503, 505, 507Google Scholar. The King extended his protection to Exchequer clerks who refused to answer to citation by their superiors. Powicke, and Cheney, , Councils & Synods, p. 879Google Scholar (article 10 of the gravamina).
39. For Winchelsey's attitude toward exemption from ordinary jurisdiction, see Graham, , Registrum R. Winchelsey, I, xiv–xviGoogle Scholar; Graham, R., “The Metropolitan Visitation of the Diocese of Worcester by Archbishop Winchelsey in 1301,” Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc., fourth series, II (1919), 59–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
40. Sayles, G. O. (ed.), Select Cases in the Court of King's Bench under Edward I [Selden Society] (London, 1936–1939), III, 138–47Google Scholar. See also Graham, , Registrum R. Winchelsey, I, xxGoogle Scholar; II, 810.
41. Churchill, , Canterbury Administration, I, 85Google Scholar.
42. Graham, , Registrum R. Winchelsey, I, xxGoogle Scholar; C.C.R., 1302-07, p. 72.
43. Graham, , Registrum R. Winchelsey, I, xxiGoogle Scholar. For Edward's statement of exemption, see C.P.R., 1301-07, p. 397.
44. Sayles, , Select Cases under Edward I, III, 180–90Google Scholar.
45. For Winchelsey's efforts in this direction, see Graham, , Registrum R. Winchelsey, I, xxi–xxiiGoogle Scholar.
46. C.C.R., 1302-07, p. 193; Graham, , Registrum R. Winchelsey, II, 811–12Google Scholar, which is a letter in French, possibly from 1305, excusing certain clerks in the King's service from their duties. Edward had earlier forbidden Archbishop Pecham from proceeding against his clerks for nonresidence. Martin, , Registrum J. Peckham, I, 252–53Google Scholar.
47. Graham, , Registrum R. Winchelsey, I, xxiiGoogle Scholar.
48. Powicke, and Cheney, , Councils & Synods, pp. 687–88Google Scholar (article 3).
49. See evidence discussed by Dawson, , Hastings Castle, I, 114Google Scholar and notes.
50. C.P.R., 1281-92, p. 463.
51. Ibid., p. 505.
52. Sayles, , Select Cases under Edward I, III, 180–90Google Scholar.
53. C.P.R., 1307-13, pp. 408, 428, 489; Dawson, , Hastings Castle, I, 171Google Scholar and notes. The bishop of Chichester enjoyed his right for the remainder of the century. See C.P.R., 1385-89, p. 378.
54. Powicke, and Cheney, , Councils & Synods, p. 1208Google Scholar. Complaining against the induction of royal candidates by laymen, the prelates asked that the King adduce proof of the exemption of the chapels “maxime propter pericula que iminent animabus in beneficiis curatis et etiam sic collatis per clominum regem predictum.”
55. C.P.R., 1348-50, p. 47.
56. Ibid., 1358-61, p. 83.
57. Ibid., 1354-58, p. 95. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the writ, de intendo, was used to command reception of the king's presentee. Ibid., 1232-47, p. 1; ibid., 1324-21, pp. 246, 342. In 1318 the writ, de intendo, was sent to the knights, free men, and tenants of the chapel. Ibid., 1317-21, p. 237.
58. Lyndwood, William, Provinciale (Oxford, 1679), pp. 125–26Google Scholar, at Beneficiati, cited by Thompson, , English Clergy, p. 82Google Scholar, n. 5.
59. Howell, M., Regalian Right in Medieval England (London, 1962), pp. 188 ff.Google Scholar
60. Mollat, G., “L'application du droit de régalé spirituelle en France du XIIIe au XIVe siècle,” Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, XXV (1929), 427–31Google Scholar, and Collation des Bénéfices Ecclésiastiques sous les Papes d'Avignon (1305-1378) (Paris, 1921), pp. 304–11Google Scholar.
61. Pantin, , English Church, p. 54Google Scholar.
62. Howell, , Regalian Right, p. 203Google Scholar.
63. Deeley, A., “Papal Provision and Royal Rights of Patronage in the Early Fourteenth Century,” E.H.R., XLIII (1928), 508CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
64. Pantin, , English Church, p. 87Google Scholar.
65. C.C.R., 1302-07, pp. 67, 71.
66. Sayles, , Select Cases under Edward I, III, 120–22Google Scholar.
67. C.P.R., 1334-38, pp. 89, 91-92.
68. Ibid., 1340-43, p. 320; Styles, , “King's Chapels in Staffordshire,” Birmingham Arch. Jour., LX, 93Google Scholar.
69. C.P.R., 1364-67, pp. 204-05.
70. Rymer, , Foedera, IGoogle Scholar, Pt. 1, 261; C.C.R., 1302-07, p. 530.
71. See C.P.R., 1307-13, p. 142, which notes the acquittance by the dean and chapter of Tettenhall for arrears of the tenth imposed by Boniface VIII.
72. Styles, , “Early History of Penkridge Church,” Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 1950–1951, p. 35Google Scholar.
73. Printed in Rymer, , Foedera, IGoogle Scholar, Pt. 1, 261; I, Pt. 2, 979; II, Pt. 1, 74, 322.
74. Wood-Legh, K. L., Studies in Church Life in England under Edward III (Cambridge, 1934), p. 38Google Scholar.
75. C.C.W., 1244-1326, p. 431.
76. C.P.R., 1381-85, p. 342.
77. C.C.R., 1354-60, p. 556.
78. Wood-Legh, , Church Life under Edward III, p. 41Google Scholar.
79. For example, see C.P.R., 1367-70, p. 142, which commissioned an investigation of dilapidations in the free chapels of Bridgnorth, Stafford, Tettenhall, Shrewsbury, and Wolverhampton. See also ibid., 1324-27, p. 146, for an inquest by a jury of the city of London.
80. Cuttino, G. P., “King's Clerks and the Community of the Realm,” Speculum, XXIX (1954), 395–409CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
81. Powicke, , King Henry III, I, 293–97Google Scholar, and II, 715-16, 776-83, and Thirteenth Century, pp. 278-79, 340-41, 458-60.
82. Miller, E., The Abbey and Bishopric of Ely (Cambridge, 1951), p. 266Google Scholar; Pegues, F., “The Clericus in the Legal Administration of Thirteenth-Century England,” E.H.R., LXXI (1956), 529–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
83. For an enumeration of the canonries attached to various chapels, see Thompson, , “College of Secular Canons,” Archaeological Journal, LXXIV, 181 ff.Google Scholar
84. Rymer, , Foedera, IGoogle Scholar, Pt. 2, 980, in a bull of 1306 providing for six “clericis Regis.” See Pantin, , English Church, p. 61Google Scholar. In 1303 Edward I asked Boniface VIII to provide a king's clerk and household servant to a prebend in the church of Perigueux. C.C.R., 1302-07, p. 72.
85. Proceedings against the abbot of Chester at a Parliament in 1292 for refusal to grant a benefice to a king's clerk (Rotuli Parliamentorum, I, 89–90Google Scholar) are cited in Cuttino, , “King's Clerks,” Speculum, XXIX, 409Google Scholar, n. 100.
86. Howell, , Regalian Right, pp. 178, 201Google Scholar. On several occasions in the fourteenth century, the king collated to a free chapel by virtue of his wardship of the estates of tenants in chief of the crown. C.P.R., 1334-38, p. 32; ibid., 1345-48, p. 67; ibid., 1354-58, p. 7; ibid., 1374-77, p. 19.
87. Tout, T. F., Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England: the Wardrobe, the Chamber and the Small Seals (Manchester, 1920–1933), I, 195, 201, 279Google Scholar; II, 15, n. 1, 279.
88. The Victoria History of the Counties of England, London, I, 559Google Scholar.
89. Tout, , Chapters, I, 195Google Scholar.
90. V.C.H., London, I, 555Google Scholar.
91. Tout, , Chapters, I, 195–96Google Scholar.
92. Ibid., I, 278-79.
93. Ibid., I, 297, n. 2.
94. Ibid., II, 15, n. 1.
95. He is mentioned as dean in 1320. C.P.R., 1317-21, p. 428. For his impressive career, see Tout, , Chapters, II, 178, 237–38, 283, 286Google Scholar.
96. C.P.R., 1324-27, p. 342; Tout, , Chapters, VI, 68Google Scholar.
97. C.P.R., 1343-45, p. 548; Tout, , Chapters, II, 345Google Scholar; IV, 155, n. 4, 375-76.
98. C.P.R., 1348-50, p. 305; Tout, , Chapters, IV, 72, 78–79, 155Google Scholar, n. 4.
99. Ibid., III, 234-39; IV, 155, n. 4.
100. C.P.R., 1364-67, p. 39; Tout, , Chapters, IV, 155–56Google Scholar.
101. C.P.R., 1374-77, p. 398; Tout, , Chapters, III, 400, 402Google Scholar and n. 4; IV, 155, n. 4; V, 48-50.
102. C.P.R., 1381-85, pp. 281, 345; Tout, , Chapters, V, 215Google Scholar.
103. C.P.R., 1385-89, p. 67; Tout, , Chapters, III, 429, 434, 457Google Scholar; IV, 195 and n. 4.
104. C.P.R., 1388-92, p. 167; Tout, , Chapters, III, 329–30, 363–64Google Scholar; IV, 194-95.
105. C.P.R., 1388-92, p. 295.
106. Ibid., 1396-99, p. 565; Tout, , Chapters, IV, 51Google Scholar, n. 1, 62-63, 199-200.
107. C.P.R., 1381-85, p. 537. See also ibid., p. 362; ibid., 1385-89, p. 122.
108. For the biographies of the deans of Tettenhall, see Styles, , “King's Chapels in Staffordshire,” Birmingham Arch. Jour., LX, 78–79Google Scholar.
109. For the deans of Wolverhampton in the thirteenth century, see ibid., LX, 81-83.
110. C.P.R., 1369-74, p. 274.
111. Ibid., 1377-81, p. 16; Tout, , Chapters, IV, 458–62, 464, 467Google Scholar.
112. C.P.R., 1385-89, p. 14; Tout, , Chapters, V, 216, 221, 223–25Google Scholar.
113. C.P.R., 1385-89, p. 154; Tout, , Chapters, III, 405, 430, 490Google Scholar.
114. Styles, , “King's Chapels in Staffordshire,” Birmingham Arch. Jour., LX, 81–83Google Scholar.
115. John Everdon was a baron of the Exchequer. See C.P.R., 1307-13, p. 22.
116. For Philip Everdon, see Tout, , Chapters, II, 21Google Scholar and n. 2; VI, 30.
117. Walter Islep was granted the deanery in 1318. See C.P.R., 1317-21, p. 113. His work in Ireland is mentioned in ibid., 1327-30, pp. 179, 320; ibid., 1334-38, p. 95.
118. Ibid., 1330-34, pp. 7, 85.
119. Ibid., p. 24; ibid., 1334-38, p. 114.
120. Ibid., 1391-96, pp. 373, 389; Tout, , Chapters, III, 456Google Scholar, n. 2. Lawrence Allerthorpe had also been dean of the free chapel at Stafford. C.P.R., 1388-92, p. 295; ibid., 1396-99, PP. 88, 93.
121. Ibid., 1216-25, p. 416.
122. Ibid., 1232-47, p. 268; V.C.H., Dorset, II, 109Google Scholar, n. 29.
123. Ibid., II, 109-10, n. 31; cf. Cuttino, , “King's Clerks,” Speculum, XXIX, 401Google Scholar; Tout, , Chapters, II, 61–62Google Scholar.
124. C.P.R., 1301-07, p. 30; Tout, , Chapters, V, 238–39, 272Google Scholar.
125. C.P.R., 1338-40, p. 46; Tout, , Chapters, IV, 110Google Scholar.
126. C.P.R., 1348-50, p. 251; Tout, , Chapters, IV, 119Google Scholar.
127. C.P.R., 1348-50, p. 555; Tout, , Chapters, IV, 261–62Google Scholar.
128. C.P.R., 1364-67, p. 391; Tout, , Chapters, III, 313, 329Google Scholar, n. 3; IV, 153, 156, 160.
129. C.P.R., 1385-89, p. 342; Tout, , Chapters, III, 464, 489–91Google Scholar; IV, 192-93, 215-18.
130. For illustrations of the presentation of king's clerks to the deanery of Bridgnorth, see C.P.R., 1307-13, p. 141; ibid., 1317-21, p. 106; ibid., 1327-30, p. 228; ibid., 1334-38, p. 7; ibid., 1350-54, p. 468; ibid., 1364-67, p. 415; ibid., 1385-89, p. 347; ibid., 1388-92, p. 486; ibid., 1391-96, p. 159. For Stafford, see ibid., 1317-21, p. 237; ibid., 1324-27, pp. 110, 343; ibid., 1327-30, p. 183; ibid., 1348-50, p. 363; ibid., 1354-58, p. 409; ibid., 1364-67, p. 325; ibid., 1374-77, p. 232; ibid., 1388-92, pp. 295, 349-50; ibid., 1396-99, pp. 88, 93.
131. For examples of the presentation of king's clerks to the deanery of the free chapel of Tamworth, see ibid., 1340-43, p. 515; ibid., 1345-48, pp. 121, 333, 426, 450; ibid., 1348-50, p. 85; ibid., 1350-54, p. 212; ibid., 1354-58, p. 430; ibid., 1364-67, p. 418. For royal presentations to the deanery of Hastings Castle, see ibid., 1348-50, p. 535; ibid., 1367-70, p. 304; ibid., 1377-81, p. 549; ibid., 1385-89, p. 378; ibid., 1388-92, pp. 118, 125.
132. Barraclough, Geoffrey, Papal Provisions: Aspects of Church History Constitutional, Legal and Administrative in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1935), pp. 158–59, 162–63Google Scholar.
133. Howell, , Regalian Right, p. 180Google Scholar. The chancellor possessed the right of presenting to benefices of the king's patronage which had an annual value of less than twenty marks. Wilkinson, B., The Chancery under Edward III (Manchester, 1929), p. 30Google Scholar. For a discussion of the petition of the Chancery clerks to the Pope for preferment by his collation and of a request in Parliament for the reservation of benefices in the chancellor's gift (Rymer, , Foedera, IIGoogle Scholar, Pt. 1, 364; Rotuli Parliamentorum, II, 41Google Scholar), see SirMaxwell-Lyte, H. C., Historical Notes on the Use of the Great Seal of England (London, 1926), p. 2Google Scholar.
134. Douie, , Archbishop Pecham, p. 61Google Scholar. Wilkinson noticed the predominance of northerners in the Chancery of Edward III's reign. Wilkinson, , Chancery, p. 149Google Scholar.
135. Brentano, R., York Metropolitan Jurisdiction and Papal Judges Delegate (1279-1296) (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959), p. 82Google Scholar.
136. For example, see C.C.W., 1244-1326, p. 509, which promised in 1320 a prebend of Hastings to the king's clerk, James Berkeley, if William Airmyn resigned. Airmyn, a Chancery official during Edward II's reign, was successively keeper of the rolls of Chancery, keeper of the privy seal, and in 1324 bishop of Norwich. Tout, , Chapters, II, 218, 306–09Google Scholar.
137. For example, see C.P.R., 1354-58, p. 246, whereby a prebend of Bridgnorth is granted to Philip Weston, king's clerk and Chamber official, on exchange with Thomas Bramber, who served variously as king's secretary, clerk of the secret seal, keeper of the privy seal, and clerk and receiver of the Chamber. For Weston, see Tout, , Chapters, III, 167, 169Google Scholar; IV, 264, 268-69; for Bramber, ibid., III, 219-20; IV, 258-59, 261-63; V, 180. This arrangement was authorized by the King on the information of Richard Norwich, who was also a receiver of the Chamber and a clerk of the secret seal. Ibid., V, 180. For other examples of exchanges among king's clerks, see C.P.R., 1385-89, pp. 342, 354; ibid., 1388-92, p. 118.
138. See ibid., 1324-21, p. 110, which grants the free chapel of Stafford to Robert Holden, a controller of the Wardrobe (Tout, , Chapters, VI, 29Google Scholar), on the information of Henry Cliff, a Chancery official (C.P.R., 1324-27, p. 337; Tout, , Chapters, II, 218–19, 308–09Google Scholar).
139. C.P.R., 1340-43, p. 150.
140. For the official career of John Etton, see Tout, , Chapters, V, 65, 77Google Scholar, n. 2, 111; C.P.R., 1340-43, p. 578. For Philip Weston, see Tout, , Chapters, III, 167, 169Google Scholar; IV, 264, 268-69, 271, 280. For John Winwick, see ibid., V, 15, 31-37. For Thomas Hatfield, see ibid., III, 87-88, 114-15; IV, 261-62; V, 19-20, 22.
