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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
In 1541 the new bishopric of Chester was compounded of the archdeaconries of Richmond and Chester, severed respectively from the vast sees of York and Lichfield. The annexing of Chester to Richmond, though not originally intended, seemed reasonable on geographical grounds, since they had a common boundary, the Ribble, in Lancashire. It may have been prompted also by the fact that since 1529 Dr. William Knight had held both archdeaconries in plurality, so that their surrender (for which he received the see of Bath and Wells) presented no great difficulties. As for the head of the diocese, Chester was the obvious place, having from 1075 to 1102 housed the cathedra which Lanfranc had moved from Lichfield; this brief elevation of Chester in the eleventh century was tenaciously commemorated long after the bishops had ceased to style themselves by that title in the 1140s, and as late as 1522 a royal minister in an official record could write of ‘the bishop of Chester’, meaning Blythe, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. Furthermore, Chester was the most substantial town in the proposed diocese and in it there was an institution fit to be a cathedral: St. Werburgh's abbey, of great antiquity and wealth, and lately dissolved. In Richmond archdeaconry the claims of Fountains abbey, at first seriously entertained, were jeopardised by its remote and sparsely inhabited location. Another factor, too, may have operated in the separation of Chester archdeaconry from the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, in its union with Richmond, and in its selection for the bishop's seat, for in some ways it had fitted as uncomfortably into that diocese as Richmond had into York.
page 243 note 2 Letters & Papers of Henry VIII, xvi No. 1135 (4); for the full text see Rymer, Foedera, xiv, 717–724. By these letters patent of July 1541 the whole see of Chester was assigned to the province of Canterbury, but this was changed by statute in the same year, when it was severed from Canterbury and attached to York province, Statutes of the Realm, 33 Henry VIII, c. 31. For a map of Richmond archdeaconry see Dickens, A. G., Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, Oxford 1959Google Scholar, and for a map of the new diocese of Chester see Gairdner, J., The English Church in the Sixteenth Century from Henry VIII to Maty, London 1912.Google Scholar
page 243 note 3 The original idea had been to unite Chester to Wenlock, and Richmond to Fountains (P.R.O. M.S. E 315/24 fols. (pencil) 25–26, 65–66, 77–78).
page 243 note 4 Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1300–1541, x. 14, and vi. 27; Letters & Papers of Henry VIII, xvi. No. 1135 (4). See also Thompson, A. H., ‘Diocesan Organisation in the Middle Ages: Archdeacons and Rural Deans’, Proceedings of the British Academy, xxix, 1943, 193.Google Scholar
page 244 note 1 Handbook of British Chronology, ed. Powicke, F. M. and Fryde, E. B., London 1961, 232.Google Scholar
page 244 note 2 Roger de Clinton (d. 1148) was the last bishop to style himself ‘Chester’. Despite the statement by Saltman, A. (Archbishop Theobald, London 1956, 116Google Scholar) that Walter Durdent, who became bishop in 1149, called himself indifferently Coventry, or Chester, or Lichfield, there is no evidence in print known to the present writer that he ever used any other title than Coventry.
page 244 note 3 Letters & Papers of Henry VIII, iv (2). No. 2751.
page 244 note 4 See above, 243 n. 3.
page 244 note 5 Thompson, A. H., The English Clergy and Their Organisation in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford 1947, 4Google Scholar, 60 for Richmond; for Chester, see below.
page 244 note 6 Magnum Registrum Album, (Staffordshire Historical Collections, 1924), ed. H. E. Savage, Nos. 487, 662; V. C. H. Lancaster, v, 238.
page 244 note 7 The appearance of this prebend among bishop Nonant's statutes at the end of the twelfth century in Dugdale, Monasticon, vi, 1257a, is clearly an anachronism due to the sixteenth century editors, bishop Blythe and dean Denton, ibid., vi. 1255a.
page 244 note 8 Magnum Registrum Album, Nos. 114, 121, 124–125, 561, 671–674, 676, 737. Most of the law suits cited in the text below were heard before the official. Until 1291 the archdeacon had no accommodation in his archdeaconry, that at Bolton presumably being for the vicar there; in that year the archdeacon was dispensed to hold the church of Davenham in plurality so that he might at least have a pied à terre in Cheshire (Col. Papal Letters, i (1198–1304), 529), but that was a personal grant and, therefore, only a temporary arrangement. In 1452 George Radclyffe, then over 67 years of age, was continually resident in Lichfield (Cal. Papal Letters, x (1447–55), 228–229).
page 244 note 9 Stewart-Brown, R., ‘The End of the Norman Earldom of Chester’, English Historical Review, xxxv (1920), 26–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 245 note 1 Lichfield Dean and Chapter MS. M. 4.
page 245 note 2 Magnum Registrum Album, No. 675; the MS. (fols. 262v–263r) reads: ‘cogniciones causarum primarias’. On the variety of arrangements for collecting Peter's Pence in this period see Lunt, W. E., Financial Relations of England with the Papacy 1337–1534, Cambridge, Mass. 1962, 1–53.Google Scholar
page 245 note 3 Richard de Havering continued to occupy the archdeaconry until 1340 (Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, x. 12).
page 245 note 4 Lichfield M.S. B/A/1/4 (Reg. Stretton), fol. 78r: ‘usum iurisdictionis predicte et emolumenta omnia’.
page 245 note 5 Lichfield MS. B/A/1/10 (Reg. Booth), fols. 37v–38r.
page 245 note 6 The reduction to £20 seems to be a scribal error, perhaps an omission from the second and, or, third grant, for it was soon afterwards £40 again; see below.
page 245 note 7 ‘In omnibus et singulis causis ex officio mero, mixto, vel promoto, vel ad alicuius partis instanciam’.
page 246 note 1 ‘In quibuscumque causis matrimonialibus vel divorcii’.
page 246 note 2 Lichfield MS. B/A/i/ii (Reg. Boulers), fob. 37r–v: ‘omnem et omnimodam iurisdictionem spiritualem et ecclesiasticam tam in causarum cognicionibus quam in morum excessis etc.’; a preamble states that ‘since in the past many dissensions have arisen over the exercise of jurisdiction here and our predecessors have consequently compromised, we following their example agree as follows …’.
page 246 note 3 Ibid., fols. 65r, 70v.
page 246 note 4 Letters & Papers of Henry VIII, vi. No. 1381, a record of 1533 stating that it was £40 until Dr. Knight became archdeacon.
page 246 note 5 Valor Ecclesiasticus, iii. 129.
page 246 note 6 Lichfield MS. B/A/1/5 (Reg. Stretton), fols. 64r–v, citing the archdeacon's own court register, no longer extant.
page 246 note 7 Cal. Papal Letters, viii (1427–47). 331–332.
page 246 note 8 Lichfield MS. B/A/1/12 (Reg. Hals), fols. 133v–135r, citing now lost register of the archdeacon for 1438.
page 246 note 9 For random examples see Chester Record Office MSS. EDA 2/1, fols. 46r–73r; EDC 1/1, fols. 78r, 81r; EDG 1/4, fols. 16r, 39r, 99r; EDC 1/5, fols. 62r, 103v; EDC 1/8, fol. 66r; EDC 1/10, fol. 103r. And also Lichfield MS. B/A/1/14 (Reg. Blythe), fol. 96r. Another aspect of his matrimonial jurisdiction, the power to dispense an irregularity in the calling of banns, is illustrated for the year 1533 in British Museum Harley MS. 2179 (a formulary book), fol. 166r (pencil numbering).
page 246 note 10 A power not conceded by Langton in 1315. Indeed, in 1357, when the archdeaconry was not vacant, Nordiburgh appointed a rector and a vicar his sequestrators throughout Chester (Lichfield MS. B/A/1/3 (Reg. Northburgh), fol. 143v).
page 247 note 1 Lichfield MS. B/A/1/12 (Reg. Hals), fol. 135r.
page 247 note 2 Chester Record Office MS. EDA 2/1, fols. 44r–45r.
page 247 note 3 According to Lyndwood (Provinciate, 80 note d), an archdeacon heard matrimonial causes by custom, not de iure communi.
page 247 note 4 Woodcock, B. L., Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of Canterbury, Oxford 1952, 20Google Scholar. Public Record Office MS. E 135/21/54, a sentence of divorce by the official of the archdeacon of Essex in 1332; British Museum Harley MS. 3378, fols. 84v–86r, 94r–95r, records in a formulary book of sentences by John Craas, an early fifteenth century official of the archdeacon of London; British Museum Additional MS. 41503, fols. 144r–145v, a formulary book which contains this definitive sentence in a divorce cause by the official of the archdeacon of Middlesex in 1404.
page 247 note 5 Lichfield MS. B/A/1/2 (Reg. Northburgh), fols. 121v, 132r 52v, for the years 1348, 1354 and 1355 respectively.
page 247 note 6 Lichfield MS. B/A/1/12 (Reg. Hals.), fols. 142v–143r, and B/A/1/14 (Reg. Blythe), fol. 2r.
page 247 note 7 Lichfield MSS. B/C/1/2) fol. 3r (1471), B/C/2/1, fol. 3v (1525), B/C/2/3, fol. 82v (1529)—consistory court records.
page 247 note 8 Or their powers be suspended, especially if, according to the agreement of 1454, the payment of the pension was more than a month overdue. It is doubtful, however, if the bishop could deprive the archdeacon of his office, or had any personal jurisdiction over him; in 1323 when Northburgh tried to assert his right to correct archdeacon Havering, immunity was claimed for the latter on the grounds that he was a member of the chapter and, therefore, outside the discipline of the bishop; an appeal was lodged at Rome, but any record of its outcome is unknown (Magnum Registrum Album, Nos. 684, 745, 746). In due course the bishop did establish his right to visit and correct the Lichfield chapter, with what consequences for the archdeacon is not certain.
page 247 note 9 There are no agreements with any of the other archdeacons recorded in the episcopal registers or in any of the printed sources.
page 248 note 1 The collection of Peter's Pence was not always an easy task and in 1481, because of local resistance, the bishop was papally empowered to coerce payment to the Chester archdeacon (Cal. Papal Letters, xiii (1471–84), 101).
page 248 note 2 The Chartulary of St. Werburgh's Abbey, Chester, ed. J. Tait (Chetham Soc. n.s. 79), i. 102–107.
page 248 note 3 Barraclough, G., ‘The Earldom and County Palatine of Chester’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, ciii (1951). 35–37.Google Scholar
page 248 note 4 Chester County and City Court Rolls, ed. R. Stewart-Brown (Chetham Soc. n.s. 84), 188.
page 248 note 5 See the opening sentence, after the address, of Appendix B below.
page 248 note 6 British Museum Cotton MS. Cleopatra E. III, fols. 93v–94r, see Appendix ‘A’ below. For the growth of disorder in Cheshire during the fifteenth century see Barraclough, op. cit., 42–44.
page 248 note 7 Cal Patent Rolls, 1446–52, 261.
page 248 note 8 Handbook of British Chronology, ed. F. M. Powicke and E. B. Fryde, 234.
page 248 note 9 Lichfield MS. B/A/1/11 (Reg. Boulers), fol. 68r; see Appendix ‘B’ below.
page 249 note 1 Ibid., fols. 68v–60r; Appendix ‘C’ below. From its wording it could hardly have been composed by anyone else than the king, and it goes far towards explaining his political fortunes.
page 249 note 2 In the account roll of the bishop's receiver-general for 1472 (Salt Roll 335(1) at the William Salt Library, Stafford) there is a note that from 1460 three successive archdeacons had refused to pay the pension ‘quousque provideatur pro remedio per dominum et consilium suum in materia ilia’. By 1474, from the same MS. account, £540 was outstanding from the archdeacon to the bishop.
page 249 note 3 See, for example, the records cited above, 246 n. 9.
page 249 note 4 See above, 245, nn. 2, 4, 7; 246 nn. 1 and 2.
page 249 note 5 As happened, for example, in April 1464 when bishop Hals appointed three men coniunctim et divisim as his Commissary and Sequestrator General in Chester archdeaconry, with powers to hear all causes there, even matrimonial, to correct all offences, even incest and adultery, to deal with probate and intestacy, to hold synods, and to collect Peter's Pence and sinodals (Lichfield MS. B/A/1/12 (Reg. Hals), fols. 138r–v). As this occurs during the years when the archdeacon was withholding the pension it is probable that this is a chance survival from several such appointments between 1460 and at least 1474. What was actually in dispute between them possibly emerges in the same month from Hals's inhibition of the archdeacon from hearing and concluding causes of matrimony because, being major, they belonged to the bishop and should only be heard ‘ubi copia iurisperitorum haberi possit’ (ibid., fols. 140r–v).
page 250 note 1 Letters & Papers of Henry VIII, viii. No. 496; cf. ibid., ix, No. 35.
page 250 note 2 Ibid., ix. No. 712.
page 250 note 3 Ibid., xvi. No. 1377.
page 250 note 4 G. Barraclough, op. cit., 45; and for avowries, Stewart-Brown, R., ‘The Avowries of Cheshire’, English Historical Review, xxix (1914), 41–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 250 note 5 Elton, G. R., The Tudor Constitution, Cambridge 1960, 199.Google Scholar
page 250 note 6 Dickens, A. G., Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, London 1959Google Scholar, passim.
page 250 note 7 The religious consequences of this institutional background will be the subject of a separate study by the present writer.
page 251 note 1 I am grateful to Mr. M. A. Borrie of the Department of MSS., British Museum, for advice on this volume and document.
