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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Few topics in ecclesiastical history have demanded so much revision and revaluation as the papal collation of benefices. Earlier generations of historians, even if they treated with reserve the criticism of provisions voiced by Matthew Paris, nevertheless regarded the successive general reservations from 1265 to 1362 as a glaring invasion of the rights of ordinary collators: juris ordinariorum locorum usurpacio, as Dietrich of Niem called them in 1410. Papal provisions of whatsoever category were represented as acts of administrative intervention which aroused national feeling, especially in this country, to statutory counter-measures; as an abuse, not only because they introduced the non-resident alien into the English dioceses, but also because they diverted the normally resident incumbent from his cure in order to defend his title at the Court of Rome.
page 41 note 1 von Niem, Dietrich, Dialog über Union und Reform der Kirche, ed. Heimpel, , p. 19.Google Scholar
page 41 note 2 For a modern expression of this view, cf. Binns, L. E., The decline of the medieval papacy (1934), p. 118.Google Scholar
page 41 note 3 Perroy, E., L'Angleterre et legrand schisme d'occident (1933), esp. chapters i, vii and viii.Google Scholar
page 42 note 1 Barraclough, G., ‘The executors of Papal provisions in the Canonical theory of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’, Acta Congressus Iuridici Internationalis Romae 12–17 Novembris 1934 (Rome, 1936), p. 44.Google Scholar
page 43 note 1 Cal. Papal Registers, Petitions, i, pp. 54'5.
page 43 note 2 Ibid., pp. 95'6.
page 43 note 3 Ibid., p. 136.
page 43 note 4 Ibid., pp. 426–35; cf. the ‘Roll of the English’, pp. 447f., 484–9, 501–2. For rotuli under John XXII, cf. Regulae Cancellariae Apostolicae, ed. von Ottenthal, E., p. 2.Google Scholar
page 43 note 5 In the first petition of the ‘Colville’ roll, described below.
page 43 note 6 e.g. Roll of the Black Prince (1363), Cal. Papal Reg., Petitions, i. 454–6; the earl of Warwick (1364), ibid., 493–5.
page 44 note 1 The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. Powicke, F. M. and Emden, A. B., i. 555 n.Google Scholar: ‘several Oxford rolls sent to Clement VI are among the Roman transcripts sent to the Public Record Office by Mr. Bliss’. (Doubtless there is a reference here to the Oxford roll of 1343 printed by Bliss in Cal. Papal Reg., Petitions, i. 60.) His editors call attention to the provisions for Fellows of Merton College sought and accorded in 1317, which, they think, indicates something analogous: Universities of Europe, loc. cit.
page 44 note 2 ‘Qil vullie de sa grace otreier les peticions queles lui seront purposees de par la Universite, en purvoiant au ditz maistres dauquns benefices de saint eglise’: Formularies which bear on the history of Oxford, c. 1204–1420, ed. Salter, H. E., Pantin, W. A., and Richardson, H. G. (Oxf. Hist. Soc, New Series, IV), i. 87Google Scholar. Mr. Pantin calls my attention to Ibid., i. 33 (1318).
page 44 note 3 Ibid., i. 86.
page 44 note 4 Ibid., i. 90–1.
page 44 note 5 Ibid., i. 92.
page 44 note 6 For a comparison of the rights of regents and non-regents at Oxford, cf. Gibson, S., Statuta antiqua Universitatis Oxoniensis, pp. xxii f.Google Scholar
page 45 note 1 Gibson, , Statuta, p. 143Google Scholar: ‘diversis cedulis colligatis, unico tamen sigillo universitatis consignatis, eadem data concepcionis, consignacionis ac summo pontifici presentacionis utriusque cedule conservatis’. ‘Conservata’ would be the form expected, but this is a sense construction.
page 45 note 2 Cal. Papal Reg., Petitions, i. 387.
page 45 note 3 Ibid., pp. 390–2.
page 45 note 4 Ibid., pp. 404–8.
page 45 note 5 Ibid., pp. 404–8.
page 45 note 6 Ibid., pp. 435–8; 441–2.
page 45 note 7 Ibid., p. 408.
page 46 note 1 ‘Whereas he is of that of Yorko’: Cal. Papal Reg., Petitions, i., pp. 411,415.
page 46 note 2 Ibid., p. 415.
page 46 note 3 Ibid., pp. 415–16. Alumni Cantabrigienses does not distinguish between the two Caustons, both named Michael, both of the same diocese (Norwich). The elder was chancellor of Cambridge University in 1361, 1362, 1363, rector of East Dereham in 1371 and until his death in 1396 (Reg. Fordham, fo. 53); the younger was B.A. in 1363 (when the elder was S.T.P.). In 1370, when he petitioned for a canonry and prebend in Chichester, Michael Causton junior is described as clerk of the diocese of Norwich, M.A., scholar of laws, and rector of Hamerton (Hunts, a living in the gift of the abbot and convent of St. John of Colchester). He was fellow of Pembroke, whereas the elder Causton was master of Michaelhouse.
page 46 note 4 Cambridge University Registry, ‘Livings’, no. 1.
page 46 note 5 Their interest in the rolls was partly biographical. It was clear to them that the 360 petitions there contained added a considerable number of new names (c. 258) to Alumni Cantabrigienses; and they made a number of valuable biographical notes on these newly revealed members of the university. Had they carried these biographies further, it would have become equally clear that a number of the petitioners were as distinguished as, if not more distinguished than, their Oxford contemporaries. In helping her father, Miss Lloyd had embarked upon a prolonged study of curial procedure; and if her researches into papal administrative history were unhappily cut short, she had at any rate begun to face some of the more difficult archival and administrative problems raised by the Cambridge rolls.
page 47 note 1 My thanks are due to Mr. William Baker, of the University Registry, for these facilities. Owing to circumstances arising from the war, I was unable to see the originals of the first and third of the rolls, and have to rely on Dr. Lloyd's full and careful calendar of the petitions they contain.
page 47 note 2 The Paris rotuli put doctors and masters under their respective faculties: Theology, Decrees, Medicine and Arts, in that order, and Arts, as might be expected, is subdivided into nations, French, Picard, Norman and English.
page 48 note 1 For Alyn, , cf. Alumni Cantabrigienses, i. i. 20Google Scholar; for Hollebroke (later Master of Peterhouse and Chancellor), ibid., i. ii. 388.
page 48 note 2 Cal. Pat. R., 1396–99, 547.
page 49 note 1 See the account of him in Pollard, A. F., ‘Fifteenth-century clerks of parliament’, Bull. Inst. Hist. Research, xv (1937–1938), 141–142.Google Scholar
page 49 note 2 For his preferments, cf. Cal. Papal Lett., v (1396–1404), 596–7, and Jacob, ‘To and from the Court of Rome in the fifteenth century’, Studies … presented to Mildred K. Pope, p. 163.Google Scholar
page 49 note 3 Among the seniors pluralists are fairly numerous. They deserve the analysis given by Professor Hamilton Thompson to the Lincoln pluralists of 1366 in Associated Architectural, Societies' Reports and Papers, vols. 34, 35. 36 (1919–22).
page 51 note 1 The ‘Lateran’ registers of Boniface IX contain no Littere de Curia nor Littere Secrete, and are therefore useless for the present purpose.
page 51 note 2 Reg. Montacute, fo. 27b.
page 51 note 3 Ely Consistory Court, Reg. D. (1378–81), fo. 33. His provision is in Regesta Avinionensia, vol. 178, fo. 499.
page 52 note 1 Reg. Avin., vol. 178, fo. 471 v. References to this source are Miss Lloyd's.
page 52 note 2 ‘Castillacie’: Reg. Avin., vol. 178, fo. 471 v.
page 52 note 3 Reg. Avin., vol. 177, fo. 87 v.
page 52 note 4 The relationship between the two Thomases is a little difficult to trace: on 18 April 1349 the elder Thomas, as rector of Lambeth, presented the younger Thomas to the rectory of Eltisley (Reg. de Insula, fo. 18b, 36), and towards the end of the elder's life they exchanged (29 March 1375) their respective churches of Landbeach and Granchester (Reg. Arundel (Ely), fo. 6). In 1371 Robert was rector of Histon (Reg. Avin, vol. 181, fo. 81 v.); in 1382 he exchanged Hecham for the rectory of Fletchergate, Lincoln (Reg. Arundel, fo. 41 v.)
page 52 note 5 Reg. Avin., vol. 179, fo. 583 v.
page 52 note 6 Reg. Avin., vol. 179, ibid.
page 52 note 7 Provision in Reg. Avin., vol. 188, fo. 529.
page 52 note 8 Cat. Papal Lett., iv. 193.
page 53 note 1 Reg. Sudbury (C. and Y.S.), ii. 181.
page 53 note 2 Col. Papal Reg., Petitions, i. 406. He got St. Mary's, Binbrook (Lines).
page 53 note 3 Reg. Sudbury, i. 271, 274.
page 54 note 1 It is not always possible from this conjunction to argue for that individual's continuous residence, because some clerks leave the university, then return for a period sufficient for the academic grace they will be seeking, then leave again. This particularly applies to the civilians and the canonists (in the majority in the three rolls), many of whom took service under a bishop or archbishop, thereafter obtained licences to study for three or five years, and, having got their degrees, passed on to their former, or more profitable, employments. This can be illustrated in the next century by the careers of some of Archbishop Chichele's lawyers who were mostly Oxford graduates. There is reason to think that Chichele himself left his practice in London to return to Oxford for a period of further study so as to take his doctorate in civil law. Experience in the ecclesiastical courts (practica) might count in the requirements for a lawyer's degree: cf. Reg. Chichele, i. xxi.
page 54 note 2 Reg. Avin., vol. 174, fo. 210 v.
page 54 note 3 Ibid.
page 54 note 4 Cal. Close R., 1374–77, 203.
page 54 note 6 Churchill, I. J., Canterbury administration, i. 396–397, 398, 445.Google Scholar
page 55 note 1 i. i. 257.
page 55 note 2 Reg. Avin., vol. 178, fo. 401.
page 55 note 3 Reg. Avin., vol. 181, fo. 317 v.
page 55 note 4 Provision in Reg. Avin., vol. 179, fo. 183.
page 56 note 1 Testamenta Eboracensia, i. 187.
page 56 note 2 I owe these particulars to Dr. and Miss Lloyd's notes on the petitioners.
page 56 note 3 Chapters in Medieval administrative history, ii., 366–9. Tout calls the Airmyns ‘quite an official family’.
page 57 note 1 Cal. Pat. R., 1385–89, 478: described as ‘late Treasurer of Calais’, ibid., p. 99, which does not distinguish between the two Williams.
page 57 note 2 Reg. Brantingham, Part I, p. 134.
page 57 note 3 Cal. Papal Reg., Petitions, i. 529.
page 57 note 4 Cal. Pat. R., 1388–92, 523.
page 57 note 5 Cal. Papal Reg., Petitions, i. 490.
page 57 note 6 Newcourt, Repertorium, ii. 654.
page 58 note 1 Cf. Cat. Pat. R., 1383–89, 478.
page 58 note 2 Cal. Papal Lett., iv (1362–1404), 369–70.
page 58 note 3 Ibid., pp. 409–10.
page 59 note 1 Lincoln Visitations, i. 194.
page 59 note 2 Reg. Chichele, iii. 50.
page 59 note 3 My best thanks are due to Professor J. A. Twemlow for a number of suggestions and corrections embodied in this paper.
