GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The Catalogue is in the form of a book measuring 304 x 206 mm, vellum bound, rebacked, with paper leaves. The front cover bears the main title ‘A Catalogue of all the Benefices & Promocions Within the Diocese and Jurisdicion of Canterbury’ and ‘With the State of every Particular Parish as it stood at October 1663’ is added below. The main title is repeated over the first two pages but the left-hand page has been cut off 50 mm from the spine. Each pair of facing pages has been treated as a folio by the compiler, and has been given a single folio number which is used in the transcription from folio 1 to folio 65 without reference to rectos and versos. The folios have been vertically lined to provide columns of varying widths with headings at the top, and these column headings vary slightly between the entries for the diocese and those for the peculiars. The left-hand side of each folio has six columns: ‘Folio number’; ‘Benefices’, containing the name of the parish and whether it is a rectory, vicarage or chapel; a column without a heading, which was used to indicate which parishes were exempt from the jurisdiction of the archdeacon, designated as ‘Ex’; ‘Ks Bookes’ (‘King’s Books’ the value in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535); ‘Com. Value’ (the contemporary assessment of the value of the living); ‘Patron’. In the entries for the peculiars, the first column is used for the folio number and also for the type of living and the third column is used only to indicate an alternative value for the Valor Ecclesiasticus figure for four parishes in the deanery of the Arches, London. The right-hand side of the folio has a column to list incumbents and a much broader, unheaded column to accommodate notes. Folios 1–54 have been ruled horizontally so that six parishes or headings can be entered. This gives sufficient space so that when an incumbent’s name is scored out two or three more can be entered. On folios 55 to 65 the spaces are increased to accommodate ten parishes.