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Episcopal Income from Spiritualities in the Diocese of Exeter in the Early Sixteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

R. N. Swanson
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Extract

The bishops of the medieval English Church were among the greatest landowners in the kingdom. The list of their estates in the Valor ecclesiasticus of 1535 eloquently testifies to their extensive holdings. But concentration on temporalities as the source of episcopal wealth ignores the extent to which the Church's own jurisdictional and administrative structure provided a means for generating wealth. This income, which the Church itself provided for bishops as a part of their office, distinct from the revenues generated by land-holding and other resources ancillary to their ecclesiastical functions, deserves more attention than it has so far received. The neglect of income from spiritualities is partly explicable by the nature of the sources, which are usually very incomplete and, in most cases, limited in chronological coverage. Nevertheless, usable evidence does survive from many dioceses, which eventually may be brought together to produce a worthwhile general statement.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , October 1988 , pp. 520 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

ECL = Exeter Cathedral Library; LPL = Lambeth Palace Library; DRO = Exeter, Devon Record Office.

This is a slightly amended version of a communication presented to the Ecclesiastical History Society at Lincoln in July 1986. I am grateful to the Wolfson Foundation and the University of Birmingham for financial support for the research on which this article is based.

1 Caley, J. and Hunter, J.,Valor ecclesiasticus, 6 vols, London 1810–34.Google Scholar

2 Spirituality income for the early sixteenth century is dealt with briefly in Heal, F., Of Prelates and Princes: a study of the economic and social position of the Tudor episcopate, Cambridge 1980, 62–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The Worcester spirituality receipts are discussed in Dyer, C., Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: the estates of the bishopric of Worcester, 680–1540, Cambridge 1980, 193–5Google Scholar, to which further material could now be added. Canterbury spiritualities were mentioned, without detailed discussion, in Churchill, I. J., Canterbury Administration, 2 vols, London 1933. i. 541–6.Google Scholar

3 This is not the place to provide a full listing of surviving evidence for spirituality income from the various dioceses. Suffice to say that the most comprehensive array is provided by material in the registers of the archbishops of Canterbury. The main concentrations are in the registers of John Morton (the relevant sections of which are to be published in the second volume of the calendar of the register by C. Harper-Bill, under the auspices of the Canterbury and York Society), and of Archbishop Warham (see below, n. 8). The Valor ecclesiasticus of 1535 should provide a survey of the position for the country at that time even if, for various reasons, not strictly comparable with the situation before 1529. Lack of uniformity in the returns, and their occasional complete absence, as well as the questionable validity of some of the material, means that the figures are not really comparable between dioceses. For what it is worth, the information about episcopal spiritualities is given at i. 99, 123, 293; ii. 1, 70, 72, 289; iii. 3, 129, 219, 281; iv. 7, 346, 380, 415–16, 433–4; v. 273, 299–300. Elsewhere, the individual dioceses leave patchy evidence. Those best served are probably Norwich, Carlisle, Lincoln, Exeter, Worcester and Coventry and Lichfield, although usually the material is fragmentary, with a marked concentration in the sixteenth century. Other dioceses are poorly served — for instance nothing before 1535 is known to survive for Ely and Chichester outside the Lambeth deposits. The present article is intended to be one of several over the next few years which will cover the dioceses where substantial deposits survive.

4 The only other diocese which appears to provide a run of material over several consecutive years is Norwich, Norfolk Record Office, SUN/1a, Reg/9/14, Reg/9/15. However, this evidence relates almost exclusively to income from first fruits — not paid to other bishops — and provides details of agreements to pay rather than statements of actual receipts.

5 ECL, MS 3690. References below to this manuscript are indicated by square brackets.

6 ECL, MS 3690, fo. 47V: payments of £14 9s. 10 1/2d. at London on 31 Jan. 1509/10, obviously duplicate receipts of 20s, and £13 9s, 10 1/2d, entered among the spiritualities at fo, 16v. However, an earlier sum of £22 10s, 2d, entered at fo, 47v is not immediately traceable among the spiritualities.

7 Valor, ii. 289.

8 LPL, Registrum Warham, i. fos 209r–12v; ibid. ii. fo. 272. For accounts of other vacancies in the register, see ibid. i. fos 198v–9v (Bath and Wells, 1504); ii. fos 220V–IV (Bangor, 1514), 23IV (St Davids, 1514–15), 235 (Rochester, 1514), 237r (Hereford, 1504), 243r–5r (ElY. 1505–6). 25Or–IV (Chichester, 1506–8), 253V (Bangor, 1509), 254 (St Davids, 1508–9), 268v–9r (St Asaph, 1513), 270 (Salisbury, 1518), 27IV–2r (Hereford, 1516), 279r–81r (Ely, 1514), 282v–3r (Llandaff, 1517), 285v–5ar (Lincoln, 1514). 289V–9IV (Lincoln, 1521), 294 (Worcester, 1521), 302r–7r (London, 1522), 310 (Salisbury, 1524).

9 Valor, ii. 291.

10 The Valor gives the rectory's name as Radway, but this was actually the name of the episcopal manor within the parish.

11 LPL, Reg. Warham, ii. fo. 275r.

12 Statutes of the Realm, iii, London 1807, 285–8Google Scholar. For comment see Bowker, M., The Secular Clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1495–1520, Cambridge 1968, 149–50.Google Scholar

13 Lunt, W. E., Financial Relations of the Papacy with England, 1327–1534, Cambridge, Mass. 1962, 717.Google Scholar

14 Ibid. All the profits from Peter's Pence in the diocese went to the archdeacons, ibid. 4–5.

15 My figures differ from those given by Heal, Prelates, 63; I am not sure how the discrepancy arises.

16 ECL, MS 3690, fos 2r–12r, 30r–9r (payments to steward), 44r, 45r–6r, 50r (loans); for Oldham as a lender, see also Heal, op. cit. 69–70.

17 ECL, MS 3690, fos 14V, 16v, 17r, 27v.

18 Valor, ii. 289; Dunstan, G. R., The Register of Edmund Lacy, Bishop of Exeter, 1420–1455: Registrum Commune (Canterbury and York Society lx–lxiii, lxvi, 1963–72), iv. 64.Google Scholar

19 DRO, Registrum Oldham, fo. 13r. I am grateful to Dr J. A. F. Thomson for the loan of a microfilm of this register.

20 Presumably the vacancy following the resignation of Veysey, John, Neve, J. Le (ed. Horn, J. M.), Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1300–1541, IX: Exeter Diocese, London 1964, 21.Google Scholar

21 Thus, the statement of account for 1507–8 records payments to the bishop at Exeter, Launceston and Clyst, ECL, MS 3690, fo. 15r. London is mentioned at fos 16V–17V, 18V, 47V.

22 This is most likely to refer to the vacancy following the resignation of John Fulford, which lasted from June to Sept. 1515, rather than the briefer vacancy following the resignation of Bernard Oldham earlier that year, although a combination of receipts from both is not impossible. See Le Neve, op. cit. 12, 15, 17.

23 See n. 8.

24 LPL, Reg. Warham, i. fo. 210r; ii. fo. 275r.

25 LPL, Reg. Warham, ii. fo. 275r.

26 DRO, Reg. Oldham, fos 82r–130V (ordinations), 44r, 131V–5V, 138V–9r, 143r, 144v–5r, 147V, 151V, 153v–4r, 156V, 157V, 162V–3r, 165V, 172r, 177V, 179r (licences, etc.). For payments in other dioceses, see e.g. Heath, P., The English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation, London-Toronto 1969, 60Google Scholar; Bowker, Secular Clergy, 40; Harper-Bill, C., ‘Archbishop John Morton and the province of Canterbury, 1486–1500’, this JOURNAL xxix (1978), 15 n. 77.Google Scholar

27 Many of the institutions in DRO, Reg. Oldham, fos 4V–7V, 19V, 24, 26V–8V, 31, 34r–5V, 40r, 43r, give the date for the inception of the vacancy. Only two give anything which might be considered a statement of revenue, both negative: ‘nihil contigit tempore vacacionis’, fo. 28r, and ‘pro vacacione nihil, quia una die vacavit, proxima vero die admissit’, fo. 35r.

28 DRO, Reg. Oldham, fos 28r, 31r, 34V–5V, 42r, 44r–5V, 46V, 47V, 48V, 52r, 53V, 57r, 61r, 62v–3r, 66r, 67V, 68V, 75V–6V, 157V. With the exception of the last, these all relate to institutions and collations. Some may in fact be debts rather than complete relaxations, see fos 42V, 43r. See also Heath, Parish Clergy, 60 n. 6.

29 Valor, ii. 291.

30 For temporality income (which I have not recalculated) see Heal, Prelates, 61; for payments to the steward, see above n. 16.

31 See PRO, SC6/Henry VII/1846, mm. 18r–20r; SC6/Henry VIII/7154, mm. 8r–9r; SC6/Henry VIII/7155, mm. 12.

32 See above, p. 523; for the vacancy accounts, see above, n. 8.

33 PRO, SC6/Henry VII/1846, m. 10r; SC6/Henry VII/7154, m. 2d; SC6/Henry VIII/7155, m. 5; Lincoln, Lincolnshire Archives Office, Bishops’ Accounts 8, mm. 16r–19r.

34 PRO, SC6/Henry VII/1846, m. 13; SC6/Henry VIII/7I54, m. 5; SC6/Henry VIII/ 7155. m. 7r, for the appropriated rectory of Wybunbury. The rectory of Denford, in Northants., rarely appears anywhere — see the statement of account in PRO SC6/Henry VIII/7154, m. 9d; SC6/Henry VIII/7155, m. 6d; and the comment of the receiver-general at PRO SC6/Henry VII/1846, m. 16d.

35 LPL, Reg. Warham, ii. fo. 209r.