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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2017
Private correspondence between Rome and England in the fifteenth century is not unknown but is usually to be found among the business papers of proctors permanently resident at the Curia, such as William Swan and Thomas Hope. By contrast, the three letters printed below were written by an occasional visitor to Rome, charged with a specific errand. They tell us more about England than Italy, and more about the everyday concerns of a moderately successful clerical careerist than the procedures of the papal court, but they are unusual and valuable precisely for that reason. The author of these letters was Master Robert Thornton. A canon lawyer in the service of Archbishop Kempe, he began his career as an advocate in the prerogative court of York and, during the 1440s, established himself as one of the mainstays of the diocesan administration there: he acted as commissary-general to the court of York and official of the absentee archdeacon of York, besides serving on many ad hoc commissions. By the time these letters were written, Thornton's diligence in the archbishop's service had brought him several desirable benefices: already perpetual vicar of Silkstone (Yorkshire, West Riding), he became rector of Almondbury (Yorkshire, West Riding) in 1451 and was presented by William Bothe, Kempe'ssuccessor as archbishop, to a prebend at St. John's, Chester, in the following year. It was his membership of Kempe' familia that, indirectly, set him on the road to Rome. In May 1452 he was dispatched with a bundle of papers and sixteen marks in cash to pursue the claims of John Berningham, resident canon and treasurer of York, to the vacant deanery.
BIHR = Borthwick Institute of H istorical Research; BRUO = Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to 1500, Oxford 1958 Google Scholar; CPR = Calendar of Papal Registers; YML = York Minster Library.
1 For Swan, see Jacob, E. F., Essays in Later Medieval History, Manchester 1968, 58–97 Google Scholar; for Hope, see Ker, N. R., Medieval Manuscripts in the British Libraries, Oxford 1969, i. 184–5Google Scholar; BRUO, 959–60.
2 YML, A 1/4/1/M, N, O.
3 BIHR, Register 19, fos I I I, 127V, 129V, 187, 398, 413V, 439; PRO, C.85/186/28–31. Among the ad hoc appointments were commissions to establish the bounds of the parish of Thornhill, to sequester the fruits of the living of St Oswald's, York, until the rector made repairs to the parish church, and to enquire into dilapidations in the goods belonging to the office of provost of St John's, Beverley: BIHR, Reg. 19, fos I I Iv, 153V, 186.
4 BRUO, ii. 1868.
5 YML, A 1/4/1 and BIHR, DY 2/1–3 provide the principal narratives of this affair, which can be supplemented by Loci e Libro Veritatum, ed. Rogers, J. E. T., Oxford 1881, 37–8, 47–8, 193, 203Google Scholar.
6 YML, H 2/3, fos 74V, 76.
7 Somerville, R., History of the Duchy of Lancaster, London 1953, 220 Google Scholar.
8 Dobson, B., ‘The later Middle Ages, 1215–1500’, in Aylmer, G. E. and Cant, Reginald (eds), A History of York Minster, Oxford 1977, 64–6Google Scholar.
9 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of Wells, London 1907–1914, ii. 675 Google Scholar; Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, London 1901–1914, iv. 85–6Google Scholar.
10 BIHR, Reg. 19fos 157V, 158.
11 YML, A 1/4/1/K; CPR, Letters, 1447–1453, 112.
12 YML, A 1/4/1/E fo. 7.
13 Dobson, R. B., Durham Priory, 1400–1450, Cambridge 1973, 211 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 YML, A 1/4/1/F, J.
15 BIHR, Reg. 19, fo. 165V.
16 CPR, Letters, 1447–1455, 239; YML, H2/3, fos 83–4.
17 PRO, DL 37/59 m. 2; The Parliamentary Representation of the County of York, 1258–1832, ed. Gooder, A. (Yorkshire Archaeological Society xci, 1935), i. 199–200 Google Scholar.
18 PRO, DL 37/59 m. 5.
19 Ibid. DL 37/59 mm. 6, 7d; BIHR, Reg. 20, fo. 10; Weiss, R., Humanism in England during the Fifteenth Century, Oxford 1957, 97–105 Google Scholar; Johnson, P. A., Duke Richard of York 1411–1460, Oxford 1988, 238 Google Scholar.
20 Swanson, R.N., Church and Society in Late Medieval England, Oxford 1989, 67 Google Scholar.
21 The Register of Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, 1414–1443, ed. Jacob, E. F. (Canterbury and York Society xlii–xlvii, 1937–1947), i. 59 Google Scholar; CPR, Letters, 1436–41, 36; BIHR, Reg. 19, fos 265, 293, 450 (Berningham); CPR, Letters, 1447–55, 8, 149 (Sutton, Porter); BIHR, Reg. 19, fo. 71A (Lathum); Churchill, I. J., Canterbury Administration, London 1933, i. 24, 25; ii. 185 (Knight)Google Scholar.
22 BIHR, Reg. 19, fo. 172.
23 Lichfield Joint Record Office, B/A/1/10, fo. 32; Jones, D., The Church in Chester 1300–1540 (Chetham Society, 3rd ser. vii, 1957), 151–2Google Scholar.
24 BIHR, Reg. 19, fo. 397V; CP. E. 230.
25 BIHR, Probate Register 3, fos 518V–19.
26 CPR, Letters, 1455–1464, 137–40; BIHR, Reg. 19, fo. 185.
27 Norfolk Record Office, Reg. 6/11, fo. 51V.
28 BIHR, Reg. 20, fo. 267V.
29 Ibid. Reg. 19, fo. 442.
30 Stillington was for many years attorney for the dean and chapter at the common law; he established a chantry at St Leonard's in his will: YML, E 1/40/1, 2,/42; M 2 (6) e, fos 33V, 41.
31 Leach, A. F., Early Yorkshire Schools (Yorkshire Archaeological Society xxvii, 1899), 38 Google Scholar; Moran, J. H., Education and Learning in the City of York, 1300–1560 (Borthwick Paper 55, 1979) 9–10 Google Scholar.
32 Bennett, M., ‘Careerism in late medieval England’, in Rosenthal, Joel and Richmond, Colin (eds), People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, Gloucester 1987, 28–9Google Scholar.
33 For general surveys, see du Boulay, F. R. H., ‘The fifteenth century’, in Lawrence, C. H. (ed.), The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages, London 1965, 236–40Google Scholar; Thomson, J. A. F., ‘”The well of grace”: Englishmen and Rome in the fifteenth century’, in Dobson, R. B. (ed.), The Church, Politics and Patronage in the Fifteenth Century, Gloucester 1984, 99–114 Google Scholar.
34 Ibbett, J., ‘The hospice of St Edmund in Trastevere’, The Venerabile xxi (1962), 96 Google Scholar. I owe this reference to Dr Margaret Harvey.
35 BIHR, Reg. 20, fos 161, 190V; Ibbett, ‘Hospice of St Edmund’, 97. Thornton died intestate, in Curia Romana protunc residens, and administration of his goods at St Leonard's Hospital was committed to William Tauke, his clerk, and William Arthur of Pontefract: YML, M 2 (6) e, fo. 37V.
36 Ibid. E 1/12/1–39/2; H2/2 fo. 7V.
37 All three letters survive as drafts and were presumably brought back in Thornton's case-file when he was recalled to York. The use of capitals has been modernised in this transcription, standard abbreviations extended and additional punctuation added where necessary.
38 ‘as much’: Middle English Dictionary, ed. Kuhn, S. N. and Reidy, J., Ann Arbor 1975 Google Scholar, s.v. muchel.
39 Archbishop's registrar at York and a notary-public, who acted as one of the witnesses of the disputed decanal election: BIHR, Reg. 20, fo. 45; YML, A 1/4/1/D.
40 Alice, daughter of Sir William Gascoigne of Gawthorpe: Clay, J. W., ‘The Savile family’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal xxv (1920), 7 Google Scholar.
41 The Medici bank maintained a branch office in London between 1446 and 1480: de Roover, R., The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank 1397–1494, Cambridge, Mass. 1963, 62–3, 321–38Google Scholar.
42 BIHR, Reg. 19, fos 188V–91V for the full text of Scargill's ordinances for his chantry of the Holy Trinity at St Mary's, Whitkirk.
43 Master of St Leonard's Hospital, York. He resigned the mastership in 1456 not, as stated by Emden, in 1448; BL, MS Cotton Vespasian xiii, fo. 60; BRUO iii. 1660–1.
44 Katherine, daughter of Thomas Urswick, was married to William Vavasour of Badsworth by 1457: PRO, CP 40/786 m. 365.
45 ‘cook’; Middle English Dictionary, ed. Kurath, S. and Kuhn, S. N., Ann Arbor 1959 Google Scholar, S.V. comede.
46 A witness to, and beneficiary under, the will of Master John Thornton: BIHR, Prob. Reg. 3, fo. 519.
47 A chaplain, resident in Wakefield: ibid. Prob. Reg. 2, fo. 589.
48 Mariel had acted as Berningham's proctor in the proceedings at Nottingham before the Archbishop's commissaries: YML, A 1/4/i/E fo. 2v.
49 Drafts of this letter in both Latin and English survive: only the English version is given below.
50 Residentiary canon of York, and the most active of Berningham's supporters during the decanal election; delegated by the chapter to exercise the proxy vote in all those cases in which he had been nominated as one of the proctors, on account of his expertise in law: YML, A 1/4/1/B fo. 8.
51 The Latin version adds at this point: ‘neque subexecutori mandati apostolici’.
52 The Latin version adds: ‘Et si placuerit vestre reverencie aliqua michi percipere que valeo ero prestus deus novit qui vos conservet per tempora feliciter duratura. Script' Rome xvj die Septembr' sine mora. 1452.’ It is addressed: ‘Magistro Johanni Sutton cum Domino Cardinali Anglie’.