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Sir Thomas More as Church Patron
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
The immediate responsibility for the spiritual well-being of the parish in the early sixteenth century lay with the priest who had the living. Patrons of church livings were able, however, to influence parochial care by extending their patronage to priests who would be certain to maintain their cures satisfactorily. While the patron had no legal obligation to ensure the proper execution of parochial duties by his appointee, a certain degree of responsibility would be expected of men like Sir Thomas More, who allied themselves with the defence of the clerical estate while denouncing the personal or professional shortcomings of many of its members.
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References
LP = Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII; EETS = Early English Text Society; LAO = Lincoln Archives Office; LRS = Lincoln Record Society; GL = Guildhall Library; VCH = Victoria County History
1 St. Thomas More: The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, viii, New Haven 1973, 596Google Scholar.
2 More to Erasmus, 17 Feb. 1516, St. Thomas More: Selected Letters, Selected Works, ed. Rogers, E. F., New Haven 1961, 69Google Scholar.
3 Registers of Thomas Wolsey, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1518–23, John Clerke, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1523–41, William Knyght, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1541–47, and Gilbert Bourne, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1554–59, ed. Sir Henry Maxwcll-Lyte (Somerset Record Society lv, 1940), 84–8; Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 21 vols plus Addenda, ed.J. Brewer et al., London 1869–1932, iii. 280; LP ix. (88, 313; LP vii. 1675; Salter, H., A Subsidy Collected in the Diocese of Lincoln in 1526 (Oxford Historical Society lxiii, 1909), 93–4Google Scholar; Herbruggen, H. Schulte (ed.), Sir Thomas More: Neue Briefe, Münster 1966, 88–91Google Scholar; BL, MS Lansdowne 979, fo. 127.
4 St. Thomas More: A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, Complete Works, vi, New Haven 1981, 302, 295 ff. The Utopian priesthood contained only 70a priests, with a minimum priest: lay ratio of 1:4, 610 (based on the adult population). A conservative estimate places the ratio in England at around 1:25O. See St. Thomas More: Utopia, Complete Works, iv, New Haven 1965, 113Google Scholar, 135–7. For various estimates of England's clerical and lay population see Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation, London 1964, 45–61Google Scholar; and Hughes, P., The Reformation in England, 3 vols, London 1950–1954Google Scholar, i. 36, 40–4, 70.
5 For More's view on the elevated place of the clergy, and especially his belief that the priesthood was a vehicle of divine revelation, see Confutation, 115, 151, 152–3, 367, 401, 615–16; and Gogan, Brian, The Common Corps of Christendom, Leiden 1982, 231Google Scholar.
6 See e.g. Confutation, 260, 109; The Workes of Sir Thomas More … in the Englysh Tonge (1557), 2 vols, facsimile publ. London 1978, ii. 1046/ac, 1066/ef; Gogan, op. cit. 242, 328ff.
7 Palsgrave's Acolastus, ed. P. L. Carver (EETS ccii), pp. xviii, xxxiv-xxxv, 1. This corrects Carver's assertion that More presented Palsgrave to Alderton on the death of Gregory Mawer. See Norfolk Record Office, Institution Book 14, fos 161 and 180. I owe this information to the efforts of Miss Jean Kennedy, Norfolk Record Office. Palsgrave was instituted to Holbrook on 31 May 1523.
8 G. Hennessy, Novum repertorium, London 1898, 45 and xliii; R. Newcourt, Repertorium ecdesiaslicum parochiale Londinense, 2 vols, London, 1708–10, i. 200; Acolastus, xvii and n The prebend in question brought in over £10, which sum was not as large in London as t i would have been in a country parish. In 1523 Palsgrave complained to Wolsey that the parsonage of Ashfordby had been left in a ruinous condition and that the previous incumbent's executors had been forced by the ordinary to pay him for the necessary repairs but had so far failed to meet the full cost, LP iii. 3681.
9 LAO, Reg. 27, fo. 234V; Valor Ecclesiasticus, 6 vols, cd. J. Caley and J. Hunter, London 1810–34, iv. 260; iii. 429. Palsgrave was inducted into Keyston on 18 July 1524.
10 See Acolastus, xxvi-xxx. Palsgrave's letter to More of 1526 is incorrectly dated 1529 in Rogers, E. F., The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, Princeton 1947, 403–5Google Scholar. See Reed, A. (ed.), Under Cod and the IMW : papers read to the Sir Thomas More Society of London, and scr., Oxford 1949, 27Google Scholar.
11 LAO Vj. 6, fo. 45; Vj. 11, fo. 79.
12 Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1517–31, 3 vols, ed. Thompson, A. H. (LRS xxxiii, xxxv, xxxvii, 1940Google Scholar, 1944, 1947), xxxiii. 3; An Episcopal Court Book, ed. Bowker, M. (LRS lxi, 1967), 101Google Scholar. The rectory had been neglected, a fault which does not appear during Palsgrave's possession of the living.
13 Acolastus, xxxiv, xxxv, 1, Iii; Hennessy, Notium reperlorium, xliii; Newcourt, Repertorium, i. 334; Chambers, D. S., Faculty Office Registers, 1534–49, Oxford 1966, 264Google Scholar.
14 GL, MS 9531–10, fo. 17V. Larke was instituted to Woodford on 18 Jan. 1526. The abbots of Waltham Abbey were politically active, and the gift of a presentation to one of the abbey's churches may have been a routine gesture to an ascending courtier. See Lehmberg, S., The Reformation Parliament, 1529–36, Cambridge 1970, 41Google Scholar.
15 Ferguson, C. W., Naked to Mine Enemies: the life of Cardinal Wolsey, Boston 1958, 86–7Google Scholar. Both Thomas Larke and his possible kinsman John were connected with St Helen's, Bishopsgate. John was presented by this convent to a living, and Thomas seems to have been involved in a mysterious business concerning the election of a new prioress, LP iv/iii. 5970; v. 15.
16 Newcourt, op. cit. i. 345–6; London Consistory Court Wills, 1492–1547, ed. Darlington, I. (London Record Society, 1967Google Scholar), nos 49, 51 ; VCH, London, i. 461. The prioress at the time was probably Alice Trewethall.
17 LAO, Reg. 27, fo. iogv. Robert Kirton was abbot. See VCH, Northants, ii. 93.
18 LAO, Reg. 27, fo. 1 i6v. Bayly was a graduate non-resident at Polebrook in 1526–7 and at some point was rector of Shamebrook. See A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register ofthe University of Oxford A.D. 1501–1540, Oxford 1974, 35; LAO, Vj. 6, fo. 110; Vj. 11. fo. n ; Valor, iv. 203.
19 GL, MS 9531–10, fo. 16; Barber was instituted to Lawford on 10 Aug. 1526, LP iii. 2267, 2604; Emden, op. cit. 23ff.
20 Barber was known to many of More's close friends. In 1520 Linacre, acting as Grocyn's executor, pai d Barber 6s. 8d. as stipulated by Grocyn's will. See Collectanea II (Oxford Historical Society xvi, 1890), 327.
21 In the letter he designates himself S.D.P. and claims to have studied philosophy for nine years. As there is no record of this at English universities, it may be that Barber wen t abroad afte r leaving Oxfor d in 1522, LP iv. 2361.
22 LAO, Reg. 27, fo. 4.V; Chapter Acts of the Cathedral Church of St Mary of Lincoln 1520–36, 2 vols, ed. R. E. G. Cole (LRS xii, xiii, 1915, 1917), xii. 69; Salter, Subsidy, 37; Valor, iv. 18; More was witness to the previous incumbent's resignation, which took place at Eltham. Barber seems to have held all his livings for life.
23 Valor, i. 190; the county archivist Derek Shorrocks confirms that there are no surviving records of any institutions to Weston between 1425 and 1555. It seems probable that the advowson was held by the bishop of Bath and Wells, which suggests that Barber received this living from Wolsey between 1518 and 1523.
24 The grant is printed in full in Rogers, Correspondence, no. 147.
25 LP iv. 3591, 3677; Hennessy, Novum repertorium, 455; see also LP iv. 3527 for Taylor's plea to Wolsey to intercede for him in keeping his prebend. This confirms my contention that More and Tunstal were acting under the king's direction when they presented Knight to St Stephen's.
26 LP viii. 149 (16); Bloomfield, J. C., The History of Fringford, Hethe, Mixbury, Newton Purcell and Shelswell, London [1890], 14–15Google Scholar; VCH, Oxon, vi. 131; LAO, Reg. 27, lbs 177V, 184V.
27 Register of the University of Oxford 1449, 1505–71, ed. C. Boase (Oxford Historical Society i, 1885), 152; Emden, Register, 592.
28 Visitations, xxxv. 199. His curate was Richard Lye.
29 Bloomfield, op. cit. 34 ; LAO, Vj. it, fo. g8v; Emden, op. cit. 370. Vernha m also seems to have been rector of Worthie Mortymer from May 1549. See Registra Stephani Gardiner el Johannis Poynet, episcoporum Wintoniensium, ed. Maiden, H. E. and H. (Canterbury and York Society xxxvii, 1930), 145Google Scholar; see also Chambers, Faculty Office Registers, 308.
30 GL, MS 9531–10, fo. 167. Larke was instituted on 29 Mar. 1530.
31 Valor, i. 417, 433; Harvey, B., Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages, Oxford 1977, 77–9Google Scholar, t67n.; Dandie was also chaplain at St Margaret's, Westminster, in 1521, Henncssy, jVovum repertnrium, 120, 438. For the connection with Bilney, see J. Davis, ‘The trials of Thomas Bylncy and the English Reformation’, Historical Journal xxiv (1981), 775–90.
32 Dialogue, 301, for More's views on private chaplains. Larke would have needed a dispensation anyway, since his benefices were all cures. There is still an unsolved riddl e surrounding Larke's part in an incident involving two nuns in London. Mor e relates the story in his Confutation and alludes to it again in the Apology. He claimed that a Protestant bookbinder named Byr t had helped two nuns to ‘escape’ their cloister an d flee to Antwerp where they met up with George Joye, a noted Protestant writer. Joye denied thi s and accused John Larke of forcing the nuns to flee to avoid becoming his harlots. Th e nunner y was therefore probably St Helen's. See St. Tkomas More. The Apology, Complete Works, ix, New Haven 1979, 117, 365; and Confutation, 902–3.
33 I am indebted to the Revd Bernard Wigan, who is editing Fisher's register, for providing me with this information.
34 Kent Archives Office, MS DRa/vb. 4 (Visitations of the Archdeacons of Rochester, 1504–65), fas 50, 93, 168, 254.
35 Greater London Council Record Office, MS DL/C/330, fo. 265V.
36 Some authorities read 15 Feb. Gogan, Common Corps, 372; Larke's execution is noticed in BL, MS Lansdowne 980, fo. 42. For a printed copy of Larke's indictment see B. Camm, Lives of the English Martyrs, 2 vols, London 1904–5, i. 545–6. For Larke's consistory court citation and pension see S. Brigden, ‘The early Reformation in London, 1522–1547: the conflict in the parishes’, unpubl. PhD diss., Cambridge 1979, 309.
37 LAO, Reg. 27, fo. 192.
38 LAO, Reg. 27, fo. 175V; Chapter Acts, xii. 25.
39 J. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae: 1300–1341, 12 vols, ed. B.Jones, London 1962–7, x. 43.
40 LAO, Reg. 27, fo. 44.
41 LAO, Reg. 27, fo. 242.
42 He received the rectory of Southam, Warks, and a canonry in Ely, Emden, Register, 353.
43 Ibid.; G. Squibb, Doctor's Commons, Oxford 1977, 141.
44 C. A. McLaren, ‘An edition of Foxford: a vicar general's book of the diocese of London 1521–1539’, unpubl. MPhil diss., London 1973, 99.
45 LAO, Reg. 27, fos 57V, 192. Leyson was instituted to Ducklington on 24 Feb. 533 33.
46 LAO, Vj. 11, fo. 109; Saltcr, Subsidy, 270–1.
47 Visitations, xxxv. 24 ; LAO, Vj. 11, fo. 82.
48 Visitations, xxxiii. 132; xxxv. 49; LAO, Vj. II, fo. 150v, Cj. 3, fo. 154.
49 Emdcn, op. cit. 353.
50 The pluralities act itself was so emasculated that the restrictions were easily avoided by influential clerks or patrons. Such tempering indicates the degree to which pluralism was deemed necessary by the lawmakers. See Haigh, C., ‘Anticlericalism and the English Reformation’, in Haigh, (ed.), The English Reformation Revised, Cambridge 1987, 56–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
51 Apology, 48; see also More, Workes, ii. 937/h, and Dialogue, 295.
52 See e.g. Confutation, 616, 614–15, 595; and Dialogue, 107.