¹ Rymer, T., Foedera . . ., 3rd edn (London, 1739–1745)Google Scholar, VI. 140–141 (XIII. 606–607).

² e.g. Pollard, A. F., Wolsey (London, 1929)Google Scholar, omits dispensing from its lengthy treatment of his legatine powers in ch. 5. Cf. Gwyn, P., The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (London, 1990)Google Scholar, ch. 8, which in its similar survey at least treats this briefly on pp. 284–285.

³ This, of course, was the grounds for Henry VIII's request for a papal divorce from Catherine Aragon, namely that Julius II's dispensation for their marriage and hence the marriage itself were invalid since they went against divine law in Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21, which was understood to ban marriage to a brother's widow (Catherine was the widow of Henry's brother Arthur when she married Henry). In this particular case, however, the papal dispensation was supported by divine law in Deuteronomy 20:5, which permitted marriage to a brother's widow if the brother had died childless; this exception exactly fitted Henry's circumstances (Arthur and Catherine had no issue); see Scarisbrick, J. J., Henry VIII (London, 1968)Google Scholar, chs 7–8.

⁴ The degrees of kinship within which canon law prohibited marriage were seven by the late 11th c.; in 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council reduced them to four (X 4.14.8). Leviticus 18–20 covered most instances in the first and second degrees, thereby largely restricting dispensations for kinship to the ‘outer’, man-made degrees.

⁵ According to canon law, consummation would have turned the betrothal into marriage and the impediment into affinity. Affinity usually arose from sexual relations, even outside marriage, i.e. where one marriage partner had had extra-marital sex with someone related to the other within the prohibited degrees.

⁶ Couples seeking retrospective dispensations for impediments known to them when they married further needed papal absolution, for they incurred automatic excommunication through their conscious violation of canon law. Marital impediments normally became known as a result of reading the banns, which canon law required from 1215 before all marriages, therefore most of these couples had probably contracted ‘clandestine’ marriages, also condemned and penalized by canon law (X 4.3.3).

⁷ These were the so-called ‘Ember days’, i.e. the Saturdays after the first Sunday in Lent, Pentecost, Holy Rood Day (14 September), and St Lucy's Day (13 December).

⁸ Sanctioned in 1298 by Boniface VIII's constitution ‘Cum ex eo’ (VI 1.6.34); see Boyle, L. E., ‘The constitution “Cum ex eo” of Boniface VIII: Education of parochial clergy’, Mediaeval Studies, 24 (1962), 263–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ The canon ‘Si quis suadente’ (Decretum, C.17 q.4 c.29) made anti-clerical violence a ‘reserved case’ in 1139; apostasy, the canonical crime of religious leaving their houses without a superior's consent, became one in 1298 (VI 3.2.24). Offenders in both cases incurred automatic excommunication reserved along with the offence to papal absolution.

¹⁰ Aronstam, R. A., ‘Penitential pilgrimages to Rome in the early Middle Ages’, Archivum historiae pontificiae, 13 (1975), 65–83Google Scholar, esp. 67–70 on penitents seeking absolution from the pope in person. On the origins of the system see Sparrow Simpson, W. J., Dispensations (London, 1935), 1–6Google Scholar.

¹¹ See Supplications from England and Wales in the Registers of the Apostolic Penitentiary, 1410–1503, ed. P. D. Clarke and P. N. R. Zutshi, 3 vols, Canterbury and York Society, 103–105 (2013–), esp. the introduction in Vol. I, xiii–lviii, and other scholarship on the penitentiary cited there.

¹² For example, in 1298 Boniface VIII limited episcopal dispensations for defectus natalium to allowing men of illegitimate birth to receive minor orders and a benefice without cure of souls; anything more required a papal dispensation (VI 1.11.1). As to the archbishop of Canterbury's faculties, these are not well understood and need investigation; see Churchill, I. J., Canterbury Administration: The Administrative Machinery of the Archbishopric of Canterbury Illustrated from Original Records (London, 1933)Google Scholar, I. 506–507.

¹³ See, for example, the faculties conceded by Innocent VIII to James of Imola, legate a latere to the English and Scottish realms, in 1485: CPL, xiv. 23–26. Original examples of graces issued by such agents comprise: Bangor University Archives, Penrhyn MS 6 (papal nuncio, 1386); London, Lambeth Palace Library, Papal Documents 129b (papal chamberlain, 1506), 130 (nuncio, 1514); Archives départementales du Nord (Lille), B429–16141 (papal orator, 1468), edited by Clarke, P. D. ‘English royal marriages and the papal penitentiary in the fifteenth century’, English Historical Review, 120 (2005), 1014–1029CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 1026–1029. Others were copied in English episcopal registers, e.g. Lichfield Record Office, B/A/1/13 (Register of Coventry and Lichfield diocese, 1490–1502), fols 124v (papal nuncio, 1491), 161v, 164r–v (papal collector, 1495), 249v (papal orator, 1502); etc.

¹⁴ For example, James of Imola (see n. 13) might only dispense twelve persons from defectus natalium and the same number to hold two benefices in plurality.

¹⁵ See, e.g., Pollard, Wolsey, 168–169.

¹⁶ Pollard, Wolsey, 179–182; M. J. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction and influence during the episcopate of William Warham, 1503–1532’, PhD dissertation (University of Cambridge, 1965), 164–173; Wilkie, W. E., The Cardinal Protectors of England: Rome and the Tudors before the Reformation (Cambridge, 1974)Google Scholar, 83–5, 105–106, 113–114, 129–131, 133–135, 142–144, 168–169.

¹⁷ Lunt, W. E., Studies in Anglo-Papal Relations during the Middle Ages, II: Financial Relations of the Papacy with England, 1327–1534 (Cambridge, MA, 1962)Google Scholar, 160–168.

¹⁸ Pollard, Wolsey, 179; Letters and Papers, III, no. 149 (Gigli's letter to Wolsey, 29 March 1519).

¹⁹ Ibid. no. 298 (Gigli's letter to Wolsey, 10 June, 1519); Martène, E. and Durand, U. (eds), Veterum scriptorum et monumentorum historicum, dogmaticorum, moralium amplissima collectio, Vol. III (Paris, 1724)Google Scholar, col. 1289 (Wolsey's letter to Leo, 25 March 1519).

²⁰ Ibid. col. 1284 (Wolsey's letter to Leo, 11 April 1518): he requested the withdrawal of Campeggio's de iure legatine faculties and their transfer to him, asserting that Campeggio could never enter England but for him.

²¹ Letters and Papers, III, no. 475; Pollard, Wolsey, 180.

²² Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, 165; cf. Lunt, Financial Relations, 165–166.

²³ Letters and Papers, III, no. 557 (Campeggio's letter to Wolsey, 19 December 1519); Rymer, Foedera . . ., VI. 191 (XIII. 734–735).

²⁴ Pollard, Wolsey, 181; Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, 168–169.

²⁵ Rymer, Foedera . . ., VI. 193–194 (XIII. 739–742), which added a second two-year extension; Appendix 1a, which added a five-year extension beyond this (making ten years). Discussed by Pollard, Wolsey, 180–181; Gwyn, The King's Cardinal, 278; and Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, 169–171, who quotes the remark of John Clerk, the English ambassador in Rome, that the April bull contained ‘such faculties as I thinke the like hath not byn seen in englond theis many yeris’.

²⁶ Appendix 2. 38 below.

²⁷ Honorius III's constitution ‘Super speculam’ (1219) banned beneficed clergy from studying civil law on pain of excommunication (X 3.50.10).

²⁸ For the older view see Pollard, Wolsey, esp. 178–179, 190–196, who even characterizes Wolsey's exercise of legatine authority as ‘ecclesiastical despotism’ that allegedly contributed to the break with Rome. Cf. the more measured, ‘revisionist’ views of Houlbroke, 10, and Gwyn, The King's Cardinal, 267–299. See also Brown, K., ‘Wolsey and the ecclesiastical order: The case of the Franciscan observants’, in Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State and Art, ed. Gunn, S. J. and Lindley, P. G. (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar, 219–238.

²⁹ In common with the 1298 ruling in n. 9, the bull chiefly defined apostasy as abandoning the habit (implying a return to the secular life).

³⁰ As stipulated by Innocent III's decretal ‘Licet quibusdam’ (1206); X 3.31.18.

³¹ See n. 6, and also, on the next sentence, n. 3.

³² See the ruling in n. 6, which required priests to read the banns in the couple's parish church on three Sundays preceding the marriage.

³³ The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) had imposed an obligation on all adult Christians to confess their sins at least once a year at Easter to ‘their own priest’, generally understood to mean their parish priest (X 5.38.12). The subsequent popularity of friars as confessors encouraged growing demand for such papal licences from the mid 13th c.

³⁴ The interdict was a spiritual sanction suspending religious rites in certain places; it could be imposed by local ecclesiastical judges or ‘ordinaries’, notably bishops, and beneficiaries of these licences still had to observe it if they had occasioned it or it was imposed on them personally.

³⁵ Clarke, Peter D., ‘Canterbury as the new Rome: Dispensations and Henry VIII's reformation’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 64 (2013), 20–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 23–25.

³⁶ On these and other graces issued by the penitentiary see Supplications from England and Wales, ed. Clarke and Zutshi, I. xxvi–xlvi.

³⁷ See the examples noted by Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, 169 n. 3. In 1519 Gigli had informed Wolsey that he pointed out to Leo X on Wolsey's behalf ‘the ample legatine authority granted to Cardinal de Bussi’ in France (Letters and Papers, III, no. 149).

³⁸ Letters and Papers, III, no. 2771 (letter of Thomas Hannibal, English ambassador in Rome, to Wolsey, 13 January 1523).

³⁹ Letters and Papers, IV, nos. 14, 15, 252 (letters to Wolsey, the first two dated 9 January and the third, 16 April 1524, from John Clerk, the first with two other English diplomats in Rome). Such faculties were doubtless those to dispense for plurality and unions of benefices noted above.

⁴⁰ e.g. his bull of 21 August 1524 edited by Rymer, Foedera . . ., VI. 9–10 (XIV. 18–20); on what follows see n. 39.

⁴¹ Appendix 4. 31 and 56, to be discussed below.

⁴² Fink, K. A., ‘Die ältesten Breven und Brevenregister’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 25 (1933–1934), 292–307Google Scholar; Haren, M. J., ‘Papal secretariate and datary correspondence relating to Great Britain and Ireland in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: Summary report of a survey in the Vatican Archives’, Analecta Hibernica, 33 (1986), 1–14Google Scholar (quotation on p. 3). I am indebted for advice here to Dr Patrick Zutshi and Professor Michael Haren, especially for the latter's detailed diplomatic and linguistic observations on this purported breve.

⁴³ Cf. Battelli, G., Acta Pontificum, fasc. III (Vatican City, 1965)Google Scholar, nos. 28c and 28d.

⁴⁴ Letters and Papers, IV/2, no. 3401.2.

⁴⁵ Notably the passage ‘diuinas humanasve leges remittendo, relaxando, limitando aut moderando’, though even here, as Prof. Haren has pointed out to me by email, the failure to omit ‘remittendo, relaxando, limitando’ upsets the syntax and sense.

⁴⁶ See n. 3. Prof. Haren characterizes this as a ‘dispensatory blank cheque’ representing ‘wishful thinking on the part of Wolsey or those close to him’.

⁴⁷ I have traced five, calendared in Appendix 4. 7, 51, 63, 77, 90.

⁴⁸ These comprise the remaining calendar-entries in Appendix 4 not noted in n. 47, including 37, which occurs in a diocesan visitation book (identified pace Houlbrooke, 185) rather than a bishop's register. Doubtless similar material can be found in other English visitation and church court records, but the sheer volume of these records and their distribution across many repositories made it impractical to gather such material systematically for this edition. All episcopal registers for England covering the 1520s were, however, searched for Wolsey's letters of dispensation; (no such registers survive for Carlisle, Durham or the four Welsh dioceses).

⁴⁹ Appendix 2. 9, 14, 18, 20, 35, 61, 88.

⁵⁰ Appendix 4. 30, 31, 35, 36, 41–43, 45–52.

⁵¹ Only four of these 174 graces have been identified, and only tentatively, with extant letters: Appendix 3. 132, 144, 153, 166. Some thirty-six other letters survive which Wolsey issued in the same period: Appendix 4. 55–64, 66–82, 84–90, 92, 93.

⁵² Rome, Penitenzieria Apostolica, Registra Matrimonialium et Diversorum, 74, fols 101r–v (Exeter dioc.), 224r–v (Bath and Wells dioc.), 244v (St David's dioc.), 246r–v (Bath and Wells dioc.). The register relates to the third year of Clement VII's pontificate; a second register should exist for this year, recording supplications for marital dispensations, but does not survive. Thus the number of supplications from England and Wales approved by the papal penitentiary was probably higher than four that year.

⁵³ The second and fourth petitions noted in n. 52 came from apostates who had doubtless fled their houses to the curia, since the penitentiary committed their absolution to bishops resident there. The first petition concerned a dispensation from defectus natalium, which Wolsey was competent to grant, but, as we will see, some suspected that his power to do so was restricted. The third regarded a runaway Benedictine who asked to be freed from the religious life and apostasy charges on the grounds that his profession was forced and under-age and thus invalid; it is unclear whether Wolsey made such grants under his faculty to absolve apostates.

⁵⁴ For example the three papal bulls for unions issued between 1522 and 1524 in Reg. Veysey, 1, fol. 26v; 2, fols 40v–41r, 49r–50r. Cf. Reg. Blythe, fols 11v–12r, 16v–17r, 114v: two bulls for unions and two others for plurality, where Wolsey's dispensing powers were similarly restricted; all four date from between 1522 and 1526.

⁵⁵ For example, Reg. Blythe contains twelve graces of Wolsey in contrast to the four contemporary bulls in n. 54.

⁵⁶ e.g. Reg. Bothe ed., 93–94, 273–273: two penitentiary letters, one issued before Wolsey's activity, in March 1521, the other after, in 1533. Reg. Veysey, 2, fol. 12r–v, nevertheless records a penitentiary letter dated 7 August 1521 but it was probably requested before Wolsey's dispensing powers were generally known in England.

⁵⁷ See my ‘Canterbury as the new Rome’, 26–28.

⁵⁸ Entries in Appendices 2 and 4, but not Appendix 3, indicate the dioceses of his graces’ beneficiaries, except for six entries in Appendix 2 which omit the beneficiaries’ location. The entries for each diocese are indicated in the index, and the consolidated figures based on it are: Bangor (1); Bath and Wells (7); Canterbury (3); Carlisle (3); Chichester (1); Coventry and Lichfield (33); Durham (1); Ely (2); Exeter (9); Hereford (3); Lincoln (20); Llandaff (14); London (11); Norwich (11); Rochester (5); St Asaph (1); St David's (4); Salisbury (26); Winchester (12); Worcester (9); York (23). These figures count Wolsey's marriage dispensations twice where they concern partners from different dioceses, such as the five instances in Appendix 2.

⁵⁹ e.g. Appendix 4. 2, 3, 7, 15, 18, 34, 51, 56, 58, 62, 65, 84, 86.

⁶⁰ P. D. Clarke, ‘Central authority and local powers: the apostolic penitentiary and the English Church in the fifteenth century’, Historical Research, 84 (2011), 416–442, at p. 419.

⁶¹ e.g. Reg. Fisher, fol. 160r–v (cameral collector, 9 March 1530); Reg. Veysey, 2, fol. 9r–v (nuncio, 25 May 1521); Reg. Nykke, 4, fols 117r–v, 120v–121v (both of cameral collector, 27 November 1529 and 6 July 1530).

⁶² Pollard, Wolsey, 215. Cf. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, 201: ‘The cardinal may have felt hamstrung by the undoubted limitations to his faculties – all the more so since he interpreted his powers conservatively and took no large moves without papal or episcopal acquiescence’; also Gwyn, The King's Cardinal, 338: ‘It is important to grasp just how cautious and circumscribed was Wolsey's approach to the exercise of his legatine powers.’

⁶³ This is evident from the office's system of registration, which changed under Leo from one annual register to two, one of which was devoted exclusively to marriage.

⁶⁴ Appendix 3. 15, 16, 18, 20, 22–24, 34, 36, 37, 41, 46, 49, 63, 65, 66, 71, 84, 89, 90, 98, 100, 112, 114, 120, 147–150, 154, 157.

⁶⁵ Fourth degree of consanguinity: Appendix 2. 6, 10–12, 17, 41, 43, 51, 53, 73, 74, 78, 81, 95, 99, 100, 108. Third degree of consanguinity: Appendix 2. 52; Appendix 4. 16, 92. Third and fourth degrees of consanguinity: Appendix 2. 7, 33, 39, 76, 94, 106, 109; Appendix 4. 81. Fourth degree of affinity: Appendix 2. 34, 58, 70, 75, 79, 102, 107. Third degree of affinity: Appendix 2. 63, 64. Third and fourth degrees of affinity: Appendix 2. 3, 48, 77; Appendix 4. 14. Other, more complex permutations: Appendix 2. 13, 25; Appendix 4. 8, 49. Cognatio spiritualis: Appendix 2. 8, 45, 46, 50, 55, 80, 97, 101, 105 (unusually arising from confirmation); Appendix 4. 92. Solemnization without banns: Appendix 2. 21, 44, 71. The bull also authorized him to grant dispensations for public honesty, but none issued by Wolsey are known.

⁶⁶ Appendix 2. 3, 72.

⁶⁷ Appendix 2. 47 (combined with the fourth degree); Appendix 4. 53 (combined with the third).

⁶⁸ Appendix 4. 53; cf. 8, 14, 16, 49. The latter letters in describing this faculty also distinguished that Wolsey might dispense marriages retrospectively whether couples had prior knowledge of the impediment or not; this distinction is not made explicit in the bull, but implied.

⁶⁹ Supplications from England and Wales, ed. Clarke and Zutshi, I. xxviii.

⁷⁰ Appendix 2. 1, 5, 9 ( = Appendix 4. 29), 14 ( = Appendix 4. 32), 15, 18 ( = Appendix 4. 33), 19, 20, 28, 57, 62, 82, 98, 104; Appendix 4. 12, 21, 25, 27, 30, 31, 35, 42, 47, 61, 64, 66, 68, 71, 72, 75, 82, 88, 89.

⁷¹ Deacon's and priest's orders: Appendix 4. 72, 82, 88 (understandably all three beneficiaries were subdeacons). All orders: Appendix 2. 104.

⁷² Priesthood at 24: Appendix 2. 19, 20 (with benefice), 57, 62, 98; Appendix 4. 71. Priesthood at 23: Appendix 2. 1, 9 ( = Appendix 4. 29), 14 ( = Appendix 4. 32), 15, 18 ( = Appendix 4. 33), 28, 82, 104; Appendix 4. 30, 35 (with benefice at 20), 41, 60, 63, 65, 67, 81, 88. Priesthood at 22: Appendix 4. 25. He might dispense seculars to become priests only at 23.

⁷³ Two orders on the same day: Appendix 4. 42, 66, 68. Extra tempora statuta a iure: Appendix 2. 62; Appendix 4. 66, 68, 72. Any bishop: Appendix 2. 82; Appendix 4. 25, 29 ( = Appendix 2. 9), 30, 32 ( = Appendix 2. 14), 33 ( = Appendix 2. 18), 42, 61, 64, 72, 82, 88, 89. In the case of the latter concession, about half of the beneficiaries are known to have taken advantage of it by receiving ordination outside of their home diocese (Appendix 4. 25, 29, 30, 32, 33, 61).

⁷⁴ Appendix 2. 20 (at 24); Appendix 4. 12 (at 19), 30 (at 24), 35 (at 20), 75 (at 23). Two of these also dispensed the benefice-holders for seven years from the obligation to seek ordination as priests, provided that they became subdeacons within two years; which the bull had also authorized (Appendix 4. 12, 75).

⁷⁵ Appendix 2. 5 (at 16); Appendix 4. 21 (at 17), 27 (at 16), 47 (at 16), 71 (at 17). Four of the ten dispensations for under-age benefice-holding also comprised licences for non-residence (Appendix 4. 21, 47, 71, 75), to which we will return later.

⁷⁶ Graduates: Appendix 2. 49, 54, 88 ( = Appendix 4. 44); Appendix 4. 4, 7, 10, 11, 15, 39, 45, 48, 51, 55, 60, 65, 83. Others of uncertain ‘status’: Appendix 2. 2, 4, 83, 83, 96; Appendix 3. 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 167, 169; Appendix 4. 2, 3, 6, 17, 18, 57, 59, 67, 76, 77, 86, 87. For ‘trialty’ discussed below: Appendix 2. 54; Appendix 4. 83.

⁷⁷ Graduates: Appendix 2. 29, 56, 68, 86(?); Appendix 3. 166 (? = Appendix 4. 83), 170, 171; Appendix 4. 13 (also Wolsey's familiar), 50, 56, 70. Others of uncertain status: Appendix 2. 87, 90; Appendix 3. 2, 4, 7, 9, 173.

⁷⁸ Appendix 4. 13, 56. Ironically both letters were addressed to graduates, one of them also Wolsey's familiar.

⁷⁹ Appendix 2. 83, 86, 96; Appendix 4. 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 39, 44, 45, 48, 51, 55, 57, 59, 60, 67, 76, 77, 83, 86, 87.

⁸⁰ Absque clausa non residendi: Appendix 2. 2, 4. Separate licences: Appendix 2. 22, 27, 35 ( = Appendix 4. 37), 37, 84, 85, 103; Appendix 4. 4, 43, 58 (for 2 benefices), 62 (with absolution for breaking oath of residence), 69.

⁸¹ Appendix 4. 37, 39, 45, 51. Canonical reasons: Appendix 4. 3, 4, 6, 7, 15, 17, 18, 21, 44, 47, 48, 55, 57, 59, 60, 63, 71, 76, 83, 84, 86, 87.

⁸² See, for instance, Gibbs, M. and Lang, J., Bishops and Reform, 1215–1272, with Special Reference to the Lateran Council of 1215 (Oxford, 1934Google Scholar; repr. 1962), 164–167.

⁸³ Extra tempora statuta a iure: Appendix 2. 31, 32, 42, 60, 91. With ordination by any bishop: Appendix 4. 24, 36, 54, 79. With promotion to two orders on one day: Appendix 2. 26, 92, 93. All three combined: Appendix 4. 38 ( = Appendix 2. 61), 46, 74, 80, 91. Two orders on one day: Appendix 2. 30.

⁸⁴ Appendix 4. 66, 68, 72.

⁸⁵ Appendix 4. 40, 84, 90.

⁸⁶ Appendix 4. 28.

⁸⁷ Appendix 2. 24; Appendix 4. 28, 40, 41, 84, 90. Cf. Supplications from England and Wales, ed. Clarke and Zutshi, I. xlii–xlv.

⁸⁸ Friars: Appendix 4. 52 (OCarm), 63 (OESA), 73 (OFM), 85 (OFM Observant), 93 (OFM). Regular canons: Appendix 2. 16 (OSA), 23 (OSA), 36, 59 (OSA); Appendix 4. 1 (OSA), 19 (OSA), 20 (OSA), 26 (OPrem). Monks: Appendix 2. 69 (OSB), 110 (Cluniac); Appendix 3. 161 (OCist). Unspecified religious: Appendix 3. 12, 28, 30, 31, 32.

⁸⁹ Habit under priest's garb: Appendix 2. 16, 36; Appendix 4. 19, 20, 52. He also granted this favour outside of capacities: Appendix 4. 22 (OSB), 26 (OPrem). Non-residence: Appendix 4. 19, 20, 26, 52, 63.

⁹⁰ Appendix 4. 19, 20, 22, 23 (transfer). The June bull indeed authorized him to license transfers.

⁹¹ Appendix 2. 65, 66; Appendix 3. 60 (cf. ibid. 163).

⁹² Appendix 4. 5. The faculty described in this letter indeed specifies ‘certain persons’ as the intended recipients; the papal penitentiary normally granted such licences to individuals: Supplications from England and Wales, ed. Clarke and Zutshi, I. xxxvi. The June bull also authorized Wolsey to permit meat-eating in such licences only on medical advice, a qualification this letter ignores.

⁹³ Clarke, ‘Central authority and local powers’.

⁹⁴ Notarized copies: Appendix 4. 20, 24, 27, 30, 42, 43, 46, 57–60, 62, 64, 66, 69, 71, 73, 80, 82–6, 89, 92. The notaries who signed these copies were: P. Wyverne (83); Gregory Stonyng (59, 66, 71, 92); Thomas Candell (all other copies above except 73). Stonyng was a notary public by August 1517 and had studied civil law at Oxford (BRUO, 1501–1540, 543).

⁹⁵ Appendix 4. 25, 32, 33. Likewise on admission to benefices: ibid. 50.

⁹⁶ See Clarke, ‘Central authority and local powers’, esp. 430–431 regarding a case where the bishop refused to execute the grace since he found the petitioners’ claims incorrect.

⁹⁷ Appendix 4. 7, 51, 62 and 76 were exhibited for this purpose, at least one of them to royal visitors (62); cf. my ‘Canterbury as the new Rome’, 40. Appendix 4. 37 was presented at an episcopal visitation.

⁹⁸ Appendix 4. 65. Hampshire Record Office (Winchester), 21M65/C1/3 (Winchester Consistory Court, Office Act Book, 1526–1528, 1529), fols 63v, 68v, 69v, 73v.

⁹⁹ e.g. Appendix 4. 3; etc. On similar failings by penitentiary petitioners, see Clarke, ‘Central authority and local powers’, 421–422, 430.

¹⁰⁰ Gwyn, The King's Cardinal, 285. See also Houlbroke, 185–186.

¹⁰¹ Appendix 2. 110: ‘cuius nomen remanet in registro magistri Toneys’. For letters signed by him, see under ‘Robert Toneys’ in the index.

¹⁰² BRUC, 591. Toneys was also Wolsey's registrar of the joint-prerogative court (Gwyn, The King's Cardinal, 279, 301).

¹⁰³ Only one original thus signed by him survives (Appendix 4. 77), but his name is consistently recorded on the right below copies in bishops’ registers (listed under ‘William Claiburgh’ in the index). He was also an official of Wolsey's legatine court of audience (Gwyn, The King's Cardinal, 282).

¹⁰⁴ Appendix 3. 161–64, 172–74.

¹⁰⁵ Venn, i. 350; Appendix 3 styles him ‘Doctor’.

¹⁰⁶ Appendix 4. 88, 89, 91; his name similarly appears on the right below these letters. BRUO, 1501–1540, 57–58.

¹⁰⁷ On three originals: Appendix 4. 63, 77, 90. His name normally appears on the left below copies (listed under ‘M. John Hughes’ in the index).

¹⁰⁸ Letters and Papers, IV, no. 4592.

¹⁰⁹ BRUO, II. 925.

¹¹⁰ Hampton Court: Appendix 4. 35–7. The More: ibid. 93.

¹¹¹ Letters and Papers, IV, no. 4592.

¹¹² ‘Canterbury as the new Rome’, 28–29.

¹¹³ Appendix 2. 29, 87; Appendix 3. 2 (£5 5s 4d), 4 (£9), 7 (£8 10s), 9 (£13 6s 8d), 169 (£5), 170 (£15), 173 (£9). But comparison of fees in each list shows no similar inflation for capacities and dispensations for plurality: the former cost between £5 and £6 in Appendix 2, and between £3 15s 8d and £6 19s in Appendix 3; the latter, between £6 and £8 6s 8d in Appendix 2, and between £4 13s 4d and £6 15s 8d in Appendix 3 (though this might seem a price decrease, the average fee was around £6 in both lists). Fees for similar graces clearly varied even in the same list, and did so according to each grant's specific nature: dispensations for plurality cost more if they included a non-residence clause (Appendix 2. 49(?), 83, 88) or concerned a ‘trialty’ (ibid. 54; Appendix 3. 8).

¹¹⁴ Clarke, P. D., ‘Petitioning the pope: English supplicants and Rome in the fifteenth century’, in The Fifteenth CenturyXI: Concerns and Preoccupations, ed. L. Clark (Woodbridge, 2012)Google Scholar, 41–60, esp. 48–49; ‘Canterbury as the new Rome’, 29–31.

¹¹⁵ Houlbrooke, 10. See n. 28 on what follows.

¹¹⁶ John Dodington's letter of 28 June 1516 to Sir Robert Plumpton in The Plumpton Letters and Papers, ed. J. Kirby, Camden Society, 5th series, 8 (1996), no. 215: ‘yt is sayd of certayne þat they comes a lyget [i.e. legate] from Rome to my lord Cartdenall’ & shall bring to my lord Cardenall the paypis with <full> authryty & power of all maner of things <in> the reame of England’.

¹¹⁷ Letters and Papers, IV, no. 4592, refers to John Hughes's payments to Robert Toneys, the scribe engrossing Wolsey's graces, out of the revenues these generated.

¹¹⁸ Gwyn, The King's Cardinal, 316–337; Brown, ‘Wolsey and the ecclesiastical order’. See Appendix 4. 19, 20, and 22–3 on what follows.

¹¹⁹ Hodgett, G. A. J., ‘The unpensioned ex-religious in Tudor England’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 13 (1962), 195–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chambers, D. S., Faculty Office Registers, 1534–1549 (Oxford, 1966)Google Scholar, xlii–lviii.

¹²⁰ Chambers, Faculty Office, lxii; see ibid. xviii, xvii on what follows.