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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
It is a cliché of medieval ecclesiastical history that the clergy was a ‘hierarchy’. When we use this term, we may mean ‘priesdy rule’, but more often we are referring to the way in which the clergy was graded in successive ranks, one above another. Most obviously, the clergy was so arranged in the seven steps of holy orders: doorkeeper, reader, exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, priest. But simple stratification by orders was only part of a much more complex hierarchical system, in which the major differentiating factor was office. Both elements–orders and office–were the subjects of a considerable literature in the early Middle Ages: side by side with treatises on orders–belonging to the genre de officiis septem graduum–is a body of writings concerned to define the functions, relations and grades of ecclesiastical offices–the genre de ecclesiasticis officiis. Two related documents telling us of the customs at Old Sarum owe much to tracts of this kind: the Institutio, compiled by stages in the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, and the Consuetudinarium of Richard Poore, written c. 1215, which greatly expands the Institutio.
1 See Reynolds, Roger E., ‘The De Officiis VII Graduum: its origins and early medieval development’, Mediaeval Studies, 34 (1972), pp. 113–51 Google Scholar; ‘The “Isidorian” Epistula ad Leudefredum: an early medieval epitome of clerical duties’, ibid., 41 (1979), pp. 252–330; and The Ordinals of Christ from their Origins to the Twelfth Century (Beiträge zur Geschichte … des Mittelalters 7, 1978).
2 For the Institutio, see Greenway, D., ‘The false Institutio of St Osmund’, in Tradition and Change: Essays in honour of Marjorie Chibnall (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 77–101 Google Scholar; and for the Consuetudinarium, see the critical edition in The Use of Sarum, ed. Frere, W. H., 2 vols (Cambridge, 1898), 1 Google Scholar (also printed, from a single MS, Vetus Registrum Sarisberiense, alius dictum Registrum S. Osmundi Episcopi, ed. Jones, W. H. Rich, 2 vols (RS 78, 1883-4), 1, PP. 1–185 Google Scholar).
3 BL Cotton MS Tib. C. i fols 42–52v; cf. Le pontifical romano-germanique du dixième siècle, ed. Vogel, C. and Elze, R. (Studi e Testi 226, 269, 1963-72), 2, pp. 67, 70 Google Scholar.
4 Cons., cap. cxiv, Use of Sarum, 1, p. 203. The later Processional has an even greater number of ministers in the Maundy procession, see Ceremonies and Processions of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, ed. Wordsworth, C. (Cambridge, 1901), pp. 68–73 Google Scholar, and see also Bailey, T., The Processions of Sarum and the Western Church (Toronto, 1971 Google Scholar).
5 VCH Wiltshire, 3, pp. 156–8.
6 Ker, N. R., ‘The beginnings of Salisbury cathedral library’, in Medieval Learning and Literature: essays presented to R. W. Hunt, eds Alexander, J. J. G. and Gibson, M. T. (Oxford, 1976), pp. 23–49 Google Scholar. Dr M.T.J. Webber’s recent study of Salisbury MSS in the late nth and early 12th centuries has shed much light on the intellectual interests of the chapter, and it is hoped that this will soon appear in print.
7 See Hope, W. St John, ‘The Sarum Consuetudinary and its relation to the Cathedral Church of Old Sarum’, Archaeologta, 68 (1917), pp. 111–26 Google Scholar; also Clapham, A. W., in Archaeological Journal, 104 (1948), pp. 140–2 Google Scholar.
8 See the taxation list of 1226, Registrum S. Osmundi, 2, pp. 70–5.
9 Charters and Documents, illustrative of the History of the Cathedral, City, and Diocese of Salisbury in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, ed. Jones, W. Rich and Macray, W. Dunn (RS 97, 1891), pp. 16–17 Google Scholar; Greenway, cf., ‘Institutio’, p. 87 Google Scholar.
10 The central west-facing position was normal Romanesque practice; for Canterbury, see Woodman, F., The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 1981), p. 47 Google Scholar, citing The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. Stubbs, W., 2 vols. (RS 73, 1879-80), 1, p. 13 Google Scholar. The bishop’s throne in Osmund’s apse was almost certainly in this position (see Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 26 (1914), pp. 100–19 at p. 103), but the excavation of Roger le Por’s square-ended presbytery did not reveal his throne’s position (see Hope, St John, ‘The Sarum Consuetudinary’, p. 116 Google Scholar).
11 See Use of Sarum, index, pp. 292–3; cf. Edwards, K., The English Secular Cathedrals in the Middle Ages (Manchester, 2 edn., 1967), pp. 102–3 Google Scholar.
12 The evidence at Lincoln is inconclusive; see Thompson, A. H., The English Clergy and their Organization in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947), pp. 73–4 and p. 74 Google Scholar n. 1.
13 Charters of Salisbury, p. 95, cited English Secular Cathedrals, p. 108.
14 A confirmation charter of Henry II, Salisbury Dean and Chapter Archives IV/C.2/Royal charters/36, copied in Liber Evidenciarum C no. 47, contains a clause omitted from a second, otherwise duplicate, charter, IV/C.2/Royal charters/32, and from the copy in MS ‘Register of St Osmund’, Trowbridge, Wilts. Record Office, D1/1/1 fo. 22r (printed in Registrum S. Osmundi, 1, pp. 203–6). These two charters are listed in Acta of Henry U and Richard I, ed. J. C. Holt and Richard Mortimer (List and Index Soc. spec. ser. 21, 1986), no. 262, ii and i respectively (acta nos. 317, 316). I am very grateful to Dr Mortimer for his help on this point.
15 Printed, in Ceremonies of Salisbury, pp. 129–32 Google Scholar; and Jones, W. H., Fasti Ecclesiae Sarisberiensis (Salisbury, 1881), pp. 200–2 Google Scholar. The MS list dates from the 15th century, but internal evidence suggests that the division was made in the middle of the 12th, as the ten prebends entered last seem to have been created after c. 1150, cf. below n. 27.
16 Cons., cap. xxxii (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 51). Here I agree with Frere, Use of Sarum, 1, p. 293, and disagree with Edwards, English Secular Cathedrals, pp. 109–10, whose examples of the bishop appearing as a mere prebendary, and not as president, are drawn from the period after the removal to New Salisbury (cf. also Thompson, English Clergy, pp. 73–4). For an act of chapter at Old Sarum in 1222 in presentia episcopi, see Osmundi, Registrum S., p. 18 Google Scholar; and cf. ibid., pp. 37, 42, 60. Lincoln, Cf., Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, ed. Bradshaw, H. and Wordsworth, C., 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1892-7), 1, p. 107 Google Scholar.
17 Greenway, , ‘Institution’, pp. 81–6 Google Scholar.
18 Ibid., p. 95, cap. 7; Cons., cap. ix (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 8); Greenway, cf., ‘Institutio’, pp. 87–8 Google Scholar.
19 Cons., cap. ix (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 8).
20 Ibid., cap. ii (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 2).
21 Ibid., cap. xii (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 13).
22 Ibid., cap. xxxii (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 51).
23 Ibid., cap. xii, and cf. cap.xxx (Use of Sarum, 1, pp. 13, 47–8).
24 Com., cap. xxxii (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 51).
25 lbid., cap. xix (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 25).
26 Liber Evid. C no. 461; Statutes and Customs of the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Salisbury, ed. Wordsworth, C. and Macleane, D. (London, 1915), pp. 156–9 Google Scholar. These late lists were drawn up in connection with residence requirements: the prebends are listed on either choir side in four groups, each group consisting of some priest, some deacon and some subdeacon prebends, and one group from each choir side was required to reside each quarter of the year. Cf. also a list of named canons with their prebends in 1284, Liber Evid. C no. 517, arranged in this way, to be printed as an appendix in my forthcoming Fasti EcclesiaeAnglicanae 1066–1300, IV Salisbury (Institute of Historical Research, University of London).
27 The taxation (see above, n. 8), with some disorder towards the end, puts first those prebends that are later called priest-prebends, followed by the deacon prebends and then the subdeacon prebends. The division of the Psalter (see above, n. 15) arranges the first forty-two prebends so that priest prebends are first, followed by deacon and subdeacon prebends.
28 This statement is based on my forthcoming Fasti volume. Cf. The Registers of Roger Martival, Bishop of Salisbury, 1315–1330, eds Edwards, K. et al., 4 vols (Canterbury and York Society 55–9, 68, 1959-75), 1, pp. 4–5 Google Scholar, 14, 19–21, 34, 36, 62.
29 Statutes of Salisbury, pp. 214–15.
30 For references to vicars’ orders on admission (all priests), see Hemingby’s Register, ed. Chew, H. M. (Wilts. Record Society 18, 1963), pp. 82 Google Scholar, 84, 117, 120, 121, 125; and for references to subdeacon’s, acolyte’s, and other minor orders, see ibid., pp. 91, 92, 107, and cf. p. 93.
31 Willelmi, Cf. Malmesbiriensis de Gestis Pontificum, ed. Hamilton, N. E. S. A. (RS 52, 1870), pp. 183–4 Google Scholar.
32 Statutes of Salisbury, pp. 114–21; Ceremonies of Salisbury, pp. 269–73. On the Gothic stalls, see Tracy, C. W., English Gothic Choir Stalls 1200–1400 (Woodbridge, 1987 Google Scholar).
33 Cons. cap.xi (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 12).
34 Ibid., caps. xxv, xlvii, xlviii (Use of Sarum, 1, pp. 41, 107, 108). For ‘matricula’ meaning a list of churches in a diocese, see Cheney, C. R., English Bishops’ Chanceries 1100–1250 (Manchester, 1950). PP. 112–19 Google Scholar.
35 Cons., cap. xlvii (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 106).
36 Gratian c. 5, D 28 (in Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Friedberg, E., 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1879-81), 1, cols. 101–2 Google Scholar), but in the early 12th century it is doubtful if examination was very rigorous, see Brett, M., The English Church under Henry I (Oxford, 1975), pp. 121–2 Google Scholar.
37 Pontifical romano-germanique, 1, p. 275; BL Cotton MS Tib. C. i fo. 183v.
38 Cens., cap. xii (Use of Sarum, 1, p. 13); there is, however, no reference to scientia, an element linked with age and conduct in Gregory IX’s decretal, X I tit. 14 c. 4 (Friedberg 11, cols 126–7).
39 Statutes of Salisbury, pp. 50, 76;cf. English Secular Cathedrals, pp. 270–1.