^{Page 184 of note 2} The Council’s findings were promulgated in the general sessions in which a representative of each constituent nation (nacio) gave its placet. The discussions in the separate nations which preceded this stage are rarely recorded in the Council’s acta.

^{Page 184 of note 3} Some observations on the absence of reports of the meetings of the nations at Constance will be found in my article in RHE, lvii (1962), 472 ff.

^{Page 185 of note 1} The St Albans chronicle is held by common consent to give the most adequate narrative of events concerning England in the first two decades of the fifteenth century, and its most recent editor has commented on the attention which it pays to the general councils ofthat time, St Albans Chronicle, 1406-20, ed. Galbraith, V. H., Oxford 1937, xxii Google Scholar. This opinion may be justified by its report of developments leading to the Council of Pisa, op. cit., 31 ff. In the case of Constance the chronicler summarises the activity of the opening months, op. cit., 83-5, and only returns to it with Martin V’s election two and a half years later, op. cit., 104-09. Nevertheless this is a much fuller account than that given by any other contemporary English chronicle.

^{Page 185 of note 2} Jacob, E. F., Essays in the Conciliar Epoch, Manchester 1953, 78 ffGoogle Scholar. More light will be thrown on this interesting topic by the studies at present being undertaken by Miss Margaret Harvey.

^{Page 185 of note 3} The main items in this correspondence are Bishop Clifford’s letter of 8 December 1417, the City’s reply on the following 18 January, and a further letter from the bishop, undated, nos. 21, 22, 24 in table below. The formulary in Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. III. 53, ff. 99, 99 ^υ , 102 ^υ contains three undated letters from the City to their bishop, two asking for news of him and one acknowledging a letter from him (nos. 16, 17 and 19). If these letters were ever sent, and their absence from the register suggests they may not have been, their place in the sequence would probably be prior to the bishop’s letter of 8 December 1417.

^{Page 186 of note 1} See ‘Sigismund, Henry V, and the Council of Constance, a Re-examination,’ Historical Studies, IV (1963), 93–110 Google Scholar.

^{Page 186 of note 2} For the period 1433-4, see Dr Schofield’s article ‘The first English delegation at Basel,’ JEH, XII (1961), 167-96. What would seem to be the privy seal office draft of the instructions of 14 August 1433 (Schofield, ibid. 193-94) is preserved among Ancient Correspondence at the P.R.O. S.C. 1/57, no. 70, (Lists & Indexes, London 1902, XV 260).

^{Page 186 of note 3} Ourliac, P., ‘Sociologie du concile de Bâle,’ RHE, LVI (1961), 25 Google Scholar.

^{Page 186 of note 4} For the king’s representation, Rymer, T., Foedera &c., The Hague 1740, IV, pt ii, 91, 169Google Scholar; for the Convocation of Canterbury, The Register of Henry Chiehele, ed. Jacob, E. F., Oxford 1943, 111, 11 Google Scholar; and of York, Records of the Northern Convocation, ed. Kitching, G. W., Durham 1907, 135 Google Scholar; for archbishop Chichele, Reg. Chichele, ed. E. F. Jacob, IV, 107-08; for the bishop of Exeter, Register of Edmund Stafford, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, F.C., London 1886, 67 Google Scholar; and for other possible proxies see the list of oaths taken at Constance on 4 February 1416, von der Hardt, H., Magnum oecumenicum concilium Constantiense &c., Frankfort 1697, IV, 586 ffGoogle Scholar. (cited hereafter as Hardt).

^{Page 187 of note 1} Chapters of the English Black Monks, ed. Pantin, W. A., London 1931, 111, 94-7Google Scholar. The representative capacity of the Cistercian abbots of Fountains, Jervaulx and Beaulieu for their order is less clear; Cf.Martène, E. & Durand, U., Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum, Paris 1717, IV, 1562-3Google Scholar.

^{Page 187 of note 2} The provincial of the English Dominicans may have been present in the early weeks of the council, Hardt, IV, 385. Thomas Netter, the Carmelite provincial, is frequently said to have attended the Council, C. L. Kingsford, in DNB, XL, 232. William Butler, the Franciscan, was there after being removed from office, Déprez, E., Etudes de diplomatique anglaise, Paris 1903, 29–30 Google Scholar. In none of these cases is there any indication of a representative capacity.

^{Page 187 of note 3} Henry de Abendon, later warden of Merton, claimed to speak for Oxford, Hardt, IV, 595, and William Corife is plainly called a proctor of the same university in the funeral oration by his colleague, Richard Flemming; Leidinger, G., Andreas von Regensburg, Sämtliche Werke, Munich 1903, 255 Google Scholar. Constance was a natural magnet to aspiring graduates since it housed the papal curia as well as the Council.

^{Page 187 of note 4} An entry in their chapter act-book makes it clear that Salisbury sent proctors; Salisbury, Dean and Chapter Muniments, Reg. Pounteny, f. iiij ^υ . A payment made by the Communar at Wells to Henry de Abendon, who was a canon of the cathedral, suggests the possibility of his having acted for the chapter there, Bird, W. H. P. and Baildon, W. P., Calendar of Manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of Wells, HMC, London 1907, 11, 55. CfGoogle Scholar. The Register of Nicholas Bubwith, ed. T. S. Holmes, Somerset Record Society XXIX, 1914, I, XXX.

^{Page 188 of note 1} See the table at the end of this article. In addition to the three letters from London to its bishop which may never have been sent (nos. 16, 17 and 19) and which in any case do nothing to illuminate the activity of the English delegates at Constance, the letter from Ixworth to Swan (no. 7) betrays only a general interest without any particular knowledge.

^{Page 188 of note 2} The war with France was an added obstacle. Another correspondent of William Swan, probably writing early in 1417, refers to a ban imposed by the king on all traffic across the Channel, Bodleian Library, MS Arch. Seld. B. 23, f. 96 ^υ . Probably there never was such a thing as an average journey, since local conditions were too variable; but such examples as there are make it reasonable to reckon three to four weeks for the passage of news between Constance and London. An interval of eight weeks was cause for complaint in the letter to Swan just cited. Martin V’s election on 11 November 1417 was known in London by 26 November, Reg. Chichek, ed. Jacob, in, 33, and the chapter at Salisbury knew of Bishop Hallum’s death at Constance three weeks after it occurred, Salisbury, D. & C. Mun., Reg. Pountney, f. xxx, although this does not appear from the corresponding letter asking the archbishop to name the official for the vacant see, Reg. Chichele, ed. Jacob, 111, 426.

^{Page 188 of note 3} No 15 in the table below. Cf. the royal mandates to Robert Appleton, proctor of the convocation of York and of archbishop Chichele, nos. 8 and 9.

^{Page 189 of note 1} Nos 4,8-10, 12,20 and 23 in the table.

^{Page 189 of note 2} Nos 4 and 15 in the table.

^{Page 189 of note 3} The numbers in the text refer to the table.

^{Page 190 of note 1} Otway-Ruthven, J., The King’s Secretary, Cambridge 1939, 119-20Google Scholar. I have to thank the Superintendent of the British Museum Reading Room for my knowledge of the manuscript’s present location, but I have not yet been able to see it myself.

^{Page 190 of note 2} The other is no 13, and not a royal communication.

^{Page 190 of note 3} Tout, T. F., Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, Manchester 1930, 111, 15 Google Scholar; Perroy, E., The Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, London 1933, xi Google Scholar; Otway-Ruthven, op. cit. 50-4,122-23; Cuttino, G.P., English Diplomatic Administration, 1259-1339, Oxford 1940, 136-37Google Scholar; Dickinson, J. G., The Congress of Arras, 1435, Oxford 1955, xx–xxi Google Scholar.

^{Page 191 of note 1} The reason why no. 15 is preserved on a chancery roll has been suggested above. The sealing clause is omitted in the existing record of the other royal instructions, no. 10; but their nature and form and the absence of any chancery registration make it likely that they were issued under the privy seal or signet.

^{Page 191 of note 2} Giuseppi, M., Guide to Public Records, London 1924, 11, 131, 133Google Scholar; Maxwell-Lyte, H. C., The Great Seal, London 1926, 26 ff.Google Scholar; Tout, op. cit. V, 64-5,115; Otway-Ruthven, op. cit. 2, 114 ff.

^{Page 191 of note 3} The privy seal office had made a promising start in keeping its records, Déprezi Etudes de diplomatique anglaise, 70-2; Tout, op. cit. 1, 55; Maxwell-Lyte, loc. cit.; Chaplais, P., ‘Privy Seal Drafts, Rolls and Registers,’ EHR, LXXIII (1958), 270-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cf. LXXVII (1962), 79. In the opinion of Dr A. L. Brown, who has made a special study of the small seals, the records of the privy seal continued to be preserved with care.

^{Page 192 of note 1} The correspondence brought together by H. Finke in Acta Concilii Constanciensis, Munster 1896-1928, I, III and IV is a very handsome compensation. Nevertheless these volumes, based on collections of archives from Madrid to Leningrad, do not contain one unambiguous case of correspondence between England and English delegates at Constance. These delegates were empowered to act in the Council, an impermanent body with no archive of its own. The Vatican archives are the most likely place for traces of their activity to have lodged. The city archives at Constance are of no help in this connection.

^{Page 192 of note 2} Taken together with John Rylands Library, Latin MS 404, Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. III. 53. and Edinburgh University Library, MS Laing 351a, the three formularies described by Perroy, op. cit. xvii ff., they provide a cross-section of the activity of the small seals spanning the best part of a century. The collections made by Bekynton continue the series after an interval.

^{Page 192 of note 3} Prophet’s collection was added to after his death, which must have occurred soon after he made his will on 8 April 1416; Wylie, J.H., History of England under Henry IV, London 1884, ii. 484, n.4 Google Scholar; Otway-Ruthven, op. cit. 165. F.113 ^γ contains a letter dated 14 May 1416 and this is followed on f.114 by a group of documents associated with an embassy undertaken in July 1421. All of these are an integral part of the MS in its present form. Cf. Catalogue of Harleian Manuscripts, London 1808, 1, 252-5, arts. 44, 46, 75, 79, 106, though some of these, like 106, may be artificial compositions. Thomas Field, Prophet’s nephew, is probably responsible for a number of the additions after inheriting his uncle’s collection of precedents. Field’s career was closely associated with his uncle’s: he succeeded him in the deanery of Hereford and was appointed secundarias in the privy seal office two days after Prophet was made keeper; Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford, Oxford 1957, II, 683, III, 1522-3Google Scholar. There may be another trace of his activity in Harleian MS 431, art. 41. As Field died in 1419 a later owner must be responsible for the entries on f. 114, and so for the present form of the MS.

^{Page 193 of note 1} Tout, Chapters, v, 109. Dr A. L. Brown tells me that Hoccleve was not absent from the privy seal office for as long as Tout suggests.

^{Page 193 of note 2} The other is from the king of the Romans commending members of his entourage, B.M., MS Royal 10 B. IX, f. 201. There is another letter of recommendation addressed to a prelate at the council, but there is nothing to show that it has an English connection, ibid. f. 58 ^υ .

^{Page 193 of note 3} Cf. Jacob, Essays in the Conciliar Epoch, 58-9, 75-6, where brief extracts from the letter are printed.

^{Page 193 of note 4} Scholars can still differ, for example, about Wharton’s suggestion that the MS was part of Bekynton’s collection. Williams, G., The official correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, London 1872, i. xi Google Scholar, says that there is no basis for the suggestion. Weiss, R., Humanism in England during the fifteenth century, Oxford 1941, 75, n. 1 Google Scholar, repeats it, but offers no argument.

^{Page 194 of note 1} Flemming was provided to the vacant see of Lincoln in November 1419. Martin’s attempt to raise Bishop Henry Beaufort to the cardinalate, a month earlier than his recommendation of Flemming, is also recorded in this MS. This, of course, was a failure; McFarlane, K. B., ‘Henry V, Bishop Beaufort and the Red Hat,’ EHR, LX (1945), 316 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

^{Page 194 of note 2} The dictaminal section includes a funeral oration in memory of Manuel Chrysoloras, the Greek humanist who died at Constance in 1415, B.M., MS Cotton Tiberius B. VI, f. 172 ^υ .

^{Page 194 of note 3} They are printed in Rymer, IV, pt ii, 190-1.

^{Page 194 of note 4} See Perroy, E., L’Angleterre et le grand Schisme d’occident, Paris 1933 Google Scholar. M. Perroy assigned the documents which the catalogue represents as originating in the discussions about reform at Constance to their correct date in 1381, pp. 160-2.

^{Page 195 of note 1} Orsini’s letter is printed by Rymer, iv, pt iii, 14. Rymer also printed Polton’s reckoning of the cost of obtaining the privileges preserved in MS Tiberius B. VI (IV, pt iii, 88-9) and Catterick’s confidential report to the king on his talks with Martin V (IV, pt iii, 88) in the course of which he later obtained a copy of the concordat which is likewise preserved in Tiberius B. VI. Cf. E. F. Jacob, ‘A note on the English concordat of 1418,’ Medieval Studies presented to Aubrey Gwynn, S.J., Dublin 1961, 349.

^{Page 195 of note 2} The heterogeneous collection of Oxford papers included in Cotton MS Faustina С VII runs into the period of the Council of Constance but has no reports of its activity: Salter, H. E., Snappe’s Formulary, Oxford 1924, 90-4Google Scholar. Nor is the material brought together by Richardson, H. G. in ‘Letters of the Oxford Dictatores,’ Formularies which bear on the history of Oxford , ed. Salter, H. E., Pantin, W. A., Richardson, H. G., Oxford 1942, 11, 331 ffGoogle Scholar. of any value in this respect, although it does reproduce Eugenius IV’s letter of 16 February 1432 urging Oxford university to send its delegates to the Council of Basle and a draft of the university’s reply, pp. 446-7. This is not to deny, of course, that the present collections of Oxford and Cambridge libraries contain a number of acta, sermons, and treatises originating in the Council of Constance, either separately or included in collections which embrace the whole period of the Great Schism, like Balliol College, Oxford, MS 165B or Emmanuel College, Cambridge, MS 9; but that is not the point under discussion.

^{Page 195 of note 3} Essays in the Conciliar Epoch, 200 ff.

^{Page 195 of note 4} Harleian MS 431 contains letters by Stone, Catalogue ofHarleian MSS, 1, 252-5, arts. 53, 54, 125, 128, 130, 131. Cf. arts. 49, 50, 52.

^{Page 196 of note 1} Legge, M. D., Anglo-Norman Letters and Petitions, Oxford 1941, xi–xviii Google Scholar. Miss Legge prints the letters in the French section. Dr A. L. Brown has prepared a catalogue of the unpublished letters in All Souls MS 182.

^{Page 196 of note 2} If John Stevens assembled the Latin letters as well as the French, there is an irony for the student of Constance in Professor Jacob’s observation that the notarial exemplification of the Anglo-French agreement of 1412, with which Henry sought to demonstrate his rights in France, to the assembled Fathers in July 1415 was prepared by Stevens himself when a royal chaplain and notary, Legge, op. cit. xiv, n. 1.

^{Page 196 of note 3} Reg. Chichele, ed. Jacob, I, xxiii-xxiv. It is this MS, no doubt, which Dr Jacob notes as the book of a diocesan officialis in Essays in the Conciliar Epoch, 198.

^{Page 196 of note 4} Stephyn had probably served Walter Medford earlier when he was chancellor of Salisbury, Reg. Chichele, ed. Jacob, loc. cit. Medford returned from Constance with the letter (no. 21) in which Bishop Clifford described for the mayor and aldermen of London the events of Martin V’s election and coronation in November 1417, according to the text of London’s acknowledgement (no. 22).

^{Page 196 of note 5} There is a copy of John XXIII’s bull of summons to the university of Paris and the reminder which he found necessary to send them; there are also two letters from the university deploring John’s flight from Constance, and one from Cardinal d’Ailly and Gerson jointly urging Benedict XIII to resign. Respectively, Williams, Official Correspondence of T. Bekynton, 11, 115-121, 134-8, 106-8.

^{Page 197 of note 1} Williams, op. cit. ii, 260-9. Bekynton’s collection of documents to illustrate the English claim to the French throne, preserved in the damaged MS Cotton Tiberius B. XII and in MS Harley 861 and others, does not require consideration in the present context.

^{Page 197 of note 2} At the same time MS Ashmole 789, f. 228 ^υ carries a report to the English Council from the bishops of Lincoln and Rochester who led the delegation to the Council of Siena, the direct successor to Constance, in 1423. They relate the difficulties which they are encountering and ask for instructions.

^{Page 197 of note 3} The recent article in JEH, XII (1961), 167-96, by Dr Schofield, cited above, is a reminder of their value.

^{Page 198 of note 1} The register of Prior John Wyche of Llanthony secunda by Gloucester (1408-36) was one of the most generally rewarding, London, P.R.O. C. 115/A.3. It contains letters relating to both the Councils of Pisa and Basle. There are brief descriptions of the register by Pantin, W. A. in Essays to James Tait, ed. Edwards, J. G., Galbraith, V. H. and Jacob, E. F., Manchester 1933, 218 Google Scholar and by Holtzmann, W., Papsturkunden in England, Berlin 1930, 1, 60 ffGoogle Scholar. Also in the P.R.O. is the precedent book of the curial proctor, Thomas Hope, (E. 36/195). It is of too late a date to be of use; cf. Emden, Biographical Register, 11, 959. I have not seen the formulary in the Diocesan Registry at Rochester to which Dr Emden refers, op. cit. 1, xli.

^{Page 198 of note 2} Maxwell-Lyte, The Great Seal, 29. This amounted to a transfer of their safe-keeping to the chancery.

^{Page 198 of note 3} Jacob, , ‘Wilkins’ Concilia and the fifteenth century,’ TRHS, 4th Ser. XV (1932), 112 Google Scholar; also Henry V and the Invasion of France, London 1947, 13 ff. Cf. Gesta Henrid Quinti, ed. Williams, B., London 1850, 8, 10 Google Scholar.

^{Page 199 of note 1} Lander, J. R., ‘The Yorkist Council and Administration,’ EHR, LXXIII (1958), 34, n. 1Google Scholar. Recording the serious damage done by the fire of 1619 a contemporary wrote: ‘Nothing is left but the walls and these not fit to build on again. All the records of the signet and privy seal offices are burnt. . . .’, Otway-Ruthven, King’s Secretary, 115. Those, that is, that had not been removed earlier.

^{Page 199 of note 2} It is noted by Miss Hope Mirrlees, A Fly in Amber, London 1962, 64.

^{Page 199 of note 3} In the poem called ‘An execration upon Vulcan’:

Benjonson, ed. C. H. Herford & P. Simpson, Oxford 1925, VIII, 207. Cf. 1, 73-4, 261.

^{Page 199 of note 4} Op. cit., ed. Herford & Simpson, XI, 78.

^{Page 200 of note 1} Op. cit., ed. Herford & Simpson, I, 215.

^{Page 205 of note 1} The identities of the writer and of the recipient of this letter are generally agreed, but opinions have differed over its date. The month is clear as the writer mentions St George’s day (23 April) and 30 April as events of the recent past. It is not clear whether the year is 1415 or 1417. Gilson favoured the former when he catalogued the MS (Sir G. F. Warner & J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western MSS in the Old Royal & King’s Collections, British Museum 1921, 317). This was supported by Jacob, E. F., ‘Some English Documents of the Conciliar Movement,’ Bulletin of John Rylands Library, XV (1931), 360, n. 2Google Scholar, and again Henry Chichele and the Ecclesiastical Politics of his age, London 1952, 8. In the second edition of his Essays in the Conciliar Epoch (1953), 58, Dr Jacob changed his mind to 1417. This had been the date given to the letter earlier by Loomis, L. R., ‘Nationality at the Council of Constance,’ AHR, XLIV (1939), 523 Google Scholar, although erring over the month, and by Mr Hodgkiss in his Manchester University M.A. thesis on Bishop Hallum (unpublished), 191-3. The references in the text of the letter are numerous but thoroughly indecisive between the alternative years: the arrival of Sigismund gives hope of peace in Church and state; French malice against the English and their ambition to control the papacy must be resisted; monastic exemptions, as instanced by St Augustine’s, Canterbury, are prominent among the abuses to be reformed; the king is on the point of personally leading his army overseas, after a meeting of his council which cannot be traced elsewhere (for the references given by Dr Jacob in 1953 are inconclusive); the writer looks for the co-operation of the bishop of Lichfield with the recipient at Constance; he notes the difficulty in raising the subsidy promised by the clergy of the province for maintaining their delegates. All these references indicate Chichele writing to Hallum, but could apply equally to May 1415 or 1417. The references to Sigismund and the French fit more obviously into the later context, but in that event they are surprisingly general; and the reference to St Augustine’s might well be inspired by Chichele’s visitation of his diocese in January 1415. Chichele refers to a consanguineus at Constance. This may be his cousin, William Chichele, but while William is known to have been there in November 1417 it is not known when he arrived. Several times Hallum’s attitudes are referred to as habitual; but the bishop had been at Pisa earlier. The question could hardly be more open. I have preferred the earlier date until decisive reasons can be found to support the later.

^{Page 205 of note 2} Monro (op. cit. 8) dates this letter to December 1415. I have preferred the following month since the report of events at Naples in the letter is probably due to the Neapolitan representatives who presented their credentials to the Council on g January 1416.

^{Page 205 of note 3} The letter refers to the arrival of a Scottish Dominican at Constance on 18 January; but it says nothing about the reception given to Sigismund on hireturn on 27 January, in which the English took a prominent part, nor about the banquet to which the English invited the citizens of Constance on 24 January.

^{Page 206 of note 4} The Hague edition of Rymer’s Foedera wrongly ascribes the letter to MS Cotton Caligula D. VII. The original edition (IX, 434) is correct in its ascription.

^{Page 206 of note 5} Rymer mistakenly ascribes the letter to MS Cotton Cleopatra F. IV in the original (IX, 439) as well as in the Hague edition of the Foedera.

^{Page 206 of note 6} The warrant for this letter is preserved, P.R.O. C.49/48, no. 15.

^{Page 206 of note 7} As already observed there is some doubt whether this letter and nos. 17-19 were ever sent. There is no trace of them in the City of London’s register.

^{Page 206 of note 8} The most recent foliation is used here and in no. 23.

^{Page 206 of note 9} The letter is dated at Constance in domo habitations prefati reverendi domini Bathoniensis episcopi.

^{Page 206 of note 10} The date on which Clifford received the letter to which he was replying.