Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
In the current standard text-book of English Church Law appear the following statements about the origin of Convocation: ‘The Convocation, in its origin, was for the purpose of taxation and no other; it was altogether unlike the Convocation of the foreign synods, which were composed solely of the bishops, collected to declare what was the doctrine, or what should be the discipline, of the Church. It is easy, however, to conceive how the clergy, when once convoked, gradually assumed the same power as existed in those foreign synods to which their Convocation might appear to bear some analogy.’ In examining this quotation we must consider, (a) the composition of the foreign synods; (b) their relation if any to the English Convocation; (c) the taxing functions of both bodies.
page 132 note 1 Cripps, H. W., A Practical Treatise on the law relating to the Church and Clergy, 8th ed. by K. M. Macmorran 1937, 5 fGoogle Scholar.
page 133 note 1 There has been some doubt about the date and authorship of this decretal and it is not generally known that part of the letter is printed by Rochette, J., Décisions de plusieurs questions et différens qui se présentenl journellement, tant és Cows Ecclésiastiques que Séculières sur Matières bénéficiales de Marriages, Preuve, Appellations, circonstances et dependances, 3rd ed.Troyes, 1614 f. 133Google Scholar. v. Rochette gives extracts from the bull which, he says, is preserved in the Trésor of the Church of Troyes. The text which he prints is as follows: Honorius III &c. Venerabilibus fratribus Archiepiscopo Seno. & suffraganeis &c. Utique nobis & eisdem fratribus nostris Concorditer visum est, ut ipsa capitula ad huiusmodi Concilia invitari debeant, & eorum nuncii ad tractatus admitti, maxime super illis quae capitula ipsa contingere dignoscuntur. Ideoque volumus et praesentium vobis auctoritate mandamus, quatenus id de caetero sine disceptatione servetis &c.
Datum Laterani, 5 Kal. Martii. Pontif. nostri an. primo. 1216.
page 134 note 1 Baluze, S., Concilia Galliae Narbonensis, 1668Google Scholar.
page 134 note 2 Devic, Cl. and Vaissette, J., Histoire générale de Languedoc, rev. edn. 1872–1905Google Scholar.
page 134 note 3 Baluze, 1; Devic iii. 56.
page 135 note 1 Devic, vi. 3 f. vii. 1, no. 1; Roger of Hoveden, Annales Angliae (RS) ii. 105.
page 135 note 2 Devic, viii. col. 619 f.
page 135 note 3 Baluze, 66.
page 135 note 4 Gallia Christiana, vi. col. 449.
page 135 note 5 Baluze, 93.
page 135 note 6 Devic, xi. 166.
page 135 note 7 Ibid. 285.
page 135 note 8 Mansi, Concilia xxxiii, cols. 1247–82.
page 135 note 9 Ibid, xxxiv. cols. 1508 ff.
page 135 note 10 Devic, xiii. 1021.
page 136 note 1 Devic, xiv. cols. 2522, 2535, 2540, 2552, 2558, 2642.
page 136 note 2 J. Rochette, op. cit., f. 134vñ6. Copies of this document exist in the Archives départementales at Troyes and Auxerre.
page 136 note 3 Martène and Durand, Thesaurus novus, iv. 191.
page 136 note 4 Baluze, 117.
page 136 note 5 Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I (R.S.) i. 203; cf. Benedict of Peterborough (R.S.) i. 84.
page 137 note 1 Walter of Coventry (R.S.) ii. 251; Wilkins Concilia i. 585–97.
page 137 note 2 Spelman, Concilia ii. 205–315; Wilkins, Concilia i. 746–56.
page 137 note 3 Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 50.
page 137 note 4 Register of Simon de Gandavo (Cant. & York Soc.), 444 f.
page 137 note 5 Register of Ralph of Shrewsbury (Somerset Record Society), 103.
page 137 note 6 Register of John de Grandisson (Exeter Episcopal Registers), 969.
page 137 note 7 Register of Simon Islep (Lambeth), f. iii.
page 137 note 8 Register of Henry Beaufort (Winchester), f. 48†.
page 137 note 9 Register of Henry Chichele (Cant. & York Soc), iii. 33.
page 137 note 10 September 1334; March and September 1336; September 1337; October 1338; January 1340. See Register of Adam Orleton (Winchester) i. ff. 7, 33, 436, 100c, 65 and 83.
page 138 note 1 Register of John de Grandisson (Exeter), 968 f.
page 138 note 2 Register of Robert Wyvil (Salisbury), i, f. 78, Register of Thomas Beck (Lincoln), Memoranda (Line. Register vii) f. 1.
page 138 note 3 Wyvil i. f. 77.
page 138 note 4 Beck, Memoranda, f. 2b.
page 139 note 1 Lunt, W. E., ‘The consent of the English lower clergy to taxation during the reign of Henry III,’ in Persecution and Liberty: Essays in honour of George Lincoln Burr, 1932Google Scholar.
page 139 note 2 Strager, J. R. and Taylor, C. H., Studies in Early French Taxation (Harvard Historical Monographs xii), 1939, 24Google Scholar.
page 139 note 3 Martène and Durand, Thesaurus novus, iv. col. 213 f.
page 140 note 1 Ibid., col. 217–20.
page 140 note 2 Baluze MSS. no. 6, ff. 19–23.
page 141 note 1 Lunt, op. cit., 165.
page 141 note 2 Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 93.
page 141 note 3 Robinson, J. A., ‘Convocation of Canterbury: its early history’, in the Church Quarterly Review, lxxxi (1915), 102Google Scholar.
page 142 note 1 Hist. MSS. Commission, D. & C. of Wells ii. 218, 229, 275.
page 142 note 2 Linc. Cath. Chapter Acts viii (A. 2. 30) f. 46b.; Register of Philip Repyngdon (Lincoln Register xv) f. 100.
page 143 note 1 Register of William Whittlesey (Lambeth), f. 22b.
page 143 note 2 Ibid. f. 23b.
page 143 note 3 Register of William Courtenay (Lambeth), f. 33.
page 143 note 4 Register of Thomas Arundel (Lambeth), ii f. 178; Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 254.
page 143 note 5 Cf. I. J. Churchill, Canterbury Administration, i. 364 and ii. 168.
page 143 note 6 ‘The Plena Potestas of English Parliamentary Representatives’, in Oxford Essays Medieval History presented to Herbert Edward Salter (1934), 152.