Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T18:01:39.444Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Winchester Diocese under John Stratford, 1323–1333

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2013

ROY MARTIN HAINES
ROY MARTIN HAINES*
Affiliation:
Sondings, Water Street, Curry Rivel, Somerset TA10 0HJ; e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The intention of this article is to examine the principal features of John Stratford's Winchester episcopal register (Hampshire Record Office, 21M65/A1/5), recently edited for the Surrey Record Society, and hence to consider Stratford's reputation as a diocesan bishop insofar as this is determinable. Frequent absences on royal business, often abroad, are meticulously recorded, necessitating competent ‘central administration’ and a well-qualified and trusted familia. Both of these are in evidence. The impression given is of an efficiently run diocese with a surprising amount of pastoral work, particularly ordinations and visitation of monasteries, being performed by the bishop in person.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 277 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Notice attached to Stratford's damaged tomb in Canterbury Cathedral recording its restoration by Randall Thomas Davidson, bishop of Winchester (1895–1903) and archbishop of Canterbury (1903–28).

2 Haines, R. M., ‘The episcopate during the reign of Edward ii and the regency of Mortimer and Isabella’, this Journal lvi (2005), 657–709Google Scholar. At p. 685 n. 124 Blackley, F. D.has slipped out as the author of ‘Isabella and the bishop of Exeter’, in Sandquist, T. A. and Powicke, M. R. (eds), Essays … presented to Bertie Wilkinson, Toronto 1969, 220–35Google Scholar.

3 John Le Neve, Fasti ecclesiae anglicanae, 1300–1541, London 1962–7, iv. 45–6; Greatrex, J., Biographical register of the English cathedral priories of the province of Canterbury, c. 1066–1540, Oxford 1997, 685, 752–3Google Scholar. W. M. Ormrod, points out that ‘The appointment of Ralph Stratford to London in 1340 was the last occasion on which a bishop was elected and consecrated without formal authority from Avignon’: The reign of Edward III, New Haven–London 1990, 125.

4 At the beginning of the reign Ralph Baldock was already bishop of London, John Langton bishop of Chichester, John Salmon bishop of Norwich. During the reign Walter Reynolds, who had served the king when prince of Wales, became bishop of Worcester (1307), then archbishop Canterbury (1314–27); John de Sandale or Sandall, of Winchester (1316); and John Hotham, of Ely (1316).

5 Tout, T. F., Chapters in the administrative history of mediaeval England, Manchester 1920–33, vi. 7–16Google Scholar; Handbook of British chronology, ed. E. B. Fryde and others, 3rd edn, London 1986, 86.

6 Haines, R. M., Archbishop John Stratford, political revolutionary and champion of the liberties of the English Church, ca. 1275/80–1348, Toronto 1986, 17Google Scholar and ch. iii.

7 WinRS, fo. 1r (this initial rubric is somewhat obscured by stitching); Haines, Archbishop John Stratford, 470 (Le Neve, iv. 45 has 22 June at Rome).

8 Baldock had been twice excommunicated, once with the bishop of Durham, Anthony Bek, in the case of his claim for the Whickham benefice (Durham diocese), and then in connection with separation of the Aylesbury and Milton Ecclesia prebends in Lincoln Cathedral: Wright, J. Robert, The Church and the English crown, 1305–1334, Toronto 1980, 322Google Scholar, no. 21; 327, no. 47. The latter business was one of the matters entrusted to Stratford at the time of his mission to the Curia in 1322–3: Haines, Archbishop John Stratford, 129, 144.

9 For details of the whole process and Stratford's stubborn defence of his integrity see Haines, Archbishop John Stratford, 142–9.

10 WinRS, fo. 8v, edn no. 101. The bishop had received papal licence to choose whom he wished for this purpose.

11 Following his promotion Stratford pledged 6,000 florins to the pope and the enormous sum of 12,000 for common sources: Lunt, W. E., Financial relations of the papacy with England to 1327, Cambridge, Ma 1939Google Scholar, appendix ix at p. 680.

12 For details of these peculiars and the list of parishes in Croydon deanery see Churchill, I. J., Canterbury administration, London 1933Google Scholar, i. 63 n. 6.

13 See Haines, ‘The episcopate’, 671, fig. 2. This also illustrates the small percentage of those with a doctorate in theology.

14 Haines, Archbishop John Stratford, 17 and n. 96, 516; Lincoln Archives Office, Dj/20/2/B1–3. Of course, initially at any rate, canonisation would have proved of considerable financial advantage to the chapter which thanked Stratford for his efforts.

15 Haines, Archbishop John Stratford, 17–18 and n. 106.

16 Chaddesley was acting as diocesan chancellor in 1325–6 and again after August 1332 until 1333; Littleton between October 1326 and about 30 August 1332. Orleton's ‘central administration’, as constituted by his principal office-holders, is elaborated in Haines, R. M., ‘Adam Orleton and the diocese of Winchester’, this Journal xxiii (1972), 9–19Google Scholar.

17 Gloucester acted as Official, the bishop's principal legal officer who presided over the consistory court, between July 1325 and at least January 1328. Lecch was acting by October 1329 until 1333.

18 R. M. Haines, The Church and politics in fourteenth-century England: the career of Adam Orleton, c. 1275–1345, Cambridge 1978, 2005, 173.

19 Stratford was chancellor from 28 November 1330 until 28 September 1334, his brother Robert acting in his place for part of that time: Tout, Chapters, vi. 11–12.

20 In chronological order: WinRS, fos 9v, 93v, 95v, 97r, 19v, 24v–25r (101v), 35v (103v), 122r, 123r, 126r, 128v–129r, 77r (133r), edn nos 104, 930, 962, 977, 209, 257 [1048], 34 [1084], 1302, 1308, 1338, 1362, 746 [1405].

21 HCL, ms P. 5 xii, fos 65r–115v.

22 Kemp, E. W., ‘History and action in the sermons of a medieval archbishop’, in Davis, R. H. C. and Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. (eds), Writing of history in the Middle Ages, Oxford 1981, 349–65Google Scholar; Haines, R. M., ‘Some sermons at Hereford attributed to Archbishop John Stratford’, this Journal xxxiv (1983), 425–37Google Scholar. Recently there has been a detailed examination of the implication of some of Stratford's sermons: see Catherine Royer-Hemet, ‘Prédication et propagande: rencontre de deux phénomènes pendant la guerre de Cent Ans’, unpubl. PhD diss, Paris-Sorbonne IV, 2009. Some largely political sermons are mentioned elsewhere at the time of the 1340–1 crisis. See n. 73 below.

23 According to a rubric inserted in the Lambeth manuscript, sermon no. 28 in the Hereford collection was preached by Harclay in the year in which Piers Gaveston's body was ‘translated’ to Langley (1314/1315). Somewhat indistinct, it appears to read: ‘Magister Henricus de Hercley predicavit hunc sermonem sollempniter in universitate Oxon. in illo anno quo Petrus de Gavaston fuit translatus apud Langele’: HCL, ms P. 5 xii, fos 99v–107v; LPL, ms 61, fos 143r–147v.

24 WinRS, fos 15r, 162r, 171v–172r, edn nos 168, 1522, 1536. The first of these entries is undated but almost certainly pertains to 1327.

25 Smith, D. M., Guide to bishops’ registers of England and Wales, London 1981, 204–7Google Scholar; Haines, ‘Adam Orleton and the diocese of Winchester’, 7–8. What has been called the third part of the register, a few detached leaves, is in BL, ms Royal, app. 88.

26 Llanthony Chartulary, TNA (PRO), C.115/K1, 6681, fos 15r–17r, a document dated 23 January 1328 from Waltham.

27 WinRS, fos 1r–88v, edn nos 1–842.

28 ‘Non plus de tempore venerabilis patris domini Johannis episcopi quia ad archiepiscopatum ecclesie Cantuariensis per sanctissimum patrem dominum Johannem divina providencia papam XXIIdum est translatus et ei in episcopatu ecclesie Wyntoniensis predicte venerabilis dominus Adam olim Wygorniensis succedit anno domini millesimo CCCmo XXXIIIo.’

29 WinRS, fos 1v–139v, edn nos 843–1873.

30 ‘Instituciones et collaciones beneficiorum ecclesiasticorum ac dispensaciones studendi facte et concesse per J. episcopum Wyntoniensem anno domini millesimo CCCmo XXIIIo. Et consecracionis primo.’

31 WinRS, fo. 93r, edn no. 919.

32 Ibid. edn no. 921.

33 Ibid. fo. 93v and preceding rubric, edn no. 930.

34 Ibid. fo. 94v, edn no. 943 and preceding rubric.

35 Ibid. fos 94v–95r, edn nos 945–7. Andreas de Sapiti acted as royal proctor at the Curia. The bishop of Worcester had also granted him a pension on 26 January 1308/9 in return for his services: Worcester Reg. Reynolds, fo. 6r. See Bombi, Barbara, ‘Andrea Sapiti: his origins, and his register as a curial proctor’, EHR cxxiii (2008), 132–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Il registro di Andrea Sapiti procuratore alla curia avignonese, Rome 2007.

36 WinRS, fos 95v–96v, edn nos 962–75 and accompanying memoranda.

37 Ibid. fo. 97r, edn nos 977–9 and accompanying memoranda. The parliamentary summons is at fo. 196v, edn no. 1652.

38 Ibid. fos 101v–102r, edn nos 1048–55; memorandum preceding no. 267 (fo. 26r): ‘pace terre Vasconie finaliter reformata’. It is worth noting a conflict of royal interest here. Stratford and Ayrminne (bishop of Norwich) received letters of safe conduct on 7 March (CPR, 1327–30, 31), but in the following month Edward iii issued a military summons to Newcastle to which the bishops were obviously unable to respond in person. Through their attorneys they requested that no harm should accrue to them on that account: TNA, E101/309/40 (Itinerary), SC8/168/8371.

39 WinRS, fos 35v, 103v, edn nos 343, 1083 and memorandum following.

40 Ibid. fos 37r–v, 106v, edn nos 363, 365, 368–9, 1122.

41 Ibid. fo. 110r, edn no. 1148. For the political background see Haines, Archbishop John Stratford, 196–9. The details of Stratford's flight are in ‘Vitae archiepiscoporum, John de Stratford’, ed. H. Wharton, Anglia sacra, i, London 1691, 19. Wharton transcribed these Lives, attributed to Stephen Birchington, a monk of Canterbury, from LPL, ms 99.

42 WinRS, fo. 122r, edn no. 1302.

43 Ibid. fos 122v–123r, edn nos 1307–8. Their activities follow from 1309.

44 Memorandum preceding edn no. 1314, ibid. fo. 123v.

45 Ibid. fos 141v–143r, 147r–v, 156r–159r, edn nos 1477–9, 1494, 1516–17. Principal ordinations were held at Embertide in the four seasons (Quatuor tempora).

46 Ibid. fos 170r–180r, edn nos 1532–52. See Haines, R. M., ‘Bishop John Stratford's injunctions to his cathedral chapter and other Benedictine houses in Winchester’, Revue bénédictine cxvii (2007), 154–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Maud Pecham was the superior between 1313 and 1337. V. G. Spear suggests that her failure of ‘leadership’ may have arisen because of old age: Leadership in medieval English nunneries, Woodbridge 2005, 134, 208. In view of Stratford's findings it is surprising that she continued as abbess for several more years.

48 Haines, ‘Bishop John Stratford's injunctions’, 158 and n. 31.

49 For a full account of the whole affair see ibid. 156–70.

50 WinRS, fos 160r–168r, edn nos 1518–31. The Worcester register of Bransford, Bishop Wolstan decontains a similar ‘Register of the bishop's court of audience’: A calendar of the register of Wolstan de Bransford, bishop of Worcester, 1339–49, ed. Haines, R. M. (HMSO; Worcester Historical Society, 1966), 348–54Google Scholar, edn nos 1365–76. Although Archbishop Mepham's register has not survived two of his audience court books have done so: Canterbury Cathedral Archives, ChAnt/A/36/i (1325–9); ChAnt/A/36/ii (1328–30). The first of these also contains material from the archiepiscopate of Walter Reynolds.

51 Respectively WinRS, edn nos 1518, 1519, 1520–1, 1522, 1523–4, 1526, 1527, 1528.

52 This file occupies comparatively little space: ibid. fos 182r–186v, edn nos 1553–84.

53 TNA, SC 8/139/6903; CPR 1321–4, 432.

54 SC 8/15/719 (1327?). CCR 1327–30, 65, is a writ to the treasurer and barons of the Exchequer for the cancellation of two recognisances – made by Stratford in Edward ii's reign – to enable him to secure the fruits of his bishopric. See also CPR, 1327–30, 65.

55 Haines, Archbishop John Stratford, 29; CPR, 1330–34, 230–1, 255–6; CCR, 1330–3, 439–40.

56 WinRS, fos 184r–185v, edn no. 1581. Sandale acted as chancellor from 1314 to 1318 and was bishop of Winchester from 1316 to 1319.

57 The amplified foundation is dated 7 March 1227: ibid. fos 185v–186r, edn no. 1582. The charter of Bishop Roches is printed in English episcopal acta, IX: Winchester, 1205–1238, ed. N. Vincent, Oxford 1994, no. 31, without the preliminary foundation document of Henry of Blois.

58 WinRS, fo. 186v, edn no. 1584. This is printed in English episcopal acta, VIII: Winchester 1070–1204, ed. M. J. Franklin, Oxford 1993, no. 133. D. Knowles, and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval religious houses, London–New York–Toronto 1953, 319 and note, supplies bibliography. The date of the foundation is there given as 1132. See also R. M. Clay, The mediaeval hospitals of England, London 1966, index s.v.Winchester, St Cross.

59 WinRS, fos 190r–219v, edn nos 1585–866.

60 See W. E. Lunt, Financial relations, 1327–1354, Cambridge, Ma 1962, 410–12. In November 1329 the rector of Godalming was still being pursued by a writ certiorari sicut pluries even though the church was held by the absentee Cardinal Reymond de Farges and a writ supersedeas had been issued in February of the same year: WinRS, fos 211r–v, 213v–214r, edn nos 1783, 1791, 1813.

61 WinRS, fos 36v, 207v, edn nos 357, 1747, and n. 60 above.

62 Details are in Lunt, Financial relations, 1327–1354, 66–9 and ch. iii; WinRS, fos 45r–v, 48r–49r, edn nos 449, 473–4.

63 WinRS, fos 44v–45v, edn no. 448.

64 Ibid. fos 190v–192r, 194v–195v, 197v–198r, 199r, 200v, 204v, 208r, 209v, 210v, 216v, edn nos 1592, 1594, 1596, 1607–9, 1634, 1643, 1663, 1672, 1688, 1721, 1752, 1768, 1778, 1842.

65 Ibid. fo. 191r, edn no. 1596.

66 Ibid. fos 18v, 15v, edn nos 200, 169 (Godalming).

67 Ibid. fo. 92v, edn no. 907; Emden, A. B., A biographical register of the University of Oxford to A. D. 1500, Oxford 1957–9, iiGoogle Scholar. 1001, gives details of his career and references to Powicke, F. M., The medieval books of Merton College, Oxford 1931, 55, 60, 115–16Google Scholar. Inge would in any case have had an Official in the archdeaconry qualified to act in his temporary absences.

68 WinRS, fos 3v, 38r–v, edn nos 30, 383, 386.

69 See ibid. subject index at pp. 892, 897–8, s.v. absolution, excommunication.

70 To judge from the date of the proceedings this would be St Laurence the martyr, of Rome, whose feast was kept on 10 August: Farmer, D. H., The Oxford dictionary of saints, 3rd edn, Oxford 1992, 288–9Google Scholar; Cheney, C. R. (ed.), Handbook of dates, London 1970, 54Google Scholar.

71 WinRS, fos 51v–52r, edn nos 503–8.

72 A transcription of the copy in the register of Bishop Northburgh (Lichfield Joint Record Office, B/A/1/3, fos 102r–103r), collated with the versions in Lyndwood and Wilkins, is appended to R. M. Haines, ‘An innocent abroad: the career of Simon Mepham, archbishop of Canterbury, 1328–33’, EHR cxii (1997), 588–93.

73 WinRS, fo. 44r, edn no. 446.

74 Ibid. fo. 5r, edn nos 45–6. Presumably the archdeacon of Winchester received a similar mandate but it is not noted.

75 Ibid. fo. 27r–v, edn no. 272. This important document is printed in Haines, R. M., ‘The Stamford council of April 1327’, EHR cxxii (2007), 141–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 WinRS, fos 39v, 45v, edn nos 396, 450.

77 Stratford's certainly was, but the entry from LPL, Canterbury Register Arundel, i, fo. 432v, only specifies those of Mepham's successor (Stratford) and William Courtenay: McHardy, A. K., ‘The loss of Archbishop Stratford's register’, Historical Research lxx (1997), 340–1Google Scholar. See also p. 337 for the view that Mepham ironically took ‘particular care of the archiepiscopal records’.

78 The manuscript reads ‘pari se stibio’, antimony being used for the purpose in classical times.

79 WinRS, fos 70r–71r, edn nos 682–3.

80 See R. M. Haines, ‘Canterbury versus York: fluctuating fortunes in a perennial conflict’, in Ecclesia anglicana: studies in the English Church of the later Middle Ages, Toronto 1989, 69–105.

81 WinRS, fo. 54v, edn nos 551–2, dated 10 February and 10 December 1330. Acknowledgment of the first of these was recorded.

82 Ibid. fo. 64v, edn nos 638–9. Mepham's mandate is dated 17 August 1331 from Chardstock in Devon where he must have been continuing his visitation.

83 See Haines, R. M., ‘Wolstan de Bransford osb, a fourteenth-century prior and bishop of Worcester’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society xxi (2008), 179–94Google Scholar. Fortunately, in Stratford's case, we can learn much more about his concern for the spiritual welfare of others from activities which are external to his register: Haines, Archbishop John Stratford, ch. v.

84 ‘Vitae archiepiscoporum Cant.’, 21, 33; LPL, ms 99, fos 137r–v, 142v. His text for the sermon, at the height of his dispute with the king, was ‘In diebus suis non timuit principem’ (Ecclesiastes xlviii.13). See Haines, Archbishop John Stratford, 40, 284–5.