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A Canon Lawyer's Compilation from Fifteenth-Century Yorkshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2012

R. N. SWANSON
R. N. SWANSON
Affiliation:
School of History, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The numerous surviving formulary volumes compiled by ecclesiastical administrators and lawyers in pre-Reformation England are valuable but neglected adjuncts to the period's surviving church court records. Using material in a fifteenth-century volume originally compiled by a lawyer of the courts at York, this article demonstrates the utility of such volumes to supplement and complement the surviving court books and papers. In particular it draws attention to two cases taken to the Council of Constance. These add to evidence of England's acceptance of that assembly's jurisdictional claims, and illustrate England's integration into the court structures of the broader Catholic Church.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 260 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 C. Donahue, Jr.(ed.), The records of the medieval ecclesiastical courts, II: England, Berlin 1994.

2 The main discussion of the medieval (and immediately post-Reformation) English church courts and their business is now R. H. Helmholz, The Oxford history of the laws of England, I: The canon law and ecclesiastical jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s, Oxford 2004. Its bibliography provides a good list of primary and secondary publications.

3 D. M. Owen, The medieval canon law: teaching, literature, and transmission, Cambridge 1990, 31–42; John Lydford's book, ed. D. M. Owen (Devon and Cornwall Record Society xix, 1974). A few documents have been published from the rather more miscellaneous volume known as Snappe's formulary, whose extensive contents have been described as ‘useful material for the use of an ecclesiastical lawyer’: Thompson, A. Hamilton, ‘The will of Master William Doune, archdeacon of Leicester’, Archaeological Journal lxxii (1915), 233CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the will is printed from the volume at pp. 267–84. See Snappe's formulary and other records, ed. H. E. Salter (Oxford Historical Society lxxx, 1924), 1–21.

4 His name appears, for instance, in entries at Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 1v–2r, 9v–10v, 14v, 16r–v, 209r–211v. Many of these are notarial attestations (see n. 5 below). He also appears among the cast of characters in the two cases discussed at length in this article. He had a long career, being still active in 1459: J. S. Purvis, A mediaeval act book, with some account of ecclesiastical jurisdiction at York, York n.d. [1943], 27. For his biography see (incompletely) A. B. Emden, A biographical register of the University of Oxford to 1500, Oxford 1957–9, i. 193, and for a slightly fuller but unreferenced skeleton D. Dasef, ‘The lawyers of the York curia, 1400–1435’, unpub. B.Phil. diss. York 1976, 84, which describes him as ‘one of the most successful proctors of the period 1435–50’ See also ibid. 43–4, noting (at p. 44) that the amount of business he undertook ‘rapidly surpassed some of his older colleagues on the Court’. Unfortunately, in the photocopy of the thesis consulted in preparation of this article (BIA, thesis collection 32), the diagram to indicate the scale of business of individual proctors (ibid. 93) is reproduced only in black-and-white, making it impossible to identify the line which records Byspham's activities. Byspham's lay status allowed him to marry; in fact he married twice, which necessitated a papal dispensation to permit him to retain his notarial status: Calendar of entries in the papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, papal letters, VII: A.D. 1417–1431, ed. J. A. Twemlow, London 1906, 501; his proctorial career began in 1421: Dasef, 'Lawyers', 105 n. 42, citing BIA, CP.F.133. Dasef's thesis provides a good indication of the institutional context of Byspham's career. On the late medieval court of York see also F. Pedersen, Marriage disputes in medieval England, London–New York 2000, 90–103

5 For an illustration of his notarial sign see J. S. Purvis, Notarial signs from the York archiepiscopal records, York 1957, plate 54.

6 For a survey of the surviving records, with chronological lists of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century cause papers see C. Donahue, Jr. ‘York’, in his Records, 109–51 For a more informative listing of the cause papers, and an index of the earliest court books see Ecclesiastical cause papers at York: the court of York, 1301–1399, ed. D. M. Smith, York 1988; The court of York, 1400–1499: a handlist of the cause papers and an index to the archiepiscopal court books, ed. D. M. Smith, York 2003; and Ecclesiastical cause papers at York: dean and chapter's court, 1350–1843, ed. K. M. Longley, York 1980.

7 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 1r–3r, 4r–v; cf. BIA, CP.F.150 (Smith, Court of York, 22–3).

8 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 6r–8v; BIA, CP.F.167 (Smith, Court of York, 26).

9 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 25v–26r; BIA, CP.F.81 (Smith, Court of York, 19).

10 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fo. 14r–v.

11 BIA, DC/CP.1417/2.

12 Smith, Court of York, 94.

13 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 54v–55v. On such cases see B. Kane, Impotence and virginity in the late medieval ecclesiastical court of York, York 2008.

14 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 22r–23r, 48r–v, 176r–179v.

15 J. E. Sayers, Papal judges delegate in the province of Canterbury, 1198–1254: a study in ecclesiastical jurisdiction and administration, Oxford 1971.

16 For example Chippenham, Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, D5/19/1, fos 1r–3v. See also n. 23 below.

17 For agents (not always acting in the courts, but often intermediaries with legal representatives) see J. E. Sayers, ‘Proctors representing British interests at the papal court, 1198–1415’, in S. Kuttner (ed.), Proceedings of the third international congress of medieval canon law, Strasbourg, 3–6 September 1968, Vatican City 1971, 143–63 (repr. in her Law and records in medieval England: studies on the medieval papacy monasteries, and records, London 1988, ch iv); Zutshi, P. N. R., ‘Proctors acting for English petitioners in the chancery of the Avignon popes (1305–1378)’, this Journal xxxv (1984), 15–29Google Scholar; and M. Harvey, The English in Rome, 1362–1420: portrait of an expatriate community, Cambridge 1999, 155–60, and England, Rome, and the papacy, 1417–1464: the study of a relationship, Manchester 1993, 26–7, 35–6.

18 Helmholz, Oxford history, 352.

19 F. Oakley, The western Church in the later Middle Ages, Ithaca, NY–London 1979, 64–7.

20 See in general Crowder, C. M. D., ‘Four English cases determined in the Roman courts during the Council of Constance, 1414–1418’, Annuarium historiae conciliorum xii (1980), 315–411Google Scholar; xiii (1981), 67–145, esp. (1980), 348–8, 358–9, 363, 366–7; (1981) 70–1, 91, 110.

21 The register of Bishop Repingdon, 1405–1419, ed. M. Archer (Lincoln Record Society lvii–lxiii, lxxiv, 1963–82), iii, no. 406. The register labels the conciliar document a ‘delegacio’. This case is extensively evidenced in the surviving York court archives, appearing among the cause papers as BIA, CP.F.69 (which includes a draft of the notarial instrument recording the sentence in the case and Margaret's appeal to the council on 31 April 1417 [CP.F.69/10], and also in several entries in the first surviving consistory court act book: Smith, Court of York, 16–17, with act book references provided at p. 150).

22 Crowder, ‘Four English cases’, (1980) 315–411; (1981) 67–145.

23 See n. 21 above.

24 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fo. 197r.

25 Ibid. fo. 205r–v. Farnelawe was chancellor from 1369 to 1379: John le Neve (ed. B. Jones), Fasti ecclesiae anglicanae, 1300–1541, VI: Northern province (York, Carlisle, and Durham), London 1963, 9.

26 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 197v–199r. For Pynchebek see n. 45 below.

27 For realistic numbers see J. A. H. Moran, Education and learning in the city of York, 1300–1560, York 1979, 7; for the qualification (‘seu alium numerum in processu declarandum’) see ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fo. 198r–v.

28 Moran, Education and learning, 11.

29 BIA, Cons. AB.1, fos 28v–30v, 35r. This last entry envisages at least one further stage in the process, but nothing further is entered in the volume.

30 Their appointment is recorded by chance as a note in BIA, CP. F.69/10.

31 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fo. 199r–v.

32 BIA, Cons. AB.1, fo. 30r.

33 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 200v–201v.

34 Ibid. fo. 201r.

35 Ibid. fos 201v–202v.

36 Ibid. fo. 110r–v.

37 BIA, Cons. AB.1, fos 162r, 168v.

38 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 202v–204r.

39 Crowder, ‘Four English cases’ (1981), 91, 105.

40 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 202v–203v.

41 Ibid. fos 204v–205r.

42 Ibid. fos 202v–204v. The document lacks a dating clause, so exactly when Gawardby responded is not indicated.

43 Moran, Education and learning, 39, only notes him in post from 1426, but continuity from 1417 seems likely.

44 Ibid. 10, and The growth of English schooling, 1340–1548: learning, literacy, and laicization in pre-Reformation York diocese, Princeton, NJ 1985, 74–5.

45 Idem, Education and learning, 39.

46 BIA, Cons. AB1, fos 124v–125r.

47 Ibid. fo. 125r.

48 For a rather skeletal outline of the dispute see D. M. Smith (ed.), The heads of religious houses, England and Wales, III: 1377–1540, Cambridge 2008, 292–3. It is written up more fully in E. F. Jacob, ‘The disputed election at Fountains Abbey, 1410–16’, in V. Ruffer and A. J. Taylor (eds), Medieval studies presented to Rose Graham, Oxford 1950, 78–97 (repr. in his Essays in later medieval history, Manchester–New York 1968, 79–97). Neither author was aware of the further documents discussed here.

49 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 206r–207v.

50 The basic narrative up to mid-1413, although with no chronological pointers, is reflected in Calendar of close rolls, Henry V, I: A. D. 1413–19, London 1929, 112–13 (the recognisance was eventually cancelled in December 1424: ibid. 114); Jacob, ‘Disputed election’.

51 Calendar of close rolls, 1413–19, 113–14; Jacob, ‘Disputed election’, 89–90.

52 Jacob, ‘Disputed election’, 90–1, 96.

53 Ibid. 82, 94–5.

54 ms Dep. 1980/1.355, fos 207v–209r.

55 This may explain the rather elaborate statement of the date of receipt, emphasising that Martin was now pope.

56 The link with Markynfeld is confirmed by a letter from Frank to William Swan at Constance, sent from the manor of ‘Merkyngfeld’ (i.e. Markenfield Hall, near Ripon): Jacob, ‘Disputed election’, 96–7.

57 It is not immediately clear how this identification of the father chimes in with Jacob's suggestion that Frank might be related to Sir William Frank, a contemporary Lincolnshire knight: ‘Disputed election’, 81. It is notable that the father is not given knightly rank, or identified as an esquire, in a document where Byspham seems to be fastidious in his differentiation of lay ranks.