The Lincoln Diocesan Records1

Kathleen Major

doi:10.2307/3678581

The Lincoln Diocesan Records1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009

Kathleen Major

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The Lincoln diocesan records have long been well known to historians both for their great bulk and importance and for their accessibility. Before the Reformation the diocese covered eight and a half counties; even in 1541 it lost only Northampton, Rutland and Oxford, with the result that it was divided into completely separate portions, Lincolnshire and Leicester in the north, Buckingham, Bedford, Huntingdon and part of Hertfordshire in the south. Its size alone will account for the vastness of the collection. That the muniments are accessible is due to the work of the late Canon Foster, in recognition of which the Pilgrim Trust established the present record office, as the result of a request for assistance by the bishop of Lincoln. In this Society the work of Canon Foster is so famous as to make any comment on it by me superfluous, if not impertinent, but it would be impossible to speak of the records without reference to him. For my own part, I regard it as my chief privilege to attempt to carry on his work: to try to continue on the lines laid down by him is in itself a liberal education in the care and use of manuscripts.

Type: Research Article
Information: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 22 , December 1940 , pp. 39 - 66

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3678581 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1940

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Footnotes

I am indebted to Professor F. M. Stenton for first suggesting I should write this paper, and I have had the much–valued opportunity of discussing with him various matters connected with the records and their problems, during the last three years. Those who heard his address to the Canterbury and York Society on the Southwell Court Books in 1936, will realise my further indebtedness to him for his illuminating account of the seventeenth– and eighteenth–century records on that occasion.

References

^{page 40 note 1} Rotuli Hugonis de Welles, edited by W. P. W. Phillimore and F. N. Davis, Lincoln Record Society, vols. iii, vi and ix. Issued simultaneously by the Canterbury and York Society, vols. i, iii and iv.

^{page 40 note 2} “The Lincoln Episcopal Registers” Associated Architectural and Archaeological Societies Reports and Papers, xli (ii), 155–168^b.

^{page 40 note 3} Op. cit., p. 159.

^{page 40 note 4} Register VII^b.

^{page 40 note 5} Registers IX^b–a.

^{page 40 note 6} Register XII^b.

^{page 40 note 7} Register XV^b.

^{page 41 note 1} It may be noted that there seem to be no ordination records for Bishops Dalderby, Burghersh, Buckingham, Alnwick, and Chedworth, which suggests that these lists were kept in separate registers now lost.

^{page 42 note 1} Register XXVII, fos. 275 to the end.

^{page 42 note 2} Register XXVIII, fos. 152–95, 140–50.

^{page 42 note 3} Register XIX, fos. 91–133. Calendared by Canon C. W. Foster, A.A.S.R.P., xxv (ii), 460–99.

^{page 42 note 4} Register XXVIII, fos. 196–232.

^{page 42 note 5} The entries are in various hands and the folios were evidently put in the wrong order when this MS. was foliated continuously with the institutions 1554–66 mentioned in p. 44 below, and with Watson's paper register, sometime at the end of the sixteenth century. An index was compiled for all three together at that time. In some cases the old folio numbers are visible and the original order could probably be reconstructed. The whole of Register XXVIII was calendared by Canon Foster, except where it duplicated parts of Register XIX. (A.A.S.R.P., xxiv, 1–32, 525, xxv, 499–505; Lincolnshire Notes and Queries, v, 129–44, 164–81, 194–209, 227–43, vi. 3–19. 45–53. 78–85, 102–11, 142–7.)

^{page 44 note 1} Register XXVIII, fos. 1–139.

^{page 44 note 2} Beginning on fo. 3, which is the first complete one, there are three institutions of 1570, followed by four of 1564, one each of 1563, 1565, 1566 respectively, and so on.

^{page 45 note 1} Canon Foster noted that there was a tradition to this effect in the Registry. Miss Rose Graham informs me that some Ely registers disappeared during the Civil War.

^{page 45 note 2} Mr. John Saltmarsh of King's College, Cambridge, has given me the following information on visitatorial proceedings at King's College, formerly at Buckden:—

“We have in our Muniment Room five volumes compiled by College antiquaries, probably in the 18th Century, relating to Visitorial Proceedings. The first of these is labelled ‘Visitations, 1573, 1594, 1603, 1608’. It has no title page. It consists of transcripts of various papers, some at least of which, and possibly all, are at present in the College Muniment Room. The second volume is labelled ‘ Visitations, 1630, 1674’. This is of a similar nature to the preceding one, but I have not seen any of the originals which are here transcribed. The third volume is labelled ‘King's College. Visitor. Catalogue of papers at Buckden Registry.’ The title page reads ‘A Catalogue or Index of the several Papers relating to King's College and Visitations there, preserved in the Registry at Buckden–With a Summary of the Contents of each Paper.’ Papers in seven bundles, lettered A to G, are here summarised. There are from five to fifty–five separate numbered papers in each bundle. The last two volumes are lettered on the binding ‘King's College. Visitor. Transcript of Register of Papers. 1 and 2.’ There is no title page in either volume, but it appears to be a transcript of pages 63–322 of a volume relating to Visitorial Proceedings of whose present whereabouts I have no knowledge. The pagination of the original volume is noted in the transcript. These last three volumes at least seem to relate to documents formerly in the archives of the bishop of Lincoln, and the reference to the Buckden Registry suggests that some at least of them were kept at Buckden.”

Nothing to correspond with these proceedings has been found up to the present among the records in this office, and neither the Ecclesiastical Commission nor the present owner of Buckden can throw any light on their whereabouts.

^{page 46 note 1} Part of the Brown Book was printed by Canon Foster in Lincoln Episcopal Records in the time of Bishop Cooper (Line. Record Soc. and Cant, and York Soc), pp. 149–156.

^{page 46 note 2} Many extracts from this were printed by Canon R. E. G. Cole,“Some Lincolnshire Faculties 1663–1693”, A.A.S.R.P., xxx (i), 19–46.

^{page 47 note 1} Op. cit., Introduction, pp. x, xi.

^{page 48 note 1} L. T. and D., 1594/no. 4.

^{page 48 note 2} A. Gibbons, Ely Episcopal Records (1891), pp. 1–3.

^{page 49 note 1} Subscription Book 1, fo. 44. In some cases the same book was used for both ordination and institution subscriptions, e.g. nos. 6 and 7, covering the periods 1691–1705 and 1723–53.

^{page 51 note 1} F. M. Stenton, Documents illustrative of the social and economic history of the Danelaw (1920), pp. x, xxi.

^{page 51 note 2} Linc. Record Soc., vol. xix, appendix i, pp. xlvii–lxxii, appendix iii, pp. lxxxvi–lxxxvii.

^{page 52 note 1} 1V. iv/2. The practice may be still earlier: I have not examined the earlier records exhaustively.

^{page 52 note 2} Unnumbered document in a miscellaneous collection.

^{page 52 note 3} Handlist of the Bedfordshire County Muniments (1931), p. 21.

^{page 52 note 4} e.g. Commission to Thomas Rands as commissary in the archdeaconry of Lincoln, 23 April 1569, Cij 3, fo. 9, and as commissary of Lincoln and Stow, 30 June 1595, Brown Book, fos. 136–8.

^{page 53 note 1} Cor/R/2–4: Correspondence of William Stirrop, registrar, 1601–9. Cor/L/I and 2: Correspondence of Walter Walker, deputy registrar of the archdeaconry of Leicester and later secretary to the bishop.

^{page 53 note 2} Linc. Rec. Soc., vols. vii, xiv, xxi. Issued simultaneously by the Canterbury and York Soc., vols. xvii, xxiv, xxxiii. Three further volumes dealing with the period 1519–36 and containing secular as well as monastic visitations are now in the press.

^{page 54 note 1} C. R. Cheney, Episcopal visitation of monasteries in the thirteenth century.

^{page 54 note 2} H. E. Salter (ed.), Oxford Archaeological Society's Report, no. 70, pp. 74–117.

^{page 54 note 3} S. A. Peyton (ed.), The Churchwardens’ presentments in the Oxfordshire Peculiars of Dorchester, Thame and Banbury (Oxfordshire Record Society, vol. x).

^{page 54 note 4} Roland G. Usher, Reconstruction of the English Church, 2 vols., 1910.

^{page 54 note 5} Linc. Rec. Soc., vol. iv.

^{page 54 note 6} S. L. Ollard and P. C. Walter (ed.), Archbishop Herring's visitation returns 1743 (Yorks Archaeological Society, Record Series, lxxi, Ixxii, lxxv, lxxvii, lxxix).

^{page 55 note 1} Mavis Enderby.

^{page 56 note 1} Linc. Rec. Soc, ii, 180.

^{page 56 note 2} Ibid., xxiii, 293. The entry is not quoted as it stands; the abbreviations have been expanded.

^{page 56 note 3} Ibid., vols. ii. and xxiii.

^{page 56 note 4} L.C., v.

^{page 57 note 1} As Mr. Herbert Wood has pointed out to me, the use of Irish bishops as suffragans was common for several hundred years, but I can find no evidence that any were acting in this diocese after the middle of the sixteenth century. Moreover, in examining the orders conferred, from the material for the reigns of Elizabeth and James I (Linc. Rec. Soc, vols. ii. and xxiii, and unprinted sources), one finds only very occasionally that orders have been conferred by anyone other than the diocesan bishops of England or the suffragans consecrated under the Act of Henry VIII.

^{page 57 note 2} L.C., xxxi, 142. Other entries for the year 1768 include Skellingthorpe. John Haggard–absent–a valetudinarian–afraid of the weather (p. 184).

In 1778. Langton by Wragby, Thomas Howson. Gone to drink sea water (p. 188).

Sibsey. George Adams vicar. Lives in Little George Street, Westminster, upwards of 80 and quite childish. A great object of charity and unable to pay his procurations which are greatly in arrear (p. 99).

^{page 58 note 1} V.j/o/fo. 2a.

^{page 58 note 2} V.j/4/fo. 17. This presentment together with other extracts was printed by Mr. Edward Peacock,“Extracts from Lincoln Episcopal Visitations in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries”, Archaeologia, XLVIII. ii.

^{page 58 note 3} Ch. P/1608, fo. 39.

^{page 59 note 1} Ch. P/1609, fo. 59.

^{page 59 note 2} Ch. P./1606, fos. 7 and 8.

^{page 59 note 3} Ch. P./1607, fo. 34.

^{page 59 note 4} Ch. P./1608, fo. 74.

^{page 59 note 5} Ibid., fo. 77.

^{page 59 note 6} Ch. P./1609, fo. 61.

^{page 59 note 7} Ch. P./1598–9, fo. 51.

^{page 60 note 1} V.j/o.

^{page 61 note 1} V.iv/2 and 3.

^{page 61 note 2} V.j/5, fo. 10.

^{page 61 note 3} Ibid., fo. 13.

^{page 62 note 1} V.j/5, fo. 54^b.

^{page 63 note 1} v.iij/7, fo. 3.

^{page 64 note 1} The penance records are at present unsorted and uncalendared, but are available for inspection.

^{page 64 note 2} Professor Stenton's address on the Southwell Court Books first showed me the importance of the eighteenth–century penance schedules. In the Lincoln diocese a white–sheet penance is found some twenty years after the latest recorded at Southwell.

^{page 65 note 1} Letters Testimonial for midwives 1683–1773. Lic/M/I.

Letters Testimonial for schoolmasters 1603–1840. Lic/Sch/1–2.

Letters Testimonial for surgeons 1603–1775. Lic/Sur/i.

^{page 66 note 1} This paper is based on the records which have been handed over to my charge. Of these the greater proportion were sorted by Canon Foster or have been dealt with subsequently. There still remain a number of boxes and bundles untouched and it is always possible that additional documents of any particular class may come to light in the Alnwick Tower where many of the modern records are kept.

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The Lincoln Diocesan Records1

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