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Clerical Recruitment in the Diocese of York, 1340–1530: Data and Commentary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Jo Ann Hoeppner Moran
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Extract

Ordination registers have been unduly neglected by historians, and the bibliography ofworks dealing with them is scant. Nevertheless, they are our most valuable source for documenting the recruitment of clergy, both secular and regular, while they also provide indirect evidence for demographic, religious and educational trends. The data assembled in the graphs and tables below, extracted from the archiepiscopal archives of York, detail the total surviving ordination records from England's largest diocese during the period from just before the first outbreak of bubonic plague to the beginning of the Reformation.

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 19 - 54
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fifteenth International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan, in May 1980.

1 Ordination lists have been neglected even by those historians whose research might have benefited the most. Josiah Russell, the chronicler of medieval English population, never utilised these lists, although he did focus on the problem of clerical population in his article, ‘The clerical population of medieval England’, Tradi⃛io, ii (1944), 177–212Google Scholar. Nor did David Knowles, in his many books on medieval religious orders, investigate ordinations, despite their obvious value for identifying the monastic population. The following books and articles provide what little information we have: Bennett, H. S., ‘Medieval ordination lists in the English episcopal registers’, in Davies, J. C. (ed.), Studies Presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, Oxford 1957, 20–34Google Scholar; Williams, J. F., ‘Ordination in the Norwich diocese during the fifteenth century’, Norfolk Archaeology, xxxi (1957), 347–58Google Scholar; Bowker, M., The Secular Clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1495–1520, Cambridge 1968, 38–64Google Scholar; Storey, R. L., ‘Recruitment of English clergy in the period of the Conciliar Movement’, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, vii (1975), 290–313Google Scholar; Rose, R. K., ‘Priests and patrons in the fourteenth-century diocese of Carlisle’, Studies in Church History, xvi (1979), 207–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A. B. Emden used ordination lists extensively in his Survey of Dominicans in England, 1268–1528, Rome 1967Google Scholar, and his volumes of biographical registers for the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

2 Brown, W. (ed.), The Register of Walter Giffard, Lord Archbishop of York, 1266–1279 (Surtees Society, cix, 1904), 187–98Google Scholar; Baigent, F. J. (ed.) The Registers of John de Sandale and Rigaud de Asserio, 1316–23 (Hampshire Record Society, viii, 1897), 184–6Google Scholar.

3 Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York (hereafter cited as B.I.H.R.), Ordination Reg. 10A, fos 1–55V.

4 B.I.H.R., Reg. 11, fos 329–93.

5 B.I.H.R., Reg. 12, fos 118–41V.

6 B.I.H.R., Reg. 15, fos 14–16V. printed in Smith, D. M. (ed.), A Calendar of the Register of Robert Waldby, Archbishop of York, York 1974, 37–50Google Scholar.

7 B.I.H.R., Reg. 16, fos 152–67V, 169–9V, 174–4V, 176V-7.

8 B.I.H.R., Reg. 18, fos 39–39H, 389–416v.

9 B.I.H.R., Reg. 19, fos 215–26, 227–304. Archbishop Kemp's London ordinations in February 1433/4 and May 1434 (fos 167V-8) have not been included because they were celebrated at the special request of the bishop of London and are not characteristic of the York diocesan ordinations.

10 B.I.H.R., Reg. 20, fos 412–61.

11 B.I.H.R., Reg. 22, fos 179–240.

12 B.I.H.R., Reg. 22, fos 362–84V.

13 B.I.H.R., Reg. 23, fos 372–468V.

14 B.I.H.R., Reg. 25, fos 108B-41V.

15 B.I.H.R., Reg. 26, fos 99–126V, 148V-50V (sede vacante).

16 B.I.H.R., Reg. 27, fos 166–215V.

17 B.I.H.R., Reg. 5A, fos 209V-10, 233–6V, 297–306v, 332–3V, 345V-6V, 353V-4, 360V-1, 372–2V, 376V-7, 380–1 v, 390–90v, 407V-8 417–17V, 422–4V, 433–33V, 442V-4, 446V-8V, 450–2, 453V-4. 485–6V, 493–4, 505V-11, 556–83V.

18 B.I.H.R., Reg. 14, fos 10-nv, 14V, 63–74.

19 This has been done to minimise or eliminate the amount of reconstructed data needed o t arrive at totals for 1356 and 1374. Since there are blank years at both ends of Thoresby's episcopacy (see Fig. 1 on p. 22), there are no problems integrating the Thoresby materials with lists from other registers.

20 One should never try to estimate missing ordination data from the available figures for that year alone. It would be misleading, for example, to estimate the numbers for a missing Easter ordination by averaging the previous Lenten ordinations with the subsequent Trinity, September and December ordinations, since the Easter ordinations were invariably small (often a dozen priests or less) while the first ordination in Lent and the Trinity, September and December ordinations could be quite large (20 to 60 priests).

21 The December 1343 ordination is missing. Totals for the December 1342 ordination (the first one recorded in the register) have been added to the 1343 figures instead. The figures for 1345 include two acolytes and 37 secular priests from Durham diocese, vacant due to the death of Bishop Richard Bury. The ordination records for 1347 suffered from administrative neglect. For May 1347 it is noted that Friar Richard, suffragan bishop of V'ork, did not have the names registered. Subsequent inquiry produced a small list of those who showed proof of ordination and two attached pages with additional names, the purpose of which is not specified. The only completely recorded ordination for 1347 is that of December. B.I.H.R., Reg. 10A, fos 1–55V.

22 Moorman, J. R. H., Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century, Cambridge 1955Google Scholar, 52–3, 57, 154–7. 223–5; Davis, F. N. et al. (ed.), The Register of John Pecham, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1279–1292 (Canterbury and York Society, 1968–1969)Google Scholar, i. 184–256, ii. 1–35; Graham, R. (ed.), Registrum Robert Winchelsey Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, 11 (Canterbury and York Society 1956)Google Scholar. The figures cited above were derived by Moorman from these two registers. In the preface to Winchelsey's volume, Herbert Chitty gives figures of 780 acolytes and 478 priests. The calculations of Coulton, G. G. (The Black Death, London 1929Google Scholar; repr. 1977, 39–42) show that, in four dioceses (Exeter, Bath and Wells, Winchester and Worcester) before 1348, 638 per cent of the parishes were served by non-priests. Coulton does not specify the exact years covered by his statistics.

23 Brown, W. (ed.), The Register of William Wickwane, Archbishop of York, 1279–1285 (Surtees Society, cxiv, 1908)Google Scholar, 18,95, 116–23; idem, The Register of John le Romeyn, Archbishop of York, 1286–1296, 1 (Surtees Society, cxxiii, 1913), 15Google Scholar.

24 R. M. Woolley, The York Provinciate, 1930, Bk. 1, tit. 6.2.

25 B.I.H.R., Reg. 10A, fos 1–17V.

26 The Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York 1317–1340, 1, ed. R. M. T. Hill (Canterbury and York Society, lxx, 1977), i, ii, 24, 30, 32, 67; 11, ed. D. Robinson (Canterbury and York Society, lxxi, 1978), 83, 134, 189.

27 B.I.H.R., Reg. 10, fo. 247V; printed in Letters from Northern Registers (Rolls Series 1873), 395–7; see also Thompson, A. H., ‘The pestilences of the fourteenth century in the diocese of York’, The Archaeological Journal, lxxi (1914), 102–3Google Scholar.

28 We have the evidence of an undated petition to Pope Clement vi (Cal. Papal Petitions i. 178) stating that the pestilence had begun to harrass the city, diocese and province. Clement's response was dated 23 March 1348–9 (B.I.H.R., Reg. 10, fo. 285V).

29 York Minster Library, Dean and Chapter Act Book III (1) a, fos 64r-v.

30 Thompson, ‘The pestilences of the fourteenth century’, appendix 5.

31 Ibid., 113. Thompson provides slightly different results in appendix 1: 49 per cent and 34 per cent respectively for the two archdeaconries. It is not clear why there is this discrepancy in his calculations.

32 The results of Lunn's work are summarised by Coulton, G. G., Medieval Panorama, Cambridge 1947, 495–9Google Scholar. Philip Ziegler tells us that no copy of the thesis survives (The Black Death, New York 1969Google Scholar, 126 n. 22), although J. C. Russell refers to a single remaining copy (British Medieval Population, Albuquerque 1948Google Scholar, 221 n. 10). Confidence in Lunn's results is upheld by comparison with the careful studies by Thompson for both York and Lincoln. Lunn's average of 39–54 for Lincoln and York is remarkably similar to Thompson's 39.8 average.

33 Russell, British Medieval Population, 223–5.

34 Courtenay, W.J., ‘The Black Death and English higher education’, Speculum, lv (1980), 696–714CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 703.

35 Gasquet, F. A., The Black Death of 1348 and 1349, 2nd edn, London 1908, 238–41Google Scholar.

36 B.I.H.R., Reg. 10, fos 286–7V.

37 B.I.H.R., Reg. 10A, fos 34–50V.

38 Woolley, York Provinciale, Bk. 5, tit. 4.5.

39 Emden, A. B., Biographical Register of the University of Oxford, 3 vols., Oxford 1957–1959Google Scholar, passim; O'Day, Rosemary, The English Clergy: the emergence and consolidation of a profession, Leicester 1979Google Scholar, chap. 4, table 3.

40 Orme, N., English Schools in the Middle Ages, London 1973Google Scholar, 16–17; Bennett, ‘Medieval ordination lists’, passim; Moorman, Church Life, 198–201, 231–2; Haines, R. M., ‘Education in English ecclesiastical law’, Studies in Church History, vii (1971), 165Google Scholar.

41 Register of Walter Giffard, 187–8; Brown, W. (ed.), The Register of Thomas of Corbridge, Lord Archbishop of York, 1300–1304, 1 (Surtees Society, cxxxviii, 1925Google Scholar), 2; Leach, A. F. (ed.), Visitations and Memorials of Southwell Minster (Camden Society, N.S., xlviii, 1891), 201–16Google Scholar; York Minster Library, Dean and Chapter Act Book Hi(1)a, fo. 11; Register of William Mellon, 1, 108.

42 Calender of the Register of Robert Waldby, 3; York Minster Library, Dean and Chapter Act Book H2(1)a, fo. 36.

43 B.I.H.R., Reg. 22 fos 228–9.

44 Lincoln Record Office, Cj, 2, fos 100ff; cited in Bowker, M., The Secular Clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1495–1520, Cambridge 1968, 41Google Scholar.

45 Barker, E. E. (ed.), The Register of Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York, 1480–1500, 1 (Canterbury and York Society, lxix, 1976), 192Google Scholar. For the original, which Barker paraphrases, see B.I.H.R., Reg. 23, fo. 203V.

46 P. Heath, English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation, London 1969, 16. This problem was not confined to York, as is clear from the complaints of Thomas Gascoigne, chancellor of Oxford c. 1450, and the sermons of John Colet in 1511/12. Gascoigne, Thomas, Loci e Libro Veritatum, ed. Rogers, J. E. T. (Oxford 1881), 20Google Scholar; Lupton, J. H., A Life of John Colet, Hamden, Conn. 1961, 100Google Scholar.

47 Moran, J. A. Hoeppner, ‘Educational development and social change in York diocese from the fourteenth century to 1548’ (unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Brandeis University 1975), 223–5Google Scholar; esp. table 9.

48 Private correspondence from William J. Courtenay, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, 5 January 1978.

49 B.I.H.R., Reg. 10A, fos 34–50V.

50 Woolley, York Provinciate, Bk. 5, tit. 4.5.

51 B.I.H.R., Reg. 10A. fos 14.V-38.

52 Monastic titles were already in common use at Canterbury by 1315 and in the majority at Hereford by the 1340s. The practice was not as readily adopted in the north. At Durham monastic titles do not show up in any number until the 1370s, while at Carlisle they are uncharacteristic at least until 1380. Lambeth Palace Library. Reg. Walter Reynolds (1313–27), fos 171–87; Reg. Simon Islip (1349–66), fos 308–26V; Parry, J. H. (ed.), Registrum Johannis de Trillek, Episcopi Herefordensis 1344–1361 (Canterbury and York Society, viii, 1912), 410–632Google Scholar; Durham, Dean and Chapter Muniments, Reg. Hatfield, fos 92–113V; Rose, ‘Priests and patrons’. For a general discussion of the fourteenth-century increase in monastic titles, see Bennett, ‘Medieval ordination lists’, 28–9. The rationale behind monastic titles is still something of a mystery. Denys Hay suggests that, in Italy, monastic membership was being conferred and this constituted a legal title - a vow of poverty which relieved the ordaining bishop from any legal responsibility in support of an ordinand. Hay, D., The Church in Italy in the Fifteenth Century, Cambridge 1977, 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. That a title could be bought (and not just given) is clear from the 1538 will of Thomas Atkinson, yeoman: ‘I wyll that Robert Atkynson, my son, shall have hys fyndyng of my sayd wyffe, either at Yorke or elles where it shalbe thought beste, so that he may folowe the scole unto suche tyme yt he may gette orders and be preiste, and that he shall have his tytlc and singynge geyr boughte at the coste of my sayde wyeffe.’ Wills and Administrations from Knaresborough Court Rolls, 1 (Surtees Society, cix, 1902), 26Google Scholar. Rosalind Hill suggests that the monastic communities looked upon titles as a business investment. Hill, R. M. T. (ed.), The Rolls and Register of Bishop Oliver Sulton 1280–1299, VII (Lincoln Record Society, lxix, 1975), xii–xivGoogle Scholar.

53 Bennett, ‘Medieval ordination lists’, 26–7.

54 Woolley, York Provinciate, Bk. 3, cit. 13.3. See also Putnam, B. H., ‘Maximum wage-laws for priests after the Black Death, 1348–1381’, American Historical Review, xxi (1915), 12–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 A Dialogue of Sir Thomas More (1528), 1557 edn, Bk. 3, chap. 12, 228.

56 ‘Sed infra breve confluebant ad ordines maxima multitudo quorum uxores obierant in pestilentia, de quibus multi illicerati et quasi meri laici nisi quatenus aliqualiter legere sciebant licet non intelligere.’ Chronicon Henrici Knighton, 11, ed.Lumby, J. (Rolls Series, 1895), 63Google Scholar.

57 B.I.H.R., Reg. 10A, fos 26–50V.

58 The ordination lists for the years from 1352 through the first half of 1356 are no longer extant. The missing ordinations from 1356 (Sitientes, Trinity and September) have been reconstructed by providing an average based upon the subsequent five-year totals.

59 The annual average for priests ordained from 1343 to 1348 is 215. This declines to 112 between 1356 and 1365, or only 52 per cent of the pre-plague average. Similar drops i n ordinations are to be found in other dioceses as well. In Winchester, while the average number of priests ordained from 1346–8 was III, in the subsequent years 1350–65 the yearly average was barely 20. The Ely registers show 101–5 priests ordained per annum from 1342 until 1348 but only 40–5 per annum from 1350 to 1356. Gasquet, The Black Death, 241–3.

60 Woolley, York Provinciate, Bk. 3, tit. 13.3.

61 The number of priests ordained in Carlisle diocese declines from an average of between seven and eight annually from 1342 to 1348 to an average of one priest per annum between 1353 and 1362. Rose, ‘Priests and patrons’, 210.

62 The ordination lists for the years from 1357 to 1373 appear to be complete with the minor exceptions (after Thoresby's death) of December 1373 and the first Saturday in Lent 1373/4, which have been reconstructed by adding the averages of the previous five-year totals. Occasionally (e.g. 1357, 1359, 1361, 1367, 1368, 1372) an Easter or Sitientes ordination is not recorded. There is no evidence that they are missing. They were probably not held since the numbers ordained on those occasions were customarily small, often only one or two individuals. B.I.H.R., Reg. 11, fos 329–93.

The sede vacante ordinations from December 1373 through September 1374 are missing. Neville's register begins with December 1374 and appears complete until Trinity 1378, at which point several folios are missing. The ordinations begin again in the middle of the Lenten names 1378/9. The missing statistics have been reconstructed on the basis of the surviving ordination lists under Neville. The list of acolytes for the December ordination n i 1380 may have been longer as the folio is cut off at the bottom, but the average number of acolytes ordained at December ordinations under Archbishop Neville (23) is so close to the surviving number of names (20) that the latter figure has been retained. B.I.H.R., Reg. 12, fos 118–38V.

63 Thompson, ‘The pestilences of the fourteenth century’, 115–17. The calculation is based upon the 536 benefices Thompson identifies within the four archdeaconries of York, Nottingham, Cleveland and the East Riding.

64 Ibid.

65 Rose, ‘Priests and patrons’, 211. Another diocese which experienced increased recruitment after 1369 is London. Between 1362 and 1368 an average of 53 priests per annum were ordained in London compared with 133 per annum from 1369–73. Fowler, R. C. (ed.), Registrum Simonis de Sudbiria, ii (Canterbury and York Society, 1928), 1–136Google Scholar; cited in Storey, ‘Recruitment of English clergy’, 308.

66 B.I.H.R., Reg. 11 fos 329–82. Out of 81 ordinations from 1356 through 1370, Thoresby assisted at 70.

67 Russell, ‘Clerical population’, 179. Poll tax returns must be used with extreme caution; most commentators stress the degree to which they under-enumerate the population. Any under-enumeration further substantiates the point made here.

68 Owst, G. R., Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England, rev. edn, New York 1961, 274Google Scholar.

69 Russell, ‘Clerical population’, 179.

70 Storey, ‘Recruitment of English clergy’, 305–6; Knowles, D., The Religious Orders in England, II, Cambridge 1957, 256–7Google Scholar; Russell, ‘Clerical population’, 212.

71 Orme, English Schools, 171.

72 Firth, C. B., ‘Benefit of clergy in the time of Edward iv’, E.H.R., xxxii (1917), 182–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gabel, Leona, Benefit of Clergy in Medieval England, Northampton, Mass. 1929Google Scholar, passim.

73 This change has been described by both A. H. Thompson and G. G. Coulton, although it has been little remarked on since they wrote. See esp. Coulton, The Black Death, 39–42. Using four southern dioceses (Exeter, Bath and Wells, Winchester and Worcester), Coulton calculates that only 36–2 per cent of beneficed clergy were priests before 1348. During and after the plague, the great majority of institutions to benefices were of priests.

74 Although the register is complete between Lent 1378/9 and Lent 1380/1, the ordinations are missing from the last part of Lent 1380/1 through Trinity 1383. The numbers ordained from September 1383 through Easter 1384, plus an estimate for the missing Trinity ordinations in 1383, have been added together and charted as if they were the totals for 1383. Nothing remains of the Neville ordinations from 1384 to 1388. B.I.H.R., Reg. 12, 131–41v.

Arundel's register (1388–96) is actually his vicar-general's register, his own register having disappeared some time after 1464. Only one ordination is available for 1388 (the December ordination), one for 1389 (December ordination) and one for 1390 (Lenten ordination). The ordination records were undoubtedly better kept in Arundel's lost register. For example, reference is made in Archbishop Waldby's register to certification of an ordination title in December 1390 after examination of Arundel's register. No record of this particular ordination now survives. The same is true for the December ordination of 1395, which is no longer extant although reference to its existence occurs in Waldby's register. D. M. Smith (ed.), Calendar ofthe Register ofRobert Waldby, 9, 12. The only complete year appears to be 1393, with records for five ordinations extant and no evidence of loss. The missing records for the years 1392 and 1394–6 have been estimated on the basis of the surviving Arundel data. B.I.H.R., Reg. 14, fos IO-IIV, 14, 63–74.

75 Bishop Wykeham's register from Winchester (1367–1404) shows a decline from 18–5 secular priests per annum in the 1370s to 14 per annum in the 1380s and [3 per annum from 1391 to 1403. Exeter experienced a decline from 50 per annum in the 1370s to 20 per annum from 1379 to 1392. Coventry and Lichfield declined from 109 per annum in the 1370s to 77 per annum in the 1380s. London's ordinations of secular priests fell from 87 per annum between 1362 and 1374 to an annual average of 29 from 1381 to 1401. Storey, ‘Recruitment of English clergy’, 294–5; Gasquet, The Black Death, 247 n. 1.

76 In only a few southern dioceses are ordinations extant for the years before 1348–9. In Winchester, under Archbishop John de Sandale, the totals of secular priests were 91 between December 1316 and September 1317 and 106 between December 1317 and September 1318. Cardinal Gasquet reports an average of 111 priests ordained in 1346–8 i n the unpublished register of Bishop William Edendon, but this figure includes regular as well as secular clergy. By the 1380s the average annual number of secular priests being ordained at Winchester was 14. At Exeter the number of secular priests ordained under Bishop Walter Stapelton (1308–21) was 693, an annual average of 53, compared with 20 per annum between 1379 and 1392. At Hereford, ordinations of secular priests were 100 per annum between 1328 and 1343, dropping to 23 per annum in the 1390s. Finally, at Worcester, the averages were 141 secular priests per annum (1303–4), n o per annum (1317–27) and 90 per annum (1339–49). By the 1380s, as one might expect, the annual averages were substantially lower, in this case 32.

For the statistics from Worcester, see Robin Storey's review of A Calendar of the Register of Henry Wakefield, Bishop of Worcester, 1375–95 in E.H.R., lxxxix (1974), 379. The other figures are taken from: F. J. Baigent (ed.), Registers of John de Sandale and Rigaud de Asserio, 162–212; Storey, ‘Recruitment of English clergy’, 294–6 and Gasquet, The Black Death, 241.

77 Storey,'Recruitment of English clergy’, 304–13.

78 Ibid., 297.

79 Hollingsworth, T. H., Historical Demography, London 1965, 386Google Scholar, figure 10. The estimate of a 50 per cent decline in population is based upon replacement rates calculated from the Inquisitions Post Mortem and represents the upper classes. Over all, Hollingsworth suggests that the rate of decline may have been as much as two-thirds. Hollingsworth's conclusions have been reiterated by Hatcher, J., Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348–1530, London 1977CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 2, who provides additional evidence for a significant drop in population.

80 The low numbers of acolytes and regular priests recorded in 1478 (Fig. 4 below) seem to be th e result of scribal neglect.

81 For the years 1392–6, sec note 74 above. The ordinations for 1397 are complete, the first Lenten ordination being recorded in the sede vacante register and the remaining ordinations in Reg. Waldby. The ordinations for 1398–1404 appear to be complete, with the first three ordinations for 1398 in the sede vacante register and the remaining ordinations in Scrope's register. Th e ordination records from Trinity 1405 until Sitientes 1408 are located in the sede vacante register. Reg. Bowet is complete with the exception of the five years from 1413 through 1417, with five out of six ordinations complete for 1413, but only two ordinations assailable for 1414, none for 1415, three for 1416 and four for 1417. The numbers for 1413, 1416 and 1417 have been reconstructed by using averages from 1410–12, 1418–20. Reg. Kemp (1425–52) is complete with the sole exception of the September ordination 1434. An estimated number has been added based upon averages for the years 1429–33, 1435–9. B.I.H.R., Reg. 5A, fos 209V-10, 233–36V, 297–306V. 332–3V, 345V-6V, 353V-4, 360V-1, 372–2v, 376V-7, 380-iv, 390–90V, 407V-8, 4I7-I7V, 422–4V; Reg. 15, fos 14–16V, printed in D. M. Smith (ed.), Calendar ofthe Register of Robert Waldby, 37–50; Reg. 16, fos 152–67V, 169–9V, 174–4V, 176V-7; Reg. 18, fos 39–39H, 389–416V; Reg. 19, fos 215–26, 227–304.

82 There were plagues and/or other epidemic diseases on a nationwide basis in 1389–93 (especially virulent at York), 1400, 1405–7, 1413, 1420, 1427, 1433–4, 1438 (especially severe in the north), 1457–8, 1463–4, 1467, 1471, 1479–80 and 1485, not to mention the possibilities of endemic, regional outbreaks about which we know nothing yet. Hatcher, Plague, Population, 57; R. S. Gottfried, Epidemic Disease in Fifteenth-Century England, N. Jersey 1978, chap. 2. The precariousness of relying upon national outbreaks for estimating plague deaths in any one locale has been pointed out by Hatcher. He notes that only one-fifth of the plague deaths at Christ Church, Canterbury can be accounted for during times of national outbreaks (p. 17). Unfortunately, we do not yet have a survey of local plague outbreaks in the north of England.

83 Gottfried, Epidemic Disease, 114–15.

84 For the years 1450–2, see note 81 above. Reg. William Booth (1452–64) is complete with the exception of a folio missing between the December 1453 and Trinity 1454 ordinations. The three Lenten-Easter ordinations do not appear and have been estimated by calculating the proportion of ordinands in the first half of the year in relation to the yearly totals for the decade 1449–59. B.I.H.R., Reg. 20, fos 412–61.

85 Gottfried, Epidemic Disease, 108.

86 The landed revenues of Durham Priory fell during this time period (Dobson, R. B., Durham Priory, 1400–1450, Cambridge 1973CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 8), while the revenues of the bishopric of Durham fell even more so (Storey, R. L., Thomas Langley and the Bishopric of Durham, Church History Society 1961, 69–70Google Scholar).

87 Hatcher, Plague, Population, 38–44.

88 The numbers of wills probated in York diocese declined to 550 in the 1450s as compared with ten-year averages of approximately 760 in the years 1430–50, 1460–90. Although it is not possible to calculate the comparative value of testamentary bequests from on e decad e to the next, in par t because many of the gifts are in kind and not easily quantified, it is probable that a substantial decline in the number of probated wills signals a decrease in ecclesiastical revenues from that source. This may in part explain why the number of known foundations of Yorkshire chantries and stipendiary services is lower in the 1450s than in any other decade from 1450 to 1530. Moran,’ Educational development and social change’, 476 (Fig. 8); Kreider, A., English Chantries: the road to Dissolution, Cambridge, Mass., 1979, 78Google Scholar (table 3.5).

89 Hatcher, Plague, Population, 48–9.

90 Storey, R. L., The End of the House of Lancaster, London 1966, 9Google Scholar.

91 Dobson, R. B., ‘Urban decline in late medieval England’, Trans. Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., xxvii (1977), 15–16Google Scholar.

92 Storey, House of Lancaster, 130–2; Pollard, A. J., ‘The northern retainers of Richard Nevill, earl of Salisbury’, Northern History, xi (1975), 52Google Scholar.

93 The ordination lists in the sede vacante register (September 1464-Trinity 1465) appear complete, as do the lists in Neville's register (1465–76). Throughout Neville's register, the candidates from the archdeaconry of Richmond are listed concurrently but separately. The names in Laurence Booth's register (1477–80), especially for 1478, may not be complete. Booth's register is less well organised and has more mistakes than any other late medieval York register. In March 1478/9 a new (and better) scribe took over. This may help explain the disparity between the numbers of acolytes in 1478 and 1479. The new scribe also ended the practice oflisting candidates from Richmond separately. B.I.H.R., Reg. 5A, fos433–3v, 442V-4, 446V-8V, 450–2, 453–4, 485–6v; Reg. 22, fos 179–240, 362–84V.

There is only one ordination in the 1480 sede vacante register, that of Trinity. Beginning with September 1480 until Rotherham's death in 1500, the ordination lists appear to be complete. For the first year the Richmond ordinations arc recorded separately, and, beginning in 1491, they are indicated along the margin in the case of the secular clergy. B.I.H.R., Reg. 5A, fos 493–4; Reg. 23, fos 372–468V.

Three sede vacante ordinations in 1500 and three in 1501, in conjunction with both Rotherham's and Savage's register, make those years complete. At least one ordination i s missing between December 1501 and 25 March 1502. The estimates have been calculated by taking averages for the first Lenten ordination in 1496–9, 1501, 1503–7. Archbishop Savage's last year (1507) is complete with the addition of two sede vacante ordinations at the end of the year. B.I.H.R., Reg. 5A, fos 505V-11; 556–63; Reg. 25, fos 108B-41 v.

94 Margaret Deanesly used an estimate of 25 years in her calculations of clerical numbers, while J. R. H. Moorman suggested an average ordained life of at least 30 years. See Deanesly, Margaret, The Lollard Bible, Cambridge 1920, 159Google Scholar, and Moorman, Church Life in England, 53. J. C. Russell calculated an average life expectancy of 25 years for those between the ages of twenty-five and thirty (the years in which a man would be most likely to become a priest) and born from 1426 to 1450 (Russell, British Medieval Population, [85, table 1.10).

95 These totals are calculated by using model life tables for males from western Europe, derived from whatever demographic evidence is available since the seventeenth century. Coaleand, A. J.Demeny, P., Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations, Princeton 1966Google Scholar, part ii, 3, 7 (levels 2 and 6). The tables used are those which show life expectancies at age twenty-five of approximately 25 and 30 years. The population at age twenty-five has been converted to a base of 1,000, and the declining numbers of survivors calculated accordingly. Since the tables are presented in five-year intervals, the results have been graphed and the numbers for intermediate years taken from the graph line. The number of ordinations was then multiplied by the proportion surviving from the year of ordination o t 1500. All the secular priests ordained between 1445 and 1500 and living in the year 1500 were then added up to give the total number of survivors.

96 The total number of beneficed and unbeneficed clergy enumerated for York diocese i n 1377 was 3,271. J. C. Russell calculates the proportion of regular to secular clergy throughout England as 10,600:24,900 or 30 percent of the total clergy, which would leave York diocese with an estimated population of 2,290 secular clergy. Russell, ‘Clerical population’, 179; idem, British Medieval Population, tables 6.5 and 6.7.

97 Adding 10 per cent for under-cnumeration results in a figure of 2,519 as an outside estimate for the numbers of secular clergy within the diocese in 1377. Taking a life expectancy of 25 years after ordination, the numbers of secular clergy in 1500 would be 4,111 (or 63 per cent more). Assuming a life expectancy of 30 years after ordination, the numbers rise to 4,736; 2,217 over the poll tax figure of 2,519, an 88 per cent increase.

98 There arc printed registers from only three southern dioceses for the period 1440–90. Of these, Canterbury's ordinations under Archbishop Bourchier (1454–86) arc disordered and incomplete. They also record a puzzling predominance of regular clergy. The registers from Hereford and Bath and Wells exhibit ordination trends similar to those of York: Parry, J. H. and Bannister, A. T. (eds), Registrum Johannis Stanbury Episcopi Herefordensis 1453–1464 (Canterbury and York Society, xxv, 1919), 137–72Google Scholar; Bannister, A. T. (cd.), Registrum Thome Myllyng Episcopi Herefordensis, (Canterbury and York Society, xxvi, 1920), 154–84Google Scholar; Maxwell-Lyte, H. C. and Dawes, M. C. B. (eds), The Register of Thomas Btkynton, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1443–1465, 11 (Canterbury and York Society, 1, 1935), 466–550Google Scholar.

The Rev. J. F. Williams, in his analysis of ordinations from the Norwich registers, mentions in passing that in the period 1413–86, ‘the largest ordination recorded... was n i December 1472...61 in all. At the following ordination in Lent...55 men were ordained, and there were sixteen more ordinations at which the number recorded is over 50.’ (Williams, ‘Ordinatio n in the Norwich diocese’, 352.) Although the documentation s sparse, i the impression one receives is that an increase in ordination numbers took place i n Norwich in the latter half of the fifteenth century. For a fuller analysis of the Norwich materials, there is a chronological index of ordinands 1446–72 by Williams in the Norfolk and Norwich Record Office (MC 16/5).

Margaret Bowker, in her analysis of the Lincoln diocesan clergy from 1495 to 1520, has calculated that the average number of deacons ordained priest at any one ordination was thirty, a figure which she argues is low in comparison with numbers ordained in the dioceses of Exeter, Hereford, Bath and Wells, or Ely (Bowker, Secular Clergy, 38–9). From 1495 to 1500 the average for York was 37 priests at any one ordination. There is, therefore, no reason t o think that the York figures for the late fifteenth century are abnormally high or that the climb in numbers is in any way unique.

99 B.I.H.R., Reg. 19, 20, 23. See also Heath, English Parish Clergy, appendix 3. One needs o t be cautious with regard to letters dimissory for those from York requesting ordination elsewhere, since it is by no means evident that they were always recorded. Earlier registers record consistently low numbers, which may argue for a fairly systematic practice of registration. Under Archbishops La Zouche and Thoresby (1342–73) letters dimissory averaged approximately one to 2 per year. Archbishop Waldby's single year (1397) saw 11 recorded. Under Archbishop Scrope (1398–1405), the annual average was slightly over 4. Looking further back to Archbishop Melton (1317–40), whose register is generally considered to offer a more complete record than those of his successors, the letters dimissory are substantial but still average under 6 per year. B.I.H.R., Regs. 9, 10, 11, 15, 16.

If the climb in letters dimissory for those leaving the diocese should be the result of incomplete reporting before 1452, the numbers are unlikely to be greater than the post-1452 letters dimissory recorded, and thus it can have no impact on the general argument that ordinations increased dramatically in the 1460s. Should we discover that the letters dimissory for those ordained outside York diocese are under-reported throughout the pre-Reformation period, this would mean that those with letters dimissory coming into the diocese were being counterbalanced by even larger numbers of York diocesan ordinands going elsewhere.

100 Hollingsworth, Historical Demography, passim. For more pessimistic assessments, see Hatcher, Plague, Population; Gottfried, Epidemic Disease; and Dobson,’ Urban decline’, 1–22.

101 Kreider, English Chantries, chap. 3, esp. figure 2.

102 Valor Ecclesiasticus lempore Henrici VIII, v (1825), passim. See also Page, W. (ed.), The Certificates of the Commissioners appointed to Survey the Chantries, etc. in the County of York, 1 (Surtees Society, xci, 1894)Google Scholar, vii; Rosenthal, J. T., ‘The Yorkshire Chantry certificates of 154b: an analysis’, Northern History, ix (1974), 30–1Google Scholar.

103 Kreider, English Chantries, 90–1; Dobson, R. B., ‘The foundation of perpetual chantries by the citizens of medieval York’, Studies in Church History, iv, Leiden 1967, 24Google Scholar; Raine, J. Jr. (ed.), The Fabric Rolls of York Minster (Surtees Society, xxxv, 1859), 87Google Scholar. In order to cope with the large numbers of chantry priests, chantr y colleges were formed throughout the diocese and not simply within the city of York. Colleges were founded at Newark-on-Trent, at Hemingborough, Sutton-in-Holderness and Lowthorp in the East Riding, at Acaster Selby, Rotherham, Pontefract and Middleham in the West Riding, and at Sibthorp in Nottinghamshire. Most of these were fifteenth-century creations. Thompson, A. H., English Colleges of Chantry Priests, The Ecclesiological Society, 1943Google Scholar.

104 ‘The Fallow Papers’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, xxi (1901), 243–52Google Scholar and xxiv (1917), 62–80. This excludes 18 prebendaries, 16 vicars choral and 17 pensioners from the East Riding.

105 B.I.H.R., Prob. Reg. 1, fo. 43; Prob. Reg. 3, fo. 488; Prob. Reg. 4, fos 97, 160; Prob. Reg. 6, fo. 82V: Prob. Reg. 9. fo. 263; Test. Ebor., vi, 5. See also ‘The Fallow Papers’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, xxiv (1917), 62Google Scholar; Yorkshire Chantry Surveys, xcii. 222; Thompson, A. H., The English Clergy and Their Organization in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford 1947, 134Google Scholar; Dobson, ‘The foundation of perpetual chantries’, 37–8.

106 Percy, T. (ed.), The Regulations and Establishment of the Household of Henry Algernon Percy, new edn, London 1905, 311–13Google Scholar, 316–17; A. H. Thompson (ed.), ‘The Register of the archdeacons of Richmond, 1442–1477’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, xxx (1931), 38Google Scholar; Raine, J. (ed.), Wills and Inventories... of the Northern Counties of England (Surtees Society, ii, 1835), 50Google Scholar; Dobson, ‘The foundation of perpetual chantries’, 37 n. 1; B.I.H.R., Prob. Reg. 4, fo. 236. In a ten-month period in 1397, Archbishop Robert Waldby issued a total of 26 licences for private oratories. A Calendar of the Register of Robert Waldby, passim.

107 R. L. Storey, review of A Calendar of the Register of Henry Wakefield in E.H.R., lxxxix (1974). 379.

108 The Statutes of the Realm, ii (1816), 157–8.

109 Moran, ‘Educational Development’, passim.

110 Ibid., chaps. 4–5, esp. table 6.

111 B.I.H.R., Reg. 23, passim. For a representative selection of letters, see Register of Thomas Rotherham, 67, 75, 77, 78, 79, 83, 85.

112 Heath, English Parish Clergy, 18.

113 For the years 1501–7, see note 93 above. Ordinations from the sede vacante register are complete for 1508. Folios 104–5 in Reg. Bainbridge have been cut at the bottom, leaving out an estimated fifteen lines of text. The three ordinations in 1509 and one in 151 o which are effected by this have been estimated on the number of names most probably cut off. Folios 127–34 for 1513–14 are missing, which makes it difficult to reconstruct the materials lost from two missing folios for 1511–12. One sede vacante ordination is recorded for September 1514 in Bainbridge's register. Reg. VVolsey has what appear to be complete ordination lists from December 1514 to Easter Saturday, 1528. Although one September and three December ordinations are not recorded, they appear not to have been held. B.I.H.R., Reg. 5A, fos 563–83V; Reg. 26, fos 99–126V, 148–50V; Reg. 27, fos 166–215V.

114 A Dialogue of Sir Thomas More (1528), 1557 edn, Bk. 3, chap. 12, 227.