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Clerical Taxation in England, 1485 to 15471

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

J. J. Scarisbrick
J. J. Scarisbrick
Affiliation:
Lecturer in History, University of London, Queen Mary College
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Extract

I believe that the Henrician Reformation was a thoroughly revolutionary event, or set of events. It was revolutionary in a constitutional sense in declaring Henry head of the nation-church—as also in an ecclesiological one. It was revolutionary, ere long, in a further theological sense and, ere long again, revolutionary in its effect on property ownership and all that that implied. And, on top of this, it was a landmark in political and administrative history.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , April 1960 , pp. 41 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

page 42 note 1 See Cal. Papal Registers, xiii. 158 and P.R.O. 31/9/61 fols. 150–2 for examples of this. Cf. Letters and Papers … of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, Gairdner and Brodie (hereafter cited as L.P.), ii. App. 45.

page 42 note 2 See Jenson, , ‘The Denarius Sancti Petri in England’, Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc., ser. II, xv (1901), 171–247CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Lunt, , Financial Relations of the Papacy with England to 1327 (The Medieval Academy of American Publications, No. 33 (Cambridge Mass.), 1939), 3–85.Google Scholar

page 42 note 3 I have taken this information from Pietro Griffo's De Officio Collectoris in Regno Angliae fols. 74–86v in the Vatican Archives (hereafter cited as V.A.). This MS. (Arm. xxxiii. 26) is a copy of Vatican Library MS. Otto. Lat. 2948. I understand that Fr. Urban Flanagan, O.P., is preparing an edition of this most important account by one of the papal collectors of his work in England. It is to be noted that despite its exemption the abbey of St. Werbergh, Chester, unaccountably continued to pay taxes on the election of a new abbot. See Hoberg, , Taxae pro Communibus Servitiis etc., Studi e Testi 144, Rome 1949, 338.Google Scholar V.A. Introitus et Exitus 512, fols. 65 and 525, fol. 59v. On the early history of the census see Lunt, op. cit., 85–129 and V.A. Arm. i–xviii. 4071, fol. 14.

page 42 note 4 Griffo, op. cit., fols. 90v–104v. Cf. Salter, , A Subsidy collected in the diocese of Lincoln in 1536 (Oxford Hist. Soc., 1913), passim.Google Scholar

page 44 note 1 For all of which see Clergeac, , La Curie et les bénéficiaires consistoriaux. Étude sur les communs et menus services 1300–1600, Paris 1911.Google Scholar Cf. B. M. Harleian M.S. 1851, fols. 56–70; Cameron, , The Apostolic Camera and Scottish Benefices 1418–1488 (Univ. of St. Andrew's Publns., XXXV. 1934), viii ff.Google Scholar

page 44 note 2 Griffo, op. cit., fols. 18–20v, 87–8v. Much of what has just been said is derived from a perusal of the Libri Annatarum in the V.A., 32 to 70 But the question of annates is too complicated to be set forth fully here. I hope to deal with it at greater length on another occasion.

page 45 note 1 But I exclude such exceptional imposts as benevolences, loans and the amicable grant: also royal income derived from sees sede vacante—this on the ground that such income represented the automatic perquisite of a feudal overlord rather than taxation of a (non-existent) subject.

page 45 note 2 Wilkins, , Concilia Magnae Britanniae (1737), III. 646. L.P., iii. 150, 298, 533, 1123. Cf. L.P., ii. 887, 4179, 4565; P.R.O. 31/9/62, fols. 139 f. and 156 ff.Google Scholar

page 45 note 3 Griffo, op. cit., fol. 22v.

page 45 note 4 Wolsey received the deanery of St. Stephen's Westminster, in union with the bishopric of Lincoln, without payment of annates (V.A. Arm. xxix. 63 fol. 185v); York and Durham each at 1,000 ducats below full cost (which was 10,000 and 9,000 ducats respectively); Winchester at 4,000 below full cost (namely 12,000). Cf. Brady, Maziere, Episcopal Succession in England Scotland and Ireland A.D. 1400 to 1875, Rome 1877, s. vv.Google Scholar

page 45 note 5 Thus St. Alban's census of £13 6s. 8d. paid annually replaced services amounting to over £1,000; Waltham Cross's census of £5 annually replaced services worth about £275. Westminster Abbey paid £21 13s. 4d. yearly instead of services amounting to nearly £450. So Griffo, op. cit., fols. 74v, 77v, 79v. Cf. Hoberg, op. cit., s.vv.

page 46 note 1 I have found only six English houses paying services after this date in the V.A. Introitus et Exitus and Obligationes Communes and Obligations et Solutiones.

page 46 note 2 So entries in the V.A. Introitus et Exitus show. Why this reduction should have occurred I do not know.

page 46 note 3 See above, p. 44.

page 46 note 4 Griffo, op. cit., fol. 70; Jenson, loc. cit., 186.

page 46 note 5 B.M. MS. Vit. Bii., fols. 148 ff. (L.P., ii. 215). But it was not unknown for the bishop concerned to receive from previous collectors a sum much larger than that which he was required to hand over himself. So Lunt, op. cit., 78–9.

page 46 note 6 Griffo, op. cit., fols. 74–86v, 90v–104v. But as Clement VII was to complain to Silvester Dario, a successor of Vergil, there were many religious houses who defaulted on the census. P.R.O. 30/9/3, fols. 83–4.

page 46 note 7 23 Henry VIII, c. xx: Statutes of the Realm (hereafter cited as S.R.), iii. 386.

page 46 note 8 Viz. Adrian Castelli to Hereford and Bath and Wells, the two Giglis to Worcester, Julius de Medici and Ghinucci to Worcester, Athequa to Llandaff, Campeggio to Salisbury—all Italians save the Spanish Athequa.

page 47 note 1 For a few quittances see V.A. Obligationes et Solutiones 86, fols. 2–v, 29v, 30, 47v.

page 47 note 2 Fifty-six episcopal appointments were made during the first period; two during the second. Cf. Maziere Brady, op. cit. or Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi.

page 47 note 3 For examples of this payment see V.A. Introitus et Exitus 546, fols. 49, 555, fol. 40.

page 48 note 1 I have derived this figure from Eubel, loc. cit., with additions from V.A. Libri Annatarum, 32 to 70 and Introitus et Exitus, 511 to 561. My count does not pretend to be exhaustive.

page 48 note 2 Baumgarten, , Untersuchungm und Urkinden über dieCamera Collegii Cardinalium für die zeit von 1295–1437, Liepzig, 1898: Lunt, op. cit., 482–6.Google Scholar

page 48 note 3 See V.A. Arm xxix. 59, fols. 97, 157, 276; L.P. i. 283. Cf. Cameron op. cit., 323–24.

page 48 note 4 I have gathered this from the few occasions when the value of a living is given first in sterling and then in ducats or florins auri de camerain the Libri Annatarum. There were 4½ ducats to the £ in 1485, 4 by 1530. Ducats and florins were of the same value and whenever referred to here should be understood as those auri de camera, that is, the basic unit of papal currency.

page 48 note 5 I hope to explain elsewhere the complicated fashion in which I have arrived at this figure.

page 49 note 1 For which see Cal. Papal Registers, xiii. 199–201; P.R.O. 31/9/2, fols. 51–2 (new pagination). Cf. Hay, , Polydore Vergil, Renaissance Historian and Man of Letters,Oxford 1952, 6–7.Google Scholar

page 49 note 2 From P.R.O. Receipts of the Chamber (Various Accounts) 413/2 nos. 2 and 3 and Various Accounts 414/6 and 415/3 (among the ‘obligacions’ of the latter). The former yielded less than might be hoped since in many cases it was not clear whether payments were part or whole of the fine. Cf. L.P., vi. 228.

page 49 note 3 For which see Hanaper Accounts in P.R.O., e.g. 218/5, 6 or 219/2.

page 49 note 4 Whose yield is to be found in Receipt of the Chamber 413/2 no. 3, fols. 85, 113 and 167; and Lambeth Palace, Cartae Miscellaneae, i, fols. 55 ff. and especially fol. 83v.

page 50 note 1 And not to use the figures for the value of subsidies given in Dietz, English Government Finance 1485–1558, Univ. of Illinois Studies in Social Sciences, IX., 1920, 523.Google Scholar

page 50 note 2 P.R.O. 31/9/1 fols. 206 ff. (L.P., i. 2986). The papal protest was made in May 1514. I also exclude any rake-off which Henry or his father received from money collected in England for the re-building of St. Peter's. In 1508, Julius II promised Henry VII a quarter of the takings. P.R.O. 31/9/1, fol. 101.

page 50 note 3 The act of dispensations, 25 Henry VIII, c. xxi (S.R., iii. 465–71) brought to an end Peter's Pence, the censusand ‘any other imposicions’, including presumably annates proper.

page 50 note 4 As the statute in conditional restraint of annates called it.

page 51 note 1 S.R., iii. 493–9.

page 51 note 2 Thus for example Ightham (Rochester diocese) formerly valued at £7 was now £15 Chart Magna (Canterbury) formerly £16 was now £25 6s. od.; Northbarkhampstead (Lincoln) formerly £14 was now £21 is. 2d. The valuation of the bishopric of Chichester was raised from nearly £320 to £673; that of St. David's from £333 to £457; that of St. Asaph from £105 to £168.

page 51 note 3 P.R.O. First-fruits Composition book (E 334), i.

page 51 note 4 S.R., iii. 495.

page 51 note 5 27 Henry VIII, c. viii (S.R., iii. 537 f).

page 51 note 6 27 Henry VIII, c. xiii (S.R., iii. 599–601).

page 51 note 7 27 Henry VIII, c. xxvii, par. viii (S.R., iii. 572).

page 52 note 1 S.R., iii. 498.

page 52 note 2 32 Henry VIII, c. xxiii (S.R., iii. 776–9).

page 52 note 3 34 & 35 Henry VIII, c. xxiii and 37 Henry VIII, c. xxiv. (S.R., iii. 951–3 and 1016–18.

page 52 note 4 These figures are taken from some Jacobean accounts in B.M. Lansdowne 165, fols. 128–9v and fols. 146v–63.

page 53 note 1 Hill, , Economic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament, Oxford 1956, 192.Google Scholar

page 53 note 2 By including the great tithe in their valuation. Hill, op. cit., 190.

page 53 note 3 Cf. L.P., xi. 6, 21, 39, 67, 201, 780 etc.

page 53 note 4 As is shown by B. M. Lansdowne MS. 165, fol. 129v.

page 53 note 5 2 & 3 Philip and Mary, c. iv (S.R., iv. 275–9).

page 53 note 6 V.A. Arm., xlii. 6, fol. 130. Reg. Vat. 1850, fols. 1–33, 48, 103, 105. This concession was apparently not to be permanent. The English bishops were also excused paying ad limina visits for six years. See V.A. Arm., xlii. 6, fol. 400.

page 53 note 7 I Elizabeth, c. iv (S.R. iv. 359–64).