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A Reappraisal of Simon Sudbury, bishop of London (1361–75) and archbishop of Canterbury (1375–81)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

W. L. Warren
W. L. Warren
Affiliation:
Lecturer in History, The Queen's University, Belfast
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Extract

Simon Sudbury is one of the more obscure archbishops of Canterbury.He should be better known, if only because he was archbishop during a particularly confused but important period of English history—the period of Edward III's dotage and Richard II's minority. Anything which casts a little light upon the politics and personalities of that period should be welcome to historians.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , October 1959 , pp. 139 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1959

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References

page 140 note 1 Galbraith, V. H., ‘Articles laid before the Parliament of 1371’ English Historical Review, XXXIV. (1919), 579–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gwynn, A., The English Austin Friars, Oxford 1940, 214–16.Google Scholar

page 141 note 1 Hook, W. F., Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, IV, London 1865, 244 ff. He alleges, without evidence, that Sudbury was ‘at an early period of his life connected with the party of the duke of Lancaster’, and that he was always unpopular because ‘personally John of Gaunt was never liked and to that prince Sudbury was devoted’.Google Scholar

page 141 note 2 Cf. W. H. Hunt, Dictionary of National Biography: Sudbury was ‘a member of Lancaster's party’ and hence ‘lacked independence of mind’. Professor Dahmus, J. H., The Prosecution of John Wyclif, New Haven 1952, frequently refers to Sudbury as ‘Gaunt's friend’ and as always seeking to promote the duke's interests.Google Scholar

page 141 note 3 Information on this head is not lacking: John of Gaunt's registers of letters and commissions for the years 1372–6 and 1379–83 have been published by the Camden Society.

page 141 note 4 E.g. Chronicon Angliae, ed. Thompson, E. M., Rolls Series 1874, 117Google Scholar, 209–10. It is here assumed that this chronicle is the work of Walsingham, following Galbraith, V. H., ‘Thomas Walsingham and the St. Alban's Chronicle’, E.H.R., XLVII (1922), 12–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 141 note 5 Calendar of Patent Rolls 1367–70, 212; 1370–4, 279; Rymer's Foedera, Record Commission, iii. ii. 976–7.

page 141 note 6 Register of Courtenay (Lambeth), fols. 188–189v. Sudbury was a beneficiary under the will, receiving ‘a cup with a cover, and a tripod with two lions of silver, chased and enamelled’. There were close connexions between Sudbury's family, one of Suffolk merchants, and the house of Clare, into which Edmund earl of March had married: Warren, W. L., ‘Simon Sudbury, bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury’, unpublished D.Phil, thesis, Oxford 1956, 9–10.Google Scholar

page 141 note 7 These quotations are taken from, respectively, Trevelyan, G. M., History of England, London 1939, 248Google Scholar; Ramsey, J. H., The Genesis of Lancaster, Oxford 1913, 155Google Scholar; Green, V. H. H., The Later Plantagensts, London 1955, 217Google Scholar; J. H. Dahmus, op. cit., 29 n. 2; Tout, T. F., Chapters in Medieval Administrative History, III, Manchester 1928, 285Google Scholar; Tout, T. F., Political History of England, 1216–1377, London 1905, 435.Google Scholar

page 142 note 1 E.g. Workman, H. B., John Wyclif, Oxford 1926, I. 313–17.Google Scholar For contemporary accounts see Eulogium Historiarum, ed. Haydon, F. S., Rolls Series 1858–1863, iii. 342Google Scholar; The Anonimalle Chronicle, ed. Galbraith, V. H., Manchester 1927, 121–2; Chronicon Angliae, 206 ff.Google Scholar

page 142 note 2 Registrum Simonis de Sudbiria, 1362–75, ed. Fowler, R. C., Canterbury & York Soc. 1927, 1938, i 56–8; Reg. Sudbury (Lambeth), fols. 43, 74.Google Scholar

page 142 note 3 Chronicon Angliae, 210–11.

page 143 note 1 Anonimalle Chronicle, 122; Reg. Sudbury (Lambeth), fols. 4Ov–50, 125v.

page 143 note 2 Reg. cit., fol. 49v.

page 143 note 3 Ibid., fols. 49v–5O.

page 143 note 4 E.g. Reg. Arundel (Ely), fols. 85v–86.

page 143 note 5 Reg. Sudbury (Lambeth), fol. 50.

page 143 note 6 Anonimalle Chronicle, 123; Rotuli Parliamentorum, iii. 37.

page 143 note 7 The archbishop announced at the opening session that the purpose of the Convocation was twofold, ‘una videlicet ad reformandum attempta contra iurisdictionem et libertatem ecclesie Anglicane, secunda fuit ad subveniendum regi et regno pro eiusdem regni necessaria defensione’: Reg. Sudbury (Lambeth), fol. 35.

page 144 note 1 Reg. Arundel (Ely), fol. 86: ‘Et memorandum quod postmodum Londonie dominus Alanus de Boxhill' miles cum multis aliis humiliavit se domino Londoniensi episcopo eo quod presens in dicto abhominabili flagitio et promisit se penitentiam esse injungendam humiliter facturum pro premissis, et dominus Radulphus Ferers miles cum multis aliis apud Gloucestriam eodem modo se humiliavit sic quod cum illis omnibus dispensatum fuit quousque possent ad sedem apostolicam accedere absolutionem a summo pontifice petituri.’

page 145 note 1 The election of Simon Langham, the royal treasurer, was quashed by the pope: Chronica Johannis de Reading et Anonymi Cantuariensis, ed. Tait, J., Manchester 1914, 149.Google Scholar

page 145 note 2 This period of Sudbury's career is discussed in Warren, ‘Simon Sudbury’, 60 ff.

page 145 note 3 Foedera, iii. i. 328.

page 145 note 4 Ibid., iii. i. 356.

page 145 note 5 Reg. Sudbury (London), i. 56–8. The bishop was acting in his capacity as one of the conservators of the privileges of the friars minor.

page 145 note 6 Ibid., i. 68–70.

page 145 note 7 Ibid., i. 26–9, 35, 37.

page 146 note 1 Hook alleged that Sudbury was a non-resident bishop, but in fact he was assiduous in perambulating his diocese. See the itinerary published by R. C. Fowler in Reg. Sudbury {London), ii. 144–7, or the much fuller one in Warren, ‘Simon Sudbury’, 460–78.

page 146 note 2 Corporation of London, Roll of Letters, i., no. 211.

page 146 note 3 Cf. Calendar of Close Rolls, 1364–8, 114 ff.

page 146 note 4 July-Sept. 1364, to Bruges to negotiate a marriage between the king's son Edmund and Margaret, daughter and heiress of the count of Flanders, Foedera, iii. ii. 744; Feb.-Mar. 1365, to Flanders, Public Record Office, E101/315/2; Oct.-Nov. 1365 to Calais, P.R.O., E372/210/39; Feb.-Apr. 1372, to Calais for peace talks under the chairmanship of papal envoys, Foedera, iii. ii. 934; Jan.-Feb. 1373 to Bruges for peace negotiations, Ibid., iii. ii. 969; Feb.-June 1375, to Bruges for peace negotiations, Ibid., iii. ii. 1024–5.

page 146 note 5 Reg. Whittlesey (Lambeth), fols. 40v–42v, 64–5.

page 146 note 6 From the time of archbishop Islip this was done by means of mandates sent to the bishop of London for circulation throughout the province.

page 147 note 1 Christ Church Letters, ed. Sheppard, J. B., Camden Society 1866, 3–4.Google Scholar

page 147 note 2 Ibid., 4–5.

page 147 note 3 Anonimalle Chronicle, 96–101; Chronicon Angliae, 106–7, 114; Reg Sudbury (Lambeth), fol. 33v. Cf. Tout, Chapters, iii. 310 ff.

page 147 note 4 A day by day summary is given in Reg. cit., fols. 33v–34.

page 148 note 1 Anonimalle Chronicle, 101.

page 148 note 2 Tout, Chapters, iii. 319.

page 148 note 3 Reg. Sudbury (Lambeth), fols. 27v–28.

page 148 note 4 Reg. Sudbury (Lambeth), fol. 26.

page 148 note 5 The archbishop's generosity is recorded in a marginal note, Ibid., fol. 26: ‘Dominus in convocatione … ad supplicationem domini Norwicensis episcopi revocavit istud mandatum et relaxavit salvo jure ecclesie sue Cantuariensis in consimilibus et hoc fecit quod curialitate sua ut dixit.

page 149 note 1 Reg. Sudbury {London), i. 203–5. There are other instances of Sudbury remitting payments. He returned a procuration preferred by the prior of St. Gregory's, Canterbury, after he had conducted a visitation, ‘ex liberalitate’: Reg. Sudbury (Lambeth), fol. 31v. Similarly he declined an oblation tendered by the prior of St. Peter's, Gloucester, after celebrating mass there on All Saints Day 1378, ‘out of generosity and on account of their poverty’: Ibid., fol. 50v.

page 149 note 2 Reg. Sudbury {London), i. 86: ‘In negotiis hujusmodi et in aliis se omnibus exhibuit generosum nec multum difficilem reddit.’

page 150 note 1 Chartulaiy of the High Church of Chichester, ed. W. D. Peckham, Sussex Record Society, xlvi, 272–3.

page 150 note 2 It is a pity that the arguments used to support this contention have not survived, for one would have thought that the position of the bishop of Winchester as deputy to the dean of the province was well established by the later fourteenth century. Cf. Churchill, Irene J., Canterbury Administration, London 1933, i. 355–9.Google Scholar

page 150 note 3 The original is to be found in Reg. Wickham (Winchester), ii. fol. 132, and a somewhat inaccurate transcription in Wyheham's Register, ed. Kirby, T. F., Hampshire Record Society 1899, ii. 239–40.Google Scholar

page 151 note 1 Wykeham's Register, ii. 241–2. For Wickham's receipt of Sudbury's mandate and action upon it, cf. Reg. Arundel (Ely), fols. 8–9. Wickham protected his interests by saying in his covering letter to the other diocesans that he was acting ‘ad specialem rogatum’ of the archbishop.

page 151 note 2 Between July 1377 and January 1380 his stays in London are for the most part connected with meetings of parliament, convocation, or the Great Council. He made prolonged sojourns in his diocese. See the itinerary in Warren, ‘Simon Sudbury’, 484–9.

page 151 note 3 Rot. Parl., iii. 74; Tout, Chapters, iii. 353.