Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Motives are the inner springs of action, the invisible causes which are apprehended only in their visible effects. The latter, when collected and classified as numerical data, are known as statistics, through which at least one aspect of the former can be explored and analysed. Thus, while we cannot ask them to reveal such fundamental questions as to what moved men to enter or leave the monastic life, we can legitimately seek an answer in quantitative terms to what is preliminary and, as such, vital to our understanding of the problem of religious motivation: what do statistics disclose with regard to the force of religious motivation and to its rise and decline among the black monks in England in the two centuries between the first catastrophic onslaught of the Black Death and the dissolution (AD 1350–1540)? This question encompasses a vast field and, for the purposes of this present study, our attention must be limited to the three cathedral priories of Ely, Norwich and Worcester.
1 Cambridge (1926) p 21.
2 Ibid p 22.
3 Knowles RO 2 (1961) p 257.
4 MRHEW p 47.
5 Ibid pp 81 and 65.
6 Searle, W. G. has printed a list based on the surviving manuscript lists in Cambridge Antiquarian Society Publications, 34 (Cambridge 1902), pp 173-96Google Scholar; for the Surtees Society Joseph Stevenson in 1841 (SS 13) and A. Hamilton Thompson in 1923 (SS 136) have edited the Liber vitae ecclesiae Dunelmensis.
7 EDC 5/3/11. The Ely obedientiary accounts and episcopal registers have been deposited in the university library, Cambridge.
8 EDC 5/3/13.
9 EDC 5/10/16.
10 EDC 5/3/18.
11 EDR G/1/2 fols 117r, 125r, 129v, 132v.
12 PRO E 179/23/1.
13 EDC 5/3/21.
14 EDC 5/3/25.
15 EDC 5/3/27.
16 EDR G/1/3, fol 261r.
17 Ibid, fol 272r.
18 EDC 5/11/1.
19 EDC 5/3/32.
20 EDC 5/9/11.
21 EDC 5/11/(9). The numbering and cataloguing of these rolls is in progress.
22 EDC 5/3/34.
23 EDR G/1/7 fols 89v-90v.
24 MRHEW p 65.
25 Ibid p 72.
26 Roll no 1258. The Norwich obedientiary accounts and episcopal registers (institution books) are in the keeping of the Norfolk and Norwich record office.
27 Nos 379 and 380.
28 Institution Book 7 fol 202v and fol 203v.
29 Institution Book 8 fol 23v.
30 Nos 382, 384 and 385.
31 No 387.
32 No 389.
33 Nos 418-20.
34 No 421.
35 Nos 448-51.
36 Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, AD 1492-1533, ed. A. Jessop, CSer, ns 43 (1888) pp 1-8.
37 No 454A.
38 No 459.
39 No 471.
40 No 478.
41 MRHEW p 72.
42 C 11. The Worcester obedientiary accounts are to be found in the library of Worcester cathedral.
43 C 105.
44 Register William de Lynn, p 89. The Worcester episcopal registers are deposited in the Worcestershire record office (St Helen’s) and have been paginated for greater accuracy of reference. This entry lacks a precise date, but occurs on a page of entries of the year 1370.
45 Worcester cathedral muniment AV, fol 307v.
46 C 14 and C 312.
47 C 176 and C 242.
48 Liber Albus, fol 334v.
49 Ibid fol 366v.
50 C 24.
51 C 29.
52 C 31.
53 C 32.
54 C 34.
55 C 35.
56 C 36-47.
57 Register John Carpenter, pp 524, 541, 543 and 554 respectively.
58 C 48.
59 C 391.
60 C 50.
61 C 25.
62 Worcester cathedral muniment A VI (3) or Ledger III, fol 1r.
63 EDR G/2/3, items 71 and 213.
64 Worcester cathedral muniment A VI (2) or Ledger II, fol 158r.