York Clergy Ordinations 1475-1500 Edited by David M. Smith 2017 www.york.ac.uk/borthwick archbishopsregisters.york.ac.uk Online images of the Archbishops’ Registers cited in this edition can be found on the York’s Archbishops’ Registers Revealed website. The conservation, imaging and technical development work behind the digitisation project was delivered thanks to funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Register of Archbishop George Neville (1465-1476) Register of Archbishop Laurence Booth (1476-1480) Sede Vacante register (1480) Register of Archbishop Thomas Rotherham (1480-1500) YORK CLERGY ORDINATIONS 1475-1500 Edited by DAVID M. SMITH 2017 CONTENTS Introduction v Ordinations held 1475-1500 vii Editorial notes xix Abbreviations xxi York Clergy Ordinations 1475-1500 1 Appendix I: Ordinations in the diocese of Durham sede vacante 1493 266 Appendix II: Letters Dimissory issued 1475-1500 269 Index of Ordinands 301 Index of Religious 439 Index of Titles 449 Index of Places 469 INTRODUCTION The clerical ordinations in this volume cover the years 1475 to 1500 and include the final part of the ordinations section of Archbishop George Neville’s register (Reg. 22, fos. 231v-240r, just for the years 1475-6), the ordinations section of Archbishop Laurence Booth’s register for 1476-80 (Reg. 22, fos. 362r-384v); the ordinations entered in the duplicate 1480 sede vacante register (Reg. 5A, fos. 515r-516r; BL, Cotton ms. Galba E X, fos. 133r-134r); and the concluding part of Register 23 (fos. 372r-468v) containing a record of the ordinations from the time of Archbishop Thomas Rotherham (1480-1500). In all these cases the ordinations were performed by the Archbishop’s suffragan, the Austin friar William Egremont, bishop of Dromore, who was active in the York archbishopric from 1464 to 1501.1 The suffragan was exclusively occupied in conferring orders, regardless of whether the Archbishop was absent from the diocese (extra diocesim) or within the boundaries of the York diocese at the time of the ceremony (infra diocesim).2 A record of ordinations in the Durham diocese sede vacante in 1493 undertaken under Archbishop Rotherham’s authority (Reg. 23, fos. 195v-196v) is included in an appendix. The registers also record a large number of letters dimissory granted in ths period to just over 800 York diocesan clergy enabling them to be ordained by other bishops, and this forms a second appendix to the volume. The ordinations section of these registers, following York practice, is concerned with the four orders of acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and priest – and the ordinations are recorded in this sequence within each ceremony, in the case of acolytes mostly noting their place of origin, and in the other cases recording the titles provided for the candidates from (chiefly) religious houses.3 Those clergy fortunate enough to have benefices are ordained to the title of their particular benefice and ordinations to the title of patrimony or linked with an annual rent are found, but are extremely rare at this date. Clergy from other dioceses having letters dimissory and being ordained by the York suffragan are also noted in the main sequence. Even within this relatively short time-span there is evidence of different registrational practices, no doubt dependent upon the preferences of specific registry clerks or the way the material was presented for registration. For the last year of George Neville (1475-6) and the early years of his successor Laurence Booth the regular clergy are noted at the beginning of each section (acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and priest) and there is usually a completely separate section at the end of the main list devoted to Richmond archdeaconry clergy being ordained to all four orders. From 1479 until Booth’s death the following year there is no separate Richmond archdeaconry section and the regular clergy are now placed at the end of each individual order after the secular clergy. This arrangement for the regular clergy continued throughout Thomas Rotherham’s pontificate up to 1500, but there were still fluctuations about the position of the Richmond archdeaconry ordinands. From 1480 to 1481 the separate Richmond section at the end of the main list is briefly restored but soon afterwards reverts to the single section under each order. From about 1491 onwards the lists were so registered that a list of Richmond ordinands was placed immediately after the main list of secular clergy in each order 1 L.A.S. Butler, ‘Suffragan Bishops in the medieval Diocese of York’, Northern History, XXXVII (2000), pp. 49-60, at 59. For Egremont see also BRUO, I, 632. 2 Egremont held all the ordination ceremonies on behalf of Booth and Rotherham and there is no extant evidence that these archbishops celebrated ordinations in person. He is also recorded as holding such ceremonies for Booth’s predecessor, Archbishop George Neville, apart from one occasion on 21 September 1465 (the day before his enthronement at York) when Neville celebrated an ordination in his manor-house of Bishopthorpe (Reg. 22, fo. 179r-v; Le Neve 1300-1541, VI, 5). 3 For a discussion of titles for orders in English dioceses see R.N. Swanson, ‘Titles to orders in medieval English episcopal registers’ in H. Mayr-Harting and R.I. Moore eds., Studies in medieval history presented to R.H.C. Davis, (London, 1985), 233-45, and D. Robinson, ‘Titles for Orders in England, 1268-1348’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 65 (2014), 522-50. v (and only demarcated from the main list by a marginal heading such as Rich’ or Rd placed at the appropriate point). Understandably in large registers where the names of thousands of ordinands are noted in this twenty- five-year period scribal errors creep in, and one can completely understand the circumstances under which this would occur. Names are mistranscribed – Wynsper at one stage occurs as Hunsper (nos. 28a, 31s, 32d, 35rd), Benson as Denson (nos.11a, 24d, 28p) etc.; entries are reversed – in no. 22 (Richmond section) Robert Gybson is ordained subdeacon to the title of Marrick nunnery and the next candidate Richard Yong to the title of Armathwaite nunnery; in the following ordination (no. 23) the titles are reversed for these adjacent candidates. In no. 41 the ordinations of two Jervaulx monks (John Dyneley and Richard Penreth) are entered in both the main section of ordinations and also in the Richmond archdeaconry section. The dioceses of candidates ordained with letters dimissory are not always noted, and sometimes Richmond entries occur in the main sequence even though there was also a separate Richmond archdeaconry section at the time. Occasionally religious candidates appear to have been entered under the wrong ordination – br. Simon Senus, canon of Healaugh Park appears twice in the subdeacon lists on dfferent dates but not in those for the diaconate (nos. 2s, 5s); br. William Rodes, canon of Worksop likewise appears in two subdeacons’ lists (nos. 1s, 5s). There is also the suspicion that names of titles were mistranscribed. At this date the vast majority of candidates had the same title for the three orders of subdeacon, deacon and priest, although changes are not unknown – for example, Richard Brown of Lincoln diocese was ordained subdeacon to the title of Burton Lazars hospital, deacon to the title of Croxton abbey, and priest to the title of Newbo abbey (nos. 23s, 24d, 25p) – but some other apparent changes suggest the possibility of hurried mistranscription when the spelling of the religious houses involved is very similar: for instance, we have candidates with titles to Kirkstead and Kirklees, to Newstead and Newburgh; to Nun Appleton and Nun Monkton; to Beauchief and Beauvale, to Thornton and Thornholme etc., which could easily have been scribal miscopying. Extensive as these records are it should not be assumed that they form a comprehensive record of York clergy ordinations in the period. Errors and omissions are understandable in view of the numbers of individuals involved and the pressures on diocesan registry staff. It has been assumed (and a certain amount of corroborative evidence is available) that the clerks used draft lists supplied and clearly sometimes not everything was to hand when they were registering. Again, Archbishop George Neville’s ordination register provides a further piece of evidence of the sort of problem that may be encountered. Fo. 228 in this register is a separate sheet of parchment sewn at the head of fo. 229 and containing a list of clergy of the Richmond archdeaconry, dated the day before the ordination ceremony. It contains a fuller list of clergy than that listed in the main sequence on the following folio. The latter omits the names of all five acolytes, one subdeacon and five priests. Presumably the separate list had been prepared in readiness for copying after the ceremony, but was hastily registered.4 A wider perusal of the York ordination registers has revealed that there was sometimes a considerable time-delay before registering the ordinations. In George Neville’s register a start was made entering the 11 June 1468 ordinations directly after those for 19 September 1467 and then the error was realised, the June 1468 list discontinued and the correct ordination ceremony of 19 December 1467 begun, followed by three others in chronological order. The June 1468 list was then resumed several folios further on (Reg. 22, f. 188r, continued in its proper sequence on fo. 195r). This chaotic 4 A comparison of the further ordinations of the ‘missing’ names makes it clear that they were in fact ordained to the particular order on that occasion, and had not failed to turn up to the ceremony. Presumably the separate sheet might have been inserted in the register when the discrepancies were discovered.