York Clergy Ordinations 1425-1449 Edited by David M. Smith 2019 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 John Kempe YORK CLERGY ORDINATIONS 1425-1449 Edited by DAVID M. SMITH 2019 CONTENTS Introduction v Ordinations held 1425-1449 vii Editorial notes xix Abbreviations xxi York Clergy Ordinations 1425-1449 1 Appendix I: Ordinations in the diocese of Durham sede vacante 1438 259 Appendix II Letters Dimissory issued 1425-1449 262 Index of Ordinands 268 Index of Religious 383 Index of Titles 394 Index of Places 413 INTRODUCTION This third volume of clerical ordinations at York in the fifteenth century covers the years 1425 to 1449 and includes those ordinations for 1425 and 1426 entered in the 1423-26 sede vacante register (Reg. 5A, fos. 398v-446v) and the bulk of the ordinations in Archbishop John Kemp’s register from 1426 up to 1449 (Reg. 19, fos. 215r-293Ar). A section of ordinations entered in Kemp’s register concerning the diocese of Durham sede vacante in 1438 (Reg. 19, fos. 499v-500r) forms the first appendix. The registers also record just over 100 letters dimissory granted in this period to York diocesan clergy enabling them to be ordained by other bishops, and this forms the second appendix to the volume. Apart from nine occasions when Archbishop John Kemp is found ordaining clergy, all the remaining ordinations in this period were celebrated by two suffragan bishops, namely: Nicholas Wartre, O.F.M., bishop of Dromore (provided 1419). He held ordinations during the vacancy years of 1425-6 and for the bulk of Kemp’s pontificate, his last ceremony being held in May 1445 (nos. 1-11, 14, 17, 19, 23-30, 35-129). He held a succession of parochial benefices in the York diocese, dying as rector of St Mary, Castlegate, York, in 1453.1 John [Kegill, O.F.M.], titular bishop Philipolensis, held ordinations from September 1445 onwards (nos. 31-33, 130-152).2 In the 1438 Durham sede vacante ordinations in appendix I, the suffragan acting in that diocese was the Austin friar Thomas [Rackelf] who had also been provided to the see of Dromore (nos. 153-155).3 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 1425-6 vacancy ordinations no territorial descriptions are provided for any of the ordination candidates but that changes with Kemp’s register. Not only do the acolytes’ sections mostly give a territorial description, but (as was found in the 1450-1464 section of the previous volume, unlike later fifteenth-century York registers) so do the bulk of subsequent sections for subdiaconate, diaconate and priesthood, along with recording the titles provided for the candidates. 4 Here, perhaps understandably, discrepancies are sometimes found between the different stages and it has to be presumed that the geographical places given in later entries are not necessarily in fact the candidates’ ‘home’ town or village, but where they were physically located at the time they were ordained to those particular higher orders. 1 L.A.S. Butler, ‘Suffragan Bishops in the medieval Diocese of York’, Northern History, XXXVII (2000), pp. 49-60, at 58; Borthwick Institute, Prob. Reg. 2, fos. 268v-269r; Reg. 20, f. 381r). 2 L.A.S. Butler, ‘Suffragan Bishops’, pp. 49-60, at 58. 3 As HBC, p. 349 and note 3 records no less than four suffragans were using the episcopal title of Dromore simultaneously at this period, while undertaking activities in several English dioceses. 4 See York Clergy Ordinations 1450-1474, p. vi. 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 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 or pension are found, but there are just a handful of cases at this date. Clergy from other dioceses having letters dimissory and being ordained by the York suffragan are also noted in the main sequence. The register of Archbishop Kemp is remarkable among the York series of registers for its considerable chronological disorder5 and this also shows in the ordinations sections. On one occasion the month of the ceremony is given incorrectly (no. 132), and on another occasion the ordinations of 17 December 1446 (no. 137) and 4 March 1446/7 (no. 136) were registered in reverse order, thus indicating the considerable time-gap between the actual ceremony and the registration. For the whole of this period the four sections of acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and priest are maintained under each ordination heading, with the sequence within each section almost invariably being secular clergy first, then the regular clergy. Kemp’s register is also unusual in arrangement (as far as the later fifteenth-century York ordination registers are concerned) in that there are two separate series of ordinations kept, the first running from 1426 to 1447 (fos. 215r-226r – in this edition ceremonies nos. 10-14, 17-33)6 and the second covering the years 1426 to 1449 (fos. 227r-293Ar – ceremonies nos. 35-152), the initial quire of the latter series being headed Primus quaternus ordinum celebratorum auctoritate vicarii generalis, thereby indicating by default that the unheaded first section relate to ordinations ‘by authority of the archbishop’. However, the distinction is not one between ordinations conducted in person by the archbishop as opposed to those celebrated by the suffragan, by authority of the vicar-general. It seems rather to relate to those occasions when ordinations were held while the archbishop was physically within his diocese (infra diocesim, even if he was not performing the ceremony), and the bulk of ordinations recorded in the second section authorised by the vicar-general, when the archbishop was extra diocesim (because of Kemp’s extensive governmental and diplomatic activities he was often absent from his diocese). In the first section the archbishop is found personally ordaining clergy on six occasions in the diocese (nos. 12-13, 18, 20-22), but on some other occasions in this section when either the bishop of Dromore or the titular bishop Philopolensis is taking the ceremony, a note is given in the heading as to the archbishop’s whereabouts, e.g. noting that the archbishop was at Southwell (no. 19), Cawood (nos. 24, 31), Bishopthorpe (nos. 25-60, Bridlington (no. 27), or Scrooby (nos. 29-30, 32-3) while the ordination ceremony was being held, and even in one instance having been in the same building: on 11 April 1444 the bishop of Dromore ordained clergy at the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary in York Minster, while Archbishop Kemp was then in his palace at York and recorded celebrating divine service at the high altar in the Minster (no. 28). 5 See D.M. Smith, Guide to Bishops’ Registers of England and Wales: a survey from the Middle Ages to the abolition of episcopacy in 1646 (London, Royal Historical Society, guide and handbook 11, 1981), pp. 242-3. 6 For the sake of convenience three small ordination ceremonies recorded elsewhere in the register (in the archbishop’s extra diocesim section) - fos. 167v-168r, 2 ordinations celebrated by the Archbishop in the hospital of St James, near London, in 1433/4 at the special request of the bishop of London (nos. 15-16) and fo. 133r, an ordination conducted by the Archbishop in 1449 at Fulham manor, by special request of the custodian of the spirituality of St Paul’s (no. 34) - are inserted within this section in chronological sequence. vi Understandably in large registers where the names of thousands of ordinands are noted in this twenty-five-year period scribal errors creep in, and the type of errors found in the two preceding volumes are replicated here. Names are mistranscribed or misheard –the Carmelite friar John Lasyngby is once recorded as Glasyngby (nos. 93s, 85d, 86p); William Osteller of Richmond is also described on one occasion as Cisteller (nos. 88s, 92d, 96p); Adam Coppendale, rector of Kirklington, is once registered as Coppeland (nos. 103s, 104d, 105p); Peter Halstede of Coventry and Lichfield diocese is on one occasion given the surname of Halford (nos. 103s, 105d, 106p). Thomas Richardson occurs twice in the deacons’ section at different ordinations (nos. 83d, 87d), as do two canons of Cockersand abbey, William Bowland and Miles Chatburn (nos. 136d, 139s, 141d, 147p), when clearly in the Cockersand instances they should have been included among the acolytes. The dioceses of candidates ordained with letters dimissory are either not always noted, or sometimes confused: John Walpole is twice described as of Norwich diocese and once as of Lincoln diocese (nos. 77a, 78s, 79p). The evidence of carelessness in the recording of mendicant friars noted in the 1450-1474 volume is also found here7: Alan Goodeyer is described as an Austin friar when ordained as acolyte but subsequently as a Dominican (nos. 26a, 125s, 144d, 150p); John Clay is once referred to as a Franciscan and once as a Carmelite (nos.