The Archbishop’s Registers and the wider archival context

But archbishops and bishops did not act in isolation, and a major part of The Northern Way project is to examine the administrative and archival interaction between the archbishops of York, their staff, the other institutions of the northern church, and the royal government, to highlight some of the main areas where these overlap, and to identify other collections of documents, particularly those held at The National Archives, which can be used to enhance and build upon the contents of the registers.

Below are images of some of the records held by the National archives, click on each image to enlarge it.

National connections

The church was not just a spiritual body, concerned with the lives and souls of its followers, but was also an administrative institution, an employer, a major land-holder and a judicial body, all of which led to a huge amount of contact with the wider population and with the royal and local administrative, legislative and legal machineries. 

Each of these facets produced masses of written records, and the registers themselves generally contain just one part of this relationship. Some documents received from other bodies can be found recorded in their pages, such as letters from the papacy or instructions from the king or his ministers, but on the whole the registers record only the archbishops’ side of this correspondence. Other entries only touch upon subjects, giving the final word or just one stage of a much longer story. As a result, we often have to look elsewhere for other details, and it is therefore vital to find and use these other sources of information in order to place the archbishops’ registers into the broader context.

The archive of the medieval English royal government contains countless thousands of documents relating to the church and the clergy in some way, directly or indirectly. Many are tangential, and on matters which rarely, if ever, make their way into the archbishops’ registers. Many northern clerics had prominent roles in the royal and national administration, details of which can only be discovered through the royal archives, while legal records contain literally thousands of references to clerics or religious bodies. 

Clerks themselves may have been largely exempt from the full force of the criminal law, and could claim ‘benefit of clergy’ to be tried and punished for any such crimes in the church’s own courts, but they were still regularly indicted in the royal courts, could appear as plaintiffs or incidental witnesses, and used the civil law in much the same way as the rest of the general population, to recover debts or property, or bringing trespass cases against rivals and neighbours.

The royal archive

The royal archive also contains many copies of documents issued by the archbishops, in a variety of contexts, some of which were also recorded in the registers but many of which were not. For instance, requests from bishops and archbishops for assistance in areas such as arresting unrepentant excommunicates, in removing trespassers on church property, or in enforcing decisions made in the church courts, survive in large numbers in The National Archives, but only a small number were ever included in the registers.

Letters from the archbishops to the crown often survive, scattered across various modern series depending on their content or context or simply on archival whim, again, many of which were not recorded in the archbishop’s own register. And a variety of other documents found their way into crown hands, often by historical accidents such as the minority of the heir of a later owner or the upheavals of the Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. For instance, when Archbishop John Thoresby confirmed the establishment of a new chantry in the collegiate church at Lowthorpe in 1364, his confirmation was copied into his register, but one of the original documents issued to the parties can also now be found within The National Archives’ collection. It may have been sent to the royal chancery at the time for safe keeping, but it is perhaps more likely that it arrived by a much more circuitous route many years later.

Other documents were compiled and retained as a result of standard practices of the time, and their appearance within the royal archives can be explained much more easily. Very few records relating to the medieval archiepiscopal estates survive within the archbishops’ own archive, but during vacancies those estates were taken into royal hands, and a number of detailed accounts and other related documents compiled during those periods survive, giving insights into archiepiscopal revenue and administration not available from the archdiocese’s own records.

Putting the puzzle pieces together

But the royal archive really comes into its own when its records can be used in close conjunction with the registers, offering an alternative point of view to an event or providing further details. For instance, large sections of each register relate to the institution of clergy or the confirmation of elections and appointments of abbots, priors and other higher clergy. Many of these involved the crown, as the patron of benefices or in assenting to elections, and the numerous pieces of parchment which made their way backwards and forwards between Westminster, York and other relevant bodies for each appointment can often be traced across the various archives. Licences to elect were sought and issued, details were sent to both king and archbishop, assent was requested and given (or not), and orders directed to officials to enact decisions, and to safeguard, administer and return lands and income. The process was complex, but did produce plenty of paperwork for modern historians to use.

Of course, archbishops also regularly sent their own personal correspondence to the crown, giving information or requesting assistance or favours. These could also set in motion a whole chain of administrative processes, many of which were documented in writs or warrants and often culminated in orders enrolled in the chancery rolls, which essentially recorded, usually in abbreviated form, letters which were issued from the king’s main writing office, the chancery.

A treasure trove of historical information

These are some of the most useful documents for historians of all kinds, and some of the most accessible, since many are available through printed calendars. Taxation of the clergy produced huge amounts of paperwork, from the negotiations for their agreement through to their collection and accounting. Some parts of this process can be found in the registers, such as correspondence with the other northern bishops and the appointment of local collectors, but the royal records contain far more, from the initial correspondence between the crown and the clergy through to the financial and administrative records of each tax, and even the receipt of the cash in the Exchequer.

And of course, the royal archive contains many other gems which have survived often by complete chance. To cite just one relatively well-known example, in 1388 a petition from ‘friends’ of Archbishop Alexander Neville complained how ‘libellous bills’ had been pinned up around the capital during a session of parliament. They included copies of these bills with their complaint, and one of these is probably a document which survives elsewhere in The National Archives, written in English in a northern dialect and forming a devastating attack on Neville’s character, describing him as a tyrant, a thief and a traitor who had brought extortion and destruction to the land.

These strong connections between the royal and archiepiscopal administrations, and the records they produced, provide a hugely important source for historians looking to trace the business of the northern church and its interactions with the royal government.

This is something that this project is examining in detail, and we intend to highlight examples of these over the coming months. But this interaction, and the benefits of the records, was something of which contemporaries were also only too aware. In 1355, when the king needed details of the precise date of Archbishop Melton’s death, he asked both the royal and archiepiscopal authorities for information. On that occasion the king had to rely on his own Exchequer, as, rather surprisingly, Archbishop Thoresby’s clerks replied that that information could not be found in their own records. However, in 1370, when Thoresby was again asked to check his registers, this time for institutions to the vicarage of Ecclesfield near Sheffield, he was able to reply with full details going back almost 60 years. That must have been a significant undertaking for the archbishop’s staff, but luckily the work of this project will make any future requests a lot easier!