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A Census of York Clergy? The Clerical Subsidy of 1523-1528

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

C. C. Webb
C. C. Webb*
Affiliation:
Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York
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Extract

Thanks to the work of Claire Cross and others, the multiplicity of sources available for the study of early sixteenth-century clergy has been used to yield information about many facets of clerical lives and careers. One source, however, has hitherto been largely neglected. The clerical subsidy of 1523-8 has, despite some printed versions for some places having been available for many years, been overshadowed by the Valor ecclesiasticus. This essay will try to show, from evidence relating to York City, that the subsidy was an important precursor to the Valor, and that, combined with other sources, it is an invaluable repository of information about the clergy just before the medieval church was dismantled.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 12: Life and Thought in the Northern Church , 1999 , pp. 257 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1999 

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References

1 A Subsidy Collected in the Diocese of Lincoln in 1526, ed. H. Salter (Oxford, 1909); Fallow, T. M., ‘The East Riding clergy in 1525-6’, YAJ, 24 (1917), pp. 62–80Google Scholar; ‘The Fallow papers’, YAJ, 21 (1911), pp. 243-52, which deals with the subsidy for the Cleveland archdeaconry in 1526.

2 Heal, F., ‘Clerical tax collection under the Tudors: the influence of the Reformation’, in O’Day, R. and Heal, F., eds, Continuity and Change. Personnel and Administration of the Church in England 1500-1642 (Leicester, 1976), pp. 97–122.Google Scholar

3 BI, Reg. 27, fol. 129v; Wilkins, D., Concilia Magnae Britanniae (London, 1737), 3, pp. 698–9.Google Scholar

4 LP, addenda, I, 1, pp. 152-3.

5 Heal, ‘Clerical tax collection’, pp. 101-2.

6 BI, Reg. 27, fols 129v, 130r, 131r-v.

7 A Subsidy Collected in Lincoln, p. ix; LP, 4, ii, p. 1307.

8 Sheffield RO, BFM 65, archdeaconry of York subsidy list; A Subsidy Collected in Lincoln, p. v.

9 Sheffield RO, BFM 65, fol. 16r.

10 D. Wilkins, Concilia, 3, p. 699.

11 A Subsidy Collected in Lincoln, p. 142.

12 Ibid., pp. v, ix.

13 BI, Tax 2, fol. 17v.

14 For an attenuated edition of this subsidy in print see The Registers of Thomas Wolsey… John Clerke… William Knight… and Gilbert Bourne, Bishop of Bath and Wells, ed. H. Maxwell-Lyte, Somerset Record Society, 55 (London, 1940), appendix, pp. 159-69.

15 BI, Tax 3.

16 Palliser, D. M., ‘The unions of parishes at York, 1547-1586’, YAJ, 46 (1974), pp. 87–102.Google Scholar

17 Valor ecclesiasticus (London, 1831), 5, pp. 21-5.

18 Cross, C., ‘Priests into Ministers: the establishment of Protestant practice in the City of York, 1530-1630’, in Brooks, P. N., ed., Reformation Principle and Practice (London, 1980), p. 13Google Scholar; Palliser, D. M., Tudor York (Oxford, 1979), p. 226Google Scholar. Calculations made from Monks, Friars ana Nuns in Sixteenth Century Yorkshire, ed. Claire Cross and Noreen Vickers, YASRS, 150 (1995), show that there were 139 religious in York either signing surrender deeds or receiving pensions at the dissolution of their houses.

19 BI, Reg. 27, fol. 76v; York Minster Archives, Torre’s manuscripts, p. 428.

20 York Minster Archives, Torre, pp. 574, 589, 593, 65, 493.

21 Wilkins, Concilia, 3, pp. 698-9.

22 A Subsidy Collected in Lincoln, pp. 177, 185.

23 Ibid., pp. 30, 86, 227.

24 Valor, pp. 1-2.

25 Dobson, R. B., ‘The later middle ages 1215-1500’, in Aylmer, G. E. and Cant, R., eds, A History of York Minster (Oxford, 1977), p. 54Google Scholar and Webb, C. C., ‘Cathedral patronage: York Minster 1625-77’, in Cross, Claire, ed., Patronage and Recruitment in the Tudor and Early Stuart Church, Borthwick Studies in History, 2 (York, 1996), pp. 163–6.Google Scholar

26 A Subsidy Collected in Lincoln, pp. 84-7.

27 Ibid, p. 185.

28 Fallow, ‘The East Riding clergy’, pp. 62-80.

29 LP, 4, i, p. 423.

30 Dobson, R. B., ‘The foundation of perpetual chantries by the citizens of medieval York’, in SCH, 4 (1977), pp. 23–4Google Scholar, indicates other related problems.

31 Ibid., pp. 32, 35.

32 Churchwardens’ Accounts of St Michael, Spurriergate, York, 1518-48, ed. C. C. Webb, Borthwick Texts and Calendars, 20 (1997), pp. 196-8 for example.

33 Galley, Christopher, ‘Growth, stagnation and crisis: the demography of York 1561-1700’ (Sheffield Ph.D. thesis, 1991), p. 133.Google Scholar

34 Churchwardens’ Accounts, pp. 82, 91.

35 Zell, Michael L., ‘Economic problems of the parochial clergy in the sixteenth century’, in O’Day, R. and Heal, F., eds, Princes and Paupers in the English Church 1500-1800 (Leicester, 1981), pp. 23–5.Google Scholar

36 The Certificates of the Commissioners Appointed to Survey the Chantries…in the County of York, 2, ed. W. Page, SS, 92 (1895).

37 Galley, ‘Growth, stagnation and crisis’, p. 129.