Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T05:51:16.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Monastery Into Chapter: Durham 1539-1559

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

David Loades
David Loades*
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Get access

Extract

The monastic cathedrals of England had for centuries led a double life. On the one hand, each was the seat of a bishop, and the centre of a diocesan administration. On the other, it was the home of a cloistered community, usually Benedictine, which was in theory withdrawn from the world. In principle, the community, which actually owned the cathedral and its precincts, should have elected the bishop, in which case he would probably have been one of their own number, and relations could have been expected to be harmonious. However, in practice, bishops were royal servants, and were appointed by the king with papal connivance. There were numerous quarrels between kings and popes over such appointments, but disagreement never resulted in a canonical election, which would almost certainly have produced a candidate acceptable to neither. In consequence, the bishops of monastic cathedrals were almost invariably outsiders, and usually seculars.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 12: Life and Thought in the Northern Church , 1999 , pp. 315 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1999 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 8% of such bishops were members of the community concerned, 17% religious from other houses, and 75% seculars. The Statutes of the Cathedral Church of Durham [hereafter Statutes], ed. J. Meade Faulkener, SS, 143 (1929), pp. xxiii-iv.

2 Gesta Dunelmensia A.D. MCCC, ed. R. K. Richardson, Camden Society, ser. 3, 34 (1924). pp. I-S3.

3 Statutes, p. xxiii

4 Catto, J. I. and Evans, R. W., Late Medieval Oxford (Oxford, 1992), p. 551.Google Scholar

5 Durham Accounts, ed. J. T. Fowler, SS, 103 (1901); Bursar’s accounts for 1533-4, p. 284.

6 Knowles, D., The Religious Orders in England, 3 (Cambridge, 1959), p. 136.Google Scholar

7 Durham Accounts, ‘Stipendia famulorum’, 1533, p. 288.

8 Ibid., listing 57 names. This list is clearly incomplete, as it does not include most of die domestic servants. See also Durham Household Books, 92-9, SS, 18 (1844).

9 Knowles, D., The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge, 1956), passim.Google Scholar

10 Wood-Legh, K. L., Perpetual Chantries in Britain (Cambridge, 1965)Google Scholar; Krieder, A., English Chantries: the Road to Dissolution (Cambridge, MA, 1979).Google Scholar

11 Dobson, R. B., Mynisters of Saint Cuthbert; the Monks of Durham in the Fifteenth Century (Durham, 1974), p. 10Google Scholar; Greenslade, S. L., ‘The last monks of Durham Cathedral Priory’, Durham University Journal, ns 10 (1949), pp. 107–13.Google Scholar

12 Greenslade, ‘The last monks’, who identifies the location of each of the monks at the time of the Dissolution.

13 The Rites of Durham, ed. J. T. Fowler; SS, 107 (1902).

14 Professor Knowles concluded that the visitors’ instructions changed in the course of the visitation, as the assessments became increasingly unfavourable, for no other obvious reason. Knowles, Religious Orders, 3, pp. 1361ff

15 The preamble refers to ‘great and honourable monasteries of religion in this realm, where they [the monks from the small houses] may be compelled to live religiously for reformation of their lives’: Statutes of the Realm, 3, p. 575.

16 Knowles, Religious Orders, 3, pp. 376-82, 483-91; Paul, J. E., ‘The last abbots of Reading and Colchester’, BIHR, 33 (1960), pp. 115–21Google Scholar; Elton, G. R., Policy and Police (Cambridge, 1972), p. 156 and n.Google Scholar

17 LP, 14 (2), nos 151, 152. Cole, H., ed., Henry the Eighth’s Scheme of Bishopricks (London, 1838).Google Scholar

18 The inspeximus from the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign is printed in Statutes, pp. 65-71, from Durham, Archive of the Dean and Chapter [hereafter DADC] MS C iv, 33.

19 Statutes, pp. 2-13.

20 Greenslade, ‘The last monks’.

21 DADC, Miscellaneous Charter 2697, and Receiver’s Book 1 (1541-2).

22 Loades, D., ‘The dissolution of the diocese of Durham, 1553-4’, in Marcombe, D., ed., The Last Principality (Leicester, 1987), pp. 101–17.Google Scholar

23 Greenslade, ‘The last monks’. DADC, Treasurer’s Roll I (1547-8).

24 At the time of the re-endowment, Durham College and its revenue was specifically granted to the Cathedral, and for several years divinity students, both ex-monks and others, were maintained there. It may have been surrendered in response to the otherwise abortive statute of 1545, or as part of a deal which has not been recorded. In December 1546 half of its garden was included in the grant of St Bernard’s College to the dean and chapter of Christ Church, who sold it in December 1554 to Sir Thomas White, who included it in his own foundation of St John’s. The rest of the site, and the derelict buildings, were granted to Dr George Owen and William Martyn in February 1553, and they in turn sold it to Sir Thomas Pope in February 1555, from whence it passed to his new foundation, Trinity College. McConica, J. K., The Collegiate University (Oxford, 1986), p. 43Google Scholar and n. The regular practice of sending Durham students to Oxford seems to have stopped at that point, although Thomas Pattenson, the rector of Bishopwearmouth, endowed a scholarship to Christ’s College, Cambridge, which remained in the gift of the dean and chapter. DADC, Register, 1, fols 129ff

25 Greenslade, ‘The last monks’. The Priory had maintained a number of stipendiary priests, who were not monks, to serve in dependent cures. These were not entitled to pensions, and many of them continued in the same positions. Some of the monks who were pensioned joined their ranks, and in 1547-8 the stipends of these ‘chaplains’ came to £71 os. 2d.: DADC, Treasurer’s Roll, 1; Wilson, B., ‘The Reformation in Northumberland and Durham’ (Durham PhD. thesis, 1939), appendix.Google Scholar

26 Statutes, pp. 156-7.

27 Ibid., pp. 3-5.

28 Dobson, , Mynisters of Saynt Cuthbert. Durham Account Rolls, SS, 99 (1898).Google Scholar

29 Statutes, pp. xxxv-lii. However, in one sense the break in continuity was emphasized. As in other similar cases, the dedication of the church was changed, from St Mary and St Cuthbert to St Mary alone. This was consistent with the destruction of St Cuthbert’s shrine, which took place soon after.

30 Rites, pp. 99-102.

31 Statutes, pp. 4-5. DADC, Dean and Chapter Register, 1, fol. 1r.

32 Statutes, pp. 12-13. Marcombe, D., ‘The Dean and Chapter of Durham, 1558-1603’ (Durham Ph.D. thesis, 1973), pp. 16–20Google Scholar. The almsmen were paid £6 135. 4d. a year.

33 Rites, p. 233. DADC, Treasurer’s Roll, 1, 1547-8, showing an expenditure of £76 135. 4d. upon the ‘scholars and scholemaster’.

34 Statutes, pp. xxxi-xxxviii.

35 Durham Accounts, SS, 103 (1901), pp. 723-7. A total of £6 12s. od. was expended.

36 PRO, SP 10/15 no. 35. Warwick swiftly acknowledged his error, but the clue which this letter gives to his thinking is instructive.

37 PRO, Parliament Roll, 7 Edward VI; C65/161, item 12.

38 The Registers of Bishops Tunstall and Pilkington, ed. Gladys Hinde, SS, 161 (1946), pp. 95-6.

39 Ibid., pp. 103-4.

40 Marcombe, , ‘Dean and Chapter of Durham’; idem, The Durham Dean and Chapter; old abbey writ large’, in Heal, F. and O’Day, R., eds, Continuity and Change: Personnel and Administration of the Church of England, 1500-1642 (Leicester, 1976).Google Scholar

41 Registers of Tunstall and Pilkington, p. 103.

42 Durham Accounts, p. 728.

43 CPR, Philip and Mary, 1, p. 377. PRO, C66/87 m.32. 1 Mary st.3, c.3; Statutes of the Realm, 4, i, pp. 226-8.

44 Durham Accounts, p. 729. (The total is erroneously given as £2,072 2S. 9d.) The Treasurer’s Roll for 1547-8 shows an income of £1,892 6s. Id. and that for 1558-9, £1,873 9s. Id.

45 Durham Accounts, p. 730.

46 Statutes, pp. lii-lxvi.

47 Particularly by Meade Faulkner in his introduction to the Statutes.

48 Statutes, chs 2, 15, 34.

49 Statutes, eh. 33. DADC, Treasurer’s Roll, 1, 1547-8.

50 Statutes, ch. 16. The Rites, p. 91, make it clear that building work was undertaken at this time to make suitable individual residences out of what had been part of the conventual buildings: ‘a lofte on ye north side of ye Abbey gates w[hi]ch had a longe Porch over ye gates and a stable under itt w[hi]ch after ye suppression was turned into Mr. Steph: Marleys lodgings.’

51 The chapter had taken over from the Priory a large number of small properties in the town, which would have been suitable for this purpose. DADC, Miscellaneous Charter 7283, fol. or (a rent roll).

52 Statutes, pp. m, 135.

53 Marcombe, ‘Dean and Chapter’, table 6.

54 These were specified in considerable detail in the Marian statutes, probably because they had been so severely curtailed under the previous regime.

55 Loades, D., The Reign of Mary Tudor (London, 1901), pp. 297–8Google Scholar. Strype, J., Ecclesiastical Memorials, 3, ii (Oxford, 1822), pp. 482–510.Google Scholar

56 DADC, Dean and Chapter Register, 2, fols 5r-6r.

57 Registers of Tunstall and Pilkington, p. 117.

58 Ibid., p. 116.

59 Statutes, pp. 182-3: ‘Certain passages in the statutes of the cathedral church of Durham, corrected and reformed on the thirtieth day of the month of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty six.’ See also DADC, Dean and Chapter Register, 2, fols 46r-47r.

60 The Royal Visitation of 1559, ed. C. J. Kitching, SS 187 (1972), pp. 23-8.

61 Ibid., p. 27.

62 Registers of Tunstall and Pilkington (sede vacante), pp. 131-8.

63 Lehmberg, Stanford E., The Reformation of Cathedrals (Princeton, NJ, 1988), pp. 182–225.Google Scholar

64 Marcombe, ‘Dean and Chapter’, pp. 5-51.