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The Administration of the Archdeaconry of St. Albans, 1580–1625
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
Included in the considerable corpus of records of the archdeaconry of St. Albans, hitherto almost entirely neglected by historians, are 106 letters relating to the years 1580–1625 written by the bishop of London (within whose diocese the archdeaconry lay) or, in the case of six of them, his chancellor, to the archdeacon or his official. The letters contain instructions to be put into effect within the archdeaconry, which, at this time, consisted of 26 parishes—22 in Hertfordshire and a group of four parishes in the neighbouring county of Buckinghamshire. Doubtless, similar letters were addressed to other archdeacons of the diocese at the same time, but it is believed that those relating to this archdeaconry are the only copies still extant. Eighty-nine of these letters were written between 1580 and 1608; the remainder cover the years 1609–1625. As some of the draft replies of the archdeacon or his official have also survived, it is possible in these instances to trace from them, and from the unusually complete sequence of Act Books of the archdeacon's court and other records, the action which was taken in response to the instructions contained in these letters and, thus, to some extent, to reconstruct a picture of the administration of the archdeaconry which complements that revealed by the visitation records. In addition, some of these letters throw a revealing light on the wider aspects of Elizabethan and Jacobean administration, of Canterbury, then through the bishop of the diocese, to the archdeacon and from him and his officers through the apparitor to the incumbents and laity of the archdeaconry.
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References
page 61 note 1 They are kept in the Hertfordshire County Record Office, Hertford. The numbered documents prefixed by the letters R.O.A.S.A. are 262 documents calendared in Records of the Old Archdeaconry of St. Albans, ed. Hall, H. R. Wilton, St. Albans 1908Google Scholar; those prefixed by the letters A.S.A. are loose documents not included in this calendar; documents referred to as Misc. MSS. followed by a year—e.g. Misc. MSS. 1616—are those which have been sorted into the years to which they belong, but to which accession numbers have not yet been given. Some of the Act Books have been given accession numbers prefixed by the letters A.S.A. and they are referred to by this symbol. Roman numerals had previously been given to the others.
page 61 note 21 St. Albans, St. Michael's, St. Peter's, St. Stephen's (all within the town of St. Albans), Bushey, Langley Abbots, Chipping and East Barnet (held in plurality for much of this time), Elstree, Northawe, Rickmansworth, Redbourn, Ridge, Sandridge, Sarett, Watford; a more scattered group of six parishes in the north of Hertfordshire-Codicote, Walden, Shephall, Norton, Newenham, Hexton.
page 61 note 3 Aston Abbots, Granborough, Little Horwood, Winslow.
page 62 note 1 R.O.A.S.A., 4.
page 62 note 2 Ibid., ii.
page 62 note 3 Printed in Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 301–2.
page 62 note 4 Act Book vii. 29r.
page 62 note 5 Misc. MSS., 1581.
page 62 note 6 R.O.A.S.A., 19.
page 62 note 7 23 Eliz. cap. 1.
page 62 note 8 R.O.A.S.A., 98.
page 62 note 9 Ibid., 119.
page 62 note 10 Ibid., 142.
page 63 note 1 R.O.A.S.A., 180.
page 63 note 2 Printed in Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 410–12.
page 63 note 3 Misc. MSS., 1594.
page 63 note 4 A.S.A., 409. James Rolfe was official, 1591–1630.
page 63 note 5 R.O.A.S.A., 9.
page 63 note 6 Ibid., 18.
page 63 note 7 Northawe, Ridge, Langley and possibly Norton.
page 63 note 8 Misc. MSS., 1584.
page 64 note 1 Misc. MSS., 1589.
page 64 note 2 R.O.A.S.A., 142.
page 64 note 3 Ibid., 155.
page 64 note 4 Printed in Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 364–5.
page 64 note 5 B R.O.A.S.A., 156.
page 65 note 1 R.O.A.S.A., 157.
page 65 note 2 Ibid., 168.
page 65 note 3 Ibid., 165.
page 65 note 4 Ibid., 172.
page 66 note 1 R.O.A.S.A., 157.
page 66 note 2 Ibid., 172.
page 66 note 3 By Letters Patent of 4 Edward VI (1 April 1550).
page 66 note 4 Misc. MSS., 1614.
page 67 note 1 R.O.A.S.A., 84.
page 67 note 2 Liturgies and Occasional Forms of Prayer set forth in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, ed. Clay, W. K., Parker Society, Cambridge 1847, 619–23.Google Scholar
page 67 note 3 R.O.A.S.A., 181.
page 67 note 4 Ibid., 189.
page 67 note 5 Ibid., 191.
page 67 note 6 Ibid., 182.
page 68 note 1 R.O.A.S.A., 185.
page 68 note 2 Ibid., 186.
page 68 note 3 Ibid., 241.
page 69 note 1 R.O.A.S.A., 242, 243, 244, 245, 247.
page 69 note 2 Printed in Wilkins, Concilia, iv, 465–7.
page 69 note 3 R.O.A.S.A., 204.
page 69 note 4 Ibid., 126.
page 69 note 5 Ibid., 21.
page 69 note 6 Ibid., 41.
page 69 note 7 Ibid., 52.
page 69 note 8 Ibid., 83.
page 69 note 9 Ibid., 219.
page 69 note 10 Ibid., 72.
page 69 note 11 Ibid., 254.
page 69 note 12 Ibid., 72.
page 69 note 13 Ibid., 73.
page 69 note 14 Ibid., 76.
page 69 note 15 Ibid., 77.
page 70 note 1 R.O.A.S.A., 79.
page 70 note 2 Ibid., 80.
page 70 note 3 E.g., ibid., 202.
page 70 note 4 E.g., Ibid., 231.
page 70 note 5 A.S.A., 387.
page 70 note 6 Printed in Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 367–8.
page 70 note 7 A.S.A., 327.
page 70 note 8 Ibid., 328.
page 71 note 1 In 1603 (Cf. Act Book, xiii. 1081).
page 71 note 2 In 1590 (Cf. Act Book, A.S.A. 11. 201).
page 71 note 3 The archdeacons of St. Albans between 1580 and 1625 were: David Kemp, 1560–81; Giles Lawrence, 1581; William Hutchinson, 1581–1604; John Bill, 1604–22; Thomas Rayment, 1622–31.
page 71 note 4 The officials were: Nicholas Clayton, 1580–1; William Bingham, 1581–2, and 1584–6; William Cotton, 1582–3; Roger Williams, 1586–90; James Rolfe, 1591–1630.
page 71 note 5 In 1582, when it was at Chipping Barnet (Cf., R.O.A.S.A., 19).
page 71 note 6 Misc. MSS., 1611–18.
page 72 note 1 Every parish had to pay: 4d. for the acts of the court; 4d. for every bill exhibited; 12d. for the citation of the churchwardens; 12d. for the citation of the clergy; 12d. to the archdeacon's clerk for every bill exhibited; 6d. for the book of articles to be returned at the next visitation. Cf. Misc. MSS., 1615.
page 72 note 2 The incumbents of Rickmansworth, Norton, Hexton, Elstree, Codicote, Little Horwood and Granborough each paid 6d.; the incumbent of Shephall paid 10d.; the incumbents of St. Michael's, St. Stephen's, Sarett and Ridge each paid 2s. 6d.; the incumbents of St. Peter's, Bushey, Newenham, Walden and Sandridge each paid 3s. 10d.; the incumbents of Chipping Barnet with East Barnet, Langley Abbots, Redbourn, Winslow and Aston Abbots each paid 7s. 2d.
page 72 note 3 Cf. canon 41; also canon 47.
page 72 note 4 Cf. canon 36.
page 72 note 5 Act Book xiv. 251–271.
page 72 note 6 Ibid., 111v. They were Cooke, of St. Michael's, Lightfoot, of St. Stephen's, and Watson, of Watford.
page 73 note 1 Act Book vii. 237v–239r.
page 73 note 2 Ibid., viii. 124v. The clergy concerned were: Scott, of Bushey, Longley, of Norton, Warren, of Hexton, Dance, of Winslow, Bowton, of Granborough, Mote, of Newenham, Butler, of Sarett, Edmonds, of Watford, Woodward, of Sandridge, and Haylock, of Walden.
page 73 note 3 Act Book A.S.A., 11. 20r–21v.
page 73 note 4 Act Book xx. 20v.
page 73 note 5 The dates on which it was held range from 23 September, in 1596 (Cf. Act Book xi. 911) to 5 December, in 1611 (Cf. Misc. MSS. 1611).
page 73 note 6 Except in 1592, when it was held in Sandridge church (Cf. Act Book A.S.A., 13. 9r).
page 73 note 7 Act Book A.S.A., 12. 49r.
page 74 note 1 In 1581, 1585, 1599–1603. (They were not paid at the spring visitation in 1599, 1600, 1603.)
page 74 note 2 In 1585, 1594, 1603.
page 74 note 3 Act Book viii. 109r.
page 74 note 4 None were exhibited between 1607 and 1614. In other years the number ranged between two and 25.
page 74 note 5 R.O.A.S.A., 157.
page 74 note 6 A.S.A., 404.
page 75 note l R.O.A.S.A., 122, 123.