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Archbishop John Morton and the Province of Canterbury, 1486–15001

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Christopher Harper-Bill
Christopher Harper-Bill
Affiliation:
Lecturer in History, St. Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, University of London Institute of Education
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Extract

The episcopate of John Morton has received little attention from historians, possibly because it falls in time between the traditional interests of medievalists and of reformation specialists. Previous treatments, notably that of dean Hook in his Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury and the biography by Woodhouse, published in 1895 and heavily reliant on Hook, have concentrated on Morton's political role as ‘foster father of the Tudors’, and while Professor Claude Jenkins provided an excellent survey of the Canterbury register, he was more concerned with the evidence which it provides for die condition of the Church in die late fifteenth century than widi the archbishop himself. The purpose of this paper is to outline the salient characteristics of the episcopate and to examine the ecclesiastical policies pursued by Morton. Two qualifications must immediately be added. First, despite the wealth of material in the archiepiscopal register, supplemented by the records of the cathedral priory, there is almost nothing of a personal nature, and as always it is more difficult to estimate the character or sentiments of a fifteenth-century bishop than of his twelfth-century counterpart Secondly, it has been remarked how a hard and fresh look has upgraded the reputation of Hubert Walter, ‘that old model of secular prelacy’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 1978 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

2 Hook, W. T., Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, 1861–1884, v. 387–499Google Scholar; Woodhouse, R. L., Archbishop John Morton, 1895Google Scholar; Jenkins, C., ‘Cardinal Morton’ s Register’, Tudor Studies presented to A. F. Pollard, ed. Seton-Watson, R. W., 1924, 26–74Google Scholar.

3 Lambeth Palace Library, MS. Register of Joh n Morton, 2 volumes (henceforth Reg. Morton and Reg. Morton, ii). The writer has edited this register, which it is hoped will be published in the near future.

4 Brentano, R., Two Churches: England and Italy in the Thirteenth Century, Princeton 1968, 221Google Scholar. n. 6, discussing the work of Professor C. R. Cheney.

5 Morton’ s degrees and preferments are listed by Emden, A. B., Biographical Register University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, Oxford 1957–1959Google Scholar, s.v.

6 Cf. E. F.Jacob, ‘Wilkins’ Concilia and the Fifteenth Century’, Trans. Royal Hist. Soc, 4th series, xv (1932), 128f.

7 Reg. Morton, fol. 35v; Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1485–1509, no. 140.

8 11 Henry vn c. 10, Statutes ofthe Realm ii. 5 7 6f.; C.F.R., 1485–1 509, no. 555.

9 Edward iv had complained of the diminution of taxation from the Church: Reg. Beckington (Somerset Record Soc, 1934–5) i. 362f. Bishop Stubbs calculated that, according to the Taxatio, a tenth of the province of Canterbury should yield £16,902: Constitutional History of England, 5th ed., Oxford 1891Google Scholar, ii. 580. In 1489 the prolocutor of Convocation stated that two tenths would scarcely yield £25,000: Reg. Morton, fol. 43.

10 Rotuli Parliamentorum (Record Commission 1767–1832), vi. 420–4; cf. S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII, 1972, 198f.; Reg. Morton, fol. 44; C.F.R., 1485–1509, no. 267.

11 Rot. Part., vi. 513–9; cf. Chrimes, op. cit., 144; C.F.R., 1485–1509, 253n. The king remitted £10,000 of this sum : cf. Bowker, M., The Secular Clergy of the Diocese of Lincoln, Cambridge 1968, 138Google Scholar.

12 The division of the subsidy of 1489 is printed in Reg. T. Myllyng (Canterbury and York Soc, xxvi, 1920), 118Google Scholar. The division for 1497 is contained in Hampshire County Record Office, Reg. J. Langton, fol. 67, and is: Canterbury and the immediate jurisdiction, £2742; Rochester, £272; London, £2772; Norwich, £5680; Ely, £1727; Chichcstcr, £1467 10s.; Winchester, £2952 10s.; Salisbury, £3560; Bath and Wells, £1728 10s.; Exeter, £1420 18s. 7$d.; Worcester, £1855; Hereford, £1315; Coventry and Lichfield, £2070; Lincoln, £9187 10s.; St. David’ s, £505 is. 4jd.; LlandafT, £270; Bangor, £160; St. Asaph, £270. The total, given as £40,000, is in fact £39,955.

13 Boulay, F. R. H. Du, ‘Charitable Subsidies granted to the Archbishops of Canterbury, 1300–1489’, Bulletin ofthe Institute ofHistorical Research, xxiii (1950), 147–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the diocese of Winchester in 1487 a total of £43 12s. 4d. was collected from 123 chaplains: Reg, Courtenay, fols. 29–30. This places it beyond reasonable doubt that the sum of £354 7s. io$d. due in 1489 represents the assessment for the province rather than for the diocese of Canterbury: Reg. Morton, fol. 49. In 1497 the subsidy was granted to each bishop in his own diocese rather than to the metropolitan: Reg. Langton, Winchester, fol. 67.

14 A Subsidy Collected in the Diocese of Lincoln in 1526, ed. Salter, H. E., Oxford Hist. lxiii (1909Google Scholar).

15 4 Henry VII c.5; S.R., ii. 530.

16 Henry vn c.5; S.R., ii. 552; for discussion of exemptions, see E. W. Kemp, Counsel and Consent, 1961, 115–42 passim.

17 Henry vn c. 13; S.R., ii. 538.

18 Henry vn c. i; S.R., ii. 549.

19 Henry vn c. 7; S.R., ii. 639.

20 Henry vn c. 4, S.R., ii. 500.

21 Reg. Morton, fol. 34.

22 Storey, R. L., Diocesan Administration in Fifteenth Century England, 2nd ed., York 1972, 30–32Google Scholar.

23 Lander, J. R., ‘Bonds, Coercion and Fear’, Crown and Nobility 1450–1509, 1976, 267–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Jacob, E. F., Henry Chichele, 1967, 42–60Google Scholar.

25 Calendar of Papal Letters 1484–92, 1960, 1–3, 14–27; Reg. Morton, fob. 4, 6, 7, 17.

26 The assault on immunities is described by I. Thorney, ‘The Destruction of Sanctuary Tudor Studies presented to A. F. Pollard, 182–207.

27 Letters and Papers illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, ed. J. Gairdnei Rolls Series 1861–3, i 94f.

28 Reg. Morton, fol. 6.

29 Richard 11, 2 c. 3; S.R., ii. 12.

30 Reg. Morton, fol. 22.

31 Ibid., fol. 5. The bull weas reissued in March 1490, the oly significant modification being that the archbishop was allowed to visit by depury: ibid., fol. 21. It is printed in the revised form by D. Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hibemiae, 1737, iii. 630–2.

32 Reg. Morton, fol. 22v; Wilkins, op. cit., iii. 632–4.

33 Victoria County History, Hertfordshire, iv (1914), 403–8.

34 Knowles, M. D., ‘The Case of St. Albans Abbey in 1490’, in this JOURNAL, iii (1952), 144–58Google Scholar.

35 P.R.O. Significations of Excommunication, C85/23/13. Barrett was included in the list of monks of St. Albans in June 1492 printed by W. A. Pantin: Chapters of the English Black Monks, iii (Camden Society, 3rd series, liv, 1937), 232–4.

36 Keg. Morton, fol. 8.

37 Calendar ofPatent Rolls 1485–94, 486; C.P.R. 1494–1509, 638.

38 Confirmation of Sudbury : C.P.R. 1467–77, 418(17 Decembe r 1473) and C.P.R. 1485–94, 66 (4 December 1485). Confirmation of Brecknock: C.P.R. 1476–85, 209 (6 August 1480), exemplified C.P.R. 1485–94, 110 (7 June 1486).

39 Rot. Pad., vi. 434; C.P.R. 1485–94, 300.

40 Reg. Morton, fol. 8v.

41 Ibid., fol. 29.

42 C.P.R. 1485–94, 372. As late as 1501 the prior was being harassed by at least one creditor who had in his possession an obligation sealed by one of the dispossessed priors: P.R.O. Early Chancery Proceedings, C1/244/8.

43 Redman’ s visitations are described in Collectanea Anglo-PremonstTatensiana, ed. F. Gasquet (Camden Society, 3rd series, vi, x and xii, 1904–6).

44 Letters from the English Abbots to the Chapter at Citeaux 1442–1521, ed. C. H. Talbot (Camden Society, 4th series, iv, 1967) nos. 50, 56.

45 Ibid., no. 61; cf. Introduction, g.

46 Ibid., no. 64.

47 Ibid., nos. 66, 73, 77.

48 Ibid., nos. 100, 101, 103, 105.

49 Ibid., No. 96.

50 Reg. Morton, fol. 206; Little, A. G., ‘The Introduction of the Observant Friars into England: A Bull of Alexander VI’, Proceedings of the British Academy, xxvii (1941), 155–66Google Scholar.

51 Reg. Morton, fols. 32, 83v.

52 Ibid., fol. 117v.

53 P.R.O. Early Chancery Proceedings, C1/12/226; 17/333.

54 Some documents concerning this dispute survive in the archives of the Corporation of Folkestone, whence they are printed in Historical Manuscripts Commission, Appendix to Fifth Report (1876), 590–2Google Scholar.

55 Reg. Morton, fol. 30.

56 Ibid., fol. 32.

57 Ibid., fol. 220.

58 The papal mandatories were instructed, if they found the archbishop’ s complaints to be justified, to ensure that in future the church should be served by a vicar and three chaplains, each of whom was to receive a stipend from the revenues of the church. The return to the archidiaconal visitation of 1502 showed only a vicar (Woodruff, C. E., ‘An Archidiaconal Visitation of 1502’, Archaeotogia Cantiana, xlvii (1935), 47Google Scholar) and in 1511 archbishop Warham’ s commissaries found that monks still served the church: Lambet h Palace Library, Reg. Warham, fol. 50.

59 Reg. Morton, fols. 78v-80v.

60 Reg. Morton ii, fols. 75–78, 93v-122 passim.

61 For courts within the diocese, see Woodcock, B., Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of Canterbury, Oxford 1952Google Scholar.

62 Wilkins, Concilia iii, 619–20.

63 Reg. Morton, fol. 34v.

64 Ibid.

65 Wilkins, op. cit., iii. 654.

66 For the conflicts between archbishop and suffragans in the late thirteenth century, see Douie, D. L., Archbishop Pecham, Oxford 1952Google Scholar, chapter v.

67 Churchill, I. J., Canterbury Administration (1933), iGoogle Scholar. 161–240, ii. 41–78.

68 The register contains sede vacante registers from the dioceses of Coventry and Lichfield 1490–91 and 1496; Bath and Wells 1491–2 and 1495; Winchester 1492–3; Exeter 1492–3; Lincoln 1495; Rochester 1496; Worcester 1498; Norwich 1499 and Salisbury 1499.

69 All sede vacante registers except that for Salisbury contain accounts, although some are incomplete.

70 Reg. Morton, fol. 13v’ ; P.R.O. Significations of Excommunication, C85/23/24.

71 Reg. Morton, fol. 94v.

72 Ibid., fol. 167v.

73 Reg. Morton, ii. fol 79.

74 Reg. Morton, fol. 197.

75 Cf. Churchill, op. cit., i. 290 n.4. The method of calculating parochial procurations is obscure. In the dioceses of Norwich and Ely 3d. in the pound was levied according to the valuation of the Taxatio of 1291, and in the diocese of Chichester the rate was 4.d. in the pound: Reg. Morton, ii. fols. 63–72; Historical Manuscripts Commission, Appendix to Ninth Report, 109; Reg. Chichele, iv. 147). In the dioceses of Bath and Wells, Coventry and Lichfield, Lincoln and Worcester, and in the archdeaconry of Winchester each rural deanery was assessed at five marks, with isolated exceptions for very small deaneries. In the archdeaconry of Surrey and the diocese of Exeter they were assessed on individual churches, were variable and bore no apparent relation to the Taxatio assessment. These varying methods were obviously based on local custom, but it is surprising that the rate of procurations finds no mention in the synodal statutes of the thirteenth century.

76 Reg. Morton, ii. fol. 74; Heath, cf. P., English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation (1969), 43Google Scholar.

77 The standard charges were 6s. 8d. for institution or for the holding of an inquisition into the advowson; 3s. 4d. for letters dimissory; 5 marks for the reconciliation of a church or cemetery. Confirmation of the election ol a religious superior ranged Irom £5 to £10.

78 Morton himself received the temporalities of Canterbury on 13 July 1486, while the papal bull of translation was dated 6 October.

79 Reg. Morton, fols. 224–50.

80 C.P.R. 1330–34, 73; C.P.L 1305–42, 397.

81 Reg. Morton, fol. 227.

82 Ibid., fol 234; Reg. Reynolds, fol. 118v.

83 Reg. Morton, fols. 218,v, 219, 221v; cf. Wilkins, op. cit., iii. 643.

84 P.R.O. Significations of Excommunication. C85/207/1.

85 Reg. Morton, fol. 224.

86 Ibid. fol. 225.

87 A full account of this dispute is contained in Canterbury Dean and Chapter Library, Priory Reg. S, fols. 396v-400v. Cf. ‘Bishop Richard Hill and the Court of Canterbury 1494–6’, Guildhall Studies in London History, October 1977, 1–12Google Scholar.

88 The development of the testamentary prerogative of the church of Canterbury is treated by Churchill, op. cit., chapter ix.

89 Reg. Morton, fols. 220v-2i; cf. Wilkins, op. cit., iii. 641.

90 Reg. Morton, fol. 208v.

91 Ibid., fols. 209v-18.

92 Ibid., fol. 216.

93 Ibid., fol. 216v.

94 Ibid., fol. 213.

95 Talbot, Cistercian Letters, no. 66.