medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Susan
I know this kind of work can be frustrating, but priests serving in the
church will turn up in the records of the 'poll-type' taxes I mentioned.
This is why they are so interesting - they go below the level of the
beneficed to the great mass of unbeneficed clergy who usually escape the
records - largely because the government/Commons suspected that they had
vast, untapped wealth (which of course they did not). Alison McHardy has
written more than anyone else on the unbeneficed clergy and it is probably
worth looking through her articles listed on the RHS bibliography. You can
see an example of the kind of thing I mean in her book: McHardy, A. K. The
Church in London, 1375-1392 (London Record Society, 13). London: The
society, 1977. xxiv, 126 p. However, one of the exciting aspects of our
pilot project was the identification of a series of other 'poll-type' taxes
through the fifteenth century, so there are periods beyond the late
fourteenth century when we may be able to get at the unbeneficed. For
example, while working through the records of Canterbury diocese, we have
recently discovered lists of clergy serving in the archbishop's peculiar of
the deanery of Arches in London.
As part of our project, when we have located all the records relating to
this type of tax, we are thinking of publishing at least some of them
through the Canterbury and York Society. I will try and look out for St
Levan as we work through, but do feel free to prod me every few months! By
the very nature of these things, we may well find that we are unlucky in
seeking surviving records - but you never know.
Best wishes
Rosemary
----- Original Message -----
From: "Susan Hoyle" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2006 12:33 PM
Subject: Re: [M-R] More St. Levan panels
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> In a message dated 22/11/2006 13:31:28 GMT Standard Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
> <<have you looked at tax records to find names of the clergy attached to
> the
> church? Most famous are the clerical poll taxes of 1377-81 but there are
> a
> number of other 'poll-type' taxes, particularly in the fifteenth cenutry
> that may help.>>
>
> Thank you for this, Rosemary, and for the news of the York project, which
> looks invaluable.
>
> Unfortunately, although the Deanery of St Buryan (of which St levan was a
> dependent chapelry) was of course taxed and thus appears in records of
> this
> type, the Dean and Prebendaries -- whose names are the only ones to
> appear --
> were all absentees. The curates who actually did the work are anonymous.
> There is one name which appears in the 1520s, William Alsa, priest,
> resident in
> St Levan, and I got very excited, but Prof Nicholas Orme thinks he was a
> chantry priest, a freelance, so to speak; and as the chantry was in St
> Buryan,
> not a St Levan man even then.
>
> As I have mentioned before, the Deanery was a Royal Peculiar, and so the
> bishops' records are also not much use.
>
> None of this means that there does not somewhere survive a record which
> causally reveals the names of some of these men, but it looks as though it
> will
> be pure chance which discovers it!
> Yours gratefully
> Susan
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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