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From: Self <Ahzjsb.AH.A.USERS.University>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Prebends
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 14:30:11 GMT0BST
Dear Carolyn Schriber
I work on prebends and have some views about Domesday records of
them. I've published articles touching on this in Journal of
Ecclesiastical History 37 1986 and in D. Whitehead, ed. Medieval Art,
Architecture and Archaeology at Hereford, British Archaeological
Association Conference Transactions xv, 1995.
Domesday entries for cathedrals can be a bit (probably deliberately)
misleading in encouraging us to think of communal property management
where they talk about property being 'ad victus canonicorum'. I think
they may have been trying to prevent people outside the church estate
from finding out about the internal management (cf. Galbraith's
remarks on a different aspect of church estate management in EGR 44
1929). I suspect that individual holdings by canons of separate
territories may have been quite common by 1066, and certainly by
1086, at any rate at London and Hereford. Wells and Exeter, however,
do seem to have observed vita communis from the pontificates of
resepctively Giso and Leofric and their estates were managed
communally - Wells' up to the 1130s, Exeter's much later.
The term praebenda used of an individual holding
does not occur until after the Norman Conquest as far as I am aware,
but I don't think that makes pre-1066 individual holdings impossible.
They might have operated like the 10th c Worcester leases, at least
one of which was for a member of Worcester cathedral community. We
can't necessarily expect these holdings to have been permanent in the
way that 12th c ones were; there was probably a lot of fluctuation.
Nor would it necessarily have been the case that every canon in the
community had one (though that might have happened).
These are random thoughts but if there is anything more specific I
could help with, let me know. I'm in a bit of a rush this afternoon
Julia Barrow
University of Nottingham
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 14:34:27 -0500
Reply-to: [log in to unmask]
Organization: Rhodes College
Subject: Prebends
From: Carolyn Schriber <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
As I approach the end of a course that involved students looking at Domesday
records, I have as usual been bamboozled by questions I cannot answer. Has
anyone done any recent work on prebends held by cathedral canons?
Specifically, the question concerned a distinction between manors held "for
the use of the chapter" and lands that seemed to be in the hands of a
particular canon, for his own use. Is there an agreed-upon progression from
community possession to individual holdings? And if so, approximately when
did it occur?
Carolyn Schriber
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