The Register of William Bothe, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1447–1452 (review)

William Bothe (or Booth) is best known for his twelve years as archbishop of York from 1452 until his death in 1464, during which time he was a prominent figure in national affairs and somewhat drawn into the factional politics of the Wars of the Roses. His reputation has suffered from being transmitted to us largely through the vitriolic pen of Thomas Gascoigne. The present exemplary edition of his register as bishop of Coventry and Lichfield from 1447 to 1452, before his promotion to York, considerably restores his good reputation. Bothe comes across as a talented, conscientious, and efficient diocesan bishop. The introduction provides an account of his activities as bishop during the five years, filling out that in the recent Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, as well as an analysis of the officers and administration of the diocese; the contents of the register are surveyed briefly. The register itself is neatly divided into three sections, as the editor notes (p. xxii). The first section, which is subdivided according to the archdeaconries of the diocese, contains appointments to benefices and confirmations of superiors of religious houses. The second section forms the general register and contains commissions; compurgations of criminous clerks; dispensations for marriages within the prohibited degrees; appropriations; pensions; dimissory letters; various disputes involving secular clergy, religious orders, and laity; and many other matters. The third part contains Bothe's commission to his suffragan bishop to conduct ordinations and the lists of ordained men. The register, like the many other surviving registers of late-medieval English bishops, was essentially a reference work, frequently consulted at the time, containing the main items of business to which the bishop and his officials might need to refer. It was compiled from drafts that were entered onto loose quires and that were later bound up into the register as it now survives (p. xxii). In the present edition the longer and more interesting documents are reproduced in full, in Latin only but with a short introduction in English. For more routine documents, such as institutions to benefices and ordinations, the essential information is summarized and calendared, mostly in English.

The business recorded in the register may seem normal, although surely important to the contemporaries involved. John Wyclif and Lollardy make no appearance. Bothe had trained as a lawyer, probably at Gray's Inn in London; he did not study at a university. The register reveals the strengths of the late-medieval English Church and hints at the limitations: its officials, loyal and efficient for the most part, were perhaps too content with the status quo. The volume concludes with an appendix detailing Bothe's itinerary during the five years and two full indices of "Peoples and Places" and "Subjects."The core of the work was the editor's M.Phil thesis for Nottingham University in 1981, and the present edition was almost ready before his untimely death in 2005. Canterbury and York Society are to be thanked for bringing the work to completion.