The Register of Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln (1420-1431). Vol. 2

The present volume carries a step further the edition of this important episcopal register. The first volume, edited by Bennett, was published as volume 73 of the Canterbury and York Society in 1984. The edition wisely keeps to the order of folios in the manuscript, even though entries in the register itself do not follow precisely in chronological order. With the present volume, folio 204 and the year 1426 have been reached. The material is given in calendared form, mostly in the form of summaries in English, but the Latin original is given where it seems desirable. This approach makes for easier reading and provides a manageable length for the publication.

Regarding the present volume, Bennett notes (2:viii): "Folios 88–204 of the register are covered here, including the institutions for the archdeaconries of Leicester, Huntingdon, Bedford, Oxford and Buckingham, collations of dignities and prebends, ordinations, and the acts of Archbishop Chichele during his visitation of the diocese in 1424–5." The contents may be described as routine and undramatic, yet they are quietly revealing of the complex and efficient government of this large diocese in the early fifteenth century. Bishop Richard Fleming was abroad for much of the time, as King Henry V's envoy to Emperor Sigismund and the German princes in 1422 and at the council of Pavia-Siena in 1423–24. Accordingly, diocesan officials and auxiliary bishops carried out much of the work recorded in the register. Lollardy is not mentioned; although we know that Fleming was involved, outside the diocese of Lincoln, as witness and judge at the trial of William Taylor in 1423. The acts relating to Chichele's visitation of the diocese in 1424–25 (pp. 110–19), which was carried out as part of his role as archbishop of Canterbury, pertain to ordinations performed by John Crancroyt—auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln, acting on the archbishop's authority—and to institutions to benefices by other delegated authorities. Fleming was active in ordaining clergy as well as in instituting and collating, in person, some of the clergy to benefices. Various other ecclesiastics were responsible for most of the institutions and collations to benefices: Robert Leek, vicar-general of the diocese, and the archdeacons of Leicester, Huntingdon, Bedford, Oxford, and Buckingham.

The number of ordinations is particularly striking. On June 1, 1420, in the church of St. Catherine's priory outside Lincoln, Crancroyt ordained sixty-two men as acolytes (four beneficed acolytes, twelve acolytes in religious orders, forty-six unbeneficed acolytes); fifty-eight men as subdeacons (four beneficed subdeasons, thirteen subdeacons in religious orders, forty-one unbeneficed subdeacons); forty-six men as deacons (one beneficed deacon, ten deacons in religious orders, thirty-five unbeneficed deacons); and forty men as priests (two beneficed priests, twelve priests in religious orders, twenty-six unbeneficed priests). Seven further ordination services took place within the next twelve months, all conducted by Fleming, with the numbers of ordinands in several cases approaching those of June 1—remarkable figures indeed for a diocese serving between 500,000 and 750,000 people.

An exhaustive "Index of Persons and Places" (pp. 129–203) mentioned in the second volume concludes this valuable work.