Ely

The names of the assessors of the spiritualities are known from LibBern 200: M. Ralph de Foderingeye, archdeacon of Ely, and M. Guy of Coventry, official of the bishop of Ely. From the heading of the earliest version of the taxatio for this diocese (DEL 220; and see DentonEly 70, 75, where this important version was given the siglum EDR rather than DEL) we learn, in addition, that M. Guy of Coventry was rector of Somersham (no doubt the Somersham in Huntingdonshire, LI.HU.IV.03, in the bishop of Ely’s patronage, rather than the much less valuable Somersham in Suffolk in secular patronage, NW.SF.BO.21) and that the two men carried out their assessment of the spiritualities of Ely diocese after the feast of St Andrew (after 30 Nov. 1291).

Among the usual MSS the customary clear division into ‘papal’, ‘diocesan’ and Exchequer applies, though the ‘diocesan’ LF is fragmentary for this diocese and thus has not been used, and the Exchequer CM and OE are incomplete (16 items missing from end of CM and most values missing in OE). Thus, the usual MSS are: BC (and its copy BA) and OH; LA and CU; and PC, CM and OE. In addition, however, two important early rolls have also been used: first, PEL1 which is the source of T, and, indeed, also of PC, CM and OE (PEL2 is a late copy of PEL1 and has not been used); and, second, another diocesan MS, that is BEL, which is closely related to CU — see the error re EL.EL.CH.02 — but CU is certainly not a copy of BEL — see the error re EL.EL.CP.33 in BEL. As always, LA is used for the core text.

Another MS copy of the Exchequer version survives in the epicopal register of Simon Montacute, and apparently copied there in 1337: for this version, not collated for the new edition, see DentonEly 70. Its heading tells us that it was ‘extractum de registro Scaccario domini regis Anglie de verbis ad verbum’. Here is direct proof of the existence of an Exchequer register — at least one Exchequer register — long before the extant register of the late fifteenth century on which the Record Commission edition, for the Canterbury province, was based.

In addition to these MSS, and of great interest, the register of Bishop Gray, or Grey, bishop of Ely from 1454-78 (CUL Ely Diocesan Records G1/5 (Reg. Gray), fos 220r-223r, edited in DentonEly 75-80) contains a copy of what is clearly the very earliest version of the assessment. This has the siglum DEL (in DentonEly it was given the siglum EDR). It does not include the items soon to be added (see below), but it does include items that were quickly omitted, and also it includes the early value of two of the three churches which we know from LA and CU were reduced at an early stage (see EL.EL.WI.04 and EL.EL.CP.27). So, although this is a fifteenth-century copy and changes could, indeed, have been made to this version since 1291–2 (and in all probability it contains some undetectable errors: for detected errors see DentonEly 73), there can be no question that it is the earliest version of the assessment to have survived and it is most likely that it was the original assessment as first put together by the assessors. It is not, however, the standard version of the taxatio, as it quickly emerged after late 1291 and early 1292. Additional items in DEL have been entered (using either the U** formula for the benkey, which represents (as distinct from X** formula) an item which is additional to the standard text but which was excluded from that text rather than added to it, or the 0A formula for the linekey of entries which already have a benkey) and, of course, on Ben-detail and Benefice. Items which vary in value from the standard text (they may have been changed at the earliest stage, or they may be errors of transcription, or, just possibly, they may represent later additions) are included in T92_variant.

For Ely diocese we are able to see, quite clearly and quite unusually, the early stages which the assessment process went through. The process went through at least four stages (and see DentonEly 71–3):

• First, the earliest stage, intended to list taxable items since it certainly excluded minute benefices, is represented by DEL.

• Second, the totals of LA and CU show a very early reduction to a few values, and, perhaps at the same time, and as all MSS other than DEL show, fifteen items in DEL that were not, in fact, taxable were excluded.

• Third, and along with the second stage this third stage was an important process in creating the standard list of taxable items, nineteen new portions and pensions were added to all MSS other than DEL (at the end of the diocese in BC, LA, CU, BEL and OH, sewn onto the roll in PEL1, and at the end of each deanery in PC, CM, OE, and also T).
• Fourth, one church and seven vicarages (one of the vicarages being listed surely in error as ‘ecclesia’), all below the usual taxable value, were added to the Exchequer MSS, and to these MSS alone (they have recn. 16 in T92_core): they were actual additions to PEL1 and had become incorporated in the texts of PC, CM, OE, and T). These 8 added benefices were valued at 6, 5 or 4 marks. They may have added because it was discovered that the benefice holders held benefices in plurality, or possibly they were added for the papal triennial tenth of 1301–3, collected in 1302–3 at a new threshold of more than 2 marks rather than more than 6 marks. There is, however, no firm evidence for either of these suggestions, and, if the purpose was the collection of a papal tenth, it is perhaps strange that they were added only to the Exchequer MSS. Their appearance in the Exchequer MSS gave a particular and continuing authority to their inclusion; even so, meaning they are excluded here from the standard taxatio list, that is the list of taxable items (all with recn 01). Unusually for items with recn 1* these items are included in T and thus they do not appear on the database as ‘X’ items (i.e. either with benkeys ending in .Xnn or with linekeys progressing from 0A).

For this diocese there are not extant lists of the items excluded for the moiety of 1294.

Because of the changes noted above there are different, and often corrected, totals in the MSS, but it is almost always clear where the totals come from, and the deanery totals of taxable items on the database are all correct. There are two items given wrong values in T (EL.EL.EL.07 and EL.EL.BO.04/02), not reflected in the totals. Errors in values and in totals in the versions of the taxatio are not always noted on the database, but they are most likely to be noted if they are in the particularly important versions, that is T, BC, LA or PEL1.

The different spellings of names have been entered in the following order: T BC LA CU PEL1 BEL PC OH DEL.

Because of the lack of contemporary bishops’ registers great reliance has been placed especially on VCHCambs for the identifying of patrons and the noting of churches as appropriated or not appropriated, and also for the provision of evidence concerning any vicarage not listed or noted in the taxatio texts. The c.1278 inventory of churches in ArchElien has also been used extensively. Some royal presentations in CalPat (during, for instance, episcopal vacancies or the custody of the lands of tenants-in-chief) also provide direct indications of patronage. Because of the paucity of evidence, the entering on Newpat table of the presentation (or institution) to a given church or vicarage nearest in date to the taxatio is somewhat limited: and the items for which this information is provided (that is, always with date plus ‘insttype’, all here either rec or vic, plus source) are derived either from CalPat (having searched, broadly speaking, the volumes for the half-century before the taxatio and the half-century after the taxatio) or from the calendars (in ElyDRem) of the registers of Bishop Simon Montacute, 1337-1345, and Bishop Thomas de Lisle, 1345-1361. The calendars in ElyDRem are very brief and it is clear that many items given as presentations to churches must have been presentations to vicarages. (A half century either side of 1291-2 provides, broadly, the usual limits for searching for presentations or institutions, and for this diocese the outer limit has been the middle of the fourteenth century. Only if there are items for which no patronage information has been found, as so often, for example, in the Welsh dioceses, that is with NK entered in the ‘pattype’ field of Newpat table, has an even wider search for the nearest extant presentation or institution been undertaken.)

It should be noted, of course, that the patronage details on the database are limited to the most basic information, especially relating to an indication of the date of any appropriation or to evidence of a vicarage when none is listed in the taxatio texts. However, in the case of Ely diocese there is no doubt that the extant sources offer the possibility of a detailed analysis of the pattern of patronage in relation to values during the later Middle Ages: see, for example, the comments in DentonEly 74.

The listing of benefices is not complete. On first appearances DEL might seem to be an attempt by the assessors to value, initially, all ecclesiastical benefices of the diocese. It includes, after all, 15 items that were quickly excluded as not taxable. But of the churches among these items — 9 in all — one was appropriated to the Knights Templar, two were appropriated to hospitals, two to Waltham abbey (which by agreement paid a lump sum in taxation) and four to nunneries (see DentonEly 72). So, the assessors had failed to take account, or at least full account, of certain exemptions. They had, undoubtedly, taken account of those benefices, churches or vicarages, that fell below the taxable limit of more than four pounds in value. Thus, the listing in DEL is not a complete listing of churches for the diocese, though it, unlike other versions of the taxatio, does include some untaxable items. Further study, including a mapping of all the parishes of the diocese, would probably reveal a number of missing ‘minute’ benefices (see, for instance, the church of Little Childerley: VCHCambs9 46-7, ArchElien 136). Some of the missing vicarages, that is 22 in all, have been added to Ben_detail table, with a note of the source of the information (though, as throughout the database, vicarages are only added in this way when there is an existing benkey, that is an existing item on Ben_detail table, to which they can be added). For the completely unmentioned Cambridge churches of Holy Sepulchre, Holy Trinity, St Peter by the Castle, St Michael, and All Saints in Iudaismo see DentonEly 71, 74.

One assessed item of income could be easily missed, because it is attached to no deanery listing. This is, there seems little doubt, the taxable income of the archdeacon of Ely (‘Taxatio incertorum proventuum archidiac’ Eliensis’), entered in Ben_detail within a heading of Archdeaconry Spiritualities: see EL.EL.00.00.

Notes on dedications are not consistently included in the introductions to each diocese. Use of OS(CS) has only recently become available online and has thus not been used for all dioceses in the providing of dedication evidence. For the dioceses, or parts of dioceses, covered by VCH volumes this is not a major problem, and for the dioceses dealt with at an early stage and not covered by the VCH efforts to ensure that the OS(CS) evidence is checked are nearing completion. For the diocese of Ely the OS(CS) maps have now also been checked, even though the diocese is fully covered by VCHCambs, and it is interesting that OS(CS) has provided many instances of different and thus noteworthy dedication evidence. Thus, there are references to OS(CS) either because of the addition of lines to the Dedication table itself or because of comments on Comments table using the GR comcode field.

JHD June 2009