Holdings of Lambeth Palace Library

Directory of medical licences issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury 1535-1775

Introduction

According to the Henrician statute of 1511, no physician or surgeon was to practise without first being examined by appropriate practitioners and licensed by the diocesan bishop. This system of episcopal or archiepiscopal control flourished for well over two centuries, but declined as the eighteenth century progressed. 

Like other diocesan bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued licences to practise medicine and surgery within his diocese of Canterbury, and information on these purely diocesan licences are mainly to be located in the diocesan records held locally in Canterbury Cathedral Archives. The Archbishop also granted licences throughout the province of Canterbury, an area which comprised England south of the Humber, and the whole of Wales. These provincial licences, which were issued principally by the Archbishop's vicar general, might be specific to a single locality or diocese, a number of dioceses, or more often, for the whole of the province of Canterbury. From 1576 until the Restoration, the principal source for information on these provincial licences is to be found in the Archbishops’ Registers; thereafter until 1775, the date of the last archiepiscopal licence, the brief entry in the register is supplemented by letters testimonial often signed by two physicians or surgeons, and bearing the fiat of the vicar general to proceed with the licensing. Details of these licences are given in Part 1 of the Directory of Medical Licences issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury 1535-1775 in Lambeth Palace Library. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury also issued licences through the Faculty Office. This Office was set up under Peter’s Pence Act of 1533 to grant a variety of licences and dispensations previously granted by the Pope; it was a national rather than a provincial organ of administration, and its authority extended throughout England and Wales. To begin with in the mid-sixteenth century, the Faculty Office reflected the papal practice of granting dispensations to the regular and secular clergy to practice medicine or surgery. From the Restoration, the Archbishop through his Master of the Faculties licensed medical practitioners, mainly laymen, not only in his province of Canterbury, but also in the province of York. For the years 1535 to 1547, the Faculty Office Muniment Books provide a record of the medical dispensations. Following the Restoration, the copy of the licence transcribed in the Muniment Books is supplemented by letters testimonial bearing the fiat of the master of the Faculties to issue the licence. Details of these licences are given in Part 2 of the Directory of Medical Licences issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury 1535-1775 in Lambeth Palace Library, covering the years 1535-1547, 1660-1764.

Examples of entries in the directory are also available online.

Conservation project completed October 2002 - final report here.

Indexes to the Directory online

• Surname index.  This gives the name, place of activity and date of licence of all physicians and surgeons to whom licences were issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury (both through the vicar general and Faculty Office). 
• The placename index, arranged in alphabetical order of county, includes the majority of those noted in the surname index.  In addition to those for whom no location is given in the records, it also excludes those for whom the only indication of location is the number of dioceses in which (s)he was licensed to practise. This list does not mark out the Faculty Office licensees from those issued by the vicar general.

Select Bibliography

Harold J. Cook, The decline of the old medical regime in Stuart London, (1986).

J.R. Guy, 'The episcopal licensing of physicians, surgeons, and midwives,', Bulletin of the History of  Medicine, 56 (1982), pp. 528-42.

David Harley, '"Bred up in the study of that faculty." Licensed physicians in the north-west of England 1660-1760', Medical History, 38 (1994), pp. 398-420.

R.R. James, 'Licences to practise medicine and surgery issued by the Archbishops of Canterbury 1558-1775', Janus, 41 (1937), pp. 97-106.

Susan C. Lawrence, Charitable knowledge, hospital pupils and practitioners in eighteenth century London, (1995).

William Munk, The roll of the Royal College of Physicians. Vol. 1 (1878); vol. 2 (1878).

Margaret Pelling and Charles Webster, 'Medical practitioners' in C. Webster, ed., Health, medicine and mortality in the sixteenth century, (1978), pp.165-235.

Margaret Pelling, 'Tradition and diversity: medical practice in Norwich 1550-1640,' in Scienze, credenze occulte, livelli di cultura, Convegno internazionale di Studi, Florence (1982), pp.159-71.

John H. Raach, 'English medical licensing in the early seventeenth century', Yale Journal of biology and medicine, 16 (1944), 286 and ff.

John H. Raach, A directory of English country physicians, 1603-1643 (1962).

R.S. Roberts, 'The personnel and practice of medicine in Tudor and Stuart England', Medical History, 6 (1962), pp.363-82; 8 (1964), pp.217-34.

P.J. & R.V. Wallis, 18th century medics, Project for historical bibibliography, Newcastle, (2nd edition, 1988).