From 1279 to 1642, the registers are the principal record of the Archbishop's administration. After the Restoration the registers were superseded in importance by the Archbishops' Act Books, part of the Vicar General archive.
The registers include institutions and appointments of clergy, grants of dispensations, ordinations, appointments of bishops, sede vacante administration of suffragan sees, diocesan and metropolitical visitations by the archbishop, visitation of monasteries, records of convocation, and heresy trials.
There are a large number of published finding aids to Archbishops' Registers (details attached right).
A micropublication of the Archbishops' Registers, 1272-1640 is available from World Microfilms Publications [1]. This also includes the cartulary of the see of Canterbury (MS 1212).
The Archbishops' Papers are the official papers of the Archbishop of Canterbury. They are wide-ranging, covering political and social issues as well as ecclesiastical history in Great Britain and more generally throughout the Anglican Communion. Apart from correspondence they includes diaries, sermons, newspaper cuttings, and reports on ordinands.
Although there are small collections for some earlier Archbishops, the papers mainly date from the mid 19th century onwards. They are often very extensive; for example those of Archbishop Davidson run to over 800 volumes.
The Archbishops' Papers are subject to a thirty-year closure rule.
Much of this material is available through our online catalogue, but there are also several published finding aids (see attachment, right).
Minute books of the Bishops' Meetings, a gathering of diocesan and suffragan bishops in England and Wales, chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and held biannually from 1871.
The collection is subject to a fifty-year closure rule.
The Carte Miscellanee or Lambeth Charters date from the 12th century, and include royal charters relating to archiepiscopal estates, patents of appointment of officials, bonds from recusants, returns of diocesan clergy made for Archbishops Grindal in 1576 and Whitgift in 1591, records relating to the London tithes dispute, 1634-9, to the Great Plague and Fire, 1665-6, and to the abbey of St Benet of Holme, Norfolk.
The collection was brought together and numbered as MSS. 889-901 in the early 18th century, but was disbound and renumbered as CM I-XX in the early 1960s.
The series has been continued with the addition of archiepiscopal records, the East Kent deeds of the Langleys and Peytons of Knowlton relating to Knowlton and Sandown, and various acquisitions from the late 12th century to the 20th century. These include a late 13th century roll of Augustinian statutes, 16th century deeds for various monasteries, including St. Augustine's, Canterbury, Christ Church, Canterbury, and Southwark priory, libri cleri for the diocese of Norwich, sede vacante, 1499, and for the diocese of Canterbury, 1610, professions of obedience to Archbishop Warham, 1504-23, and acta of Archbishop Warham, 1507-12.
Further information is available in:
Owen, D.M. A Catalogue of Lambeth Manuscripts 889 to 901 (Carte Antique et Miscellanee), (1968).
Carte Antique et Miscellanee: Supplementary Series (CM 23-55): a Catalogue.
Churchill, I.J. East Kent Records. A Calendar of Some Unpublished Documents and Court Rolls in the Library of Lambeth Palace, (Kent Records, vol. 7, 1922). [Now CM 31-36].
Convocation is the ancient legislative assembly for the province of Canterbury, which since the 15th century met as two houses, the upper house of bishops, presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the lower house (of clergy) who elect their own chairman.
From its prorogation in 1717 until its revival in 1852, Convocation conducted no business whatever, its meetings being purely formal. The records comprise act books of the upper and lower houses, and committee papers mainly from 1865 onwards. Earlier records of Convocation were often recorded in the mediaeval archbishops' registers and were printed in David Wilkins' Concilia (1737). From 1858, proceedings of Convocation were published in The Chronicles of Convocation.
The Court of Arches is the court of appeal of the Archbishop of Canterbury and dates back to the 13th century. With the exception of a dozen volumes, the very extensive archive dates from 1660. In its heyday the court exercised an extensive jurisdiction over marriage, probate and testamentary disputes, defamation, church property (rates, tithes, fabric of churches), and morals of the clergy and laity.
The collection includes over 2000 process books, transcripts of proceedings in the lower court sent up on appeal, and exhibits, including mediaeval title deeds (Fineshade cartulary), court books, probate accounts, churchwardens' accounts, rate books etc.
Further information is available in:
Houston, J. (ed.) Index of Cases in the Records of the Court of Arches at Lambeth Palace Library 1660-1913, (Index Library, vol. 85, 1972).
Several series of Court of Arches records have been published in microformat by Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., The Quorum, Barnwell Road, Cambridge, CB5 8SW.
The Faculty Office was set up under Peter's Pence Act of November 1533 to issue 'licences, dispensations, faculties, compositions, and rescripts, etc.' previously granted by the pope or papal curia.
With the exception of three muniment books or registers, the archive dates from 1660 and comprises records of the grant of a variety of dispensations throughout England and Wales, including dispensations to hold benefices in plurality, marriage licences, of appointment of public notaries in the British Isles and colonies, and the conferment of Lambeth degrees. Also included are a few medical licences, and dispensations for ordination.
There are a number of finding aids to Faculty Office material which do not yet form part of our online catalogue (see attachment, right).
The Papers of the Lambeth Conference, which met first in 1867 and roughly every ten years thereafter, comprise verbatim accounts of the proceedings, committee minutes, correspondence and photographs.
The subjects covered by the Conferences were wide-ranging, spanning social and political issues as well as matters of ecclesiastical and theological significance throughout the world (see the published reports and resolutions, and Davidson, R.T. (ed.), The Six Lambeth Conferences, 1867-1920, 1929).
A collection of papal bulls and rescripts, some of which were addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the majority of which relate to monastic houses, which came to Lambeth following the dissolution of the monasteries. The collection was arranged by A.C. Ducarel in the 18th century and bound up as MSS. 643-4. In 1960, the collection was disbound and numbered.
A Micropublication of the papal bulls is available from World Microfilms [2] in "Lambeth Palace Library: the medieval manuscripts" section II (Law MSS.), reel 18.
Further information is available in:
Sayers, J.E. Original Papal Documents in the Lambeth Palace Library. A Catalogue, (Bulletin of I.H.R., special supplement no. 6, 1967).
Records of the administration of the estates of the Archbishops of Canterbury situated principally in Kent, Surrey and Middlesex, but including property in Buckinghamshire, Lancashire, and Sussex. These include accounts, court rolls, leases, maps, plans, rentals, surveys and valuations, correspondence and related papers.
The composition of the temporalities was extensively changed by the Henrician exchanges whereby Archbishop Cranmer received a number of the former monastic estates in Kent and Lancashire in exchange for some of his more valuable properties in Kent and Surrey (see F.R.H. Du Boulay, The Lordship of Canterbury, 1966).
Further information is available in:
Sayers, J.E. Estate Documents at Lambeth Palace Library. A Short Catalogue, (1965). Includes court and account rolls for a few religious houses, including Christ Church, Canterbury, and the convent of St. Benet of Hulme, Norfolk, and for mediaeval bishops of Bath and Wells, Chichester, and Winchester.
The records of the Vicar General of the Archbishop of Canterbury relate to the ecclesiastical administration of the province, diocese and peculiars of Canterbury, mainly from 1660.
The collection includes the Archbishops' Act Books, which supersede the Archbishops' Registers as the principal record of archiepiscopal administration from 1663. They provide the link between the two major aspects of his metropolitical and primatial jurisdiction exercised through the Vicar General and the Faculty Office.
The Act Books record the appointments of bishops, the institution of clergy in the diocese of Canterbury, sede vacante appointments of clergy throughout the province of Canterbury, licences to officiate, to practise medicine, surgery, or midwifery, dispensations to clergy to hold in plurality, and appointments of proctors and advocates of the Court of Arches.
With the exception of the subscription books, diocesan surveys, and visitation returns, and a small collection of visitation act books, 1540-1640, most of the purely diocesan records are held by Canterbury Cathedral Archives.
Several finding aids for Vicar General material are not yet part of our online archive catalogue (see attachment, right).
Links:
[1] http://www.microworld.uk.com/
[2] http://www.microworld.uk.com