sehepunkte 25 (2025), Nr. 11

Richard Huscroft (ed.): English Episcopal Acta 47

This volume is a welcome addition to an important series. The English Episcopal Acta (EEA) project aims to encompass in print, both hard copy and online, the texts of all charters and other administrative documents of English bishops from the Norman Conquest until 1300, or until episcopal registers survive for the diocese in question (in some cases not until well into the fourteenth century). This is a key project for the study of medieval England. Historians and others could scarcely have engaged with aspects of the operation of the English Church had these records not been gathered together and published. The acta are too dispersed, there are too many questions of dating and textual authority - and yet they provide key insights into the operation of Latin Christendom, and parallel other big projects on acta, for example, for the English Crown, for Wales, Scotland and France, providing essential information and infrastructure for research. The EEA editions give historians a crucial, dated sequence of documentation, with plates of some at least of the acta in each volume, helping us to understand administrative practices and the writing of documents across three centuries: it is essential comparative material. The project started publication in 1980, and there are now only a handful of volumes outstanding, although these are not all expected to come to publication before the early 2030s.

Richard Hulcroft's addition to the series epitomises the qualities of these editions. It is the result of some 20 years work beyond the doctoral thesis on Burnell's life and career that started the editor on this research. The 197 texts of the acta of Bishops Robert Burnell and William March, who held the see of Bath and Wells in 1275-92 and 1293-1302 respectively, are drawn from no fewer than 11 archive repositories. Bath and Wells was among the middle-ranking English sees, in terms of wealth. Both bishops were royal administrators of significance, and their pairing in this volume will invite comparison, between each other, and with other members of the episcopate.

Bishop Burnell has long been considered one of the curial bishops of Edward I. He had been linked to Edward from early in his life. He was a clerk in Edward's household from the late 1250s, and chancellor of his household and keeper of his seal by September 1266. He did not go with Edward on Crusade: he remained in England in the expectation of capitalising on the vacancy in the see of Canterbury on the death of Boniface of Savoy in 1270. This was an opportunity for Burnell, but the centenary of Becket's martyrdom was hardly auspicious for royal intervention with the monks of Canterbury. Burnell obtained his bishopric at Bath and Wells in 1275 - his master could not achieve his clerk's promotion further, to Canterbury in 1278, nor to Winchester, one of the wealthiest sees in Europe, in 1280. The close relationship between the king and clerk was especially noteworthy. The clerk became the royal chancellor in 1274 and remained in post until his death in 1292. This was a period of major legislation, with significant questions for policy and royal administration. Burnell conducted the business of the royal chancery in close proximity to the king, accompanying him on expeditions to Wales and Scotland, and also to Gascony in 1286-9; politics and diplomacy were central to his life - and, indeed, he died at Berwick in 1292 just weeks before the Scottish Crown became John de Balliol's.

Against this background, it is not surprising that T. F. Tout, writing in the 1920s, found Burnell to be careless of the administration of his diocese. One of the key findings of this edition is that, despite Burnell's involvement in royal business, the evidence of the acta suggests otherwise, that Burnell was engaged and painstaking in relation to his diocese. While there may be no evidence for a visitation of the diocese, acta show new privileges, the defence of rights and an ability to work with the Dean and Chapter of Wells and Bath Priory.

The arrangement of the acta - by recipient - indicates main points of engagement of Burnell as diocesan: with Bath Priory, the citizens of Bath, with the king as the secular power, and so on. With regard to Glastonbury Abbey, the main business of the questions of royal patronage and the abbey had been resolved immediately prior to Burnell's appointment to the see. Twenty-one of Burnell's acta are documents relating to royal administration, and exemplify his engagement in its day to day business, for example, ordering the payment of justices on the Leicestershire eyre of 1281 from its estreats. The management of episcopal estates featured in his work, but there is little now to document it. Huscroft draws our attention to an undated letter about a newly discovered lead mine, in the Mendip Hills, which one of the episcopal servants believed was of a quality to be a significant source of silver: the ore was taken to the Bishop's estate at Wookey to be smelted there.

Estate correspondence with English bishops is well exemplified by the letters of Simon of Senlis to Bishop Ralph Neville of Chichester, earlier in the century; but there is little beyond the Mendip example for Burnell and the see of Bath and Wells. Likewise there is little now that can tie Burnell to the major building works that were in progress at the palace at Wells in the period 1270-1340, although he must have had an important connection. Huscroft's arrangement separates secular and personal acta from the episcopal. There are now scanty evidences of his personal support for almsgiving and religious institutions, although the manors given to Sixhills Priory and Waltham Abbey are suggestive of his engagement in this regard. By his death, his personal estates were extensive: he held in part or whole 18 manors, with land in 75 different places, spread over 19 counties. Nonetheless there was a focus on his home county of Shropshire and those neighbouring it; a group in south-east England may have been intended for stop-overs when visiting London or travelling to the Continent; and a further group in the south-west, especially Somerset, were largely acquired after he became bishop.

William March's career took him through the leading royal financial offices: successively cofferer of the wardrobe and its controller between 1280 and 1290, then treasurer of the exchequer until August 1295. In financial straits in 1294, Edward I had sent commissioners to churches and monastic institutions to seize funds: this attack on the Church caused great offence and may have led the king to sacrifice March the following year as a scapegoat; but the bishop was unpopular more widely, particularly in London, which had been under direct royal control since 1285. Although Burnell's reputation deserves some reappraisal for his engagement with the diocese, March's 41 acta do not rise above the routine: indulgences, excommunications, estate boundaries and management. There was, however, an attempt to have March canonised in the 1320s, the result of his many virtues and miracles at his tomb. Little is known of this, although it is singular that it coincided with the canonisation of Bishop Thomas Cantilupe of Hereford; there was also a keen interest in other saintly bishops at this point, such as John Dalderby at Lincoln.

The analyses in this volume also take us through the households of the bishops, in so far as we can establish them from witness lists. They do show, however, a little of the connections these bodies had, and wider work on the personnel of the diocese brings out other links and hints at clerical careers. There were other Burnells at Wells, for example, on the coat-tails of the bishop. Under Bishop March, one Master Antony of Bradley occurs twice in the acta. He was a canon of Wells, administering the spiritualities of the diocese after March's death and later John de Drokensford's official as bishop. There is a detailed examination of diplomatic of the acta, their seals and sealing. The four plates are welcome for what, cumulatively, across the EEA series, they will tell us about episcopal administration.

As a guide to the activities of bishops and their influence the EEA series is of great significance. This volume is a meticulous work, and a worthy peer of others in the series. Huscroft's work means that we must re-appraise the qualities of both Burnell and March: engaged in royal administration they may well have been, but that did not mean that there were not effective in their diocese (Burnell) or of holy repute (March).