THE BELLICOSE BISHOP Of THE BATTLE OF NEVILLE’S CROSS, 1346

Abstract

This article attempts to identify the anonymous Franciscan bishop who, according to the Lanercost Chronicle, participated at the Battle of Neville’s Cross, Durham, against the invading Scots, on 17 October 1346. The Franciscan ‘Matthew episcopus Manchensis’, previously suggested to be the bishop in question, is shown to derive from a scribal error, but even the corrected Matthew bishop Organchensis was probably not the prelate in question. Rather, it is argued, another Durham suffragan, frater Richard bishop of Bisaccia, may have been in the man at Neville’s Cross.

Keywords:

• Middle Ages
• bishops
• Franciscan Order
• warfare

Notes

1 C. J. Rogers, ‘The Scottish Invasion of 1346’, Northern History, 34.1 (1998), pp. 51–69. The emphasis in many accounts of the battle on clerical involvement may have been in part a response to the alleged claim by the invading King David of Scotland that, because the English army was in France, those left in England to oppose him were merely ‘monks and canons, friars and priests, swinherds and shepherds, cobblers and skinners’: see Trevor Russell Smith, ‘Willing Body, Willing Mind: Non-Combatant Culpability according to English Combatant Writers, 1327–77’, in Killing and Being Killed: Bodies in Battle: Perspectives on Fighters in the Middle Ages, ed. Jörg Rogge, Mainzer Historische Kulturwissenschaften 38 (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2017), pp. 79–108 (p. 83).

2 David Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948–59), I, 321, II, 153–155, 369–375, III, 52, 492–496, and The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), pp. 697–701, 709–710; R. B. Dobson, ‘English and Welsh Monastic Bishops: The Final Century, 1433–1533’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain: Proceedings of the 1994 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Benjamin Thompson (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1999), pp. 348–367; Roy Martin Haines, ‘Regular Clergy and the Episcopate in the Provinces of Canterbury and York during the Later Middle Ages’, Revue bénédictine, 113 (2003), pp. 407–447.

3 John Kirkby, bishop of Carlisle, was an Augustinian canon. Thomas Hatfield was a secular clerk and was in France with Edward III in October 1346. Later tradition would place both these diocesans at the battle (see below).

4 For Franciscan bishops, see Michael J. P. Robson, A Biographical Register of the Franciscans in the Custody of York, c.1229–1539 (Woodbridge, 2019), pp. 64–69; Michael Robson, ‘Franciscan Bishops in Partibus Infidelium: Ministering in Medieval England’, Antonianum, 78 (2003), pp. 547–574, and his ‘Franciscan Bishops of Irish Dioceses Active in Medieval England: A Guide to Material in English Libraries and Archives’, Collectanea Hibernica, 38 (1996), pp. 7–39; also R. N. Swanson, ‘Mendicant Bishops in the British Isles in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries’, in Dal pulpito alla cattedra. I vescovi degli ordini mendicanti nel ‘200 e nel primo ‘300: Atti del XXVII Convegno internazionale, Assisi, 14–16 ottobre 1999 (Spoleto, 2000), pp. 305–347.

5 David Rollason and Michael Prestwich, eds., The Battle of Neville’s Cross 1346 (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 1998).

6 Joseph Stevenson, Chronicon de Lanercost M.CC.I.–MCCCXLVI e Codice Cottoniano nunc Primum Typis Mandatum (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1839), pp. 350–351; Herbert Maxwell, The Chronicle of Lanercost 1272–1346 (Glasgow: MacLehose, 1913), pp. 340–341, also Maxwell, ‘Chronicle of Lanercost’, Scottish Historical Review, 10.38 (1913), pp. 174–184 (p. 182); English Historical Documents. Volume IV c.1327–1485, ed. Alec R. Myers, (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1969), p. 84; Mark Arvanigian and Antony Leopold, ‘Illustrative Documents’, in The Battle of Neville's Cross 1346, eds. Rollason and Prestwich, pp. 132–163 (p. 140).

7 Annette Kehnel, ‘The Narrative Tradition of the Medieval Franciscan Friars on the British Isles. Introduction to the Sources’, Franciscan Studies, 63 (2005), pp. 461–530 (pp. 507–509); Andrea Ruddick, ‘Chronicon de Lanercost’, in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, ed. R. Graeme Dunphy (Leiden: Brill, 2010); John Taylor, English Historical Literature in the Fourteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, repr. 2001), pp. 20–21, 32–33; Robson, A Biographical Register, pp. 74–75; Anthony Tuck, ‘Otterbourne, Thomas (fl. c. 1340–1346), Historian’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); A. G. Little, ‘The Authorship of the Lanercost Chronicle’, English Historical Review, 31.122 (1916), pp. 269–279; Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing In England c.1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1982), p. 196. Christopher Tinmouth, ‘The Impact of the Anglo-Scottish Wars (1286–1347) upon Institutional Memories in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century Monastic Chronicles and Cartularies of Furness and Byland’, Northern History, 61.1 (2024), pp. 3–23.

8 Michael Twomey, ‘Richard of Durham’, in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle; Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 500 to c. 1307 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1974), pp. 494–501.

9 A. Tuck, ‘Otterbourne, Thomas (fl. c. 1340–1346)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004); Edward Donald Kennedy, ‘Otterbourne, Thomas (1)’, in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle.

10 Trevor Russell Smith has been examining these various texts in detail, and it is hoped that his research will be published in the not-too distant future.

11 Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection, MS 29; V. H. Galbraith, The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1333 to 1381, from a MS. written at St Mary's Abbey, York, and now in the Possession of Lieut.-Col. Sir William Ingilby, Bart., Ripley Castle, Yorkshire (Manchester, 1927, repr. 1970); Wendy R. Childs amd John Taylor, The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1307 to 1334, from Brotherton Collection MS 29 (Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1991); also John Taylor, ‘The Origins of the Anonimalle Chronicle’, Northern History, 31.1 (1995), pp. 45–64; A. King, ‘Anonimalle Chronicle’, in The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain (Wiley, 2017), 1–2; Julia Marvin, ‘Anonimalle Chronicle’, in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle (Leiden: Brill, 2014); A.F. Pollard, ‘The Authorship and Value of the “Anonimalle” Chronicle’, E.H.R., 53 (1938), pp. 577–605. The whole manuscript has been digitized online, at <https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/372703>.

12 H. S. Offler, ‘A Note on the Northern Franciscan Chronicle’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 28 (1984), pp. 45–59 (pp. 57–59), repr. in his North of the Tees: Studies in Medieval British History (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), essay XV; more recently, see Trevor Russell Smith, ‘The Durham Latin Prose “Brut” to 1347 with a Continuation to 1348: A Nationalistic Chronicle of England and Its Manuscripts’, Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, 5.1 (2020), pp. 120–141; Trevor Russell Smith, ‘Durham Latin Prose Brut’, in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle; also Trevor Russell Smith, ‘National Identity, Propaganda, and the Ethics of War in English Historical Literature, 1327–77’ (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 2017), pp. 205–265.

13 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Misc. 748, fol. 66v; I am grateful to Dr. Smith for his help and advise about this and the other texts. See H. H. E. Craster, ‘The Red Book of Durham’, E.H.R., 40 (1925), pp. 504–532 (pp. 508–12); Michael Twomey and Joshua A. Westgard, ‘Wessington, John [John Washington]’, in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle; R. Dobson, ‘Contrasting Chronicles: Historical Writing at York and Durham at the Close of the Middle Ages’, in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages, edited by I. Wood & G. Loud (London–Rio Grande: Hambledon Press, 1991), pp. 201–218 (pp. 205–209); R. B. Dobson, ‘Wessington, John (c. 1371–1451), Prior of Durham Cathedral Priory’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

14 Childs and Taylor, Anonimalle Chronicle 1307–1334, pp. 12, 19, 35.

15 H. S. Offler, ‘A Note of the Northern Franciscan Chronicle’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 28 (1984), pp. 45–59 (pp. 52–53, 55–56).

16 Galbraith, The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1333 to 1381, p. 27; Arvanigan and Leopold, ‘Illustrative Documents’, p. 145.

17 The shorter texts in the Durham Latin Prose ‘Brut’ and of Prior Wessington do not help us here, as there are no sentences or phrases in their accounts of the battle that may be compared with these statements from the Lanercost and Anonimalle chronicles.

18 For the poetry, see below; also A. G. Rigg, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature 1066–1422 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 261–265; Thomas Wright, Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History, Composed during the Period from the Accession of Edw. III. to that of Ric. III, Rolls Series, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1859-60), I, 40–53.

19 Offler, ‘A Note of the Northern Franciscan Chronicle’, p. 52, n. 37.

20 Offler, ‘A Note of the Northern Franciscan Chronicle’, p. 56; Rigg, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature, pp. 262–264. This poem is printed in Joseph Hall, The Poems of Laurence Minot (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887), pp. 108–115.

21 C. J. Rogers and M. C. Buck, ‘Appendix: Three New Accounts of the Neville’s Cross Campaign’, Northern History, 34.1 (1998), pp. 70–82 (pp. 80–81): ‘Hortante eos et juvante ad resistendum domino archiepiscopo Eboracensi, scilicet domino Willelmo de la Souche’.

22 Arvanigian and Leopold, ‘Illustrative Documents’, pp. 132–137; Clifford J. Rogers, The Wars of Edward III. Sources and Interpretations (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999), pp. 138–139; James Raine, ed., Historical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers, Rolls Series (London: Longman, 1873), pp. 385–389.

23 Wright, Political Poems and Songs, I, 156; Michael J. Curley, ‘Versus Propheciales, Prophecia Johannis Bridlingtoniensis (The Prophecy of John of Bridlington) An Edition’ (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Chicago, 1973), p. 94; see Rigg, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature, pp. 265–268; and A. G. Rigg, ‘John of Bridlington's Prophecy: A New Look’, Speculum, 63.3 (1988), pp. 596–613.

24 Wright, Political Poems and Songs, I, 158; Curley, ‘Versus Propheciales, Prophecia Johannis Bridlingtoniensis’, pp. 99–100.

25 For example, Thomas Burton, Chronica Monasterii de Melsa, ed. E. A. Bond, Rolls Series (London: Longman, 1866–68), III, 61 (here the bishop is said to have delayed at his manor to the south); Liber Pluscardensis, ed. F. J. H. Skene (Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1877), p. 224; Chronique Normande du XIVe siecle, ed. Auguste and Émile. Molinier (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1882), p. 87; Recits d'un Bourgeois de Valenciennes, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove (Louvain: Lefever, 1877), p. 241.

26 Richard H. Osberg, ed., The Poems of Laurence Minot, 1333–1352 (Kalamazoo Mich: Medieval Institute, 1996), pp. 59–60; Arvanigian and Leopold, ‘Illustrative Documents’, p. 150. Note also the later poem ‘Durham Field’: Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 vols in 10 parts (Boston Mass and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1882–98), III, part 6, pp. 282–287 (=Child 159); while later in date in its extant form, this poem may have been originally composed ‘not long after the event’ though its historical value is doubtful: short title, as cited above already: Taylor, English Historical Literature, pp. 252–253, 268.

27 Chronique de Jean de Bel, edd. Jules Viard and accents have been lost: Eugène Déprez (Paris: Laurens, 1905), p. 126; Nigel Bryant, ed. and trans. The True Chronicles of Jean le Bel, 1290–1360 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011); Jean Froissart, Chroniques, ed. Siméon Luce, 8 vols (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1869-88), V, 490.

28 Robson, ‘Franciscan Bishops in Partibus Infidelium’, p. 547, states that A. G. Little made this identification. It is not given in Little’s Franciscan Papers, Lists, and Documents (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1943), p. 45, and is presumably cited from Little’s unpublished list of Franciscan bishops in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Eng. hist. d. 440 (SC 39718), fols. 136–196. Dom David Knowles seems to have accepted the identification, or made it himself independently: The Religious Orders in England, II, 375. Also, note Robson, Biographical Register, p. 75, where the identification is not made.

29 Durham, University Library and Collections, Palace Green Library, Mickleton and Spearman (MSP) MS 94, fol. 1v; printed in Richard d’Aungerville of Bury. Fragments of his Register, and Other Documents, Publications of the Surtees Society, 119 (Durham and London: Surtees Society, 1910), p. 161.

30 Richard d’Aungerville of Bury, p. 161n.

31 Durham, Palace Green Library, MSP MS 47, fol. 4v.

32 Durham, Palace Green Library, MSP MS 97, fol. 112v.

33 Possibly Organchensis was written in the original register with the common O-R ligature that was misread for M, though we would still need to account for the letter –g-.

34 Orkney (usually Orkadensis Orchadensis), see ‘Illuminierte Urkunden - Bischofsammelablässe 1342-02-17_Burg_Steinfurt’, in MOM: Monasterium Collaborative Archive, URL </mom/IlluminierteUrkundenBischofsammelablaesse/1342-02-17_Burg_Steinfurt/charter>, accessed on 21 Nov. 2023.

35 There was apparently a William, bishop Urgancie, in 1393: Giorgio Fedalto, La Chiesa Latina in Oriente, 3 vols (Verona: Casa Editrice Mazziana, 1973–78), I, 495, II, 184–185, citing Giorgio Tamba, Bernardo de Rodulfis notaio in Venezia 1392–1399, Fonti per la storia di Venezia: Sezione III, Archivi notarili, Fonti per la storia di Venezia (Venice, 1974), pp. 45–46; J. D. Ryan, ‘Preaching Christianity along the Silk Route: Missionary Outposts in the Tartar “Middle Kingdom” in the Fourteenth Century’, Journal of Early Modern History, 2.4 (1998), 350–373 (p. 365, n. 51).

36 For the Franciscan missions in general, see Michael Robson, The Franciscans in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009), pp. 78–81, 108–118.

37 Girolamo Golubovich, Biblioteca Bio-Bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell'Oriente Francescano 5 vols (Firenze: Quaracch, 1906–27), II, 570–571, IV, 310; Ryan, ‘Preaching Christianity along the Silk Route’, p. 365; Jean Richard, La papauté et les missions d'Orient au Moyen-Âge (XIII–XIVème siècle) (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1977), pp. 3–325 (p. 162); and, Gregor Prichodko, ‘Le territoire canonique: construction juridique et enjeux politiques dans le premier millénaire. Application au contexte russe’ (unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Université Paris-Saclay, 2020), p. 272. For brother Pascual’s letter, see Analecta Franciscana sive, Chronica aliaque varia documenta ad historiam Fratrum Minorum spectantia, III (Quaracchi, 1897), pp. 532–33; Noel Muscat (trans.), Arnald of Sarrant: Chronicle of the Twenty-Four Generals of the Order of Friars Minor [1369–1374] (Malta, 2010), pp. 718–720. The reference to a convent at Organe (Organte) by Bartolomeo di Pisa (d. 1401), in his De Conformitate Vitae B. P. Francisco ad Vitam Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, has also been seen as a reference to the mission at Urgench: Analecta Franciscana, IV (Quaracchi, 1906), p. 557; Roman Hautala, ‘Catholic Missions in the Golden Horde Territory’, in From Pax Mongolica to Pax Ottomanica: War, Religion and Trade in the Northwestern Black Sea Region (14th–16th Centuries), eds. Ovidiu Cristea and Liviu Pilat (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 39-65 (p. 58, n. 83).

38 On suffragan bishops, see Robson, ‘Franciscan Bishops in partibus infidelium’; also John A. F. Thomson, The Early Tudor Church and Society 1485–1529 (London and New York, 1993), pp. 111–114; A. Hamilton Thompson, The English Clergy and their Organization in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 48–50, 200–206, 299–300; R. N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 1993), pp. 8-10, 86-88; D. M. Smith, ‘Suffragan Bishops in the Medieval Diocese of Lincoln’, Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, 17 (1982), 17–27; Robson, A Biographical Register, pp. 64–69.

39 Konrad Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi, sive Summorum Pontificum, S. R. E. Cardinalium, Ecclesiarum Antistitum Series ab Anno 1198 usque ad Annum Perducta e Documentis Tabularii Praesertim Vaticani Collecta, digesta, 6 vols (Monasterii, Sumptibus et Typis Librariae Regensbergianae, 1913–67), I, 378.

40 For his collective indulgences, see ‘Matthäus, Bischof Organthensis (Persien, auch Organchensis/ Organcensis. Ort nicht mit letzter Sicherheit identifizierbar.) 1340–1342’, in MOM: Monasterium Collaborative Archive, at http://monasterium.net:8181/mom/index/BischoefeAblaesse/P_Matthaeus__1340.

41 C. R. Cheney, ‘Illuminated Collective Indulgences from Avignon’, in Palaeographica, diplomatica et archivistica. Studi in onore di Giulio Battelli: a cura della Scuola speciale per archivisti e bibliotecari dell'Università di Roma, II (Rome, 1979), pp. 353–373, repr. in The Papacy and England, 12th–14th centuries: Historical and Legal Studies (London: Variorum Reprints, 1982).

42 Joseph von Hormayr, Wien, seine Geschicke und Denkwürdigkeiten, 5 (Vienna, 1823), pp. xxv–xxvii (no. CXXXVIII); Gabriele Bartz, ‘Fegefeuer und Wohltaten. Die Werkstatt der Avignoner Sammelablässe im Licht der Urkunden für und in Nürnberg’, in Nürnbergs Glanz. Studien zu Architektur und Ausstattung seiner Kirchen in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, eds. Jiří Fajt, Markus Hörsch and Marius Winzeler, Studia Jagellonica Lipsiensia, 20 (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2019), pp. 89–100 (p. 95). See also ‘Illuminierte Urkunden - Bischofsammelablässe 1347-10-15_Wien’, in: MOM: Monasterium Collaborative Archive, URL </mom/IlluminierteUrkundenBischofsammelablaesse/1347-10-15_Wien/charter>, accessed at 21 Nov. 2023.

43 Eubel, Hierarchia, I, 189; P. Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series Episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae (1873; Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1957), p. 923. However, Raimondo Turtas, Storia della Chiesa in Sardegna dalle origini al Duemila (Rome: Città Nuova, 1999), pp. 860–861, has other bishops in 1349: cited in Giacomo Floris, ‘Signoria, incastellamento e riorganizzazione di un territorio nel tardo Medioevo: il caso della Gallura’ (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 2013), p. 327.

44 Ursmer Berlière, Monasticon Belge (Maredsous, 1897), I, 23; Ursmer Berlière, ‘Documents vaticans et charts concernant l’abbaye de Gembloux’, Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis bijzonderlijk van het aloude hertogdom Brabant, 5 (1906), pp. 121–136 (pp. 127–129); Recueil des chartes de l'Abbaye de Gembloux, ed. C.-G. Roland (Gembloux: Duculot, 1921), pp. 190–191.

45 Berlière, ‘Documents vaticans et charts’, p. 126.

46 Ursmer Berlière, ‘Les évêques auxiliaires de Liége. (Suite)’, Revue bénédictine, 29 (1912), pp. 304–338 (pp. 304–338).

47 For example in April 1324 an indulgence was issued by John le Petit, called bishop of Clonfert (he had been deprived in the previous year), for visitors to Bishop Cantilupe’s tomb at Hereford Cathedral, though during the period 1322–24 he served as suffragan in Worcester and Exeter dioceses: R. N. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England Passports to Paradise? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 39. Similarly, in 1353, Thomas Salkeld, Franciscan bishop of Chrysopolis, issued an indulgence for St Mary’s chapel in Smithfield cemetery, London, even though possibly by 1349 and certainly by 1354 he was serving as suffragan for the archbishop of York: London, The National Archives, E326/11727; Robson, A Biographical Register, p. 231; L. A. S. Butler, ‘Suffragan Bishops in the Medieval Diocese of York’, Northern History, 37 (2000), pp. 56–60 (p. 57).

48 For the Latin text, see Leon Walras, ‘Monnaie D'Or avec Billon d'Argent Regulateur’, Revue de droit international et de législation comparée, first series, 16.1 (1884), pp. 575–618 (pp. 590–591). See also Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 1, 1202–1509, ed. Rawdon Brown (London: Longman, 1864), no. 25; English Historical Documents. Volume IV c.1327–1485, ed. A. R. Myers (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 67–68; I libri commemoriali della Republica di Venezia regesti, II (Venice, 1878), p. 85; and note also Marc Bloch, The Royal Touch. Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England and France, trans. J.E. Anderson (London and Montreal: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), pp. 1, 292.

49 David M. Smith, York Clergy Ordinations 1342–1352 (York: Borthwick Institute, 2021), pp. vi–vii.

50 Analecta Franciscana, III (Quaracchi, 1897), p. 638, and Muscat (trans.), Arnald of Sarrant, p. 871; Analecta Franciscana, II (Quaracchi, 1885), p. 177.

51 For his collective indulgences, see ‘Richardus, Bischof von Bisaccia (Italien, Bisaciensis/Bisaniensis) 1356–1362,’ MOM: Monasterium Collaborative Archive: URL < http://monasterium.net:8181/mom/index/BischoefeAblaesse/P_Richardus_Bisaccia_1356>. In addition, see Staatsarchiv Nürnberg, Fürstentum Ansbach, Urkunden vor 1401 1861; and Fürstenbergisches Urkundenbuch. Sammlung der Quellen zur Geschichte des Hauses Fürstenberg und seiner Lande in Schwaben, 5 (Tübingen, 1885), p. 360.

52 For the ordinations celebrated by brother Richard, bishop of Bisaccia, see: Thomas Duffus Hardy, Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense. The Register of Richard de Kellawe, Lord Palatine and Bishop of Durham, 1311–1316, Rolls Series, 3 vols (London: Longman, 1873–78), III, 117–150, printed from TNA DURH 3/1; Durham, Palace Green Library, Reg. Hat., fols, Vr, VIr, VIIIv, 36v, 39r, and 92r ff.; Smith, York Clergy Ordinations 1342–1352, pp. 7–16, 63, printed from York, BIA, Reg. 10A, fols. 3r–4v, 18r; and, Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, Reg. B/A/1/1, fols. 199r–205r.

53 During this period, Bishop Richard also issued an indulgence, on 13 August 1343, for those who would listen to the preaching of the monks of Durham Cathedral Priory: Durham, University Library and Collections, Dean and Chapter Muniments, MS 1/13/Pont.1. For a more or less identical indulgence by Bishop Bury of Durham, issued on the same day, see MS 1/13/Pont.7.

54 David Robinson, ‘Titles for Orders in England, 1268–1348’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 65.3 (2014), pp. 522–550 (p. 538).

55 For this bishop, see Eubel, Hierarchia, I, 292. He was consecrated on 23 October 1349, and then is named in collective indulgences between 25 March 1350 and 21 June 1351. He served as suffragan in Durham diocese during the period 1353–68.

56 In addition to indulgences cited above MOM: Monasterium Collaborative Archive, see also Saul António Gomes, ‘Uma “littera indulgentiarum” avinionense de 1356 na Colegiada de Santa Maria de Alcáçova de Santarém (Portugal)’, Faventia, 25.2 (2003), pp. 75–84 (p. 83); K. Th. Zingler, ‘Geschichte der Klosters Beuron im Donauthale’, Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte und Altertumskunde in Hohenzollern, 20 (1886), pp. 49–100 (p. 80).

57 Anna Maria Voci, ‘La cappella di corte dei primi sovrani angioini di Napoli’, Archivio storico per le province napoletane, 113 (1995), pp. 69–126 (p. 121); Riccardo Bevere, ‘Notizie storiche tratte dai documenti conosciuti sotto il nome di arche in carta bambagina’, Archivio storico per le province napoletane, 25 (1900), pp. 241–275 (pp. 267–268); Camillo Minieri-Riccio, Studii storici, fatti sopra 84 registri angioini dell'archivio di stato di Napoli (Naples: R. Rinaldi e G. Sellitto, 1876), p. 4.

58 For the fourteenth century, we may note the Irish Carmelite Ralph Ó Ceallaigh, who as bishop of Leighlin, ordained in 1344–45 on behalf of the archbishop of York, with three ceremonies held at the Carmelites’ conventual church at York. Similarly, the Franciscan Roger Craddock, bishop of Waterford (1350; transl. Llandaff, 1361), held four ordination ceremonies in the diocese of Lichfield in 1351–52: three at O.F.M. Shrewsbury and another at O.F.M. Stafford. The Dominican Nicholas Burbache, bishop Christopolitanus, ordained for the Bishop of Salisbury between 1391 and 1409, often at O.P. Fisherton; and over half of the ordinations held by his confrère and contemporary William de Northburg, bishop Pharensis, O.P., 1405–09, occurred at the Domincan conventual church at York.

59 Robson, The Franciscans in the Middle Ages, p. 178.

60 Samantha Kelly, The New Solomon. Robert of Naples (1309–1343) and Fourteenth-Century Kingship (Leiden and Boston MA: Brill, 2003), p. 63; Voci, ‘La cappella di corte dei primi sovrani angioini di Napoli’, pp. 120, 124; Cornelia C. Coulter, ‘The Library of the Angevin Kings at Naples’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 75 (1944), pp. 141–155 (p. 143).

61 For the fourteenth century, we have the Italians Peter de Bologna, O.F.M., bishop Corbavensis, 1318–32, and his successor and confrère Boniface de Pisa, 1332–40/1; and presumably also Caesarius, O.F.M., called ecclesie Sancte Marie de Rosis episcopus, 1439–55: Robson, Biographical Register, pp. 105–108, 217–218; Robson, ‘Peter of Bologna (c. 1260–1332) Franciscan Bishop of Corbavia’, Collectanea Francescana, 63.1–2 (1993), pp. 5–35.

62 For example, Gilbert of Norwich, Carmelite, bishop of Hamar, Norway, was suffragan to the bishop of Norwich 1272–80; William Northburg, O.P., bishop Pharensis or Faereyensis whose see has been variously identifed with the Faroe Isles, Faro in Portugal, and Hvar or Lesina in Spalato, Dalmatia, and who occurs as suffragan in England between 1381 and 1411; John Bloxwich, Carmelite, who, as bishop Holensis or Olensis, possibly Hólar in Iceland, assisted in various English dioceses after 1436, and was succeeded by Robert Woodborn, O.E.S.A., in 1441 and occurs in Durham in 1451; Robert Ringman, O.F.M., bishop Gardarensis and Gradensis, possibly Garðar, Greenland, served in Norwich 1425–53. Also, Guillaume de Cordemberghe, bishop of Tournai, France, and later of Basel, 1393/4–1401: Édouard Perroy, ‘Un évêque urbaniste protégé de l'Angleterre: Guillaume de Coudenberghe, évêque de Tournai et de Bâle’, Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, 26.1 (1930), pp. 104–109.

63 Richard Copsey, Biographical Register of Carmelites in England and Wales 1240–1540 (Faversham: St Albert’s Press, 2020), pp. 197–198. The idea that Paschal had been bishop Scutarensis (Shkodra) before 1347 seems difficult to substantiate.

64 Eubel, Hierarchia, I, 136; Ferdinando Ughelli, Italia Sacra sive de Episcopis Italiae, et Insularum Adjacentium, 10 vols (second edition, Venice, 1720), VI, 837.

65 However, it is worth noting that Johannes Bisacien’ episcopus is named in a collective indulgence dated 12 December 1329 ‘Illuminierte Urkunden 1329-12-20_Koblenz’, in MOM: Monasterium Collaborative Archive: URL </mom/IlluminierteUrkunden/1329-12-20_Koblenz/charter>, accessed 21 Nov. 2023.

66 The Latin text of this indulgence is reproduced by permission of Durham University Library and Collections.