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This article studies illegitimacy, which was a canonical impediment to ordination, within the English clergy between 1198 and 1348. Scholarship on illegitimacy in the clergy has previously relied on canon law, conciliar decrees, and dispensations preserved in papal registers. Using these sources, historians have concluded that the papacy tightly controlled illegitimate men's access to orders, that the burdens of obtaining dispensations for illegitimacy (the defectus natalium) could pose substantial obstacles to a man's clerical career, and that priests' sons made up a significant percentage of the illegitimate clergy. This article, which draws on the large and previously untapped body of dispensations surviving in English episcopal registers to supplement the papal sources, reaches different conclusions. It argues that the great majority of illegitimate clerics in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century English clergy were the sons of unmarried lay parents. It further argues that dispensations were more readily accessible than has previously been suggested, and emphasises the importance of local branches of the ecclesiastical hierarchy to an individual's efforts to attain a dispensation to enter holy orders.     

New evidence of noble and gentry piety in fifteenth-century England and Wales

There has been much recent examination of late medieval lay piety in order to understand the background to Henry VIII's reformation, notably Colin Richmond's studies of the ‘privatised’ religion of the English gentry. Such work has largely over-looked papal sources and the associated issue of relations between English and Welsh society and the papacy. This article seeks to remedy this neglect by presenting new evidence from the registers of the papal penitentiary. In the late middle ages the papal penitentiary was the highest office in the western Church concerned with matters of conscience and the principal source of papal absolutions, dispensations and licences. Petitions seeking such favours were copied in its registers, and this article especially concerns petitions from English and Welsh gentry seeking licences to have a portable altar or to appoint a personal confessor (littere confessionales). It also examines their requests for various other favours that illustrate their piety, notably regarding fasting, chastity and pilgrimage. The article contests Richmond's notion of ‘privatised’ gentry religion and similar distinctions between elite and popular or personal and collective religion. It appends translations of three significant documents from the penitentiary registers and a statistical table concerning requests for littere confessionales.     

Female Petitioners in the Papal Penitentiary

Historians do not consider the Vatican Archives to be of major interest to gender studies, especially as regards the history of women. In general this is quite true; not so, however, for the registers of the papal Penitentiary, the central office of the medieval Church for licences, dispensations and absolutions for lay people, clerics, monks and nuns alike. Drawing on the tens of thousands of supplications submitted to, and registered by, the Penitentiary, this article discusses cases concerning female petitioners, such as illegitimate birth, runaway nuns, forced entry into religious orders, matrimonial dispensations, forced marriages etc.     

Two notaries and their records in England, 1282–1307

Evidence concerning notaries public in England before 1300 has been limited to indirect contemporary references, some scattered original public instruments, and several truncated copies and summaries of their documents (in episcopal registers, for instance). Even with inferences based upon the foregoing — and John of Bologna's guidebook for fledgling English notaries — since none of their notebooks, registers or rough drafts have survived, next to nothing is known about their practical documentary methodologies and daily routines (certainly in comparison with the continental notariate). However, during 1307 a papal commission sitting in London examined and recorded some of the papers and registers belonging to two notaries who had lived and worked in England from at least 1280 to about 1300: John de Beccles and Hildebrand of Siena. The record of that examination, Vatican MS. Cod. Lat. 4016, provides the earliest detailed look at the thirteenth-century notariate in England that has yet come to light.     

“Sailing in Stormy Waters”: Archbishop Matthew Beovich and the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide in the 1960s

In comparison with the modest religious revival of the 1950s, the 1960s was a time of change and turbulence. This article focuses on Archbishop Matthew Beovich (1896–1981) and the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Adelaide in South Australia. It briefly considers Beovich's involvement in the Second Vatican Council before turning to the implementation of conciliar reforms in his diocese. Other areas examined include the reaction in Adelaide to the papal encyclical on birth control, Humanae Vitae; discontent among some clergy in the late 1960s; and the controversial Vietnam War. The challenges of the decade brought out the best and worst of Beovich's leadership qualities: his wisdom and compassion were sometimes obscured by a brusque manner and an inability to cope effectively with dissent. As the problems that faced Beovich were not unique to the archdiocese of Adelaide, this article sheds lights on the strengths and weaknesses of institutional Catholicism in this period.     

Convict bastards, common-law unions, and shotgun weddings: premarital conceptions and ex-nuptial births in nineteenth-century Tasmania

This article uses reconstituted family data from birth, death, and marriage registers to measure ex-nuptial fertility and premarital pregnancies in nineteenth-century Tasmania. It also examines the extent to which convict origins of European society on the island caused a departure from English norms of family formation behavior, during a period when men greatly outnumbered women. Illegitimacy was high during the convict period. From the mid-1850s, after the convict system collapsed, levels of ex-nupital births were relatively constant until the end of the century, as indicated both by the illegitimacy rate and by the proportion of marriages associated with prenuptial births. By the end of the nineteenth-century, rates of illegitimacy and prenuptial conceptions in Tasmania were well within the range of those of contemporary English-speaking populations.     

Review Article: The Lights that Failed - and Those Never Lit

The unresolved question of who would succeed Queen Elizabeth I in the last years of the sixteenth century had repercussions beyond the British Isles. For the papacy, the contested succession seemed to provide a possibility of returning England to the Roman Catholic Church. This article places the English succession crisis in an international context, analysing the interests of princes in Spain, France, Flanders, and on the Italian peninsula from the perspective of papal diplomacy. Studying Pope Clement VIII's efforts to balance these princely interests, this article examines the options discussed in Rome, which ranged from converting James VI of Scotland - if he became King of England - to installing a Catholic candidate from the European mainland. It argues that Pope Clement VIII was not duped into passivity by James VI/I's vague promises of conversion and demonstrates that the Pope pursued a flexible policy which considered the succession in England within a much wider context: the retention of the Catholic religion in Europe.     

Notes from County Correspondents.

In 1503, the canons of Ripon Minster initiated a building campaign to replace the church’s nave. Through a careful study of the documentary evidence, including sources that have not previously been considered, this article investigates how Ripon’s clergy organised and funded the project. It offers a more precise chronology of the works and an assessment of their impact on the use of the church by its parishioners. The article also considers the clergy’s motives for rebuilding, proving that the renovation was not a reaction to the old nave’s deterioration so much as an initiative to create a grander architectural setting for processions and more space for burial within the church.     

Charles of Anjou,Pope Gregory X and the crown of Jerusalem

This article seeks to dispel the popular myth that Pope Gregory X (1271–6) wanted to change the government of the kingdom of Jerusalem by putting Charles of Anjou on its throne through the purchase of the claim of Maria of Antioch. A study of the Angevin chancery records – little used by crusade historians – demonstrates that Charles had an interest and influence in the kingdom before Gregory became pope. An examination of Gregory's papal registers shows that he consistently treated Hugh of Lusignan as king of Jerusalem and that the pope had no desire for anything to disrupt the peace in Christendom that he deemed necessary for his crusade.     

The Colonial Religion of the Anglican Clergy: Western Australia 1830 to c. 1870

This article sets out to remedy an historiographical oversight in Australian history by identifying the principal characteristics of the religious culture of Anglican clergy in the colony of Western Australia between 1830 and about 1870. Using sources, both personal from clergy or clergy wives, and official correspondence with the colonial governments, and clergy correspondence to mission societies and their bishop, a number of features of clergy religion are delineated. They enable a comparison to be made between metropolitan and colonial Anglican clergy cultures. These include anxieties about status and income; the involvement of the clergy in charity, education, church building, and public worship; isolation and religious competition. While many of these were familiar to English clergy, they took on new aspects in the colonial context, which required the clergy there to become conscious that the colony was a new land, however much they attempted to remake it in their own ecclesiastical image.     

The Yorkshire Rebellion of 1489 Reconsidered

Abstract

'The Clerical Population of the Northern Province in 1377–1381: a New Estimate'. Recent research has demonstrated the completeness and usefulness of the hitherto largely disregarded collectors' enrolments of the Clerical Poll Taxes of 1377–81 for the historian. This article makes use of a new edition of these enrolments and other recent research into the secular clergy and the religious houses of Northern England to draw up a new estimate of the numbers of clergy, secular and religious, in the York Province of the English Church. The estimate is compared with the last detailed estimate in the field, that of Josiah Cox Russell, whose estimates were published in the 1940s.     

Following a ‘standstill’: An ethnographic approach to financialization

This article addresses Dubai's recent financial crisis, bringing an ethnographic approach to ‘financialization’. It does so by repurposing the financial concept of ‘standstill’. Focusing on the consequences of the Dubai government's infamous ‘standstill announcement’, in late 2009, it argues that unpacking the literal and figurative registers of this concept offers insights into the political economy and lived experiences of financial crises.     

Ritual,what else? Papal letters,sermons and the making of crusaders

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the importance of papal letters and crusade sermons for the process of recruiting crusaders and analyses different communicative aspects which were at play during events recruiting for the crusade. It argues that both papal letters and sermons were vital elements for effective crusade propaganda but that they fulfilled distinct functions. While letters emanating from the papal curia set the strategic, organisational and legal goalposts for crusade propaganda, crusade sermons were central to the successful recruitment of crusaders. The article highlights the performative aspects of crusade preaching by Pope Urban II at Clermont in 1095 and Abbot Martin of Pairis at Basel in 1200 and shows that ritualised communication played an important role during recruitment events.     

The Life of Constantine,the Life of Methodius and the history of the Slavs in the ninth century: a reassessment

The Slavonic Lives of Constantine/Cyril (d. 869) and Methodius (d. 885) are generally considered to have been written shortly after the death of these two saints, and in any case in the ninth century. However, the present article tries to show that this contention is not conclusive. Instead, it argues for a later writing, in the course of the tenth or eleventh centuries, taking into account in particular the authors' use of older Latin sources on the same theme. As a result, the specific information from these two Lives is subject to caution, which has important consequences for the biography of Constantine/Cyril, for the modalities of the papal mission to Moravia, and more generally for the history of the Slavic countries in the ninth century.     

Sex, religion, and the single woman c.1950-75: the importance of a 'short' sexual revolution to the English religious crisis of the sixties

The English 'sexual revolution' has recently become increasingly conceived as 'long', lasting many decades, and by some historians as a gradual phenomenon, but reaching a peak with the introduction of the oral contraceptive pill in the 1960s. At the same time, the 'religious crisis' of the same decade has been attributed by some recent scholarship to liberal Christian revolt within the churches, and largely unconnected with sex. This article offers different views. First, based on the illegitimacy rate, it argues that, after a period of decline, restraint, and only minor change in the period 1946-59, the 1960s witnessed a sudden growth in pre-marital heterosexual intercourse before the pill's availability to single women, implying a cultural rather than a technological cause. Second, based on contemporary social surveys, it argues that there is clear evidence of a strong inverse correlation between levels of religious activity and levels of pre-marital sexual intercourse. Third, it argues that in the 1950s the dominant conservative Christian culture restrained single women from pre-marital sexual intercourse, but that from the early 1960s changing attitudes led to rising levels of sexual activity, led by single women, which reduced religious attitudes and Christian churchgoing, thus constituting a significant instigator of the religious crisis.     

Charlemagne's involvement in central and southern Italy: power and the limits of authority

This article is an overview of political developments in southern Italy during Charlemagne's reign. Traditionally the historiography has approached this topic from a Carolingian or papal perspective. Without denying the reality of both papal and Carolingian influence, the article argues that neither of these institutions exercised predominant influence in southern Italy in this period, much as they may have wished to. Rather the pattern of political (and to an extent ideological) development in the area was determined by a series of compromises dictated by self-interest and the limits of power. This article therefore deals in turn with the evidence concerning the main protagonists in the south: the abbey of Farfa, the dukes of Spoleto, the monasteries of Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo al Volturno and the princes of Benevento. The article goes on to argue that the activities of these institutions are driven by self-interest. Finally the paper concludes that in the 790s there is a change in the way Carolingian government worked, at least in Spoleto.     

Infallibilists in the curia of Pope John XXII

In 1324 the idea of papal infallibility was saved from condemnation at the hands of Pope John XXII through the influence of a small group of infallibilists in John's curia. Founded about 1314 by Peter de la Palu, this group developed the idea of the absolute infallibility of the local Roman church first to defend the privileges of the mendicant orders, then to defend the whole church against heresy. Its members included Guido Terreni, who from 1318 seems to have taken the lead in the development of the idea, and John Regina of Naples, whose argument in 1324 that infallibility was an “ancient teaching of the church” appears to have been decisive in averting Pope John's condemnation. The existence of this group of ‘curial infallibilists’ before 1324 revises the suggestion of recent research that the Franciscan, anti-papal conception of papal infallibility which surfaced in the early 1320's served as the inspiration for the development of a curial, pro-papal conception in the late 1320's. The curial conception was not a response to the Franciscan conception, but an independent, parallel development. Peter de la Palu and Guido Terreni in 1318 were not even aware that Peter Olivi, the formulator of the Franciscan conception, had taught a theory of infallibility. In fact, they condemned him for not doing so. If Olivi's theory had any influence on Palu's initial conception, it was through the very simplified version of an intermediary.