Burial Practices in the Northern Danelaw,c.650–1100

Abstract

The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 formed a watershed in the pastoral care of Western Europe. Aiming to transform nominal faith into a more active and personal religious experience, the Lateran IV decrees instigated an internal mission. In the decades immediately following the Council, its reforms were disseminated across Europe through diocesan legislation, where bishops adapted the decrees to fit local circumstances. This paper attempts to follow both the transmission and implementation of the 1215 decrees in the Northern Province, analysing both the reforming climate of northern England and the actual effects of the legislation in the approximate century and a quarter immediately following the Fourth Lateran Council.     

The Durham Gentry and the Scottish March, 1370–1400: County Service in Late Medieval England

Abstract

The study of landed society has moved beyond the polarizing paradigms of 'community' and 'affinity', and now ensures a healthy respect for regional variation based upon numerous variables. In the North-East, it has long been understood that great landlords, secular as well as ecclesiastics, were critical to the defence of the Scottish March and were thus vested with a great deal of authority by Crown and country. It would therefore be very much to be expected that local landed society and politics would be dominated by the region's great affinities, such as those of the Nevilles and the Percies, along with that of the bishop of Durham. But close study of the landed community reveals a more complex picture, one in which members of the region's gentry often achieved real measures of independence, many attending their affairs far outside these great baronial retinues and households, and building wealth and careers over time independent of the region's great magnates, who exercised such a profound influence over national affairs. Their holdings, careers, and political activities are the main subjects of this essay.     

William the Conqueror's Campaign in Cheshire in 1069–70: Ravaging and Resistance in the North-West

Abstract

'Catholics, Conformity and the Community in the Elizabethan Diocese of Durham'. This article explores the development of Elizabethan Catholicism, challenging historical divisions between 'missionary' and 'traditional' Catholicism. By examining contrasting patterns of conformity among Durham Catholics, the article highlights divisions within the Catholic community about the implications of recusancy, showing that religious nonconformity reflected political, as well as pious, considerations. Challenging the traditional emphasis on the role of missionary priests in shaping English Catholicism, this article argues that the evolution of Catholicism — including patterns of worship and relationships with the State — was driven by the social, political and economic legacies of the local societies from which Elizabethan Catholic communities emerged.     

CHARTERS,NORTHUMBRIA AND THE UNIFICATION OF ENGLAND IN THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between the clergy and their secular neighbours in the diocese of Durham in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In particular, it seeks to uncover the extent to which the two spheres experienced a shared sense of identity, in a period when that relationship was being recalibrated as the full impact of the Reformation was making itself felt. For example, the novelty of clerical marriage, within and without the clerical community, as well as oppositional doctrinal and confessional outlooks, were superimposed on to existing associations and networks. In other respects interaction between the clergy and lay society fluctuated between harmonious and positive to contentious and damaging. Meanwhile, preconceptions about the diocese are re-examined in the context of this relationship.     

Surviving the Mid-Fifteenth-Century Recession: Durham Cathedral Priory, 1400–1520

Abstract

'Surviving the Mid-Fifteenth-Century Recession: Durham Cathedral Priory, 1400–1520'. The exact chronology of the fifteenth-century recession and its impact on medieval landowners is still far from clear, whilst the stimulus and timing of recovery are even more uncertain. Recent research has shown that the economy of the North-East of England stagnated after the recession with few signs of recovery. Despite this, successive bursars of Durham Priory were able to reduce arrears, waste and decay from a combined total of £540 in 1453/4 to a meagre £18 by 1519/20, whilst simultaneously raising overall rents by £130. This was made possible by the responsiveness of the bursars of Durham Priory who consciously adapted their style of management, rent collection process, and even repairs, all in the pursuit of increased efficiency. Landlords did not become passive with the leasing of their lands, and this concerted effort by a northern landowner to improve efficiency is in evidence across England. This was not a period of continuous decline or stagnation, even in the North-East, and the improvement in rent collection found here may reflect upon recovery in the region that other economic indicators, such as cash tithe receipts, are not sensitive enough to register.     

EDWIN SANDYS,ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 1577–88, ‘STIFF-NECKED,WILFUL AND OBSTINATE’: CONFLICT IN THE ELIZABETHAN CHURCH

Abstract

This article examines the events that, as legend has it, resulted in the foundation of Balliol College (c. 1263) by John (I) Balliol (d. 1268). The Balliol family had long been at odds with successive bishops of Durham over certain lands in Sadberge, the homage of which the bishops believed they were owed. John (I) began his struggle just after his inheritance in 1229 and the dispute reached its height in 1255–60, at which time an intense argument broke out. Other factors, including his actions whilst serving as one of Henry III's English representatives in the Scottish government (1251–55), led to Balliol's ultimate submission to Bishop Kirkham (d. 1260) at Durham Cathedral in 1260 and the foundation of Balliol College at Kirkham's instance. The theory remains, as one historian argues, that Balliol's penance was to give the long delayed homage to the bishop for these lands and not to establish Balliol College. However, there are no surviving records of homage and other possibilities remain, including perhaps that the penance called for Balliol's youngest son, John (II), the future King of Scotland, to be educated at a Durham school.     

The Impact of Reformation on North-East England: A Preliminary Survey

Abstract

This enquiry looks at some of the ways in which the Reformation made itself felt in the north-eastern diocese of Durham. These are considered in relation to the rest of the kingdom and in the light of recent scholarship on the subject. It concentrates on the parish level, and in particular, on the survival of parochial traditions and rituals: practices that were often peculiar to the north-eastern parts. What emerges is that the process was complex and the experience varied, sometimes considerably, across the diocese. The study goes on to examine how the bishop of Durham and the urban oligarchy in Newcastle played significant, though never unchallenged, roles in the course of the Reformation in the north-eastern counties. The tentative conclusions drawn in this outline survey are intended to be amplified and expanded in a broader study of the impact of reformation on north-eastern England.     

Benefactors of the Greyfriars in York: Alms from Testators, 1530–1538

Abstract

The prominent role of the gentry in late medieval local administration has long been acknowledged, and studies of officeholding have been central to the identification and understanding of that social group. Local administration in the liberty of Durham, however, was very different. The liberty's constitutional peculiarities meant that fewer prestigious offices were available to local gentry; furthermore, local office was controlled not by the king, but by the bishop of Durham, who was free to appoint men of relatively low status for extended terms. As a result, many of the liberty's gentry, and the majority of its greater families, had little formal involvement in its administration, which was dominated instead by a small corps of professionals for whom office provided rapid advancement in local society. This paper provides a detailed account of a family that produced several such professionals, who were extremely prominent in the liberty's administration in the first half of the fourteenth century. Their careers illuminate the workings of patronage and lordship in the liberty, and demonstrate the substantial impact of the liberty's distinctive administration on the structure and identity of the local political community. They also suggest some tentative wider conclusions about the relationship between officeholding and gentility.