Note on the sources

Note on the sources

ARCHIVES

The medieval archives of the chapter of Salisbury are not now preserved as a single collection. Due to a historical accident, some of the archives, including some cartularies, and even a volume of cathedral statutes, were assigned in the nineteenth century to the bishop, and are preserved among the Diocesan Records, now kept at the Wiltshire Record Office in Trowbridge. One cartulary had left Salisbury by the end of the seventeenth century and entered the library of William Petyt, who died in 1707: the manuscript eventually passed, along with the rest of Petyt's collection, to the Library of the Inner Temple. The surviving archives of the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury are now housed in the Cathedral Library.

For the diocesan records, see Pamela Stewart, Guide to the Records of the Bishop, the Archdeacons of Salisbury and Wiltshire, and other Archidiaconal and Peculiar Jurisdictions (Wilts. County Council, Guide to the Record Offices IV, 1973); also R. L. Poole, 'Report on the Records of the Bishop of Salisbury', in HMC Var. Coll. IV (1907) 1-12.

For the chapter records, see R. L. Poole, 'Report on the Muniments of the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury', ibid. I (1901) 338-88.

Original charters

The Dean and Chapter's original charters are arranged in four sequences, I-IV, corresponding to the four presses in which they were kept, and further numbers indicate the sections, boxes and packets within the presses. Much essential sorting and numbering was carried out by Miss Pamela Stewart in the 1970s, while the Dean and Chapter Archives were deposited, like the Diocesan Records, in the custody of the Wiltshire County Records service and housed in the Wren Hall in Salisbury Close.

Cartularies

Registrum Sancti Osmundi: Salisbury Diocesan Records, at Trowbridge, Wilts. RO, D1/1/1. Cart. and chapter reg. of early 13th cent., with additions. Cited below as RSO MS. Pd., with many errors, RSO; for a useful description of the MS, see US I pp. xliv-xlviii, and cf. above p. xxxi.

Liber Evidentiarum C: Salisbury, D & C Archives. Cart. of c. 1270, with additions down to the early 16th cent. Within the cart. the documents are numbered. Cited below as C, with number of charter, so 'C. 123' indicates document numbered 123. Many of the documents in C are pd. in Sar. Chs.

London, Inner Temple, Petyt MS 511, vol. 18. Cart. of the 1260s, prob. slightly earlier than C, with additions down to the early 16th cent. For a description, see Catalogue of MSS in the Library of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, ed. J. Conway Davies (3 vols., Oxford, 1972) I 233-48. This cart. has been consulted, but is not cited below as its contents are less full than C.

Liber Evidentiarum B: Salisbury Diocesan Records, at Trowbridge, Wilts. RO, D1/1/2. Cart. begun in early 14th cent., copying C, but with additional material not in C. Within the cart. the documents are numbered. Cited below as B, with number of document. Many of the documents in B are pd. in Sar. Chs.

Registrum Rubrum: Salisbury Diocesan Records, at Trowbridge, Wilts. RO, D1/1/3. Cart. of the early 14th cent., copying B, with additions which include copies of papal letters. Cited below as Rubrum.

Liber Niger: Salisbury Diocesan Records, at Trowbridge, Wilts. RO, D1/1/5. Episcopal cart. of mid-15th cent., not directly related to other carts. but containing copies of documents in bishop's possession c. 1451, with additions. Cited below as Niger.

Other chapter registers

Registrum Canonisationis Osmundi: Salisbury, D & C Archives. Reg. of canonization documents, written 1420s, with later additions, and including copy of dossier of miracles collected in 1220s (see above p. xxx). Pd. Can. Osm.

Statuta Ecclesie Sarum: Salisbury Diocesan Records, at Trowbridge, Wilts. RO, D1/1/4. Collection of statutes written shortly after 1324, with additions down to 16th cent. Much of its contents pd. in Sar. Stats., where it is cited as MS E.

Liber Decani: Salisbury, D. & C. Libr., MS 189. A miscellaneous reg., sometimes referred to as 'Misc. Decani', compiled early 16th cent.

Bishops' registers

The first two surviving bishops' registers, covering the period 1297-1315 and 1315-30, have been consulted for the Fasti. They are preserved among the Diocesan Records, now at Trowbridge, Wilts. RO:

Simon de Gandavo's register, Wilts. RO D1/2/1; pd., Reg. Gandavo.

Roger de Martival's register, Wilts. RO D1/2/2; pd., Reg. Martival.

For descriptions of these and later bishops' registers, see D. M. Smith, Guide to Bishops' Registers of England and Wales (Royal Hist. Soc., 1981) pp. 189 ff.

SOME IMPORTANT SALISBURY DOCUMENTS CITED IN THE FASTI

Carta: bishop Osmund's charter of 1091

For the text of this document, with a discussion of its authenticity, see Inst. (where the text is pd. at pp. 97-100).

Institutio: cathedral constitution ascribed to bishop Osmund

For the text of this document, with a discussion of the successive stages of its compilation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see Inst. (where the text is pd. at pp. 94-7).

The Psalter list

The list is preserved on an added leaf in the fifteenth-century Processionale, Salisbury D. & C. Libr., MS 148 fo. Ir-v, pd. Jones, Fasti pp. 200-2 (where it is wrongly said to be found in MS 145), and Ceremonies pp. 129-32. The list is headed: 'Psalmi cotidie dicendi per canonicos istius ecclesie Sar' pretextu ac ratione prebendarum suarum'.

The date of the list, before certain additions, was probably c. 1150. The first forty-two prebends are arranged so that priest-prebends are first, followed in order by deacon-prebends and subdeacon-prebends. It would seem that these made up the total of prebends at the time of the original list's compilation. The last ten prebends seem to have been added to the original list, for they include priest, deacon and subdeacon prebends, entered in the following order, which is not hierarchical - Bedminster and Redclyffe, dcn. (list 16), Teinton Regis, pr. (57), Torleton, dcn. (58), Minor Pars Altaris, subdcn. (42), Faringdon, subdcn. (30), Chardstock, subdcn. (25), Lyme and Halstock, subdcn. (40), Upavon, pr. (59), Loders, pr. (39), Ogbourne, pr. (46). The documentation of the prebendal histories suggests a date of c. 1150 for the compilation of the first list of forty-two prebends, with the additions being made at various dates after c. 1150. The last four prebends in the list were founded respectively in 1191, 1194 × 1207, 1213 × 15 and 1208.

Nova Constitutio

The text does not survive in the original. It is found in RSO MS pp. 111- 13, Statuta Ecclesie Sarum fos. 39-41, and Liber Evidentiarum C. 474-9. It is printed in Statuta et Consuetudines Ecclesiae Cathedralis Sarisberiensis, ed. E. A. Dayman and W. H. Rich Jones (Bath, 1883) pp. 7-12; RSO I 374-80; Sar. Stats. pp. 40-52.

This is a composite document. Part, made up of statutes relating to the custody of the chapter seals, canons' residence, the fruits of deceased canons' prebends, habit and conduct in choir and the dean's visitation of prebends, was witnessed on 7 January 1213/14. (fn. 1) Later, the regulations regarding vicars, dated 15 September 1214, were added before the witness clause, and the whole was copied as a single document.

Valuations

In the prebendal histories, given at the heads of the lists below, four valuations are cited. They are:

1220s This valuation is found in C. 462 (pd. Sar. Chs. pp. 206-8, and Ceremonies p. 133). Since it lists all fifty-two prebends, including Loders (list 39), it cannot have been drawn up before 1213 × 15. Its references to named canons - William [of Ingoldsby] at Grantham [Borealis, list 33], Valentine at Beminster [II, list 19], Robert [Scot] at Netherbury [in Terra, list 45], Roger [de Worth] at Beminster [I, list 18], Tancred at Yetminster [II, list 64], W[illiam] de Lenn at Yetminster [I, list 63] - suggest a date not long before the valuation of 1226 × 27, from which its values differ only slightly.

1226 For the valuation of Oct. 1226 × Feb. 1227, see below, app. 1.

c. 1284 This valuation is one of the additions to Liber Evidentiarum C (C. 511), where it seems to have been written at much the same time as a letter of shortly after 28 April 1284 (C. 512).

1291 The taxation of Pope Nicholas IV, of which most of the Salisbury entries appear in Taxatio pp. 181-2.

Treasurer's inventory

The inventory of the cathedral treasury, drawn up by treasurer M. Abraham of Winchester, is found in RSO MS pp. 167-72, and is printed in RSO II 127- 41, and Ceremonies pp. 169-82. A note in a different hand, added in the lower margin of the first leaf of the inventory, RSO MS p. 167, states that the first part of the list represents the contents of the treasury when Abraham took up office on 30 March 1214. The last part of the list gives the additional ornaments received during Abraham's time as treasurer. His last occurrence as treasurer is 17 January 1222, and his successor, M. Edmund of Abingdon, was in office by 15 August 1222. For the treasurers, see below, list 5.

Terms of residence

The earliest surviving list of the canons' terms of residence, which is cited in the prebendal histories, belongs to c. 1270, and is found in C. 461, from which it is pd. Sar. Chs. pp. 209-10 (where it is erroneously assigned to the time of Richard Poore and where the italicized material has been added by the editor). The list is repeated in bishop Martival's code of 1319, printed from Statuta Ecclesie Sarum in Sar. Stats. pp. 134-275, at 156-9.

Obituaries

Statuta Ecclesie Sarum contains an obit kalendar of the first half of the 15th cent. Another 'martyrology' was seen by John Leland and is printed Leland, Itin. I 265-6. These two sequences are conflated and printed in Ceremonies pp. 231-42 and Sar. Stats. pp. 3-14.