PREFACE.

IT was stated in the Preface to the First Volume of this work that several leaves of Kellawe's Register had been abstracted from the manuscript, as well as the whole of the proceedings of the first five years of Bishop Bury's pontificate.

In the expectation of being able to supply those deficiencies, I deemed it necessary to examine the Public Muniments during the periods when those two bishops occupied the palatinate of Durham, and to gather therefrom such entries as would furnish information likely to fill up the gaps in the portions of those two Registers now missing. The result of this examination appears in the ensuing pages.

The reader, however, should be apprised that some pieces have been introduced, which, in all probability, would not have found a place in the Register, even had it come down to us in a perfect state, but as they relate to the Palatinate, and contribute many links to the chain of its ecclesiastical and local history, they have not been rejected, especially as the information contained in them could not be obtained from other sources. Among these additions, though belonging to an earlier period, is the Roll of Pleas held at Durham in the thirty-third year of the reign of Edward I., when the bishopric had been seized into the hands of the Crown on account of the inordinate and intemperate ambition of Bishop Antony Bek. This Roll, the only record now extant of the same nature relating to the Palatinate,

throws considerable and important light on the history of this "imperium in imperio," and gives in detail the various causes of the bitter quarrels between that prelate and Richard de Hoton, the turbulent prior of Durham, some account of which was given in the Preface to the First Volume.

The origin of the quarrel seems to have arisen from the bishop compelling the tenantry of the prior and convent of Durham to follow him to the war in Scotland, with horses and arms. Upon their returning home on the second occasion without receiving permission from him, he had some of them imprisoned at Durham. This they naturally considered an indignity, and made a party against him on the ground that they were Holyworkfolk and held their lands for the defence of the body of St. Cuthbert, and not at the bishop's pleasure, and that they ought not to do service beyond the limits of the bishopric, viz., the Tyne and the Tees, for either King or bishop.

Disgusted with the part played by the prior, the bishop determined to depose him. He then directed the monks to elect another prior in his stead. Upon their declining to comply with this mandate he translated H. de Luceby (prior of Holy Island) to the priory of Durham, and gave directions to his foresters of Wardale and his men of Tyndale to lay siege to the abbey, to keep the prior and monks in strict confinement, and not permit victuals of any description to be brought into the priory. In carrying out the bishop's orders they destroyed the aqueduct of the priory, broke down the gates of the cloisters, and besieged the prior and monks in their church for the space of three days, depriving them of food. They even dragged the prior from his stall and imprisoned him. This is the account given by Robert de Graystanes, the contemporary Durham historian, and it is fully confirmed by the Roll of Pleas in question.

It seems scarcely credible that such acrimony, as is developed in this Record, could have existed between two such dignified and eminent ecclesiastics.

The prior charges the bishop with dispossessing him of various manors and townships; with besieging the priory for nine weeks, and not permitting victuals of any description to be brought into the priory for the sustenance of the monks; with seizing and imprisoning for forty days the King's messengers, who brought the Royal Letters of Protection, and retaining the same letters in his own possession; with breaking down and destroying the conduit which conveyed water into the priory; with demolishing the convent mill, so that no corn could be ground therein; with compelling the prior's lay homagers to leave the priory; with breaking into the priory and refectory, wrenching open the chests, and carrying off their contents; with forcibly entering the cloisters and restricting the liberty of the monks, by not allowing them to go out for three days to obtain provisions, so that for forty-six monks they had only six loaves and sixteen herrings to live on; with dragging the prior from his stall and imprisoning him for sixteen weeks in the town of Durham, and tormenting him day and night super collum suum ceram calidam deguttantem," so that he, believing himself to be dying, sought confession; with not permitting mass or matins to be celebrated, or bells to be rung; with closing the North Gate of Durham against the prior and his men ; with dismantling his windmill at Jarewe; with preventing him from erecting a mill on his own soil at Holy Island; with imprisoning the prior's messengers sent by him to the King, and detaining the letters of which they were the bearers; with borrowing and refusing to return "duo paria Decretorum,' unum par

The Decrees are ecclesiastical constitutions made by the Pope and Cardinals, and were first collected

by Ivo, bishop of Chartres, who lived about the year 1114; they were afterwards perfected by Gratian, a Bene

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"Decretalium,1 quemdam librum qui vocatur Tripartita 2 "Historia, quamdam Bibliam, quendam librum qui "vocatur Historia Anglorum,3 unum Missale, et unum "librum qui vocatur Liber Sancti Cuthberti in quo "secreta domus scribuntur." To this charge the bishop replies that he did not borrow the books of the prior; that they belonged to the convent, and that he was quite willing to return them when he was required to do so; that he accordingly returned the Historia Anglorum, together with a certain volume on the Miracles of St. Cuthbert, "alio quam Liber Sancti Cuthberti," which the prior claimed of him; with respect to the other books demanded of him, except one pair of the said two pairs

dictine monk, in the year 1149, and allowed by Pope Eugenius to be read in schools, and alleged for law. The Decrees are more ancient than the Decretals, having their beginning from the time of Constantine the Great.

There are several MSS. of the Decrees in the library of the dean and canons of Durham which formerly belonged to the prior and

convent.

1 The Decretals are canonical epistles written by the Pope, or by the Pope and Cardinals, at the suit of one or more persons, for the ordering and determining of some matter or controversy, and have the authority of a law; and of these there are three volumes: the first whereof was compiled by Raymundus Barcinius, chaplain to Gregory IX., and at his command, about the year 1231; the second volume is the work of Boniface VIII., collected about the year 1298; and the third volume, called "Clementines," was made by Pope Clement V., and published by him about the year 1308.

Among the MS. belonging to the dean and chapter of Durham were many Decretals which formerly belonged to the prior and convent.

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2 Two copies of the "Historia Tripartita" are mentioned in the List of Books (B. iv. 46) belonging to the prior and convent of Durham at different periods before the Reformation.

3 This is probably Beda's Ecclesiastical History, which is still among the MSS. belonging to the dean and canons of Durham. (See Rud's Catalogue of the Durham MSS., p. 141). A copy is said to have been in the library of the prior and convent of Durham before the Reformation, and in all probability it is the same copy as that mentioned by Rud, p. 141.

4 There were in the library of the prior and convent of Durham anterior to the Reformation several copies of the Life of St. Cuthbert. Perhaps the MS. here alluded to is that marked O at p. 432 of Rud's Catalogue, and described as cu"riosè illuminata."

of Decrees, they are not at Durham, but are in London, and that he is ready to give them up when asked to do so. The prior also charges the bishop's servants with withholding from him certain other books kept in a chest at Norham Castle, viz., Bibles, Missals, Decrees, Decretals, and other books. He likewise charges the bishop with borrowing silver plate and other things, and refusing to return them. He further charges the bishop with carrying off certain sheep at Fenham, and with forcibly intruding into the priory of Holy Island, and upon his manor of Fenham, and carrying away his corn and oxen and his wool from the manors of Pytingdon, Ketton, Hagrestan, Loulyn, and Hertilpole; also with seizing a porpoise at Holy Island, which was his property; with disseising his tenants of their common of pasture in Pencher.

He further charges the bishop with several other exactions and misdemeanors, which are denied by the bishop, and with such good success that judgment is recorded in his favour.

As I have given in the Table of Contents a detailed list of the documents which have been collected from the public muniments, I need not describe them further here.

In printing these excerpta I have adhered to the ancient custom of giving an exact transcript of the original Record, with all its abbreviations. Such has been the invariable practice from the first publication of our great National Register-Domesday Book-in the year 1783, to the present time.1 Even the early publi