Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, Volume I (1420-1436)

This is the first of a three volume series dealing with the history of the diocese of Lincoln during the first half of the fifteenth century. Episcopal registers during this period are as a rule not rich in material. Bishop’s clerks had the precedents which they wanted in earlier registers, and, while they still recorded such formal business of the see as was necessary for the purposes of future reference, there was no longer the same need to leave casual letters as epistolary models for their predecessors. This aspect of an Episcopal register is often forgotten. Such a volume is not a journal or material for a biography; it is a collection of common forms and useful memoranda. This accounts for the omission from a register of much which would certainly have been included had the compilers done their work with a view to the researches of future historians. The volumes embrace every document of importance which deals with the affairs of religious houses in the registers of Bishops Flemyng and Gray. One or two specimens of formal documents have been printed in full, and at the end of the text the full and valuable account of Gray’s visitation of his cathedral church in 1432 has been added.

Adapted from the Introduction to the volume.