The Rolls of Robert Grosseteste and Henry Lexington, Bishops of Lincoln, 1235-1259

The rolls relate almost entirely to the routine work which went on in the diocese. They are primarily records of institutions to benefices, and in this lies their chief interest, but incidentally other useful and important information can be gleaned. In the record of an institution the parish is named, its patron, and the person instituted together with the official by whom a previous “inquisition” had been made. At this time the diocese extended from the Thames to the Humber, and it comprised eight counties – a sixth of the kingdom. Today five Bishops rule where the early Bishops of Lincoln were supreme. The archdeaconries of Leicester and Northampton (this latter including also the county of Rutland) are now the diocese of Peterborough, which on its foundation in 1541 received Northampton, Leicester being transferred to it in 1837. Oxford became a bishop’s see in 1543, at first for Oxfordshire only, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire were added in 1837; while Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire were joined to Ely also in 1837. That part of Hertfordshire which appears in Grossteste’s Roll as in the archdeaconry of Huntingdon is part of the modern diocese of St. Albans.
Adapted from the Introduction to the volume.