Cotton MS Cleopatra F II

Collection of papers relating to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, principally from the 16th and early 17th centuries.

ff. 1r-2*v: Table of contents.

f. 2r: Title page.

f. 3r-3v: Second table of contents.

ff. 4r-38v: Discourse concerning causes of ecclesiastical cognizance, acknowledged and confirmed by Acts of Parliament. With a declaration of the King’s supremacy. In eight chapters. No date.

f. 39r-39v: Notes on a case in Parliament, 1606-7. Concerning bishops issuing ecclesiastical process in their own names. Latin.

f. 40r-40v: Paper concerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Temp. Edward IV. Latin.

f. 41r-44v: Paper concerning clerical immunity. Temp. Edward IV. Latin.

f. 44*r: Paper titled ‘Juramentum regis, tempore coronationis’. No date. Latin.

f. 45r: Paper titled ‘Copia brevis regii summonitionis ad comparendum in Parliamento’.

f. 45*v: Paper titled ‘Copia brevis regii, pro convocatione’. No date. Latin.

ff. 46r-50v: Recognizance made by the bishops to the Crown.

ff. 51r-52v: Plot concerning how the causes of dilapidations between the prelates may be compounded, without long and open suit. No date.

ff. 53r-54v: ‘Catalogus convocationum, ab anno 1296, sub Roberto de Winchelsea, Archiep. Cantuar. ad ann. 1580, sub Edmundo Grindallo’. Latin.

ff. 55r-71v: ‘Statuta et ordinationes ab episcopis obervandae’. [23 May 1530]. Latin.

ff. 72r-90v: ‘Decreta à cardinali Polo, legato Papae, edita Anno 1555’. Latin.

ff. 91r-103v: ‘Constitutiones aliae ecclesiasticae’. Latin.

ff. 104r-116v: ‘Ut homines idonei ad sacros Ordines, et Beneficia (uti vocant) ecclesiastica admittantur’. [1584]. Latin.

ff. 117r-118v: Abstract of causes belonging to the ecclesiastical court. No date.

f. 119*v: Orders to be put in execution in Canterbury, by the ordinaries and their officers. No date.

f. 120r-120v: Memorial of some principal matters to be considered by the Privy Council and the bishops, in some ecclesiastical causes. No date.

ff. 121r-122v: Answer given by Archbishop Bancroft to the petition of the doctors and advocates of the civil law. Concerning their profession, which then suffered by the encroachment of the common lawyers, and especially by prohibitions. No date.

f. 123*r: Petition to the convocation. To move the Queen concerning forgiving all lapses and irregularities. No date.

f. 123r-123v: Orders for cathedral churches. No date.

ff. 124r-127v: Paper against the visitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury as ‘apostolicae sedis legatus’. [1534]. Latin.

ff. 128r-129v: ‘De officio archidiaconi’. [1534]. Latin.

f. 130r: Letter from John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, to Thomas Cromwell. Concerning the King’s orders about visitations, requesting certain powers in his diocese, and sending a present. Wooburn, October 8 [1535].

ff. 131r-138v: Copy of a commission of visitation. Granted by the general commission of Thomas Cromwell. [21 January 1535]. Latin.

ff. 136r-152v: Ecclesiastical commission granted to the high commissioners for ecclesiastical causes by Queen Elizabeth I, and of the court of commissions. 1575/6.

ff. 153r-164v: Ecclesiastical commission of King James I. 1604/5.

f. 165r-165v: Paper on the limitations of ecclesiastical judges, and the court of high commission. No date.

f. 166r-166v: Paper on the court of arches, and its jurisdiction. No date.

f. 167r: Letter from William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, to Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal. Defending the rights of his see. Croydon, March 17 [no year].

f. 168*v: Letter of consent from George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury. Concerning a deputy judge of the arches. No date. Latin.

f. 168r: Notes from the registry of the court of arches, concerning executors and administrators. No date.

f. 169r-171v: Paper on a deputy judge of the arches. No date.

ff. 172r-175v: ‘Formula literarum patentium, ad constituendum judicem curiae de arcubus’. No date.

ff. 176r-177v: ‘De administratione bonorum decedentium ab intestato’. No date.

ff. 178r-181v: Notes of the courts of delegates, the court of audience and faculties, and the court of the bishop of London. No date.

ff. 182r-183v: Complaints and grievances against the ecclesiastical courts and their officers. No date.

f. 184r-184v: Draft act for the due observance of the great charter of England. No date.

ff. 185r-186v: Articles by the Commons, 1605/6. For the reformation of certain abuses on the ecclesiastical state and court.

f. 187r-187v: Declaration that canons and constitutions of the convocation-house are not the law of the land. No date.

f. 188r-188v: Proclamation of the council of Scotland. Upon the discovery of the popish plot in England. Edinburgh, November 26 1605.

f. 189r-189v: A draft act for the better direction of ecclesiastical proceedings. No date. In the hand of Ralph Starkey.

ff. 190*v-191*r: ‘Constitutio de habitu clericali’. No date. Latin.

ff. 191*v-191v: ‘De coadjutore episcopo London. concesso Anno 1280: ex registro D. Peckham (sic) archiepiscopi Cantuar. et ad coadjutoribus’. No date. Latin.

f. 191*r-192v: Note on the canons made for reformation in matters ecclesiastical. 1592 and 1593.

ff. 193*r-194v: Letter from William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, to Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal. In defence of the rights of the court of prerogative. Charing, February 24 [1525].

f. 195r-195v: Orders agreed upon by the bishops of Canterbury. To be observed for the better executing of the laws established, and avoiding of various offences. No date.

f. 196r-196v: Certain points to be ordered and amended in the government ecclesiastical. No date.

f. 197r-197v: Notes on a parley between an English man and a Scottish man, concerning the power and jurisdiction of bishops. No date.

f. 198r-198v: Paper against the oath ‘ex officio mero’, or any other general oath. No date.

f. 199r-200v: Paper considering whether a several commission would be expedient for passing faculties within the realm of Ireland. No date.

f. 201*v-212r: ‘Varia, de censuris ecclesiasticis, excommunicatione’. Latin.

ff. 212v-213v: ‘De crimine Baratriae’. Latin.

ff. 214r-217v: ‘Abusiones quae modernis temporibus magis invaluisse videntur, tam in episcopis aliisque prelatis et ecclesiasticis, quam etiam in religiosis’. [16 January 1531]. Latin.

f. 217*v: Order of the Privy Council. Concerning a pew in the church of Milton-grange, in the county of Bedford. Somerset House, February 28 1584.

f. 218r-218v: Note of general grievances in the church. No date.

f. 219r-219v: Reasons for licences to marry. No date.

ff. 220r-222v: Reasons for the act against the commissary’s court every three weeks. No date. In the hand of Ralph Starkey.

f. 222*v: Grievances of the state against ecclesiastical proceedings.

f. 223r-223v: ‘A note of divers incestuous and unlawful marriages, made by licence, by vagrant ministers, in lawless peculiars’. No date.

f. 224r-230*v: Various papers on grievances against ecclesiastical jurisdiction. With motions for reformation, and answers to several points. No date.

f. 230r: Paper concerning a bill against exacting excessive fees by ecclesiastical judges. No date.

f. 231v-232v: Papers concerning tithes. No date.

ff. 233r-236v: Papers about reformation of ecclesiastical causes, including registers of christenings, burials and marriages, and the sees of chancellors and officials. No date.

f. 237*v: Paper giving reasons for and against offering a bill against pluralities. No date.

f. 238r-238v: Summary of a tract on the power of Parliament in ecclesiastical cases. Copied from an edition printed by Thomas Berthlet in 1531.

f. 239r-239v: List of committees concerning ecclesiastical causes. No date.

f. 240r-240v: ‘Petitio cleri Cantuariensis provinciae, contra haeresticos’. [15 May 1532].

ff. 241r-245v: Considerations concerning the abrogation, repeal, or reform of the spiritual jurisdiction. [3 November 1534].

f. 246r-246v: Paper arguing that ecclesiastical jurisdictions always belonged to Kings and their judges. No date.

f. 247*r-247*v: A sum of the petitions offered to the upper house, by the clerks of the lower house of the convocation. No date.

f. 249r-249v: Petition sent by the commons to the King. For a full declaration of the laws of God and holy church, on certain points. [15 January 1532].

ff. 250r-253v: Treatise concerning ministers, excommunication, commutation of penance, and dispensations. No date.

f. 254r-256v: An Act concerning the temporalities of bishops. 1558/9.

f. 257r-257v: A project for increasing the number of preachers. No date.

ff. 258r-264v: Device for reformation of the ministry. No date.

ff. 265r-266r: Remembrances for the session of Parliament following the Gunpowder Plot. No date.

ff. 267r-268v: ‘Orders for the better increase of learning in the inferior ministers’. No date.

f. 269v: List of positions concerning ecclesiastical power. No date.

f. 270r-270v: Draft of an Act for explaining the statute of 1 Elizabeth I, concerning uniformity, and 13 Elizabeth I, concerning subscription of the book of articles. 1562.

ff. 271r-272v: Letter from Queen Elizabeth I to the bishops. Against prophesising. [7 May 1577].

f. 273r-273v: Letter from Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Privy Council. Concerning his not having suppressed prophesising in his province. [29 November 1577].

ff. 274r-279r: Paper containing arguments on behalf of degraded, deprived, and silenced ministers. No date.

ff. 280r-293v: Several papers concerning the King’s power in ecclesiastical causes, especially to reform the abuses of prohibitions.

ff. 294r-391v: Several papers concerning prohibitions, their applicability, and upon what pretences they have been granted. With a list of such prohibitions, and an original petition of the procurators of the court of arches.

ff. 392r-413v: Several papers concerning the right and title to tithes and prohibitions.

ff. 414r-426v: ‘Indices sententiarum latarum in curia audentiae, et in curia de arcubus London. in causis decimarum’.

ff. 427r-435v: Paper of considerations concerning the ecclesiastical courts, with some papers on prohibitions. No date.

ff. 436*v-225v: Several articles giving reasons against a bill for costs in a prohibition. No dates.

ff. 446r-460v: Discourse on the statute of praemunire and prohibition. Discussing how they may be extended against ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

ff. 461r-462v: A note of grievances practised in the court of the King’s Bench. Whereby the writ ‘De excommunicato capiendo’, and the proceedings thereupon, are often avoided.

ff. 463r-474v: Arguments by Sir Edward Coke, touching Rochester’s case upon the statute 23 Henry VIII c. 9. That none ought to be called out of their diocese to answer before the Archbishop of Canterbury in the court of arches or audience.