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Harley MS 595

Record Id:

040-002046424

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002046424

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x000065

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 595

Title:

The second of two volumes with episcopal returns in the diocesan population census of 1563 and 1603

Scope & Content:

The second of two volumes with original certificates from bishops concerning the state of their dioceses in reply to requests for information from the Privy Council for the diocesan population census of 1563 and 1603. In the first census, the Privy Council requested information on the number of households or families in parishes. In the second , it requested information on the numbers of communicants, non-communicants and recusants. The first volume is Harley MS 594.

Contents:

ff. 1r-9v: The answer of Francis Godwin, Bishop of Llandaff, to the letters of John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, whereby he was directed to inquire into the state of all the rectories and vicarages in his diocese, dated 9 February 1603; preceded by his letter, dated 18 December 1603, with his episcopal seal.

ff. 10r-18v: The certificate of Anthony Kitchin [Dunstone], Bishop of Llandaff, to the Privy Council, concerning the state of his diocese; dated 4 August, 1563 and signed by himself.

ff. 19v-38v: Tables with the then bishops, chancellors, or registrars of several dioceses, and of some, a list of the rural deaneries, parishes, chapels, and vicarages, including Lincoln, Peterborough, Exeter, Gloucester, Hereford, Norwich, Ely, Rochester, Chichester, Oxford, Worcester, Bristol, St David, Bangor, Llandaff, St Asaph, York, Durham, Chester, and Carlisle.

ff. 39r-59r: The certificate touching the state of the diocese of Lincoln; sent to the Privy Council on 29 July 1563.

f. 60r: A single inscription: 'Jesus'.

ff. 61r-78v: 'The certificate of the Bishoppe of London [Edmund Grindal] Answering to certen Artycles sente from the Qwenes majesyes moste honorable Prvyye Counsayll'; dated 25 July 1563.

ff. 79r-93v: The names of all the parish churches and chapels in the diocese of St Davids, together with the number of households in the same diocese, both in a Latin and English version, dated 12 October 1563; preceded by a letter by Richard Davies, Bishop of St Davids, dated 29 July 1563.

ff. 94r-166v: The certificates from the Archdeaconries of Sudbury, Norwich, and Suffolk concerning the number of communicants, recusants, double beneficed ministers, non-communicants, dated 1 August 1603; attested by public notaries (their notarial signatures on ff. 119v, 164r), made in pursuance of John Whitgift's letter to John Jegon, Bishop of Norwich, 30 June 1603; preceded by a letter of John Jegon, dated 12 July 1603; and ending with two more letters by John Jegon and John Whitgift, previously with a seal attached (reported missing by binders on 8 March 1974).

ff. 167r-193r: The answer for the Archdeacon of Suffolk, 6 August 1603.

f. 194r: An address to the Bishop of Norwich: 'Reverendo in Christo Patri ac Domino domino Johanni divina providentia Norwicen. Episcopo'.

ff. 195r-203v: 'The certificate of the Reverende father in god John [Jewel] Busshoppe of Sarum to the letres sent from the quenes maiesties moste honorable councell dated the ixth daie of Julye 1563'.

ff. 205r-212v: 'Th' Aunswere of Edwyne [Sandys] Busshop of wourcestere, made the xxviijth day of July in the vth yere of our Soveregne Ladye, Elizabeth by the grace of godde Quene of England, france, and Ireland, defendour of the feythe etc. to certeyne Articles directed unto hym, from her Maiesties moost honorable prevye Counselle'.

ff. 213r-250*recto: The certificate relating the state of the diocese of Winchester, written in pursuance of the Archbishop's mandate of 1603.

ff. 251v-257r: The number of preachers, their names and degrees, in the the diocese of Winchester, taken in 1603, and signed by Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester.

ff. 258r-266v: 'A certyfycat answering th' Articles specyfyed in the Quenes Maiesties most honorable Counsellors letres to the Bysshop of Wynchester [Robert Horne] directed concernyng the state of his diocesse'; dated 12 June 1563.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002046424", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 595: The second of two volumes with episcopal returns in the diocesan population census of 1563 and 1603" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002046424

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 595 : The second of two volumes with episcopal returns in the diocesan population census of 1563 and 1603

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0595]/040-002046424

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1563

End Date:

1603

Date Range:

1563-1603

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper; parchment (ff. 1, 194).

Dimensions: leaves of varying sizes, mounted to fit a book measuring 330 x 215 mm.

Foliation: 204* + 213*-250* + 266 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); 1 unfoliated blank paper leaf between f. 166 and f. 167; ff. 193-203 are large paper leaves that have been folded to fit the dimensions of this manuscript; f. 194 is a folded parchment leaf that has been mounted onto a paper guard at its fold, creating a bifolium (however, the second leaf has not been foliated); ff. 204*, 213*-250* are the second leaves of folded sheets that have been mounted onto a paper guards at their folds, creating bifolia in which the first leaf caries the regular folio number, and the second leaf the same number with an asterisk; fragments of an episcopal red seal on f. 1, in a card box inserted in a frame cut out of numerous modern blank paper leaves that have been inserted after f. 1 for this purpose; another seal on f. 165 was preserved in a similar way, with numerous modern blank paper leaves inserted between f. 164 and f. 165, but the seal has been missing since 8 March 1974 (only the parchment strip to which the seal was attached remains on f. 165); remains of a wax seal on f. 80v; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. [ii]recto (bibliographical notes) and f. [269]recto (notes of repair).

Script: Gothic cursive; 16th-century script.

Binding: British Museum in-house. Brown half leather binding with the Harleian armorial bookplate gold-stamped at the centres of the outside covers; re-bound in 1969.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England and Wales.

Provenance:

Sir Simonds D’Ewes (b. 1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton: listed in his catalogues as A.132 with Harley MS 595 (see Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966), p. 108; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 131).

Sir Simonds D’Ewes (d. 1722), 3rd baronet and grandson of the former: inherited and later sold the D’Ewes library to Robert Harley on 4 October 1705 for £450; according to a receipt in Add MS 70478 (Portland Papers) [formerly Loan 29/254 packet 2] (see Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1966), pp. 60, 91 n. 308; Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), p. xviii n. 3).

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, inscribed as usual by their librarian.

Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, pp. 360-61.

Anonymous, 'The Condition of the Archdeaconries of Suffolk and Sudbury in the Year 1603', Proceedingsof the Suffolk Instiute of Archaeology and Natural History, 11:1 (1901), 1-46 [for ff. 95-119].

Henry Norbert Bell, The Elizabethan Religious Settlement (London: Bell, 1907).

Joan Thirsk, ‘Sources of Information on Population 1500-1760’, The Amateur Historian, 4 (1959), 132-33.

Joan Thirsk, Sources of Information on Population, 1500-1760, and Unexplored Sources in Local Records (Canterbury: Phillimore, 1965), p. 5

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. xviii n. 3.

Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), pp. 60, 91 n. 308, 108

Julian Cornwall, 'English Population in the Early Sixteenth Century', The Economic History Review, 23:1 (1970), 32-44 (pp. 32 n. 4, 33 n. 2, 39 n. 1, 43 n. 6).

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 131.

Alan Dyer and David M. Palliser, The Diocesan Population Returns for 1563 and 1603 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

England
Wales