CH/13/3

CH/13/3

File

Contracts Register, 1659-1667

Greenhill & Butler: Lease Book

1659 - 1667

1 volume

A searchable calender of this volume has been created by Andrew Thomson and is available from the Cathedral Archives. The following overview is also by Andrew Thomson: The book – the third in the series of seventeenth century lease books – contains 171 entries. These are mainly leases (or ‘indentures’) but there are also a few appointments of diocesan officials. The dates run from 1659 to 1669. The four of 1659 are somewhat surprising since this was still the revolutionary time of the Cromwellian Protectorate and bishops, deans and chapters had been abolished in the 1640s and did not resume operations till 1660. The date 1659 may be an error but, more likely, a ‘retrospective’ entry to legalise a transaction which had occurred in the 1650s and which the personnel of the Restoration wished to continue? This, with some 201 folios, is a large book and, although straightforward in the main, it comes with the usual obstructions: fading ink at times and summaries of complex lease histories of the leases. The ‘histories’ were meant to establish the provenance of a property but the labyrinthine complexities leave the reader with more doubt – and exhaustion – than certainty. The leases are not always laid out in proper date order, the index is disordered and, once or twice, moreover, numbering of the folios goes wrong, just to add to potential confusion. The language is mostly English but appointments and the odd lease are in Latin. The leases are basically ’formulaic’, and follow a standard pattern but careful reading shows interesting variations. e.g. the penalty (termination of the lease) mostly applies to defaulting with the rent but sometime applies to neglect over repairs as well; or the presence of witnesses and the numbers of attorneys, if any, may differ. Instructions about ‘green wax’ (income from the manorial court) and ‘knowledge money’ (paid by way of acknowledgement when a new bishop assumed control) are intriguing and it is amusing to note the evasion – or discretion – over fines – often just ‘a competent sum of money’ – and the justifications – ‘for…the fabricke of the Cathedral Church’ – declared by ‘selfless’ deans and chapters. It is fascinating also to observe the efforts to which some lessors went to ‘micro manage’ their property: the amount of ‘tymber’ to be felled – without ‘waste’; the spreading of ‘dong’ over the land; the advowson rights to a church or chapel on the property; or the notification of death of any of the ‘lives’. The leases are a treasure trove for family historians – not just names but status, relationship within the family, residence, and, sometimes, even ages of the people concerned. They provide invaluable information for church historians about cathedral management of their estates. Compliance of the cathedral authorities with ‘the law’ is one interesting issue. Kings and archbishops banned leasing ‘for lives’ and ordered ’augmentation’ of the stipends of poorer vicars and curates. While there is some evidence of (cathedral) lessors requiring lessees to make extra payments to clergy – ‘augmentation’ – there is much more evidence of defiance of royal or archiepiscopal orders restricting the length of time a lease could run. This leads to the much wider and major question – efficiency. Did the royal and archiepiscopal orders make sense? Why did cathedral defy these orders? Did leasing for lives allow them to increase fines and impose stricter conditions or were they were simply bowing to pressure from lessees who preferred that kind of lease? How active overall were the cathedrals in pursuit of effective husbandry of their resources? Did rents remain static or rise to keep up with inflation? Did the cathedrals use – exploit – early surrendering and renewal of leases to bring home a larger harvest of fines? Evidence in this and the other seventeenth century lease books goes some way, if not conclusively, to answer some of these questions. One other matter – the implications of the Civil Wars and the Restoration – arises because of the dates of this lease book. Management of cathedral estates appears to have ceased at Salisbury after 1642, bishops, deans, and chapters were abolished in 1646, and their property, including Salisbury’s, was subsequently sold off; but there is no mention of property recovery proceedings in 1660 and leasing seems simply to have resumed in 1660as if nothing had happened in the intervening years. While this as a huge loss of information, the recovery itself was, of course, good news for this and other cathedrals. An increase in renewals meant more fines and sometimes higher rents and is the main reason why the cathedrals were able to tackle the backlog of repairs with relative ease; though it has to be said that the number of deals and the amount of money from this activity at Salisbury were nothing like the bonanza achieved by the neighbouring Winchester Cathedral in the early 1660s. Andrew Thomson 23/12/2023

English

Material: parchment Binding: parchment