The Registers of Archbishop John Pecham and his Notary, John of Beccles: Some Unnoticed Evidence
The earliest extant Canterbury register is an artifact of the scribes and notaries, clerici and magistri working within the household of Archbishop John Pecham (1279-92). Of the numerous members of Pecham's familia, John of Bologna, trained in the Italian notarial arts and the cursus, was of gr...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1987
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| In: |
The journal of ecclesiastical history
Year: 1987, Volume: 38, Issue: 3, Pages: 406-436 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The earliest extant Canterbury register is an artifact of the scribes and notaries, clerici and magistri working within the household of Archbishop John Pecham (1279-92). Of the numerous members of Pecham's familia, John of Bologna, trained in the Italian notarial arts and the cursus, was of great influence in this regard. He accompanied the new scholar-archbishop who left Rome in June 1279 to take up the most important and exacting ecclesiastical office in England. After Pecham's day, as C. R. Cheney has amply demonstrated, the use of notaries public in English episcopal chanceries was commonplace: the example of the archbishop's employment of notaries, no doubt encouraged and guided by John of Bologna, must be seen as a prime cause of this. Appropriately, John's Summa Notarie, a manual for fledgling notaries in England — ‘where they are unacquainted with the notarial art’ — was dedicated to Pecham. The conceptualisation, composition and even custody of Pecham's register must be seen within this framework. The subsequent rationalisation and retention of Canterbury records of all kinds including registers, though not exclusively attributable to John of Bologna and Pecham's notaries, was probably strongly influenced by them. For this reason, all that can be learned about Pecham's register and record-keeping among his staff is of significance — certainly to historians of what Robert Brentano has called ‘the written Church’. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-7637 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of ecclesiastical history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900024982 |