The Clerical Population of Medieval England
The clergy of medieval England constituted a small but important section of the population. As an order of society it included persons of a wide variety of dignities from the archbishop of Canterbury who sat on the right side of the king to the poor clerk or lonely anchorite. The problem of estimati...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge University Press
1944
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| In: |
Traditio
Year: 1944, Volume: 2, Pages: 177-212 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The clergy of medieval England constituted a small but important section of the population. As an order of society it included persons of a wide variety of dignities from the archbishop of Canterbury who sat on the right side of the king to the poor clerk or lonely anchorite. The problem of estimating their numbers varies also from group to group of the clergy, for a careful census of medieval population was almost never made. Such estimates as are made must be secured from data usually prepared for purposes of taxation or other matters of record. They are very uneven because there was little uniformity of practices. Some groups, such as the clerks in minor orders, might be expected to be slighted in the sources, but others of greater importance in their day share the same obscurity with respect to numbers, and for no group is there a continuous and well attested record. This study discusses briefly the sources and methods used and then considers the numbers of the secular clergy and (in much more detail) the orders of nuns, monks, canons, and friars. |
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| ISSN: | 2166-5508 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Traditio
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0362152900017177 |