The Register of John Salmon, Bishop of Norwich, 1299-1325 - by Elizabeth Gemmill (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

John Salmon's fourteenth-century register brings to life the day-to-day world of a medieval bishop.

John Salmon's register is the earliest to survive for the diocese of Norwich: a complete record of institutions to ecclesiastical benefices during the quarter-century of his episcopate, from 1299 to 1325. Although his diocese was not the wealthiest in England, the early fourteenth century saw the region at the height of its ecclesiastical powers, with an abundance of churches and chapels and numerous religious houses.
Institutions to benefices and offices were at the heart of the work of the medieval bishop. This edition, which takes the form of a calendar supplemented with transcriptions and translations of entries of special interest, enables a detailed and thorough examination of the character and qualifications of the clergy who served local communities at the beginning of the fourteenth century, of the motives of the patrons who presented them to their livings and of the concerns of the bishop himself.

Review Quotes

[The] editor is to be congratulated both for calendaring these materials and for her identification of parishes all too easily muddled, facilitating parochial fasti and fleshing out the prosopography of an entire generation of English clergy.-- "Speculum"

Elizabeth Gemmill has produced an exemplary calendar edition of the earliest surviving register of the diocese of Norwich. [.] Bishops' registers are a valuable source of personal data that deserves to be better known, and this volume provides a good way in for East Anglians.-- "THE LOCAL HISTORIAN"