At a Meeting of the SURTEES SOCIETY, held in Durham It was ordered, That the Register of Archbishop John le Romeyn be edited for the Society by the Secretary. 1 INTRODUCTION. The register of archbishop John le Romeyn, or Romanus, is written on parchment, and, like the register of archbishop William Wickwane, has been rebound in modern times in citron coloured morocco leather. The folios are 12 by 81 inches in size, and, following the modern foliation which occurs in pencil at the lower left hand corner of the folio and is continuous throughout, number 165. This figure includes all the interpolations, "constituciones Bonifacii pape viij " (folios 153, 154), and an index on paper at the end, amounting to six folios, compiled by Torre. The interpolations are folios 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 29, 39, 48, 55, 56, 81, 100, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119, 119a, 120, 121, 122, 123, 143, 148, 165. The contents of the volume are as follows: Fo. 91. Fo. 115. Ballive. Fo. 130. Fo. 142. Fo. 153. Capitula. Fo. 110. Spiritualitas de Houeden' et de Alverton'. De episcopis suffraganeis. Intrinseca de camera. Constituciones Bonifacii pape viij. Fo. 156. Torre's index (paper). In this volume the text of the register is printed down. to fo. 103d, the end of the fifth year of the Capitula. The present volume contains the larger part of the register, 1,119 documents out of rather under 1,600. Besides the Indulgences and the Officiality and part of the Capitula, the records of the four archdeaconries are here printed, so that with the exception of the spiritualities of Howden and Allerton, which do not contain much of importance, all of 1A what may be termed the parochial part of the register is now before the reader. As it is intended to write a detailed life of archbishop le Romeyn when all his register is in print, it will now be only necessary to mention the more important facts in his career.1 Son of a treasurer of York of the same name, he, like his father, was the son of a priest. Prior to his elevation to the archbishopric his preferments were principally in the church of Lincoln, where, besides holding prebends, he occupied the offices of chancellor and precentor. At York he seems to have held nothing except the prebend of Warthill, to which he was collated in 1279.2 He was elected archbishop, October 29, 1285, in succession to archbishop Wickwane, consecrated at Rome on Feb. 10th following, and received the temporalities on April 12th. He soon after left London on his way north. He was at Bermondsey on April 18, 1287 (no. 1187), and the same day reached St. Albans (no. 34). On the 27th he was at Laneham (no. 20), and slowly proceeding northward through his diocese arrived at York on June 9, when his enthronization took place (no. 1413). His last recorded act is dated March 4, 1295-6, in the eleventh year of his pontificate (nos. 434, 530, 698), just a week before his death, March 11. Le Romeyn's register is one of very considerable importance, as it was taken as a model for succeeding registers. His letters were long after cited as specimens of the epistolary art, and the long list of precedents in the Kalendarium' at the commencement of this register, for the most part contemporary, but with many later additions, served for many years as a model to the clerks in the archbishop's chancery for drawing up the various kinds of documents which were issued from their office. This list will be printed in the next volume. A certain number of more or less formal documents, which would otherwise have been given more briefly, are here printed at length so as to give specimens of all the various forms cited in the list. The late Canon Raine told the present writer that he considered this the model register. The logical arrangement of the contents, the uniform and clear though small writing, and the methodical manner in which the different documents have been entered up fully justify the canon's eulogy. Derived from Canon Raine's account of this prelate in the Fasti Ebor. i, 327-349. 2 Wickwane's Register, nos. 9, 10. |