11th to the 13th Northallerton was the centre of visitation for the parishes of the spirituality; but, after finishing there on the 13th, the archbishop opened his visitation of Cleveland deanery on the same day at Hutton Rudby. He appointed four days for Guisborough, one for the local parishes, and three for the priory, and visited Whitby abbey and parish church on 20 July. The visitation of Whitby abbey probably extended over more than a day, for it was not till the 23rd that the deanery of Ryedale was entered at Brompton in Pickering Lythe. Here proceedings were more expeditious, and the visitation, after four weeks all but a day, ended with a halt for entertainment at Malton priory.

Of Bowet's later visitations, the only detailed notices are the summons issued to the chapter of Beverley for 10 August, 1416, and the fuller documents relating to his visitation of the dean and chapter of York in June of the same year. The York documents are of special interest, as they illustrate the working of the composition between the archbishop and the chapter, which had received its final form in 1328. The full text of this famous composition, from the accurate copy at the end of archbishop Kempe's register, collated with the original copy in the register of archbishop Melton, will be found, as already stated, at the end of the documents included in this volume. It was the definitive form of an agreement arrived at between archbishop John le Romeyn and the dean and chapter of his day in 1290. This earlier composition appears to have afforded loop-holes for the infringement of the liberties of the chapter by the visitor; and, to quiet the consequent disputes between the archbishops and a republic jealous of its rights, pope John XXII. appointed bishop Ayerminne of Norwich and Hugh of Angoulême, archdeacon of Canterbury, commissaries to examine and approve a settlement. The archdeacon was unable to serve upon the commission, and the bishop confirmed the scheme which was submitted to him, after consultation, by the proctors of the contending parties. By this arrangement the archbishop was granted the right of

visiting the chapter once every four years, instead of once in three years, as formerly. Most of the procedure appears clearly from the account of Bowet's visitation. His notice was sent out on 21 April, a full two months before the date appointed for the visitation, 22 June. On that day, at the accustomed hour of chapter, he entered the chapter-house, where the precentor, treasurer and five canons were present. After having delivered or listened to a sermon, he remained with three assessors and a clerk, not a notary public, and received the certificate acknowledging the receipt and execution of his summons. William Cawode, as proctor for the chapter, entered a formal protest on behalf of their liberties, which the archbishop on his side undertook to respect, according to common law and the terms of the composition. The actual visitation then followed. The procedure is not stated in full; but the composition required a general demand, to be made to the chapter in common, without any exaction of an oath or formal threat of penalties, as to matters which called for correction. After this the archbishop might examine the canons individually and in private, but without any penal injunction, and with the undertaking of his assessors and clerk, in presence of the chapter, to keep faithfully, in dictating and writing the evidence, to the actual words of each canon. The comperta and detecta thus obtained and written down were delivered to the chapter on the day following the visitation. The right of correcting them was reserved to the chapter, with the proviso that, if they failed to report their corrections within ten months, the archbishop might take the right into his own hands, not, however, without timely notice of his intention to the dean, or, in the dean's absence, to the senior canon in residence, nor without the advice of the chapter. At the same time, the right of depriving canons of their canonries and prebends was retained absolutely by the archbishop, as a complement to his power of collation. Further clauses of the composition exempted the chapter from the payment of procurations after the hundred shillings due at the first visitation, and reserved to them the privilege

of exercising unimpeded visitation within their own peculiar jurisdiction.

The correction of the comperta was certified to Bowet on 2 April, 1417, between nine and ten months after his visitation. In the meantime, the deanery, which had been vacant in the previous June, had been filled by the election of Thomas Polton, afterwards bishop of Hereford and Worcester. He, however, was away from York at this time, and the chapter answered the archbishop in their own name. They appear to have corrected such defaults as related purely to their own property and the maintenance of order within the close; but those in which the liberties of the archbishop were of joint concern with their own were left to his correction in consultation with them, and with these was included the deliberation of measures to hasten the completion of the fabric of the minster. This certificate closes a series of documents which form an instructive addition to the constitutional history of the church of York.

The visitation documents in archbishop Kempe's register are collected in two portions of the volume. In ff. 210-213 are the notices of a visitation of the archdeaconry of Richmond, held in the late summer of 1428, followed by an interesting account of the proceedings of the first three days, with the depositions from various parishes. In pursuance of notices issued on 22 June, the visitation began at Goldsborough on 24 August. The most interesting depositions on this occasion related to dilapidations in the churches of Goldsborough and Knaresborough, the roofs and windows of which were sadly in need of repair. From Goldsborough the archbishop proceeded directly to St. Robert's at Knaresborough, where the minister and brethren met him with a plea for exemption from his visitation, alleging the authority of a papal bull. This bull, which apparently exempted the whole order of Trinitarians from episcopal jurisdiction, was said to be among the archives of the chief house of the order in France; and Kempe graciously adjourned his visitation till 1 September in the year following, to give time for the production of the original or

of a copy. According to his preliminary programme, he spent the night at St. Robert's, and went on next day to Ripley. Here the depositions were of little importance, but complaints were made of the morals of the rector of Staveley. The archbishop was scheduled to pass the night at Fountains, and on 26 August he appeared at Wensley. In addition to the local clergy, there met him here the archdeacon of Richmond, and the abbots of the exempt houses of Coverham and Jervaulx, with whom he proposed to lodge on the nights of the 26th and 27th. The report of the petition which they presented on behalf of the clergy and people of the whole archdeaconry is somewhat obscurely and allusively worded. It appears, however, that Kempe had foregone his primary visitation of the rest of the diocese on account of the bad weather, which had imperilled the harvest and thereby prevented clergy and people from going far from home, and that he had accepted a composition from the other archdeaconries in lieu of the customary daily procurations. This the archdeacon and his associates prayed him to do in the present case, and, finding that he was prepared to listen to them, offered him a twentieth from the benefices of the archdeaconry by way of a subsidy, which he accepted. To safeguard his rights, however, in an archdeaconry over which his control, in the lifetime of the archdeacon, was little more than nominal, the archbishop made a formal assertion of his jurisdiction as diocesan and visitor, and, referring to the time-honoured agreement between the archbishops and the archdeacons of Richmond, declared that he had the right of visiting and receiving procurations from this archdeaconry, as often as he visited the rest of the diocese. He then dismissed the clergy and laity, charging them to lay their depositions before his commissaries. The information thus obtained discovered much neglect with regard to the chapel of West Witton, and an extraordinary state of things at Coverham, where the parishioners came armed to church, crowded the porch and quire, quarrelled in service, and did unauthorised legal business at the church door. No presentations are reported

from other parts of the archdeaconry. Had Kempe completed his visitation, he would have been occupied continuously for four weeks until 22 September, when he was due at Brigham in the deanery of Coupland. The programme indicates that the exempt monasteries would have felt the burden of his progress heavily, as he proposed to spend a night and receive procurations in entertainment at the abbeys of Fountains, Coverham, Jervaulx, St. Agatha, Egglestone, Cockersand, Furness, Calder, and the priory of Hornby. He also expected hospitality at the priories of St. Martin's at Richmond, Conishead, Cartmel, and St. Bees, over which he had jurisdiction as ordinary. The most interesting item in his programme relates to 15 September, when, having concluded his visitation of the deanery of Amounderness at Kirkham, he intended to spend an idle. day in crossing Morecambe bay to Conishead priory in the deanery of Furness. The archbishops of York seldom succeeded in visiting these distant parts of their vast diocese, and it is much to be regretted that on this occasion a visitation, of which the opening reports are so promising, was abandoned so early in its course.

As chancellor of England from 1426 to 1432, and as a leading statesman during the period which followed his resignation of the great seal, Kempe had little opportunity of carrying out a complete visitation of his diocese; and it was not until the fifteenth year of his tenure of the see of York that he managed to make arrangements for carrying` out the long-deferred primary visitation. Meanwhile, on 20 November, 1437, the death of Thomas Langley, bishop of Durham, was chosen by him as an appropriate time to exercise his rights as metropolitan in the vacant see. He was unable to undertake this task in person, and, had he done so, it is possible that he might have met with the resistance so often shewn to his predecessors. He delegated his office on 10 December, 1437, to his clerk John Marchall or Marshall, then registrar of the court of York and canon of Wells, who was himself beneficed in the diocese of Durham as master of Sherburn hospital. The commissary appears to

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