At a General Meeting of the SURTEES SOCIETY, held in Durham Castle, on Tuesday, June 1st, 1915, the Rev. Dr. GEE in the chair, It was resolved, That a volume of Miscellanies be prepared for the Society, to consist of the following Articles : : I.-Two Thirteenth-Century Assize Rolls for the County of Durham, now preserved in the Public Record Office, to be edited by Mr. K. E. BAYLEY. II.-North Country Deeds, from originals in the same repository, to be edited by the SECRETARY. III.-Diocesan and Provincial Visitations in the Fifteenth Century, from the Registers of the Archbishops of York, to be edited by Mr. A. HAMILTON THOMPSON. INTRODUCTION. T was during the early part of the thirteenth century that the Bishops of Durham consolidated those palatinate privileges which attained their fullest development at the end of that century, when Anthony Bell, "of that state and greatness as never any Bishop was, Woolsey excepted,"* ruled the diocese. Of the origin of those privileges it is not necessary to speak, but for the proper understanding of the two Assize Rolls which form this volume it is requisite that some reference should be made to the development of those privileges during the latter part of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries.† That the great franchise of Durham did not disappear under the centralizing movement of Henry II.'s reign is due to Hugh Pudsey, Bishop from 1153 to 1195. A cousin of the King, he not only successfully resisted those centralizing tendencies, but obtained charters confirming his jura regalia, and, on Richard I.'s accession, extended their area by purchasing Sadberge, that narrow and ill-defined strip of territory which, bordering on the river Tees, until then formed part of the county of Northumberland. Pudsey was succeeded by Philip of Poitou, who had to pay first 500 marks to Richard I. and then 1200 to King John for the confirmation of the grant of Sadberge. After his death in 1208 the see remained vacant during nine stormy years of John's rule or misrule. The Bishopric in the capable hands of * Coke, "Institutes," iv., 216. The materials for this short sketch are mainly drawn from Lapsley's County Palatine of Durham "and the “Victoria County History of Durham," ii., 142 seq. The rolls here printed enable the actual area of Sadberge to be identified more certainly than heretofore. b Robert Vipont, Philip of Ulcote, and Aimeric, Archdeacon of Durham, stood steadfast by the King, who benefited largely by the episcopal revenues. The long vacancy had one important effect: it saw a great development of the franchise of the Prior and Convent of Durham, who attempted to oust the jurisdiction of the Bishop in matters secular, in the same way that the Bishop, for his franchise, claimed exemption from the jurisdiction of the royal courts. A long and bitter dispute ensued lasting during Richard Marsh's episcopate (1217-1226) and only coming to an end in 1229, when Bishop Poor effected a compromise, the terms of which are set out in the "Convenit." This document, and still more the "attestationes testium," which fortunately have been preserved, throw considerable light on the administration of the Bishopric during the period preceding the Assize Rolls here printed. Difficulties not dissimilar in their nature arose between the Bishop and his great feudatories the Balliols, the Bruces, and the Nevilles, the dispute in the two former cases being complicated by the Balliol and Bruce fees being situate in Sadberge. However, it was finally decided that the Bishop had the same jura regalia in Sadberge as in the remainder of the Bishopric, and, shortly after the middle of the thirteenth century, the Bishop's sway was undisputed. Now, in order that the Bishop should be able to deal with all causes of dispute within his franchise, it was necessary that his courts should be transformed from a mere seignorial court into one modelled on the royal courts. When this transformation began is not known, but it seems reasonable to attribute it to Pudsey, who had acted as a royal justice, and this at a time when the royal courts were being greatly developed.† However this may be, it appears from a case in the royal courts at the beginning of the thirteenth century that it was doubtful if the Bishop's "Feodarium Prioratus Dunelmensis" (Surtees Society, 1871), 212 seq. The point is fully discussed by Lapsley, op. cit., 161 seq. Bishop Richard Marsh also acted as a justice in eyre in 1218, "Cal. Pat.," 1216-1225, 206, |