Bishops, Clerks, and Diocesan Governance in Thirteenth-Century England
Cambridge University Press, 12/20/2012
EAN 9781107022140, ISBN10: 1107022142
Hardcover, 332 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
This book investigates how bishops deployed reward and punishment to control their administrative subordinates in thirteenth-century England. Bishops had few effective avenues available to them for disciplining their clerks and rarely pursued them, preferring to secure their service and loyalty through rewards. The chief reward was the benefice, often granted for life. Episcopal administrators' security of tenure in these benefices, however, made them free agents, allowing them to transfer from diocese to diocese or even leave administration altogether; they did not constitute a standing episcopal civil service. This tenuous bureaucratic relationship made the personal relationship between bishop and clerk more important. Ultimately, many bishops communicated in terms of friendship with their administrators, who responded with expressions of devotion. Michael Burger's study brings together ecclesiastical, social, legal and cultural history, producing the first synoptic study of thirteenth-century English diocesan administration in decades. His research provides an ecclesiastical counterpoint to numerous studies of bastard feudalism in secular contexts.
Part I. The Problem
1. Introduction
2. Dangers of service
Part II. Rewards and Punishments
3. Benefice for service and for benefit
4. Security of tenure in benefices
5. Pensions
6. Other rewards
7. Punishment
Part III. Consequences
8. Patronage hunger
9. Continuity and discontinuity in administration
10. Affection and devotion
11. Conclusions
culture and context.
'This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the workings of diocesan administration in thirteenth-century England. In particular, Burger sheds new light on the complex relationship between the bishop and his bureaucrats. We learn why medieval bishops used rewards, particularly the granting of benefices, far more than punishments in dealing with their clerical subordinates, and [he] draws valuable comparisons between developments in episcopal and royal administration. Above all, this book explains how the rise of an administrative church impacted the power of bishops.' Adam Davis, Denison University and author of The Holy Bureaucrat: Eudes Rigaud and Religious Reform in Thirteenth-Century Normandy