Jeffrey H. Denton - Böcker

With the publication of volumes 43 and 44 in the internationally-recognised English Episcopal Acta series, the project's work on the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield is complete. The volumes draw together for the first time modern, scholarly editions of all the known documents issued by six bishops. They enable academics to see the work of the bishops of this large see in a broader chronological context and elucidate areas of their economic and social activity. They also deal with the bishop's political activities: at national level in the events of the civil war of the 1260s, and locally in their dealing with their own chapters and the struggle to reconcile the conflicting claims of the monks of Coventry and the canons of Lichfield. The volumes reveal men whose episcopates were ones of academic learning as well as those whose concerns were principally those of landed lords. The implications of the documents are discussed in a full introduction. In addition, appendices include the first full itineraries of the bishops and editions of the known documents issued by the bishop's officials and commissaries, thus allowing a fuller consideration of the working of Church administration in this period.

With the publication of volumes 43 and 44 in the internationally-recognised English Episcopal Acta series, the project's work on the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield is complete. The volumes draw together for the first time modern, scholarly editions of all the known documents issued by six bishops. They enable academics to see the work of the bishops of this large see in a broader chronological context and elucidate areas of their economic and social activity. They also deal with the bishop's political activities: at national level in the events of the civil war of the 1260s, and locally in their dealing with their own chapters and the struggle to reconcile the conflicting claims of the monks of Coventry and the canons of Lichfield. The volumes reveal men whose episcopates were ones of academic learning as well as those whose concerns were principally those of landed lords. The implications of the documents are discussed in a full introduction. In addition, appendices include the first full itineraries of the bishops and editions of the known documents issued by the bishop's officials and commissaries, thus allowing a fuller consideration of the working of Church administration in this period.

This is the first detailed study of the career of one of the most important medieval archbishops of Canterbury. Robert Winchelsey sought to defend ecclesiastical rights and liberties at a time when the English Church was under constant pressure from the king and his government, and he suffered suspension from office as a result of his opposition to Edward I. The theme of the book is the relationship of this learned and saintly archbishop with the Crown during the last troubled years of Edward I's reign and the first equally troubled years of Edward II's reign.