English Episcopal Acta, Volume 41: Norwich 1289-1299 - Hardcover

Harper-Bill provides an illuminating discussion of the diocese, the bishops and their officials, as well as the diplomatic of the acta ... Together the introduction, acta and appendices provide a broad and accessible insight that will be of great interest and help to researchers. (Sophie Ambler, Journal of Ecclesiastical History)

Only someone with Harper-Bill's vast knowledge of the diocese knows where to look for these scattered documents, while his scholarship makes possible this exemplary annotated edition. (Norman Tanner, The English Historical Review)

These volumes are part of the English Episcopal Acta project, designed to edit all documents issued by bishops in England from the Norman Conquest to the advent of Episcopal registers in each individual diocese. These two volumes complete the work for the diocese of Norwich, which included the most heavily populated and richest region of medieval England and contained a very large number of religious houses. The present volumes contain 375 episcopal charters and letters (in addition to 830 published in the previous Norwich volumes). A substantial introduction contains short biographies of the three bishops and details of their household, and a discussion of the very varied subject-matter and the diplomatic formulae of the acta. A series of appendices contain, inter alia, earlier acta recently located, references to acta now lost and to the use of the Episcopal seal, and itineraries of the bishops. Along with other volumes in this series, this collection both illustrates the changing mechanisms of church government in the 12th and 13th centuries, and provides a view of English church and society, from relations with the crown through the regulation of religious houses, to parochial organisation, unattainable before the systematic collection of such documents.