Career Patterns among the Clergy of Lincoln Cathedral, 1660-1750

In every diocese in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was a clerical elite whose most visible members were the clergy attached to the local cathedral. They included the bishop, the bishop's major judicial and administrative assistants and the cathedral's dean and chapter. What were the general career patterns of these men in the late Stuart and early Georgian periods? From what geographical, social and educational backgrounds were they recruited? What economic rewards did their appointments carry? One might answer these questions by citing contemporary writers and by relating case histories of the clerics involved, but contemporary writers are not always accurate reporters, and individuals are not always representative members of the group as a whole. What is needed is a more systematic investigation of the late Stuart and early Georgian cathedral clergy than has so far been made-one that can establish general patterns for the group as a whole by actually looking at the group as a whole. Collective biography makes it possible to delineate general patterns for an entire group and to relegate the individual example to its proper function-that of illustrating hypotheses that have already been demonstrated by more systematic means. This article attempts such an analysis: it is a prosopographical study of the cathedral clergy of Lincoln Diocese under the late Stuarts and early Hanoverians.l The cathedral clergy of the Diocese of Lincoln included the bishop, the chancellor, the diocese's six archdeacons, the dean, the subdean, the precentor and the ordinary prebendaries of Lincoln Cathedral. There were fifty-eight prebends of ancient endowment in the cathedral, but by 1660 time and amalgamation had reduced the number of posts actually available. In the sixteenth century the prebends of Sutton with Buckingham, Leighton Manor and Thame had passed into 1. The names of the dignitaries and prebendaries, and the dates of their installation, are taken from the Dean and Chapter's Act 'Books deposited with the Muniments of the Dean and Chapter in the Lincolnshire Archives Office. All subsequent unpublished documents hereafter cited are deposited in the Lincolnshire Archives Office, unless otherwise noted. The Muniments of the Dean and Chapter are cited as D. and C., followed by the appropriate file number; for example, in the case of the Dean and Chapter's Act Books: D. and C., A/3/9-13. Biographical and career-pattern information for the dignitaries and prebendaries comes from J. and J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigiensis, Parts 1 and 2, 10 vols. (Cambridge 1922-1954)i J. Foster, Alumni Oxeniensis, Parts 1 and 2, 8 vols. (Oxford and London, 1888-1891); G. D. Burtchaell and T. U. Sadleir, Alumni Dubtiniensis (London, 1924); A. Wood, Athenae Oxoniensis, 5 vols. (London, 1813-1820); J. Peile, Biographical Register of Christ's College, 1505-1905, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1910-1913); J. Venn, Biographical History of Gonvlle and Caius College, 1349-1879, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1897-1912); J. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, corrected by T. D. Hardy, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1854); J. Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, 2 vols. (London, 1848); Dictionary of National Biography; H. I. Longden, Northamptonshire and Butland Clergy, 16 vols. (Northampton, 1938-1952); J. Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, 4 vols. (London, 1795-1815). A. R. Maddison ed., Lincolnshire Pedigrees, 4 vols. (London: Har1cian Society 1902-1906); J. W. Clay, ed. Familiae Minorum Gentium, 4 vols. (London: Harleian Society 1894-1896); A. G. Matthews, Calamy-Blevised (Oxford, 1934); A. G. Meadows, Walker-Revised (Oxford, 1947); and the Index to the Act Books of the Archbishops of Canterbury, 1663-1859, compiled by E. H. W. Dunkin, edited and extended by C. Jenkins and E. A. Fry, 2 vols. (LoLndon British Record Society, 1929 and 1938).