Records of Convocation VI: Canterbury, 1444-1509

by Gerald L. Bray (Editor)

The convocation records of the Churches of England and Ireland are the principal source of our information about the administration of those churches from middle ages until modern times. They contain the minutes of clergy synods,the legislation passed by them, tax assessments imposed by the king on the clergy, and accounts of the great debates about religious reformation; they also include records of heresy trials in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,many of them connected with the spread of Lollardy. However, they have never before been edited or published in full, and their publication as a complete set of documents provides a valuable resource for scholarship.
This volume contains the acts of convocation during the wars of the roses and the reign of Henry VII. Most of this material has never been published before, and the collection of different sources enables us to see how both Edward IV andHenry VII modernized the institution along the lines of their other administrative reforms. We are also able to trace the church's reaction to the Lambert Simnel affair in the only documents which are exactly contemporary with the events.

520 pages, Hardcover

First published November 22, 2005

About the author

Gerald L. Bray (Ph.D., University of Paris--Sorbonne) is director of research for the Latimer Trust, based in London, and a research professor at Samford University, teaching in the Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. A priest of the Church of England, Bray has also edited the post-Reformation Anglican canons. He has edited several volumes of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and Ancient Christian Texts, as well as volume one of the Ancient Christian Doctrine series, all for IVP Academic. General EditorTimothy George (Th.D., Harvard University) is a renowned Reformation historian and author of Theology of the Reformers, as well as many other theological and historical works. He is founding dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University and an executive editor of Christianity Today.