THE STATUTES OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.*
IT has frequently been said since his death that the late librarian of Cambridge might have done much more than he did. He was fond of lamenting his own idleness, and thus, perhaps, gave his friends the impression that he was, to some extent, dilatory ; hence we find Mr. Furnivall writing to hint to urge him to push on and edit William, of Palerne, and saying, what perhaps was true, " You like doing bits of twenty- five things instead of finishing one." Bat this was Bradshaw's way of working, and though he did not, as he might easily have done had he been a totally different person, leave any great study of Chaucer behind him, complete in itself, in his own way he got through a large amount of useful and helpful labour, and settled a number of difficulties for other people that made their work all the better. Such a life, too, has a certain unselfishness which is of great value for its own sake, and this was was clearly the impression of all who came into personal contact with Henry Bradshaw.
The volume now published on the Cathedral Statutes of Lincoln grew in an almost accidental way, much as Bradshaw's other work was produced. It is clearly more important than be contemplated. He hoped to draw up a sort of guide to the muniments at Lincoln. to print a few documents, and add notes. At the time of his death, he had expended so much labour on the task that, under the careful supervision of Dr. Wordsworth, the volume which has now appeared contains not only much that is valuable for the information it affords, but is also an admirable example of a certain method of work, very little appreciated by the reading public, it is to be feared, but very useful to any who have to deal with pre-Reformation documents. It is not, of course, to be said that it is faultless. There is, if we may so express it, a certain want of padding in the earlier portion,—that is to say, there is room for more in the nature of a narrative history of the documents. We might have had more of the general history of the affairs of the Chapter ; there is too much knowledge, perhaps, assumed. But the papers as they are, though in the form of notes, give a most powerful impression of care and accuracy, and Dr. Wordsworth has been able, in not a few instances, to add to their value.
The book forms two sections. The first contains two memoranda, the one dealing with the oaths taken by members of the Chapter to observe the statutes and customs of the Cathedral, and the other with the books in which the laws of the Chapter of Lincoln are contained. The second section
comprises the text of the Liber Niger itself, copied, as Brad-
shaw says, so as to show the gradual growth of the book during three centuries (1300.1600). The most important and original part of the book is the second memorandum, which consists of eight chapters of notes arranged chronologically, and dealing with the history of the statutes as originating from their various sources and contained in various manu- scripts.
The history of the matter may be briefly told. The cus- toms of the Cathedral were formerly comprised in the Liber Niger, which was not, as might have been expected, an
original composition, but a collection of earlier statutes, drawn up about the beginning of the thirteenth century. In
the fifteenth century a long conflict took place between Dean Macworth, who was installed in 1412, and his Canons, as to the jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter, according to the Statutes preserved in the Liber Niger. We find that Bishop • Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral. Arranged by the late Henry Bradshaw ; with Illustrative Documents, edited by Christopher Wordsworth, M.A. Part I. Con- taining the Complete Text of " Liber Niger," with Mr. Bradshaw's Memorandums. Cambridge University Press. 1892.
Fleming, who is noteworthy for his scheme of what afterwards became Lincoln College, Oxford, attempted to settle things by an award in 1421; and Bishop Gray, though his efforts seem to have failed from a want of certain formalities, took the same course in 1434. Bishop Alnwick, who greatly assisted in the foundation of Eton and King's College, Cam- bridge, was elected in 1436. He found the Chapter in a truly deplorable state. The turbulent Macworth, who must have had some support at the Court in his long struggle, as he was Chancellor to the young Prince of Wales, tried to compel the Chapter to submission by force. His armed retainers appeared in the Chapter House, and on one occasion in the Minster itself, they dragged Partridge, the Chancellor, from his stall, and left him wounded on the pavement. The parties seem to have made a submission of their differences to the Bishop, and he, in 1439, published his celebrated Laudum, or award in forty articles, and in it inserted a provision that all future dignitaries should swear to observe it. Thus, to the Liber Niger as a body of Statutes was added the Laudum of Bishop Alnwick, and as Bradshaw points out, it has been sworn to by every one concerned from that day to this without question. Bishop Alnwick, however, wished for a more com- plete settlement of the discussions which arose from the interpretation of the Statutes, and in 1440 he prepared a draft of his celebrated NOVUM Registrum, based, as Bradshaw shows, on the Begistrum Ecelesiae Londoniensis, which was drawn up by Ralph de Baldok between 1294 and 1304. The first draft of this famous code has been lost, but the second draft containing numerous proposed amendments has been, after various fortunes, preserved. The truculent Macworth, however, had still to be reckoned with, and doubtless, to him was due the opposition which the code produced when presented to the Chapter. After no less than thirty-six con- vocations, a protest from Dean Macworth seems to have closed the discussion. This most interesting protest was discovered by Dean Blakesley, and it will be found printed in the "Report of the Commissioners on Ecclesiastical Establishments for 1884-1885." As a matter of fact, the Bishop seems to have attempted too much. Bradshaw shows in an admirable note how foreign he was to the atmo- sphere of Lincoln, where quite as much was regulated by custom as by statute ; where the statutes were only supple- mentary and often allusive, and required one trained in the Lincoln Chapter to administer them. Thus the NOVUM Begistrum was laid aside. Copies of it existed, and as time wore on it was regarded with much the same reverence as the Liber Niger and the Laudum, though, of course, of no proper authority. At the close of the seventeenth century, at a time when considerable attention was, chiefly perhaps for antiquarian reasons, but also, doubtless, owing to the ten years' disturbance of the Commonwealth, being devoted to such documents, Bishop Barlow was informed by his Chapter (September 4th, 1680) that the books of statutes of Lin- coln were three,—the Liber Niger, the Novum Begistrum, and Bishop Alnwick's Laudum. After 1750, the Liber Niger seems to have lost authority altogether as a body of repealed statutes, and in 1873 Bishop Wordsworth, in printing an edition of the statutes, omitted it alto- gether. Thus a curious state of things has been reached ; the Chapter is ruled by statutes which have no other authority than two hundred years' usage can give ; or, to put the matter in another form, the code of Lincoln has become customary again. One can hardly agree with Mr. Bradshaw when he says, at the close : "Under no circum- stances, however, can I see that the tacit acquiescence in a body of unratified statutes, for whatever length of time, especially when that acquiescence was itself based upon a misconception of their history, can have the effect of pro- curing for them the legal effects of a ratification which no one, at the time of their composition, ever thought of claiming for them." The fact is, that were this principle accepted, our whole legal theory would have to be changed. Two hundred years' observance of the Ncrvum Registrum brings its authority on a level with that of the Liber Niger.
We have only sketched the history of these statutes in out- line. The care which has been expended by Bradshaw in arranging the Liber Niger, in noting its gradual growth, in studying the handwritings and observing the parallels between Lincoln customs and those elsewhere, has been very great. Some might consider that the trouble bestowed upon the text in notes like those on pp. 429 and 59 is too great, con- sidering, that is to say, the importance of the Liber But as p. 441 will show, the method will serve as an example for others, and the details of such a book can only be thoroughly tested by long use of it by those engaged in similar work. Enough has been said, however, to show that, though frag- mentary in manner, the whole forms a study complete in itself, and that if the work done is of a very specialised kind, it is none the less of great merit and interest.
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