INTRODUCTION
The medieval diocese of Durham consisted of the counties of Northumberland
and Durham. As the first line of defence against incursions from Scotland, the bishops
had considerable power and wealth as head of the Palatine jurisdiction of the County
Palatine of Durham. At the Reformation, the boundaries of the diocese remained
the same, but a new secular cathedral chapter replaced the Benedictine monastic
community dissolved in 1540. The new cathedral was established along similar lines
to the other cathedrals of Henry VIII's new foundation on 12 May 1541. (fn. 1) It was the
sixth to be established in England, and the second in the northern province. Like
Canterbury, Winchester and Westminster, it was founded on a lavish scale, with a
dean and twelve canons. Continuity was maintained with the former monastic
chapter: the dean was the former prior and nine of the canons were former monks
of Durham priory. One other was a former friar from Newcastle. Only two members
of the first chapter were not former monks or friars. (fn. 2)
Given the original personnel of the new cathedral, it was not surprising that in
Mary I's reign only the dean and one canon were deprived. The accession of
Elizabeth I produced more far-reaching changes. Seven canons were deprived for
refusal to subscribe to the royal supremacy and the Articles of Religion and three
others were initially sequestrated for failure to subscribe, though they seem to
have conformed eventually.
At the foundation, the prebends were all in the king's gift. However, in Mary's
reign, the right of presentation to them was granted to the bishop and his
successors. (fn. 3) Unlike other cathedrals of the New Foundation, each prebend had
assigned to it from the cathedral's estates its own endowment in land. As a result,
a canon would receive not only his assigned payment and his share in any surplus
in the chapter income, but also the income from his own prebendal estate. These
estates may have originally been of similar value, but some increased in value
more than others over the years. This led to canons moving from prebend to
prebend more than is usual in New Foundation cathedrals. The commission to
inquire into ecclesiastical revenues revealed that in the three years. 1828–31 the
income of the cathedral corporation was an enormous £27,933, making it by far
the wealthiest in the country. The next most wealthy was Canterbury with £15,982,
while Durham's neighbour Chester, as has already been seen, had a mere £634.
The Durham prebends ranged in average annual value from £312 for the ninth to
£1,400 for the highly desirable eleventh (or Golden) prebend. (fn. 4) There are several
instances of men holding other prebends who transferred to the eleventh when a
vacancy arose, and no instances of a holder of the eleventh resigning it for any
office short of a deanery. In 1831 three of the canons were also bishops of relatively
poor sees John Bird Sumner of Chester, Robert Gray of Bristol and Henry
Phillpotts of Exeter. By 1831, the deanery of Durham brought an average net
income of £3,266, considerably more than the £1,897 revenue from the bishopric
of St. Davids which the current dean, John Banks Jenkinson, held together with
the deanery. The bishop's average income was £19,066, only slightly less than
the £19,182 that the archbishop of Canterbury received and over £5,000 more
than the archbishop of York's annual income. (fn. 5)
Some of this wealth was, however, destined to be used for the establishment of
a university at Durham. In 1832 the Act of 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 19 (private) was
secured, entitled 'An Act to enable the dean and chapter of Durham to appropriate
part of the property of their church to the establishment of a university therewith
for the advancement of learning'. Subsequent Acts of parliament and Orders in
Council brought the university into being.
The Palatine jurisdiction of the County Palatine of Durham was separated from
the bishopric by the Act of 6 & 7 Will. IV c. 19, and was to be vested instead in
the Crown. Henceforth, the bishop was to exercise episcopal and ecclesiastical
jurisdiction only. His annual income was set at £8,000 by the same Act, which
placed him fourth highest, after Canterbury, York and London. (fn. 6)
The Act of 3 & 4 Vic. c. 113 s. 8 reduced the number of Durham prebends from
twelve to six. Moreover, the Act of 4 & 5 Vic. c. 39 s. 9 sanctioned the endowment
of archdeaconries with benefices, and two prebends were annexed to the
archdeaconries of Durham and Northumberland in 1863 and 1846 respectively. In
1841, an Order in Council decreed that the office of warden of the university of
Durham should become permanently annexed to the deanery. The fourth prebend,
held by Henry Jenkyns, Professor of Divinity and Ecclesiastical History, was to be
permanently annexed to this professorship on its next vacancy, and the valuable
eleventh prebend (then vacant) was to be annexed to the chair of Greek and Classical
Literature. (fn. 7) Thus four of the six remaining prebends of Durham were annexed to
archdeaconries or university chairs. The cathedral statutes were amended accordingly
on 20 July 1841, ratified by Order in Council of 14 September. (fn. 8)
To the archdeaconries of Durham and Northumberland was added a new
archdeaconry, that of Lindisfarne, which was formed in 1842 out of the northern
part of the large archdeaconry of Northumberland. (fn. 9)
The ecclesiastical commissioners made only slight alterations to Durham's
diocesan boundaries. Parishes locally situated in one diocese, but under the
jurisdiction of another diocese were, by 6 & 7 Will. IV c. 77, made subject to the
bishop of the diocese within which they were situated. Hence the York peculiar
jurisdiction of Hexhamshire was transferred to the diocese of Durham, while the
parish of Crayke was assigned in the reverse direction. The Durham estates of
Allertonshire and Howdenshire within the diocese of York went to endow the new
diocese of Ripon, while the parishes in these former peculiar jurisdictions were
transferred to York diocese.
In the original Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, published in 1716, John Le Neve
supplied lists only of the bishops, deans and two archdeacons, based on standard
printed works of his day and the registers of the archbishop of Canterbury, his
references being cited without precision. Thomas Duffus Hardy, in his much fuller
revision of Le Neve's work, extending it to 1854, supplied lists of the prebends,
but as was normal with his work did not provide references to sources, by which
the accuracy of his details could be assessed.
The following lists are heavily indebted to Lists of Deans and Major Canons of
Durham, 1541–1900, compiled by Patrick Mussett (1974), who systematically
worked through the Durham records, of which he was then an archivist in the
University's Department of Palaeography and Diplomatic. He generously allowed
this to form the basis of the present work, besides supplying information he has
subsequently discovered. This volume adds lists of the bishops of Durham and
the archdeacons, and also makes use of sources outside Durham, such as the Public
Record Office, Lambeth Palace Library, the Borthwick Institute, York, and various
local record offices, together with a wider range of printed sources, including
contemporary journals and newspapers. Alan Piper, the present Durham Chapter
Archivist, has also made available the addenda he has compiled to the 1974 work.
The diocesan records have suffered considerable losses, and there are major
gaps in the series of registers and act books, offset by the almost complete series
of Public Record Office certificates of institution, and by the particularly full
capitular records. As a result, and with a few exceptions in the late sixteenth
century, the present lists can be regarded as fairly reliable.