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 all the evidence for convocations and provincial councils during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III, and reconstructs the period from 1328 to 1349, for which the Canterbury registers have been lost. Particularly important is the detailed account of the convocations held in 1340-2, when the clergy first withdrew from parliament and insisted on taxing themselves. There is also an appendix listing all the known clerical proctors sent to parliament from 1295 to 1536.