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 pontificate of Henry Chichele. Much of the material was published in E. F. Jacob's edition of Chichele's register, but it has been completely re-ordered and supplemented by other material, to give a much fuller picture of how the institution worked at a time when it was deeply involved in English political life.