| Description | The patronage of the cathedral offices and dignities of dean, residentiary canons, honorary canons and Six Preachers is held either by the archbishop of Canterbury or by the Crown. If there is a vacancy, the patron has the right to present a candidate. The archbishop will then institute the candidate. This act confers the spiritualities of the office. The act may be termed a collation if the archbishop is himself the patron.
The archbishop will then issue a mandate to the dean (or vice-dean) and chapter for them to induct and install the candidate. This takes place in the cathedral and confers the temporalities of the office or dignity. The dean, residentiary canons, honorary canons and Six Preachers all have a right to a stall in the cathedral Choir.
This series includes a number of other documents relating to the acts of institution, installation and induction, such as appointments of proxy and declarations of conformity. Unless otherwise specified, documents are issued by the archbishop of Canterbury. Some material in this series illustrates arrangements while the see of Canterbury was vacant.
Only pendant seals are noted. Many of the applied seals are damaged and in fragments.
Some of these records were catalogued by Cyprian Rondeau Bunce in CCC Schedule, vol 2, as part of his Chartae Supplementales series. Here they are given under the letters 'D' (for Dean) and 'P' (for Prebendaries and Six Preachers). This arrangement was subsequently disturbed, the material being placed in this series as well as in the Boxes in the Basement series, under DCc/BB M.
Reference books used for the compilation of this catalogue include
Horn, Joyce M, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857, iii, Canterbury, Rochester and Winchester Dioceses (London, 1974)
Ingram Hill, Derek, The Six Preachers of Canterbury Cathedral 1541-1982 (1982)
For listings of the holders of cathedral offices and dignities for a given year, see Crockford's Clerical Directory and local trades directories. |