| Description | This series of bound volumes is one of the cornerstones of the whole archive. The idea of engrossing documents into registers really took hold in the later thirteenth century and this was very much the case at Christ Church where many of these registers date from and reflect the administrative energy of Priory Henry Eastry (1285-1331).
The present makeup of many of the registers dates from around 1711 to 1753 when they were bound up or rebound under the direction of Samuel Norris, the auditor. Unfortunately, this was somewhat carelessly executed and the ordering of some of the volumes is not a little confused.
The types of business these registeres contain fall into several distinct categories
1. Cartularies (Registers A, B, C, D, E, H (part), I(part), O( part), and P (part)) containing copies of title deeds for the priory's estates and also royal and papal grants of licences and privileges. A-D comprise a contemporary copy of the late C13 E which was broken up into 4 separate volumes with additional material added in C15.
2. General Estate Memoranda (Registers H (part), I(part), J, K, M, N(part), O(part), and P (part)). These mainly date from the time of Eastry and contain copies of extents, rentals, taxation assessments, treatises and general priory business. Some can be identified as the compilations of individual monks.
3. Letter Books (Register L). Contains copies of correspondence sent and received.
4. Sede Vacante (Registers F, G, N(part), Q, R, U2, V1(part)). During a vacancy in the archbishopric, the administration of his spiritualities devolved on the priory and these registers record all such relevant business to do with the see and province of Canterbury. After the Reformation, this business is increasingly only of a formal nature and much of the practical administration such as appointments to benefices is no longer to be found in the Chapter's registers.
5. Lease Registers (Registers S, T, T2, U, U3-U8, V, V1(part), V2, V3, V4, V5, V6, V7, W, X, Y, Y2-Y7, 27-73). With the end of the direct management of the priory's estates in the 1390s, the priory no longer had any real concern for detailed records of the extent and managementof its estates so much of the business recorded in 2. disappears. Almost all the priory's estates were henceforward leased and it is copies of these leases that form the bulk of this material. Also recorded are the priory's institutions to its benefices, more miscellaneous items, and leases of the archbishop's estates and his appointments of officials, which had to be ratified by the priory/dean and chapter. These registers continue in similar vein from 1394 to the takeover of the chapter's estates by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1861. In 1780 the lease business was separated off from the rest into distinct series of registers. The registers of the later sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries suffered very badly in the Audit House fire of 1670 and many of these are now just bundles of loose charred folios. |
| Related Material | Similar general registers of the time of Prior Eastry, Cambridge UL, Ee.5.31; Trinity College Cambridge, MS O. 9.26; BL, Add Ms 6160; BL, Cotton Galba E.iv; BL, Harley 1006 (continues to later C14), DCc-ChAnt/C/249 - 250 (index to registers) |