| Description | These begin in 1297/8 and continue to 1956 with very few gaps, except for the Civil War and Commonwealth period, and when there was a vacancy in the bishopric. They are a record of the bishop's institutions and collations to benefices and of many of his other important activities. Up to and including the register of Bishop Awdley, 1502-1524, they tend to fall into two main sections - one for the institutions and collations, and the other, the general register, for all the other business, such as papal bulls received, royal writs and mandates concerning taxation, licences and dispensations of all kinds, elections of heads of religious houses, unions and appropriations of benefices, court proceedings, and so on; lists of ordinations usually went with this part, but the first five registers have none. Sometimes the various kinds of business in the general register are scattered, sometimes partly at least grouped by class, and sometimes further sub-divided into separate registers, such as a register of royal writs or a register of licences.
After 1524 the registers contain mainly institutions and ordinations, but towards the end of the 18th century other business begins again to occupy a large place. Certificates for dissenting meeting houses were entered between 1757 and 1807; faculties, consecrations, conveyances (many with plans), began about the same time and continue up to the current registers (except for faculties, of which there are none after 1915), and there are also grants of office, sequestrations, etc. Almost all the registers have an index of institutions and a list of contents of the other business. The institutions for Wiltshire up to 1810 were extracted and printed by Sir Thomas Phillipps in 1825; a place index to his work was published in the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine, vol. XXVIII; and there are manuscript indexes of incumbents and patrons. A slip index of all entries in the registers from Bishop Martival (1315) to Bishop Awdley (1524), compiled by R. E. Sandell, and a card index to institutions of Berkshire clergymen, 1297-1481, compiled by Miss P. Stewart, is in a box at the end of the register series. Indexes of Wiltshire institutions, 1330-1641, and Berkshire institutions, 1297-1481, compiled by Rev. N. Laurence and Miss P. Stewart respectively, are in the Record Office library.
The bishop registers cease from 1959 to be replaced by copies and some originals of the constituent documents in D1/2/52-55. Ordinations after 1958 will be in the series D1/14. |