It is no exaggeration to say
that there are hundreds of parishes in England of whose incumbents
for centuries not only a complete list may be made out, but the very
day and place be set down where those incumbents received institution
into the benefice either at the hands of the Diocesan or his
official. This is certainly the case in the great East Anglian
diocese of Norwich, which comprehended, in the fourteenth century,
the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and a portion of Cambridgeshire.
We may safely say that we are able to tell approximately--within a
few weeks or days--when any living fell vacant during the period
under review, who succeeded, and who the patron was who presented to
the cure. Nor is this true only of the secular or parochial clergy.
Jealous as the religious houses were of their rights and privileges,
the heads of monasteries, as a rule, were compelled to receive
institution too at the hands of the Bishops of the see in which they
were situated. They too presented themselves to their Diocesan that
their elections might be formally recognized; and thus the
Institution Books contain not only the records of the various changes
in the incumbency of the secular clergy, but also of such as were
occasioned by the death of all abbots, or priors or abbesses as
presided over that large number of religious houses as were not
exempt from Episcopal jurisdiction.
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