Archbishop Melton, his Neighbours, and his Kinsmen, 1317–1340

Abstract

It was probably during the thirteen-eighties that the Dominican Thomas Stubbs wrote his short lives of the Archbishops of York. A Yorkshireman, from the forest of Knaresborough, Stubbs had been a close acquaintance of Bishop Bury and Bishop Hatfield of Durham, both of whom, in earlier years, were members of the York chapter. He is therefore likely to have been well informed about his subject. His life of William Melton, archbishop from 1317 to 1340—under whom Bury had been chancellor of York—though laconic, is no merely formal piece. Its phrases suggest a comprehensive knowledge. Stubbs apparently wished to leave a distinctive impression of Melton. He tells his reader that the archbishop was severe in correcting rebels; that he kept a great household, and clothed it in his livery twice a year; that he would often cancel the amercements imposed on his tenants by his bailiffs, and would remit to the needy the farms and debts they owed him. Above all, Stubbs goes on, he frequently assisted the two kings, Edward II and Edward III, and the noble men of the land in their business, both with loans and with gifts—‘tarn ex mutuo quam ex dono’. Finally, Melton was an ardent promoter of his servants and of all his kinsmen.