Delineating the Development of English episcopal chanceries through the Signification of Excommunication

Abstract

Significations of excommunication are a neglected source for administrative history, yet their diplomatic provides valuable information. This paper examines significations issued by English bishops from the dioceses of Coventry and Lichfield, Exeter, Lincoln, Salisbury and York where thirteenth-century registers exist, or once existed, considering the relationship between common diplomatic form and early registration. It demonstrates that the episcopal register was not the apotheosis of the English episcopal chancery. The structure of episcopal registers developed in parallel with the use of common form, revealing chanceries still in flux and that those dioceses with the earliest registers were not necessarily the most organised by the start of the fourteenth century.