The General and Provincial Chapters Of the English Black Monks, 1215–1540

Abstract

In accordance with the decree “In singulis regnis’2 of the fourth Council of the Lateran, 1215, the hitherto unconnected monasteries of the Black Monks of St. Benedict in England, as in other countries, were required to unite themselves by holding every three years, a general or provincial chapter of the heads of all their independent houses, and the work of the chapters was to be enforced by triennial visitations made by the monks themselves, as distinct from those made by the bishops. Until the constitutions of Benedict XII in 1336 the monks in the provinces of Canterbury and York met in separate chapters: after that date there was a single chapter for the whole of England.