Petitions for the various processes of filling vacant church and monastic positions: petitions to elect, petitions to gain the king's approval after the election, and petitions for the restitution of temporalities after the appointment.
They relate to the filling of ecclesiastical offices which had become vacant. For the most part the offices are abbacies, priories, or bishoprics, but some relate to deaneries, prebends and other offices in collegiate churches, and others concern the presentation of chaplains to rectories and vicarages. The gift of these lesser offices was often in the king's hands due to the minority of the normal patron or the seizure of the temporalities of an alien priory in time of war.
The National Archives
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