Catalogue description Chancery: Dispensation Rolls

These rolls contain dispensations and faculties granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and confirmed by the Crown.

Dispensations, which predominate, served chiefly to indemnify clergymen obtaining more than one church living, if they made stipulated arrangements for the cure of souls and the care of the needy in the parish where they did not reside. They also enabled sons to succeed fathers to livings even if they already had one. In the case of bishops, good livings, not necessarily in their diocese, were granted to them in commendam, to be held by them as long as they reigned. This was a means of supplementing inadequate diocesan incomes.

The dispensations state the name of the cleric, the degree and benefice he already holds, adding any chaplaincy, and the benefice which he will hold in tandem with the other in future; a formula of justification is included. A valuation of both current and additional livings is given, together with the distance between them; it had to be below 40 miles.

Faculties included the degrees of master of arts, thought necessary for a clergyman, doctor or bachelor of divinity, and doctor or bachelor of laws, the so-called Lambeth degrees; also authorisation to practise as a physician or schoolmaster or, most often, as a notary public after swearing a notarial oath, which was duly recorded; and also any practice not normally allowed to a clergyman in the course of his duties, such as absence from his charge, usually for health reasons.