Hannes Kleineke

The members of England's late medieval cathedral chapters are not well served by archival materials, and the documents calendared in this volume are all the more exceptional for their survival in a near-complete run for more than a decade and a half. William Worsley, whose deanery of St. Paul's Cathedral spanned the final two decades of the 15th century was a typical clerical careerist, whose daily life and concerns are illuminated by the edited accounts. Routine purchases of food and clothing contrast with the acquisition of costly luxury goods, and Worsley may be seen to interact with minor members of the cathedral clergy as well as the greater nobility and successive kings of England. The domestic accounts of the Dean's steward are here complemented by the estate accounts of Worsley's tenants and ministers, providing a rounded picture of the economy of the deanery estates and household. In an appendix, the volume includes brief biographies of the many individuals mentioned in the accounts.… (més)