The convocation records of the Churches of England and Ireland are the principal source of our information about the administration of those churches from middle ages until modern times. They contain the minutes of clergy synods, the legislation passed by them, tax assessments imposed by the king on the clergy, and accounts of the great debates about religious reformation; they also include records of heresy trials in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, many of them connected with the spread of Lollardy. However, they have never before been edited or published in full, and their publication as a complete set of documents provides a valuable resource for scholarship.
The texts in this volume reconstruct the proceedings of the convocation in the early Stuart period from surviving documents. Drawn from a variety of different sources, they include the proceedings of the 1640 and 1661 assemblies which have survived in original drafts. Also included is the material relating to the attempts made in 1689-90 to revise the restoration settlement and complete lists of those who were summoned to attend the convocations from 1640 onwards.