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.
This volume contains the evidence for the northern convocation during the years of the reformation and its aftermath, when the church in the north was significantly disrupted and reorganized. There is a full account of the northerners' reaction to Henry VIII's religious policies, and a summary analysis of the little-known York Provinciale, or collection of northern canons, generally attributed to Cardinal Wolsey.