The Register of Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1296-1321

This is the second and concluding volume of the calendar of the earliest surviving register for the medieval diocese of Coventry and Lichfield; the first volume, published in 2001, was reviewed ante, cxvii (2002), 688–9. The main body of the text in this volume consists of meticulously edited lists of clergy ordained between 1300 and 1321. Walter Langton himself officiated at 31 of the 41 ordination services recorded in the register, some of which would have lasted a very long time. One of the four appendices traces Langton's itinerary between 1296 and his death in London on 9 November 1321, linked to entries in the calendar. Another appendix provides full transcripts of 43 entries ‘starred’ in the first volume as being of particular interest. These range from the result of an enquiry into the suitability for the solitary life of a woman who claimed to have aspired to be an anchorite from childhood to the dispersal of five incorrigibly wicked canons of Haughmond Abbey to other houses, to be fed on bread, weak ale and vegetables, until the bishop ordained otherwise. A short list of corrigenda from the first volume attests to the high standard of editing and the second volume concludes with nearly 150 pages of indices of persons and places as well as of subjects.