THE NORTHERN WAY: THE ARCHBISHOPS OF YORK AND THE NORTH OF ENGLAND, 1304-1405

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The 14th century was a formative period in the development of both the North of England, and the kingdom of England, as political-cultural entities. It culminated in the execution of Richard Scrope, archbishop of York, for treason, following his participation in the northern rebellion against Henry IV in 1405. These events and their aftermath would condition 'northerness' and royal government of the north for centuries to come, through the Reformation and beyond. The Northern Way begins from the proposition that we cannot understand these events with understanding the role of the archbishops of York as northern leaders in the century before 1405. As a result of the Scottish Wars of Independence from 1296, the English state adopted new mechanisms for governing the lands north of the Trent. The Church provided active leadership in the war through the mobilization of material support, military leadership, and promotion of the cults of the northern saints. Much of this promotion centred on the personalities of the archbishops of York who in addition to their political leadership were extensively engaged in pastoral reform and memorialised in new chronicles and in a greatly enlarged and newly glazed York Minster. Ultimately the representation of the archbishops as northern leaders reached a crisis in the rebellion and execution for treason of Archbishop Richard Scrope in 1405. Yet the deeper historical reasons for the extraordinary political events of 1405 are still not understood and of the eight archbishops of this period only one, Arundel (1388-1396), is the subject of a modern detailed study (Aston, 1967). One reason for the neglect of the archbishops of York in the development of a regional polity is the divide between different branches of historical inquiry which in this period have tended to treat political and ecclesiastical history, central and regional history, as separate entities. Another is the inaccessibility of the key primary sources, which are mainly held in the Borthwick Institute for Archives and The National Archives, but also include small collections of records in other northern record offices. This project will complete a publicly-available comprehensive searchable online index of all relevant primary sources for the political activity of the archbishops from both diocesan and national archives. It will undertake a thorough quantitative and qualitative analysis of their contents with a particular focus on prosopography and network analysis of both clergy and laity engaged by the archbishops in governing the north and representing the north in Westminster. Finally it will undertake a comparative analysis of the discourse and agendas present in the representation of the archbishops through their official correspondence and public memorialisation both in the north and in central institutions of government. Was their agenda a 'northern' agenda and does this emerge as a longer term context explaining the state crisis in 1405? Our work will be of interest to historians, political scientists and to all those interested in northern identity, past and present.We will provide a comprehensive means of accessing the principal records generated by the archbishops of York in their capacity as diocesans, metropolitans and royal ministers, and of understanding their political nature and implications. We will create a public, free and accessible online index to the contents of all the manuscript materials. Through an extensive programme of external activities including public lectures, conferences and workshops with local history groups, scholars, students and record keepers. We will create accessible case studies and videocasts that will be freely available online and we will actively support and encourage further use of the materials. We will publish our findings and the results of the workshops through a monograph, an edition of selected materials, and essays and articles in both books and journals.