Managing jurisdictions at Canterbury Cathedral Priory in the High Middle Ages 1285-1331

This thesis examines the management of the spiritual jurisdiction of Canterbury Cathedral Priory [Christ Church] by Prior Henry ofEastry during his forty-six year priorate from 1285- 133 1. A significant quantity of extant documents remains from this period including registers, charters, papal letters and royal writs, which owe much to the foresight of Prior Easay's reorganisation. These extant documents also contain letters, which relate to Christ Church possessions in France. This combination of English and French documents provides a rare opportunity to

analyse how Christ Church managed its jurisdiction at both a national and intemational level. This thesis asks two fimdamental questions: what was the scope of the spiritual jurisdiction at Christ Church and how did Prior Eastry's policies contribute to the extension of this jurisdiction from a national to an international level. The extant sources show Prior Eastry's awareness of the political siruation in late thirteenth century England and the actions he took to preserve the authority and uniqueness of Canterbury. Ensuring that no precedents were established over Christ Church was not only a policy of Prior Eastry and Canterbury Cathedral Priory in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century but had consumed the attentions of priors from the time of Archbishop Lanfranc. Canterbury Cathedral Priory's uniqueness not only derived from its rights to elect the archbishop of Canterbury and the primacy of the local ordinary over York but also from the Cult of St. Thomas that pervaded the whole of the Latin Church. This thesis will show how this unique combination of factors was used by Prior Eastry to appropriate the meaning of 'the Church of Canterbury' and extend Christ Church's jurisdiction to an intemational level.