Exchequer: Treasury of Receipt: Deeds relating to Cardinal Wolsey's Colleges in Oxford...

E 24

1524-17th century

This series consists of 82 deeds from the Exchequer Treasury of Receipt relating to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's foundations of colleges at Oxford in June 1525, and in his home town of Ipswich in July 1528.

Together with the surrenders in E 24 and other related records, they constitute the archive of the establishment of Wolsey's colleges.

This process of suppression and endowment created a great deal of documentation, much of which is in this series. It includes ratifications, confirmations and inspeximus of the papal bulls, giving Wolsey authority to suppress the houses, by letters patent; commissions of enquiry into the houses; licenses to Wolsey to found the colleges by letters patent; grants to Wolsey of the sites and possession of the suppressed houses by letters patent; mortmain licences to appropriate rectories by letters patent; and Wolsey's private deeds of foundation and endowment to the colleges under his seal as archbishop of York.

Wolsey's Patents

Public Record(s)

Latin

23 box(es)

Many highly illuminated and show Renaissance forms. Decorative top borders contain floral patterns and heraldic symbols, such as Wolsey's arms surmounted by the archiepiscopal cross and the cardinal's hat. Royal portraits.

Topics

Conveyancing

Farming

The documents in this series were presumably part of Wolsey's records, which were seized on his fall from power in 1529. The majority of these came to rest in the Treasury of Receipt of the Exchequer. Arthur Agarde found records relating to Wolsey's colleges among the records of the Treasury kept over the gatehouse in the New Palace of Westminster in 1610. The last two pieces in the series, E 24/22-23, were formed from the miscellanea of the Treasury of Receipt at some stage during the 1860s.