GENERAL SUBSCRIPTION BOOK (LEWES ARCHDEACONRY)

Ep/II/1

GENERAL SUBSCRIPTION BOOK (LEWES ARCHDEACONRY)

1604-1751

Subscriptions and declarations before the ordinary or commissary were required by statute and ecclesiastical law of all candidates for ordination, all clergy before admission to any benefice or ecclesiastical office and of schoolmasters, surgeons, apothecaries and midwives before receiving episcopal licence (see Act 3 Hen. VIII. c. 11). In most cases the oaths and declarations were written out in full only once in each book, but the three articles of the 36th Canon (1603), acknowledging the sovereign's position as 'supreme governor' of the Church of England, the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion; subscription to the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, required by the Act 13 Eliz. I c. 12 (1570); and the declaration of conformity to the liturgy, required by the Act 13 & 14 Chas. II c. 4 (1662) were usually copied by each person. Subscriptions taken on commission (i.e. when the signatory could not attend at Chichester) were either pasted into these books later, or kept separately

'Curates' here refers to stipendiary curates only, and 'apothecaries' includes all branches of the medical profession

<p>For other Lewes subscriptions see Ep/I/3</p>

English