ELIZABETHAN CLERGY LIST. 159 
Divinity, and one “ Bachelor of lawe.” Another gentleman, who 
served the Derbyshire cures of Sutton and Trusley, is entered as 
“Student in Cambridge 7 years.” 
The column relating to preacher’s license is of special interest. 
Henry VIII. was of opinion that four sermons a year was an 
ample sufficiency. Edward VI enjoined eight sermons a year in 
every parish church, four of them to be against Papacy, and on 
behalf of the Royal supremacy. The Elizabethan injunctions of 
1559 imply that a licensed preacher should preach in every parish 
church four times a year, and that on other Sundays a homily 
should be read. This Lichfield Diocesan List was drawn up in 
the very year when the present canons of the Church were put 
forth, and was very possibly one of a similar series from each of 
the dioceses of the province of Canterbury that caused the greater 
stringency of canons xlv., xlvi., and xlvii. with respect to preach- 
ing. The preacher’s license, now given as a matter of form to 
every raw deacon on his ordination, was then a question of far 
more serious consideration, no doubt in some measure owing to 
the prevalence of political and controversial discourses. The 
possession of a degree by no means implied the preacher. Several 
of the Bachelors, and some few of the Masters in this catalogue, 
are entered as ‘‘no preachers ;” 
whereas there are, on the other 
hand, several instances of non-graduates who were duly licensed 
to preach, though generally ‘‘in their own cure.” Doctors of 
Divinity were, however, accepted by the Bishops as duly-licensed 
by virtue of their degree. The Universities themselves granted 
preachers’ licenses to other than Doctors, and which were appa- 
rently also recognised by the Bishops ; in Lichfield diocese there 
was an M.A. holding an Oxford University preacher’s license, 
granted 16 years before, and another M.A. and a B.D. both holding 
preachers’ licenses of the University of Cambridge. Fifty-one of 
the clergy held a license direct from their own Bishop, seventeen 
from the Archbishop of Canterbury, six from the Archbishop of 
York, one each from the Bishops of Lincoln, Ely, and Norwich, 
and one from two Doctors during the vacancy of the Lichfield 
See. As a rule, licenses once granted in any See seem to have 
