Research – William Gibson on the History of Lambeth Degrees

The Burgon Society has announced the publication of The History of Lambeth Degrees: Sources and Studies, edited by Professor William Gibson.

This book examines the history of degrees awarded by the Archbishops of Canterbury from 1539 to the present day. ‘Lambeth degrees’ have a history rich in controversy. It brings together an important series of primary source material and articles, including the complete text of Bishop Francis Gastrell’s legal claim in 1717 that Lambeth degrees were not the equivalent to university degrees; a complete list of Lambeth degree recipients 1539-1995; an examination of Charles Franklyn’s claim that the degrees are really ‘state’ or royal degrees; and reprints of articles by Noel Cox FBS, and by Graham Zellick FBS (the President of the Burgon Society), on the robes for the degrees.

http://www.burgon.org.uk/society/shop/index.php

Table of contents

SOURCES

W. Gibson, ‘‘What Kind of Hood doth he use?’:The Challenge to the Validity ofLambeth Degrees in 1717-25.

[F. Gastrell],The Bishop of Chester’s Case With Relation to the Wardenship of Manchester, in Which is Shewn that No Other Degrees But Such As Are Taken in the Universities Can Be Deemed Legal Qualification for Any Ecclesiastical Preferment, Oxford, 1721.

Principal Manuscript holdings relating to Lambeth degrees in British Archives by William Gibson.

Chronological List of Lambeth degrees by Melanie Barber

A Miscellany of articles on Lambeth Degrees:

‘The Correspondence of Sylvanus Urban’: Lambeth Degrees [Gentleman’s Magazine, May & June, 1864]

‘Nova et Vereta’: The Lambeth Degrees by Cecil Wall [British Medical Journal, Nov 2, 1935.]

The Lambeth Degrees, Charles H. Franklyn, [British Medical Journal, Oct. 12, 1935.]

Lambeth Degrees, L. A. Parry, [British Medical Journal, Sept. 28, 1935.]

STUDIES

William Gibson: ‘Charles Franklyn on Lambeth Degrees.’

Noel Cox, ‘Dispensations, Privileges, and the Conferment of Graduate Status: With Special Reference to Lambeth Degrees’ from Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2002 – 2003).

Noel Cox, ‘Lambeth Degree Academical Dress’, Transactions of the Burgon Society, 5 (2005).

Noel Cox, ‘The Centenary Eucharist and Presentation of the Lambeth Diploma and MA Degrees’, Transactions of the Burgon Society, 14 (2014).

Graham Zellick, ‘Lambeth Academic Dress and the University of London’, Transactions of the Burgon Society, 7 (2007), pp. 39-47.

William Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford Brookes University, and Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History.