James Stanley, Archdeacon of Chester

James Stanley, archdeacon of Chester

• Birth: 1441 - Lathom, Lancashire, England
• Death: before 1485 - England
• Parents: Thomas Stanley, Joan Goushill, Baroness of Stanley

By an unknown mistress, he had 1 daughter (Margaret, wife of Sir John Ireland, & of Sir Henry Halsall).1,2

Offices

• Canon of Beverly, Yorkshire; & Prebendary of St. Andrew's altar. in 1457.2
• Rector of St. Mary's on the Hill, Chester; Canon of St. Paul's London; & Prebendary of Holywell. in 1458.2
• Canon of York; Prebendary of Driffield. in 1460.2
• Rector of Winwick, Lancashire. between 1462 and 1465.2
• Rector of St. Peter's Chester. in 1464.2
• Rector of Hawarden, Flintshire. between 1466 and 1478.2
• Master of the Hospital of Saints James & John in Brackley, Northamptonshire. in 1472.2
• Rector of Warrington, Lancashire. in 1476.2
• The Archdeacon of Chester between 1478 and 1485.2
• Warden of Manchester Collegiate Church. in 1481.

Notes

An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in Anglicanism, Chaldean Catholic, Syrian Malabar Nasrani, and some other Christian denominations, above that of most clergy and below a bishop. In the High Middle Ages it was the most senior diocesan position below a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. An archdeacon is often responsible for administration within an archdeaconry, which is the principal subdivision of the diocese. "A cleric having a defined administrative authority delegated to him by the bishop in the whole or part of the diocese."—The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. The office has often been described metaphorically as that of oculus episcopi, the bishop's eye.

From http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2013-04/1366634959

There has clearly been confusion in the past between James Stanley Bishop of Ely, and James Stanley the Archdeacon of Chester. One problem may be that both were Wardens of Manchester. See Samuel Hibbert, etal; History of the foundations in Manchester of Christ's College..., Volume 1; page 50

The Archdeacon was warden 1481-85, his nephew was warden 1486-1509, and was not named Bishop of Ely until 1506. The two are sometimes conflated. The ODNB statement that the Bishop was b. 1465 may be somewhat late since he is often linked to the person called 'Magistrum Stanley' and said to be a scholar as well as tutor in 1482 Epistolae Acadame, Publications, Volume 36 (Google eBook) Oxford Historical Society, Clarendon Press for the Oxford Historical Society, 1898 - Oxford (England) page 484 - but one suspects this might have been the archdeacon who was then warden of the College of Manchester, not the younger James Stanley.

Citations

1. [S5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 679.
2. [S16] Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd Edition, Vol. IV, p. 91.
3. [S16] Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd Edition, Vol. IV, p. 90.
4. fn 37 Brit. (Ed. Gough) ii, 399; Cole MSS. Add. 5847, p. 56.

Links

• http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p1483.htm#i44558