John Goodman (dean of Wells)

John Goodman (c. 1500 – 1561) was Dean of Wells Cathedral from 1548 to 1550, and again from 1554 to 1561.John Le Neve, et al. Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1541-1857, 12 volumes (London, U.K.: 1969-2007), 5:5.

Early life and career John Goodman was likely born in the County Somerset, England, around the year 1500. His exact birthdate is unknown, but he was listed as a chaplain in November 1518, and named as a priest when installed as vicar of West Harptree in April 1519.Henry Maxwell-Lyte. ed. The Registers of Thomas Wolsey, John Clerke, William Knyght, and Gilbert Bourne, Bishops of Bath and Wells, 1518-1559, (London, U.K.: 1940) p. 1; Thomas F. Mayer and Courtney B. Walters eds. The Correspondence of Reginald Pole, 4 volumes, (Aldershot, U.K.: 2002-2008) 4:223. By canon law, chaplains had to be at least seventeenth years old, and priests could not be ordained without a papal dispensation until they were twenty-four years old. That would mean that Goodman was born sometime between 1495 and 1501.R. N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Oxford, U.K.: 1989) p. 40. Nothing is known about Goodman's parents or siblings, except that the family likely had some wealth and that he had at least one brother. Goodman had modest connections within the church, as he served as a messenger for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, and was present for the interrogation of Richard Wytcombe, a man suspected of sacramentarian heresy, in 1518.Maxwell-Lyte, Registers of Thomas Wolsey, pp. 2-4; John A. Thompson, The Later Lollards, 1414-1520 (Oxford, U.K.: 1965), p. 51.

Goodman used the income from his livings in North Curry and as a chaplain to attend the University of Cambridge, and he received a Bachelor's of Canon Law from the university in 1521.Charles H. Cooper and Thompson Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigienses, 3 volumes (Cambridge, U.K.: 1858-1913) 1:209. Goodman was often absent from his cures, as he remained at Cambridge through 1525, when he served as principal of St. Paul's Hostel in Cambridge. Cambridge's hostels were living quarters, and the principal was the hostel's representative who offered sureties to the landlord for each year's rent.John Venn and J. A. Venn, eds. Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students...of Cambridge, Part 1 (Earliest Times to 1751), 4 volumes (Cambridge, U.K.: 1922-1927) 2:236; Damian R. Leader, A History of the University of Cambridge, Volume 1: The University to 1546, (Cambridge, U.K.: 1988) pp. 45-46. Goodman did not receive any further degrees from Cambridge, but he would continue to add clerical livings and positions over the next decade. These included the rectory at Charleton, and the office of succentor or subchanter at Wells Cathedral.D. S. Chambers, Faculty Office Registers, 1534-1549, (Oxford, U.K.: 1966) p. 40; Le Neve, Fasti, 1541-1857, 5:76; John Caley and Joseph Hunter, eds. Valor Ecclesiasticus, Temp. Henr. VIII, 6 volumes (1810-1834) 1:134; Roberta Buchanan, "A Biography of Ulpian Fulwell and a Critical Edition of The Art of Flattery (1576)", 2 volumes (Ph.D. Thesis, Birmingham University, 1980) 1:13. The succentorship came with a significant number of lands and rents around Somerset. In order to cement his holdings within his family, Goodman signed a lease for the lands with his kinsman, Thomas Fulwell, for a term of ninety years. By signing the lease with long terms to Fulwell, Goodman prevented future succentor from renting the land to someone outside his influence. Fulwell had served as Goodman's bailiff since at least 1534 and had been a loyal servant to Goodman during that time. Ulpian Fulwell, Ars Adulandi, or the Art of Flattery, edited by Roberta Buchanan, (Salzburg, Austria: 1984) p. v.

By 1532, Goodman was a client of Arthur Plantagenet and his wife Honor Genville, Lord and Lady Lisle. Lord Lisle had helped Goodman obtain the rectory of Charleton, and had assisted Goodman in speculating on a statute (a financial bond where land was offered as security for the debt).Mayer and Walters, eds. Correspondence of Reginald Pole, 4:223; Muriel St. Clare Byrne, ed. The Lisle Letters, 6 volumes (Chicago, IL: 1981) 2:109-110, 145-146, 640-641. Unfortunately for Goodman, Lord Lisle fell out of favor with the King by 1540, resulting in Lisle's arrest and imprisonment in the Tower of London.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online (hereafter ODNB Online), "Plantagenet, Arthur, Viscount Lisle" by David Grummitt. Goodman worked to find a new patron during his frequent trips to London on the chapter at Wells’ behalf. Goodman became acquainted with Edward Seymour, then Earl of Hertford, and his wife, Anne Seymour sometime after the arrest of Lord Lisle. Goodman was admitted to the Earl's household by 1543, where he served as the Earl's chaplain, and waited on the Lady Hertford, likely as a confessor.Marjorie Blatcher, ed. Report on the Manuscripts of...the Marquess of Bath, Volume IV: Seymour Papers, 1532-1686, (London, U.K.: 1968) p. 115; Chambers, ed. Faculty Office Registers, p. 230; G. W. Bernard, The Late Medieval English Church: Vitality and Vulnerability before the Break with Rome, (New Haven, CT: 2012) p. 79.

Goodman's career stalled in the mid-1540s until the death of Henry VIII and the Bishop of Bath and Wells, William Knight, both in 1547.Phyllis M. Hembry, The Bishops of Bath and Wells, 1540-1640; Social and Economic Problems (London, U.K.: 1967) pp. 77-78. After Henry died in January, Seymour, Hugh Paget, and other evangelicals (i.e. more reformed) moved to take control over the new king, Edward VI and his council. Through their machinations, Seymour was made Earl of Somerset, and appointed as the king's Lord Protector, with near kingly powers.Alec Ryrie, The Age of Reformation: The Tudor and Stewart Realms 1485-1603, second edition, (New York, NY: 2017) pp. 136-137; Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life, (New Haven, CT: 1996) pp. 329-330. Somerset used his new powers to appoint well-known evangelical preacher William Barlow to the bishopric. Through a mixture of coercion and persuasion, Somerset managed to get the current Dean of Wells to resign, dissolve the chapter, re-found it as a royal donative, and seize much of the land holdings of the new Bishop and the Cathedral.Hembry, Bishops of Bath and Wells, pp. 105-123. Somerset used his influence over the boy king to issue a letter patent ordering the newly re-founded chapter of Wells to install John Goodman as their new dean on 8 January 1548.Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of Wells, (hereafter Calendar MSS Wells) 2 volumes (London, U.K.: 1907-1914) 2:266.

Conflicts with the Bishop and Church Less than two years after his appointment as dean, Goodman came into conflict with his new Bishop, William Barlow. The years were a period of rapid religious change, such as introducing a new Prayer Book, and removing restrictions on clerical marriage. Protector Somerset and the council he appointed worked to implement a more evangelical religious settlement on England than that envisioned by Henry VIII at his death.MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant; Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, (London, U.K.: 1999) pp. 42-44. Barlow was a major promoter of the new more evangelical position, and had implemented similar reforms during his time as Bishop of St Davids in Wales, especially against the presence of images in churches.Glanmor Williams, Welsh Reformation Essays, (Cardiff, U.K.: 1967), pp. 111-124. Goodman dispensed with some of the traditional religious objects, such as candlesticks and images of bishops, but overall made few changes to the cathedral or religious practices of the chapter.L. S. Colchester, ed. Wells Cathedral: A History (Shepton Mallet, U.K.: 1982), pp. 149-150. Barlow's zeal for the new religion found this pace intolerable, and worked to supplant Goodman with a new, more radical dean, in the person of William Turner.

Barlow found a way to remove Goodman in 1550, through a technicality in ecclesiastical law. When the cathedral Chapter had been dissolved, much of the lands and rents had been regranted to Protector Somerset, cutting the income of both the bishop and dean. In order to augment his existing income, Goodman annexed the prebend of Wiveliscombe to himself. According to Barlow, Goodman had voided his claim to the deanship because he now held two prebends within the Cathedral simultaneously; that of North Currey, annexed to the deanship by law in the re-founding of the chapter, and Wiveliscombe.Calendar MSS Wells, 2:273; Le Neve, Fasti, 1541-1857 5:76, 99. Despite Barlow's claims, the prebend of North Currey itself was not annexed to the deanship. The possessions (rents and lands) that funded the prebend were granted, making the prebend itself empty and without a source of funding. King Edward VI's mandate to the chapter to install Turner as the new dean stated that Goodman had been deprived because he acquired Wiveliscombe, “in addition to his other preferments.” J. H. Baker, eds. Reports from the Lost Notebooks of Sir James Dyer, 2 volumes (London, U.K.: 1994), 1:8-9. Barlow summarily deprived Goodman of his office in spring of 1550. Goodman responded by filing a writ of praemunire in June against his Bishop. Goodman claimed that because the deanery was re-founded by royal grant, that the bishop usurped the King's authority by depriving him of the king's donation.Calendar of the Patent Rolls...of Edward VI, 6 volumes (London, U. K.: 1921-1929) 3:211; Nicholas Ridley, Thomas Cranmer, (Oxford, U.K.: 1962) pp. 310-311. Goodman and Barlow both appealed to friends for assistance as the Court of King's Bench took up the case.Whitney R. D. Jones, William Turner: Tudor Naturalist, Physician, and Divine (London, U.K.: 1988) pp. 29-31. Goodman wrote to John Berwick, the receiver general for the Duke of Somerset (formerly Protector), to try and drive a wedge between Barlow and the Duke.Hembry, Bishops of Bath and Wells, pp. 118-119.

The case between Barlow and Goodman was initially heard before the justices in October 1550. Barlow solicited the help of the Privy Council, asking them to delay the hearing, and eventually for a pardon for contempt when he did not come in person.John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, Relating Chiefly to Religion, and the Reformation..., 3 Volumes in 6 Parts (London, U.K.: 1822), Volume 2, Part 1, pp. 356-357. Turner had also been in contact with Archbishop Thomas Cranmer on the case. Cranmer stated that, though he agreed that Goodman should be deprived, Barlow had no authority to do it, and petitioned lawyers at the Court of Arches for their comments.C. S. Knighton, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1547-1553, (Hereafter CSPD, 1547-1553) revised edition (London, U.K.: 1992), No. 503. The Privy Council was sympathetic to Barlow's request and position and sought to streamline the court process. The Privy Council summoned the justices hearing the case before them in November 1550, and brow-beat them for continuing to hear litigation on the case.Acts of the Privy Council of England, 46 volumes (London, U.K.: 1890-1964), 3:159-160. Despite the Privy Council's instructions that Goodman vacate the deanery, he remained obstinate into February 1551. In response, the Privy council ordered his imprisonment in the Fleet Prison due to his “his disobedience and ill handling of the Bishop.” The Council did not release Goodman until 25 May 1551, two months after the chapter had confirmed William Turner as their new Dean.Ibid, 3:211, 217, 279.