Clergy of the Church of England Database (CCEd)

The Clergy of the Church of England Database aimed to construct a relational database containing the careers of all clergymen of the Church of England between 1540 and 1835. The Database brings together evidence about clerical careers from all 27 dioceses of England and Wales, which are held at 28 diocesan repositories and 23 other archives and libraries. The Database fills a major gap in our knowledge of one of the most important professions in early modern England and Wales, and takes advantage of new technology to provide an invaluable research tool for both national and local historians who often need to discover biographical information about individual clergymen. As the Database is designed in such a way as to enable a wide variety of data retrieval and analyses. Historians and others can establish the succession of clergy in particular localities, trace individual career paths as they cross diocesan boundaries, and investigate such issues as patterns of clerical migration and patronage across geographical and chronological blocs of their choice. Thus, rather than containing a series of prose biographies, the database records information about clerical careers in interlinked tables, and consequently is well-suited to facilitate not only biographical research, but also more structural investigations of the Church, its clergy, its livings and patrons.