Crusade administration in fifteenth-century England: regulations for the distribution of indulgences in 1489

By the fifteenth century English participation in crusading was mainly a matter of purchasing the confessional letters to gain access to the appropriate indulgence. Information on how such letters were distributed by the pyramid of collectors is scarce. This article draws attention to, and reproduces, injunctions issued by a superior collector to his underlings for the distribution linked to a drive for crusading funds in 1489. The confessional letters were in this case printed, and the injunctions reveal the impact of the new technology, and suggest the greater control of distribution which it permitted.