Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England Part 51

[270] "Register of Archbishop Gray," p. 73.

[271] "Stapledon's Register," p. 180.

[272] "Archbishop Gray's Register," J. Raine, p. 29.

[273] Ibid., p. 153.

[274] A. Gibbons, "Early Lincoln Wills."

[275] Tonsured.

[276] There are frequent entries in the Episcopal Registers of dispensations _super defectum natalium_ to the sons of _nativi_ to take orders and hold benefices. There are several examples in which a bishop gives such a dispensation to so-and-so "_nativus meus_," to take sacred orders and hold ecclesiastical benefices; a gracious act of kindness to one of his own serfs (see p. 130).

[277] Should feed beggars.

[278] Usually the bishop, but there were many exceptions.

[279] Page 63.

[280] "Labbe's Councils," vol. xxii. p. 234.

[281] There is a picture of a bishop's visitation in the fourteenth century MS. Royal 6 E. VI., and a much better of the sixteenth century in the printed Pontifical, p. 196, and of an archdeacon's in the MS. Royal 6 E. VI., fols. 132 and 137.

[282] Procter, "History of the Book of Common Prayer," p. 262.

[283] I refrain from repeating the unsupported a.s.sumption that these synodsmen gave name to our modern sidesmen, for which there is no evidence. Moreover, Professor Skeat a.s.sures me, in kind reply to a question on the subject, that the principles which govern the gradual changes of our language will not admit of the idea of the derivation of the one word from the other.

[284] From the "Annales de Burton," p. 307.

[285] When St. Hugh became Bishop of Lincoln he made several decrees, one of which was "that no layman have the celebration of ma.s.ses inflicted on him as a penance" ("Dioc. Hist. Lincoln," p. 103, S.P.C.K.). It looks as if the clergy had set up a bad practice of inflicting attendance at Holy Communion, and making an offering as an ordinary act of penance. It was prohibited again in 1378 by Archbishop Simon of Sudbury (Johnson, "Laws and Canons," ii. 444).

[286] A vulgar game.

[287] The pope was at this time discouraging the study of civil law by the clergy (see Collier's "Ecclesiastical History," i. 464).

[288] The bishop appointed certain priests as confessors of the clergy.

[289] Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph's "Register of Walter Stapledon," p.

194.

[290] Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph's "Register of Walter Stapledon," p.

130.

[291] Ibid., p. 111.

[292] Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph's "Register of Walter Stapledon," p.

573.

[293] Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph's "Register of Walter Stapledon," p.

109.

[294] S.P.C.K., "Dioc. Hist. of Hereford," p. 112.

[295] Quivil's "Register" (Hingeston-Randolph), p. 337.

[296] There may be some error, since in the "Taxatio" the annual income of Bigby is given as 4 6_s._ 8_d._

[297] Stapledon's "Register," p. 342.

[298] S.P.C.K., "Chichester Diocese," p. 104.

[299] "Dioc. Hist. of Hereford," pp. 113, 114.

[300] "Papal Letters," i. 59, Rolls Series.

[301] "Early Lincoln Wills," p. 163.

[302] Whitaker's "Craven," p. 95.

[303] (Job xix. 21), A. Gibbons, "Early Lincoln Wills."

[304] "Test. Ebor.," p. 73.

[305] Brown, "Fasc.," ii. 412.

[306] October, 1441, the parishioners of Ashdown, Kent, complain that their rector, Lawrence Horwood, does not provide at his own cost, as he ought to do, a clerk to officiate in the church on holy days. The suit in the bishop's court on this matter went on for two years, and was left unsettled.

[307] This parish clerk occurs in several other of our ill.u.s.trations of processions and services.

[308] V. 171, Rolls Series.

[309] "Mon. Ang.," iii. 227.

[310] White Kennett, "Parochial Antiq., Glossary," _sub voc._

[311] A. Gibbons, "Early Lincoln Wills," p. 87.

[312] Ibid., p. 6.

[313] Robert Aphulley, of Lincoln, 1407, makes a bequest to the Gild of Clerks at Lincoln, durante dicta gilda, quando recitabitur nomen meum inter nomina defunctorum, et hanc antiphon "Alma Redemptoris Mater," etc.

(A. Gibbons, "Early Lincoln Wills," p. 108).

[314] Curled.

[315] Spread out.

[316] Hair.

[317] Complexion.