Jan. 20. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



43 



steward, prior to 1696, destroyed the whole of 

 them and the ordinances, to cover her husband's 

 defalcations. (Prouten's Winchester Guide, p. 38.) 

 A similar statement was made to the Court of 

 Queen's Bench in June, 1851, wherein it was al- 

 leged that in the time of James I., one of the 

 masters being resident in Scotland, left the care 

 of the Hospital to his son, who again left it to a 

 Mr. Wright, in whose time all the papers were 

 lost, and that the wife of Wright burned all the 

 records of the Hospital. (Shaw's Justice of the 

 Peace, vol. xv. p. 433.) 



Consuetudinarium. 



The commissioners (from whose report the copy 

 of De Blois's charter is taken) say that the regu- 

 lations for the government of the Hospital and of its 

 funds, if any were ever prescribed by the founders 

 or visitors, appear to have been lost anterior 

 to the year 1660, and the establishment was long 

 conducted upon the authority of traditional custom 

 only ; that the defect was at last supplied by com- 

 mon consent of the master and brethren, about the 

 end of the seventeenth century, by the preparation 

 and adoption of a document called the Consuetu- 

 dinarium, in which, after reciting that upon dili- 

 gent and strict search made among the records of 

 the Hospital, no statutes nor footsteps of any 

 statutes could be found, directing the government 

 and regulation thereof; but it then was and had 

 been time out of mind governed by customs taken 

 from and in pursuance of former grants and 

 donations of the founder thereof . . . and to pre- 

 vent all differences and disputes in future, the 

 then master and the brethren, the steward and 

 chaplain, mutually agreed and declared that the 

 several customs and usages thereinafter written 

 were those by which the said Hospital had been 

 and was then governed. The instrument then sets 

 forth the number and description of persons that 

 were to be supported by the establishment, the 

 allowance to each weekly, yearly, and on parti- 

 cular days, which, together with other matters of 

 rule and regulation, although important, are too 

 long for insertion here. It also states, that it 

 had been and was the custom and usage that the 

 master should govern all persons in and belonging 

 to the Hospital ; that he should receive all the 

 profits and revenues thereof, with which he was to 

 bear the whole charge of the house, and to keep it 

 and the church in sufficient repair ; the overplus he 

 was to retain for himself, &c. (P. 847.) 



The representations made in the Guide Book, 

 in the Court of Queen's Bench, and of what was 

 told to the Commissioners, may be received as 

 matter of information only, and given without due 

 warrantry ; but the statements in the Consuetudi- 

 narium, attested by the signatures of the several 

 parties thereto, and ratified conditionally by the 

 then bishop of the diocese, demanded and received 



strict examination at the hands of the learned 

 judge who presided over the court in which the 

 inquiry was conducted. His searching eye and 

 acute power of investigation soon detected the 

 erroneous andfallacious assertions therein set forth. 



Judgment. 



The learned gentleman's opinion of that instru- 

 ment is expressed with such a vigorousness of 

 purpose, that it is not only startling, but forcibly 

 impressive. He said : 



" This Consuetudinarium is one of the most extraordinary- 

 documents that ever was produced or relied upon in a 

 court of justice: it begins by reciting that search liad 

 been made among the records of the Hospital, and that no 

 statutes or trace of any statutes could be found, directing 

 the government and regulation thereof. At that time they 

 who were the parties to this recital had in their possession 

 a copy of the sentence against Eoger de Clowne [one of the 

 masters called severely to account by William of Wyke- 

 ham in 1372, for endeavouring to convert the revenues of 

 the House to his own use], a copy of the Bull of Pope Gre- 

 gory respecting the abuses introduced by the Master of 

 the Hospital by the appropriation of its revenues, and ap- 

 pointing a commission to inquire into the same. They 

 had also a copy of the evidence and proceedings under 

 that commission, besides which they had various docu- 

 ments respecting the establishment of the Alms-house of 

 Noble Poverty. These documents, then and now in their 

 possession, contain ample evidence of the original rules 

 and statutes, showing the object and destination of the 

 charity to have been the very opposite to that to which 

 they were about to convert it. The continuation of this 

 document is of a piece with the opening ; it recites that 

 it had been time out of mind governed by customs taken 

 out of and in pursuance of the grants of the founders, the 

 interpretation of which might occasion differences between 

 the master and brethren ; and in order to prevent which they 

 (the master and brethren) had agreed on what the cus- 

 tom was .... Thereupon they proceed to settle 

 the custom, or rather the distribution of the revenues of 

 the charity, in elaborate detail, according to their own 

 will and pleasure, in direct violation of an act of parlia- 

 ment passed one hundred and twenty years before, and in 

 direct opposition to the evidence and documents then in their 

 own custody .... A more barefaced and shameless do- 

 cument, in my opinion, than this Consuetudinarium could 

 not have been framed, nor could a more manifest and pro- 

 bably wilful breach of trust have been committed bj' the 

 master and brethren. The bishop who ratified this docu- 

 ment trusted to the word of the master and brethren, but 

 he gave his ratification qualified so as not to be in dero- 

 gation of the statutes of the founder, if these should 

 afterwards be discovered." — Law Journal, 1853, Chancery 

 Cases, 793—809. 



1 am thankful to Mr. Charles T. Kelly for 

 the corrections of my list of Masters supplied in 

 Vol. X., p. 473. ; and through the medium of your 

 columns request, on behalf of myself and other 

 readers, the dates of appointment of the under- 

 mentioned gentlemen, named by the Rev. Mac- 

 kenzie Walcott, in his volume on Wykehum and 

 his Colleges, as having been Masters of the above 

 celebrated House : 



Page 347. " John Eede, D.D., Fellow of New College, 

 1474. Warden of Winchester, &c. Mastef of St. Cross. 

 Died 1521." 



