240 
Cerumber’s Chantry at Crofbridge, 
WITH A COPY OF THE 
ORIGINAL DEED OF ENDOWMENT: 
A.D. 1483. 
Edited with Introduction and Notes, 
By the Rev. W. H. Jonzs, M.A., F.S.A., 
Vicar of Bradford on Avon, 
(2=ZHE document relating to Terumber’s endowments, of which 
{! J) an accurate copy is appended, is preserved in the register- 
chest belonging to the parish church of Trowbridge. On several 
accounts it is an interesting deed. Not only is it rare to find a 
document of this date and character written in English, but there 
are contained in it many incidental notices, relating not only to 
the rules observed by the inmates of the Alms-house, which owed 
much to Terumber’s munificence, but also as to the names of the 
principal contributors to the erection of the present very beautiful 
Church at Trowbridge, which is described as having been then“ newly 
bielded.” This last good work we may fairly believe to have been 
carried out about the year A.D., 1475. 
Of Terumber himself we know almost nothing. In his deed he 
describes himself as a ‘‘ marchaunte ;” by this meaning that he was 
a member of that honorable and wealthy community who were 
designated Merchants of the Staple, a full account of whom has 
been given in the Wiltshire Magazine! Leland, in his passing 
notice of Trowbridge, describes James Terumbre as “a very rich 
clothier,” who, he adds, “ buildid a notable fair house in that toune, 
and gave it at his deth with other landes to the finding of 2 can- 
tuarie prestes yn Throughbridg Chirch.” 
We have also among the lists of institutions to livings in the 
old Diocese of Lincoln, which included much that is now in that 
of Oxford, one or two notices which shew that Terumber’s 
property was not confined to Wilts; and further, that between 1461 
. 1 Wilts Arch. Mag, ix. 137—159. 

