23^ 



h % ^untam^ Ipoare : xb origin mrir mi^aniitg. 



By Canon W. H. Jones. M.A., F.S.A., 



Vicar of Bradford-on-Avon. 



j^LL "Wiltshiremen must be more or less familiar with the 

 surname Poore. It was that of two of the early Bishops 

 of Sarum, and the Poores, of Amesbury, are amongst our county 

 families. 



The name is spelt in various ways, Peer — Poore — and Le Poore. 

 It has been commonly regarded as an equivalent to " pauper " or 

 ''poor," and in more than one of the chronicles Richard Poore ap- 

 pears as " Ricardus Pauper." The notion that the two names were 

 convertible is a very ancient one. Thus Robert de Graystanes, who 

 was elected and consecrated in the year 1333 as Bishop of Durham, 

 though immediately set aside by the authority of the Pope, in his 

 account of the see of Durham, speaks of " Ricardus dictus Pauper " 

 as having been promoted to it from Sarum in the year 1229. It is 

 possible that even earlier instances of the same kind may be produced. 



Nevertheless as applied to Herbert, and Richard Poore, who be- 

 came in succession Bishops of Sarum between 1194 and 1217, the 

 name, or rather, as so applied, epithet, " 2}auper," or "poor," is, to 

 say the least, singularly inapplicable. Neither of them could so be 

 termed from any voluntary vow of poverty taken as a member of 

 any monastery or religious community. And in tempoi'al things 

 the two brothers seem to have been well endowed. Thus, in the 

 Osmund Register, it is distinctly said of Herbert Poore that he was 

 "rich and painstaking" (dives et assiduus), whilst of Richard 

 Poore we not only know that he was, before he became a bishop, the 

 benefactor of the monastery of Tarrant, in Dorset, which was his 

 native village, but also the donor of an estate at Laverstock some 

 few years afterwards to his new Cathedral. Moreover, when a site 

 was needed for that Cathedral, it was found at last at a place called 

 Mser-field^ which is described as being " in propria dominie suo" 



