By Canon W. H. Jones. 326 



arbitration in a dispute concerning the prebend of Hustborne), during 

 his episcopate from 1188 — 98, the ground-work of certain statutes 

 for the government of the chapter of Lichfield, and the regulation 

 of its services and ritual. In fact Bishop Hugh de Nonant borrowed 

 unstintedly from " the book of Osmund " — from a copy which has 

 probably long since perished — not only adopting his ordinances, but 

 keeping so closely to the letter of them as to make it clear that he 

 did little more than copy verbatim such passages as he thought fit 

 to embody in his own statutes for Lichfield. 



Of the ready acceptance of the " consuetudinary " in other dioceses 

 besides Sarum and Lichfield we have ample evidence. The " use of 

 Sarum^^ was introduced into Ireland by authority of the synod of 

 Cashel in the year 1173; and into Scotland some seventy years 

 later. Amongst the acts of Gervase, Bishop of St. David's, and 

 his chapter in 1223, was one establishing the precentorship there, and 

 ordaining, that, at all events as regards two important '^offices," 

 they should be carried out according to the " Use of Sarum.^^ 



The manuscript in which is contained the oldest known copy of 

 the consuetudinary — and this, as we shall presently see, is not quite 

 complete — forms the first nineteen folios of a quarto vellum codex 

 still preserved in the bishop's registry. The rest of the volume is 

 filled with documents of a miscellaneous character, arranged without 

 any especial regard to chronological order, many of them relating 

 to the establishment of prebends in the cathedral ; and some portion 

 of it being more like a chapter register, containing — though even 

 here the account is given in fragments suggesting the thought that 

 the leaves are wrongly stitched up — a full narrative of the removal 

 of the see from Old to New Sarum, and the eflbrts made for building 

 the new cathedral. This latter part is evidently from the dictation, 

 if not from the pen of William de Wenda, who was Dean from 

 1220-37. We have also in this same volume an account of the 

 visitation of the prebendal churches and estates by Dean William 

 de Wenda, as well as an inventory of the " ornamenta " of the 

 cathedral at the commencement of the thirteenth century. 



The volume itself is labelled outside " Vetus Registkum ; " and, 

 as a heading to the "Consuetudinary," we have "Tractatus de 



