222 Early Annals of Trowbridge. 
Of any church or chapel at Staverton in these early days we have 
no record. The fact, however, to which we have alluded, of the 
tithes of Staverton having been granted to the Priory of Monkton 
Farleigh, may possibly imply, that, in return for such a gift, the 
spiritual charge of this portion of the parish was undertaken by 
some member of that religious house. We know that ata very 
early period it became the custom for patrons of churches, with the 
consent of the Bishop, to confer them in perpetuity upon some monas- 
tic establishment, the duties of the rural parish being in such a case 
performed by a monk of the convent, or by a vicar depending upon it. 
This may have been the case originally with Staverton, though, 
from the absence of any authentic documentary information, we are 
not able to speak of such an arrangement as other than possible. 
We have, in the record commonly called “ Pope Nicholas’ Taxa- 
tion,” an account of the value of the rectory of Trowbridge at the 
close of the thirteenth century. -The possessors of the see of Rome 
claimed to be entitled, by virtue of their ecclesiastical supremacy, 
to various payments out of all ecclesiastical benefices and possessions 
in aid of the maintenance of their dignity, and even assumed a 
right to dispose of such revenues, or any part of them, in such 
manner as they judged most advantageous for the welfare of the 
Church. On the latter pretence, in the year 1288, Pope Nicholas 
IV. granted to Edward I. the tenth of all ecclesiastical benefices for 
six years, on the plea set forth by that King, that he was about to 
undertake a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land. Hence the 
necessity of the record alluded to, which, though it contains little 
more than a mere valuation of the various benefices, is interesting 
as giving some idea of their relative value and importance in the 
thirteenth century. The extracts relating to this and the surround- 
ing parishes are brief and we therefore give a translation of them. 
In the names of places we of course preserve the spelling as we find 
it in the record itself. FM fag 7 
Rectory of Troubrygg* . oe 55 8 0 0 
Portion of the Prior of Farle in iho same .. Pie 100 

*Mr. Hallam considers ** any given sum under Henry III. and Edward I. as equivalent in general 
command over commodities to about twen‘y-four or twenty-five times its nominal value at present.” 
It will be easy therefore, at this reckoning, to estimate what we should call the real value of the 
various livings. “ 
