299 
made up his mind “to rob Peter to pay Paul.” This and a 
subsequent transaction of a like nature paved the way to the 
complete impoverishment of the Living, and the spiritual interests 
of the community at large were sacrificed to the supposed 
necessities of a handful of monks. Nearly two centuries later, and 
not many years before the final Dissolution, there came an order 
from Wells, issued by Dr. John Pennande, Vicar General of the 
Diocese (the Bishop* being then in foreign parts), for the Union of 
the Churches of Hinton and Norton. It is, of course, the old 
story over again. The monks had again complained of various 
burdens and difficulties, the increasing demands of hospitality, 
repairs and additions to their buildings, expenses incurred in con- 
structing “subterranean aqueducts, long and deeply dug and 
furnished with leaden pipes” (canale plumbeum). There was 
also a constant quarrel between the Priory and the Rector of 
Norton in respect of tithes of a certain Grange in the Parish of 
‘Norton, belonging to the Priory, which was an injury to the 
Priory and a scandal to religion. Further, the Church of Hinton 
was impoverished (a not unnatural result of previous transactions) 
and in view of these circumstances and of its contiguity to the 
Church of Norton, he, John Pennande, at the request of the Prior 
and Convent, deprives Hinton of the style of a parish church and 
unites it for ever to Norton. With a view to carrying out this 
arrangement John Cumberbatch, Vicar of Hinton, resigns, in 
consideration of £4 sterling pension from the Priory, and 
Laurence Philippe, Rector of Norton, also resigns with a pension 
of £8. The Parish Church of Norton is “appropriated” to the 
Priory as Rector,t the parson, now reduced to the position of 
“ Vicar,” receiving a reduced proportion of the tithes in Hinton 
and Norton, but excluding all tithes from the two Granges in 
Hinton and Norton, in compensation for which tithes he is to be 
* John Clark. 
+ As the Church of Hinton had been nearly 200 years before. 
