32 Notes on Amesbury Church. 
of the fifth century? Is it possible that the Parish Church was 
built where the British foundation had been ? and that the bones 
of St. Melore had been brought to Amesbury as a sacred place not _ 
long before the kingdom of Wessex was established ? 
It seems to me that the return made to the Inq. Nonar. indicates q 
that in 1341 there was a parish priest :— 
Se 
The 9th of the parishioners = 23 13 4 
— Prioress of Amy in the Pshh — oo Sate 
Q. Philippa = 1 - - 
Preb. of Rothfen =- 1 - @As 2 
And then, the parson has a virgate of land with pasture worth 
3s. 4d.; also the tithe there, 13s. 4d. Also the rents and customary 
services annexed to the Church, 20s; the mortuaries, 3s. 4d.; the 
oblations, 66s. 8d.—which no doubt went to the rectors. But there 
is also the small tithe 53s. 4d., which probably the priest had with 
his virgate of land. The Valor of H. VIII. shows John Belton 
serving the cure—benefice valued at £7. Indeed when the prioress 
disposed of the presentation to Ludgershall, foreseeing evil days, 
she also parted with the advowson of Amesbury, for when Lady 
Jane Gildeforde, widow, made her will in 1588, she left the ad- 
vowson of Amesbury to “Sir George my chaplain.” And that 
advowson could not be the chaplaincy of the Priory Church, for 
which there seem to have been four priests. 
The Church before its restoration had no sign of having been 
once adorned with the many monuments which must have been in 
it had it been the great Priory Church; Eleanor of Provence, the 
queen of Henry III. and mother of Edward I., must have had a 
grand memorial; and the different princesses buried there would 
surely have had brasses if they had no effigies. But in this Parish 
Church fifty years ago there was not one of these: while there was 
a brass memorial of Editha Matyn, 1470, one of a family which 
occupied and owned much land hereabouts. 
