360 On the Appropriation of the Rectory of Lacock. 
the Church of Lacock had been built at the joint expense of the 
lords of Lacock and Lackham, and the parish formed by the 
coalescence of these two manors. It had been agreed, before the 
foundation of the Abbey, that the contemplated arrangement 
should not interfere with the rights of the Parish Church or the 
Rector thereof;1 but as time went on, the Nuns began to try to 
get part of the Rector’s income into their own hands, and at p. 350 
of the Cartulary? we find that Nicholas Longespee, then Rector, 
and afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, surrenders to them the third 
rot are > 
part of the tithes on their demesne lands within the parish of 
Lacock, which they had, in fact, enjoyed ever since the foundation 
of the Abbey. The date of this instrument is 1290, and it is 
confirmed by William de la Corner, Bishop of Salisbury from 1289 
—1292, when Nicholas Longespee succeeded him. Still, there was 
one great obstacle which prevented the nuns from doing as most 
other religious houses had done, and as they themselves had done 
in the case of Winterbourne Shrewton as early as 1241, and 
obtaining the appropriation of the Rectory to their own uses: and 
that was, that they only held the alternate right of presentation, — 
or half the patronage. Before the benefice could be appropriated — 
it was necessary for them to acquire the whole patronage, and — 
accordingly they seem to have entered into negotiations with 
Sir John Bluet, lord of Lackham and co-patron, with a view 
to buying out his interest. What course these took we are 
not able to trace with exactitude; but by the beginning of the 
= 
year 1312 an agreement seems to have been reached, and — 
Simon of Ghent, then Bishop, issues his formal sentence of — 
appropriation, which is preserved in the Record Office* The. 
reasons assigned are the death of Margaret, Countess of Lincoln, 
patroness of the house (or direct descendant of the foundress),* and 

1 Older Cartulary, fol. 17. Newer, fol. 5a. Appendix No. II. 
2 Appendix No. III. 
3 Court of Wards, Deeds, &c., Box 94 E, No. 66, (Appendix No. IV.). 
4She was daughter and heiress of William Longespee III., and so great- — 
granddaughter of the foundress; she married Henry Laci, Earl of Lincoln, 
and died in 1309. (Bowles & Nichols, p. 149.) 
