40 tJNEECORDED DEANS OF WlMBORNE MINSTER. 



to assign to Robert de Messenden, king's clerk, appointed 

 prebendary, a stall in the choir and a place in the chapter." 37 

 His tenure of the deanery, however, was but a short one, for 

 just seven months after his appointment he was succeeded 

 (Sept. 12th 1265) 38 by John Kirkby. Meanwhile the king 

 granted to him the manors first of Havering 39 and then 

 of Silverton, subject in both cases to payments at the 

 Exchequer. 40 



Bishop Stubbs has been able to gather together some few 

 details about him. William, or Geoffrey, Archbishop of 

 Edessa, alias Rhages, in Media, was " suffragans in partibus 

 infidelium." He was an Englishman, and at the time of 

 his election continuously abiding in England. He is described 

 as being " circumspect, and a man of considerable eloquence." 

 He consecrated the Bishop of Norwich in 1266, and conse- 

 crated the Priors' Chapel at Bury in 1275. He was present 

 at the translation of St. Hugh in 1280. In 1286 he was acting 

 as Suffragan or Commissary to the Bishop of Norwich, and 

 consecrated the cemetery of the Carmelites " Lincse." To 

 him probably belongs the inscription on the wall of a barn at 

 Rhuddlan, formerly the site of a house of Black Friars, 

 " priez pur 1'alme frere Will. Freney erceveske de Rages : " 

 with an effigy of a bishop with crozier and mitre. 41 



The next four Deans are given in the lists. Of these John 

 de Kirkby (1265) was afterwards Bishop of Ely ; and John 

 de Berwick (1286-1312) was buried in the South Choir aisle 

 of Wimborne Minster. His altar tomb for nearly five cen- 

 turies stood in the centre of the aisle, and upon it some portion 

 of the business of the churchwardens, &c., was carried out, 

 as the following extracts from the Churchwardens' Accounts 

 will show : 



Dec. 14, 4 Edward VI. (1550). Item fyist we the afor namyd John 

 Ryckeman and Thorns fframpton (churchwardens) Receyvyd the same 

 daye upon the tombe In the Churche .... viii li. 



37. Patent Bolls, Aug. 18, 1265. 38. Ibid. Sept. 12, 1266. 



39. Ibid. Oct. 9, 1265. 40. Ibid. Feb. 14, 1266. 



41. StuWs Registrum Sacr. Angl., pp. 195, 63. 



