A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



diocese sought absolution from their diocesan, and received it, all save 

 ecclesiastics, for these were reserved for the pope's judgment.' Many sees 

 and abbacies were now vacant, several of the latter, including that of 

 Peterborough being in the Lincoln diocese, but the bishops would not 

 allow them to be filled unless the procedure was to be canonical;' and it was 

 not until the king had rendered satisfaction for the plunder of ecclesiastical 

 property, that they consented to take off the interdict in the summer of 

 1214.^ In 1 2 15, by agreement with certain of the bishops who had 

 been in exile, including the archbishop and the bishop of Lincoln, freedom 

 of election to sees and abbacies was granted by John and confirmed by the 

 pope.* 



As would naturally be expected, the historical associations of the Church 

 in Northamptonshire gather largely about the county town. It was here 

 that a dispute arose which led to one of the earlier interferences of the pope 

 in the affairs of the shire. Simon de St. Liz, who had founded the priory of 

 St. Andrew about 1093, filling it with Cluniac monks, gave to that house all 

 the churches in the town.' The parishioners of certain of these churches, 

 however, had taken upon themselves to found chapels without the sanction of 

 the patrons. The monks of St. Andrew's, therefore, appealed to Rome, and in 

 1 20 1, the pope, Innocent III, decided in their favour. As the see of Lincoln 

 was then vacant the publishing and enforcing of the papal mandate was 

 entrusted to the archbishop of Canterbury, in association with the bishops of 

 London and Ely.* 



Simon, the son of the above-mentioned Simon de St. Liz, had bestowed 

 on the priory of St. Andrew a tenth of the profits arising from a fair held on 

 All Saints' Day in the church and churchyard of All Saints ' (which is 

 conclusive evidence of the considerable size of the nave of the Norman 

 church). The scandals attendant on such a use of any part of a church came 

 home to that earnest prelate. Bishop Grossetete, who ruled the diocese of 

 Lincoln so ably from 1235 to 1253, and in the former year he induced 

 King Henry III, who was then at Northampton Castle, to order that for the 

 future the fair should be held in 'a void and waste place to the north of the 

 church,' the present large Market Square.' The bishop followed up the royal 

 action by issuing to his archdeacons an injunction which cited the decree 

 relative to All Saints', and forbade generally, under pain of ecclesiastical 

 censure, any buying or selling in the monastic and parochial churches 

 of their archdeaconries.' In a second communication he ordered them to 

 correct various abuses, particularly the desecration of churches and church- 

 yards by their being used for games.'" 



Northampton, like other towns in England of commercial importance, 

 had its Jewry, which was probably established in the latter half of the twelfth 



' Walter of Coventry (Rolls Ser.), ii, 213. 



'Ibid. 213-14. The vacant abbeys were now in the king's hands under somewhat exceptional 

 circumstances. 



' Walter of Coventry (Rolls Ser.), ii, 214, 217 ; Matt. Paris, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 541, 569, 570, 575, 

 576. 



* Ibid. 607-10. ' Dugdale, Mon. v, 185. V.CM. Norlhants, i, 293. 



' Northants Chart. No. 7 (Bodl. lib.). 



' Reg. of St. Andrew, Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xvii, fols. 2, 3. 



' Close, 20 Hen. Ill, m. 24. 



' Letters ofBp. Grosseleste (Rolls Ser.), 71. "" Ibid. 75. 



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