ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



After the battle of Lewes (fought on 14 May, 1264), a writ was issued 

 in the king's name, but really prompted by the victorious Simon de Montfort, 

 ordering the Oxonians to return to Oxford,' and on i February, 1264-5, another 

 writ was issued in similar circumstances forbidding the mayor and citizens of 

 Northampton to allow any longer the existence of a university in the town 

 or the sojourn of any students there under any other conditions than had 

 existed before the foundation of the said university, on the ground that such a 

 university did harm to Oxford, and that the bishops were unanimously of 

 opinion that its removal would conduce to the advantage of the English Church 

 and to the profit of students.^ 



Just before the first crusade the priory of St. Andrew, as has been already 

 stated, was entrusted by Simon de St. Liz with the patronage of all the 

 churches in Northampton. This control of parish churches by religious 

 houses was a notable cause of ecclesiastical dispute in England, at any rate up 

 to the year 12 19. The parish churches of England were at first all rectories 

 possessing the tithes, the glebe, and the offerings. Vicarages had their origin 

 in appropriation, that is, the giving of the advowsons, and subsequently the 

 rectories or endowments, to religious houses. For some time after the Con- 

 quest the monasteries that obtained benefices from patrons procured occasional 

 licence to dispense with episcopal institution or induction. This grew into a 

 habit, so that the heads of many religious houses claimed and maintained the 

 right to institute to their own benefices by investiture. The consequences 

 only too often were fitful clerical residence and a lack of hospitality or alms- 

 giving within the parochial limits, as well as occasional neglect of the divine 

 offices. To check this evil the council of London, held at Westminster in 

 September, 1 125, passed the decree — termed by the first earl of Selborne ' the 

 coping-stone of the parochial system ' — that the bishop should institute to 

 every benefice in his diocese.^ By many of the monasteries this English 

 canon was, however, systematically disobeyed, and in 1 179 the third Lateran 

 Council * ordered that the bishops were to require monasteries to assign 

 a sufficient maintenance for vicars, and that vicars were not to be removable 

 at the will of the appropriators. ' Even this failed to reduce to obedience the 

 more powerful of the English monasteries, which steadily refused to assign 

 definite stipends or security of tenure to their vicars. The council of London, 

 held at Westminster in 1200, also dealt pointedly with the question,* and at 

 last it was taken up still more decisively by the great Lateran Council (the 

 fourth) of 1 2 1 5.'' The English bishops were now determined to put down 

 any further defiance of their powers. The one who was the most persistent 

 and gained the day for his own and other dioceses was that vigorous 

 administrator, Hugh Wells, of Lincoln. Finding that there was still much 

 resistance throughout his vast and unwieldy diocese, Bishop Wells boldly 

 attacked the most powerful offisnder, the great abbey of St. Albans, and 

 fastened on the case of its appropriation of the revenues of the important 



' Maxwell-Lyte, op. cit. 66. 



' This writ is printed by T. Fuller in his Hisl. of the Univ. of Camb. (ed. Prickett and Wright), 31-2. 

 See also R.ishdall, op. cit. ii, 395. 



' Bail, Summa Conciftorum, ii, 398. ' Ibid, i, .^04 ct seq. 



6 Before this, ' appropriations might have been made to laymen,' but by the decrees of this council, 

 ' which were incorporated into the English law, laymen were made incapable of appropriations granted to them ' 

 (Phillimore, The Eccl. Law of the Ch. of Engl. (ed. 2), i. 222). 



* Bail, op. cit. ii. 414. ' Ibid, i, 413 et seq. 



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