ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



The Taxation Roll of 1291 shows the great extension of ecclesiastical 

 temporalities that had taken place in the two centuries succeeding the Great 

 Survey. Besides the monastic establishments of the shire itself, many religious 

 houses situated in other counties or abroad possessed temporalities in North- 

 amptonshire when the Taxation Roll of 1291 was compiled; as, for example, 

 the abbeys or priories of St. Albans, Belvoir, Biddlesden, Bradenstoke, Brad- 

 well, Bury St. Edmunds, Bushmead, Chicksands, Clattercote, Creting, Croxden, 

 Crowland, Deeping, Dunstable, Elstow, Evesham, St. Frideswide, Godstow, 

 Grestain (Normandy), Huntingdon, Launde, Lavendon, Leicester, Lenton, 

 Lilleshall, Markyate, Merevale, Kirkby Monachorum, Newstead, Owston, 

 Ogbourne, Ramsey, Sawtry, Snelshall, Thorney, Tickford, Tutbury, Ware, 

 Wardon, St. Wandrille (Normandy), Westminster, Woburn, and Wroxton.^ 



This Taxation Roll of the Church — undertaken in order to ascertain the 

 correct value of the tenths granted by Pope Nicholas IV to the king for six 

 years for crusading expenses, and completed for the province of Canterbury 

 in 1 29 1 — was compiled under the direction of the bishops of Winchester and 

 Lincoln. Perhaps that accounts for there being somewhat fuller particulars 

 recorded of Lincoln - than of some other dioceses. The total value of the 

 Northamptonshire benefices' was £l->Z'^Z ^ S^- ^^■■> ^^^ ^°'" ^^^ purposes of taxa- 

 tion ^429 ijs. 9|^. had to be deducted for seventy-seven livings that were 

 under the annual value of 10 marks.* Mr. Round has commented on the great 

 diversity of income in parochial endowments which is shown by the entries 

 that name such endowments in Domesday Book.' That diversity has always 

 been apparent, and its causes are too obvious to need explanation. But as 

 our attention has been drawn to the exceptional number of vicarages in the 

 county, it is of some interest to note, in fairness to the religious houses, that 

 according to the Taxation Roll of 1291 Northamptonshire contained far more 

 small rectories than small vicarages. Out of the seventy-seven livings under 

 the annual value of 10 marks fifty-six were rectories and only twenty-one 

 vicarages.* 



Occasionally the emoluments of a church appropriated to a religious 

 house were divided into two parts or rectories, one of which was held by the 

 religious house and the other by the incumbent for the time being, and both 

 parties were alike termed rectors. Thus the church of Higham Ferrers was 

 in two moieties, or rectories, one held by the resident priest and the other bv 

 the Austin canons of Dunstable ;^ Isham was in like manner divided between 

 the local priest and the priory of St. Andrew;^ and Weldon between the local 

 priest and the priory of Launde. ° Pattishall, on the other hand, was in the 

 singular position of having one half of its rectory appropriated to the Dun- 

 stable canons, and the other to the convent of Godstow.^" Clipston, again, 

 was divided into three portions, but none of these were appropriated ; they 

 were all small, and two were assigned to one rector and the third to another, 

 so that one rector of Clipston had an income of £<) i 5J. 6id. while his fellow- 

 rector only drew £/\. ijs. 9W." It must not, however, be understood that 

 such division of the emoluments into two or more rectories was always, or 



' Poj>e Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 53-6. ' Ibid. 30-77. 



' Ibid. 37-40, 42-3. * Ibid. 40, 43. ' F.C.H. Hants, i, 420-1. 



* Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 37-43 (Archdeaconry of Northampton). 



' Ibid. 38. ' Ibid. 39. ' Ibid. 38. 



'» Ibid. " Ibid. 39. 



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