ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



the last counties visited by the commissioners, the returns being dated 1655.^ 

 They are arranged in hundreds and are complete, save that the appointment 

 of the commissioners is missing. The commissioners varied for the different 

 counties, and were mainly drawn from the local justices. After the prelimi- 

 nary information had been collected, an inquisition was held by the commis- 

 sion in the chief town of the hundred, and the returns certified by a jury of 

 thirteen good and lawful men. The returns from the different counties 

 differ not a little. Some of them, especially the earlier ones, are particularly 

 free in their comments on the character of the incumbents. Remarks such 

 as ' a drunkard, a cavileer, and scandalous,' ' a tippler and very scandalous,' 'a 

 frequenter of alehouses,' or 'noe preacher and scandalous,' are more commonly 

 found than those of a complimentary nature, such as ' honest and able,' or ' a 

 paynestakinge minister.' The returns from the Northamptonshire hundreds 

 are, however, precise and businesslike, and show that careful attention was given 

 to the general instructions that the commissioners received in common. The 

 value of the rectory is set forth, and in the case of a vicarage the value of 

 the impropriation and the name of the impropriator. The value of the 

 vicarage is also given, or the stipend of the minister, which was occasionally 

 increased by augmentations from the estates of delinquents. The name of 

 the minister is given, or the fact of the benefice being vacant recorded. 

 Other important points are the naming of chapelries, with their distance 

 from the mother church, and the relative distances and population of small 

 adjacent parishes. The inquests were expected to make recommendations as 

 to the enlargement or consolidation of parishes. The following may be cited 

 as instances of such suggestions in Northamptonshire. In the hundred of 

 Willybrook the commissioners suggest that the chapelries of Apethorpe and 

 Woodnewton be united and made into a distinct parish ; and also that the 

 benefice of Duddington should no longer be held in conjunction with that of 

 Gretton, as they are five miles apart and have two intervening parishes 

 between them. In the hundred of Newbottle the interesting suggestion was 

 made that the parochial chapelry of Teeton — which then had a resident 

 population of thirty families and paid jC3° ^ Y^^"" of tithes to the mother 

 church of Ravensthorpe, a mile distant — should be made into a distinct 

 parish. The chapel of Teeton has long since disappeared. 



Notwithstanding the costly and complete character of this great national 

 survey of church property hardly any legislation was attempted upon the 

 reports, and the parishes remained as aforetime.* 



Another valuable collection of Commonwealth MSS. which was trans- 

 ferred to the safe keeping of Archbishop Juxon in 1662, and is now at Lam- 

 beth, comprises the records of the Central Committee for the Augmentation 

 of Livings.' They cover the period from 1647 to 1658, and are contained 

 in fifty-five folio volumes. Grants were made by this committee from the 

 estates of delinquents (usually those of the locality) and from the larger 

 endowed benefices. Sometimes the increase was made up by a variety ot 

 small sums from different sources. Thus the vicarage of Doddington was 



' Lambeth Surveys, vol. xx. 



' It is curious to note that not a few of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Commissioners as to 

 rearrangement and readjustment of parishes have been carried out of late years by the Ecclesiastical Commis- 

 sioners, after an interval of more than two centuries. See the Transactions of the East Riding ylntiquarian 

 Society (1894 and 1896). ^ Lambeth MSS. 966-1,020. 



2 57 8 



