A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



custody of the benefice to some suitable person of his own nomination. 

 Treswell affords a Nottinghamshire instance of this. Of that church there 

 were two rectories, and on 20 September 1267 John Musters, clerk, was pre- 

 sented to a moiety by his brother Robert. The archbishop ordered the arch- 

 deacon to hold an inquisition, and on 3 October the full chapter of Retford 

 deanery pronounced that the presentee was in every way qualified by birth, 

 manners, and conduct, but was defective in age. On 24 October, John Mus- 

 ters was admitted, but the archbishop, on account of his age, knowledge, and 

 orders, committed the custody of the moiety of Treswell to Edward de Welles, 

 instructing the Dean of Retford to induct him. 83 Other instances about this 

 date of admission to benefices of those in minor orders are those of an acolyte 

 to Arnold and of a sub-deacon to Bonnington. In the case of a presentation 

 to St. Nicholas, Nottingham, by the prior and convent of Lenton, the report 

 of the inquisition was that Nicholas de Wermundesworth, an acolyte, was of 

 legitimate birth, of good life and conversation, and of good manners, so far as 

 his age permitted, and of that they judged from his personal appearance. 8 * 



Cardinal Otto, when legate in England in 1237, na ^ ordered that all 

 rectors or vicars were to proceed to the priesthood within a year of their 

 institution. Giffard did his best to enforce this rule, and in one case (Carnaby 

 in the East Riding) deprived an incumbent who failed to comply. 86 



Giffard also endeavoured to stop the evil of pluralities. In two of his 

 mandates to commissioners appointed to make inquiries throughout the 

 diocese, the question of plurality occupied the first place ; he directed that 

 offenders were to be cited before him to produce their dispensations to hold 

 more than one benefice. But the archbishop was impeded in this direction 

 by the action of the court of Rome. Thus in the case of one John Clarell, a 

 most notorious pluralist, holding the Nottinghamshire churches of Bridgeford, 

 Elton, and Babworth and three others elsewhere, as well as the Southwell 

 prebend of Norwell, the archbishop had no choice but to admit him in 1 272 to 

 the additional church of Hooton Roberts, as he held a papal dispensation. 26 



Worse even than this last case were the foreign pluralists, quartered on the 

 diocese by direct papal intervention, who did not serve a single one of their 

 English cures. The charge of 50 marks a year levied on the holder of a 

 Southwell prebend, in favour of the pope's nephew, is mentioned in the 

 subsequent account of that collegiate church. 



Giffard, through his strenuous attempts to administer righteously, met 

 with not a little opposition from his own officials. One of the most 

 troublesome of these was Thomas de Wyten, Archdeacon of Nottingham. 

 On one occasion, namely on 11 February 1267-8, the archbishop took the 

 grave step of publicly admonishing his archdeacon to be 'obedient. His 

 monition to that effect was delivered in the presence of the archdeacons of 

 Richmond and the East Riding, of the sub-dean of York, and of many 

 others. 27 



Giffard's register includes the lists of several ordinations, with records 

 of the titles for deacons, sub-deacons, and priests. At the ordination held in 

 September 1268 the sub-deacons of Nottingham archdeaconry included 



n York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 34 d., 35. 



" 'De qua in parte corporis aspectum nobis consta ' ; ibid. fol. 35. " Ibid. fol. 98. 



86 Ibid. fol. 17 ; Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 363. " York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 7. 



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