A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



1415 he gave certain small endowments of com- 

 mon lands, the revenues from which were to be 

 divided among the ten chantry priests then 

 existing." He also built for them a common 

 chantry house on ground taken out of the north- 

 west corner of the minster yard. Here they 

 dwelt together in common. This chantry house 

 stood intact till 1784. Mr. Leach mentions 

 what he rightly terms ' a quite pathetic provision ' 

 in a lease of 1574 of the west part of this house 

 to a layman ; he was to allow ' Sir Francis Hall 

 and Sir Richard Harryson, sometime chauntrie 

 priests,' to enjoy their two several chambers there- 

 in for their lives. Hall was then sixty-nine and 

 Harrison seventy-seven years of age. 100 



The following are brief particulars as to the 

 dates and founding of the thirteen chantries : 



Three chantries in the chapel of St. Thomas 

 the Martyr, founded c. 1240 by Robert de 

 Lexinton, canon of Southwell, one of the king's 

 justices. 



St. Peter's chantry, at the altar of St. Peter, 

 founded by Richard Sutton, canon of Southwell, 

 1274. 



St. Nicholas chantry, at the altar of St. Nicholas, 

 founded by Sir William Widington, steward of 

 the archbishop and bailiff of Southwell, c. 1250. 



St. Stephen's chantry, at the altar of St. 

 Nicholas, founded by Andrew, bailiff of Southwell, 

 c. 1250. 



St. John Baptist's chantry, founded by Henry 

 Vavasour, canon of Southwell, c. 1280. 



St. John the Evangelist's chantry, at the altar 

 of the same name, founded by Henry de Notting- 

 ham, canon of Southwell, c. 1240. 



St. Mary's chantry, at the altar of St. Michael, 

 impoverished at the time of the Black Death, aug- 

 mented by William Gunthorpe, canon of South- 

 well, 1395. 



The Morrow Mass chantry for very early 

 celebrations, 101 founded in 1415 by Thomas 

 Haxey, canon of Southwell. 



The double chantry of Our Lady and St. 

 Cuthbert, for two priests, in the chapel of St. 

 John Baptist, founded by Archbishop Laurence 

 Booth, 1479. 



The chantry of St. Mary Magdalen, at the 

 altar of the same name, founded by Robert Ox- 

 ton, canon of Southwell, who died in 1408. 



There is a second valuable register book 

 preserved at Southwell. It is a register of the 

 Acts of Chapter from 9 November 1469 to 23 

 July 1542. It contains records of chapter courts 

 in slander, tithe, and perjury cases of the usual 

 ecclesiastical court description, visitations and cor- 

 rections by the chapter of vicars choral and 

 prebendal and of chantry priests, wills within the 

 peculiar, admission and resignation of canons, 



M Liber Albus, fol. 65. m Mem. hiii. 



101 The Morrow Mass at Newark was celebrated at 

 4 a.m. all the year round. 



vicars choral, and other officers of the church, 

 presentations to livings, &c. The contents of 

 this quarto volume, containing 355 pages of paper, 

 have for the most part been reproduced in extenso 

 by Mr. Leach, as well as analysed after a vigorous 

 fashion, in his notable volume of 1891, so that 

 a very brief reference need only be made to it in 

 this sketch. The triennial visitations held by the 

 chapter of the inferior ministers exposed many 

 delinquencies of various kinds, from sleeping at 

 mattins, laughing during service, spitting in quire, 

 gabbling the psalms, celebrating in dirty vestments, 

 and shirking the services, down to more serious 

 matters, such as disobedience to the chapter, 

 revealing chapter secrets, gaming, hunting, 

 hawking and cock-fighting, drinking, and incon- 

 tinency. 



Wherever we are able to obtain detailed evidence 

 as to the conduct and administration of a large 

 house of secular canons, it is matter of common 

 knowledge to students that its discipline (as was 

 almost bound to be the case) was distinctly inferior 

 to the more rigid rules of the cloistered monas- 

 teries. It is of course quite easy for anyone 

 desirous of doing so to draw up a heavy and well- 

 merited indictment against the forty-five minor 

 ministers whose lives and actions are here so piti- 

 lessly unveiled so far as evil, small or grievous, is 

 concerned. But, contrariwise, it is by no means 

 difficult, and far more just, to regard these painful 

 revelations as a proof of the decent and comely 

 lives led by the majority. Visitations, by their 

 very nature, can only take account of breaches of 

 rule by a minority, and never record a syllable of 

 praise as to those who are obedient. To judge 

 in broad general terms as to the life and morality 

 of such a community as this from the registered 

 offences, is as unjust as to estimate the life and 

 morality of any district in England of the present 

 day from the police and assize intelligence, or 

 the condition of a great public school from the 

 tale of canings and impositions. 



Moreover, to any fair-minded man the occa- 

 sional notices of torn surplices, dirty habits, jesting 

 during service, lolling in the seats, carelessness in 

 singing, or missing book-clasps, are so many proofs 

 of a sincere desire after decency of worship, and 

 by no means any evidence of a general sloven- 

 liness. Such questions would have been ignored, 

 or lightly treated, had there been any widespread 

 irreverence in the worship of the unreformed 

 collegiate church of Southwell during the last 

 century of its existence. If the best of our 

 present-day cathedral establishments was put 

 through such rigorous and detailed visitations as 

 those to which Southwell was subjected, it would 

 not emerge immaculate. 



The worst part of these visitation records is 

 the comparatively mild punishment enjoined in 

 bad cases of incontinency, such as a very short 

 period of suspension. Another punishment not 

 infrequently assigned carried, or ought to have 



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