A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 



hood." Vicarages had to be regularly arranged at Aylestone, Leire, Whit- 

 wick, Bottesford, and elsewhere, so that non-resident rectors might be com- 

 pelled to make proper provision for the priests who really served their 

 parishes. 48 Another practice which had to be kept in check was the farming 

 of rectories, not infrequently to religious houses. Oliver Sutton seems to 

 have been especially watchful and diligent in this respect.* 3 The work of 

 this great bishop has been somewhat cast into the shade by the more striking 

 personality of Grossetete, of whom he was a worthy successor ; quite as un- 

 compromising in matters of principle, and quite as free from all self-interest, 

 he knew no respect of persons where his duty was concerned, and his hand 

 was heavy on all transgressors against the order of the church.** In his time 

 an age of strong lights and shadows, as all who study it know well cases 

 of violence done to clerks had become much too common ; * 5 it was the 

 bishop's duty to make an example. It chanced that Thomas Bassett, lord of 

 Welham, had roughly assaulted a clerk named Hugh Pepyn in his own parish 

 church. The church itself had first to be ' reconciled,' after this act of 

 sacrilege ; and it was appointed that on the following day the offender should 

 appear at the introit of the mass, barefoot, bare-headed, ungirt, holding in 

 each hand a lighted candle, under the great rood cross. There he should 

 stand until the time of the oblation, when he was to offer the candles at the 

 high altar. Hugh Pepyn, who had evidently not been blameless in the 

 matter, was to do his penance also. He was suspended from his sacred 

 functions for a time, and after the reading of the gospel at mass was to receive 

 a stroke of the discipline in the sight of all men, on his uncovered shoulders. 

 The whole scene must have been an impressive illustration of the Church's 

 teaching on the subject of sacrilege. 46 



It was in the time of Bishop Sutton that the Taxation of Pope Nicholas 

 was compiled. In the case of many counties of England this is the first clear 

 list of parish churches that can be obtained ; but in Leicestershire, as we have 

 seen, there is an earlier and better record in existence. The Taxatio adds 

 very little to the statistics already given. Eleven parish churches are alto- 

 gether omitted," only three being named in the town of Leicester, which had 



" The first, Nicholas de Luvetot, was presented under the canonical age, and actually refused to be 

 ordained, though the bishop urged him several times. He was deprived finally; but the second, Robert of 

 St. Albans, who was also rector of Essendon, Herts, obtained a dispensation for his irregularities from Pope 

 Nicholas IV, in consideration of his having taken the vow of a Crusader. Stocks and Bragg, Parish Rec. of 

 Market Harborough, 21, 22, from the Memoranda of Bishop Sutton. * 2 See Rolls of Hugh of Wells. 



13 The rector of Kirkby Mallory farmed his church to Leicester Abbey for five years on condition that 

 the farm should be given up if the bishop disapproved, but neither party thought it necessary to find out the 

 bishop's opinion till four years after the arrangement was made. Line. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton, ill. d. 



" See account of Dunstable Priory, V.C.H. Beds. i. 



*' Compare a case of extraordinary lack of self-restraint in 1306 a vicar who killed his clerk for coming 

 late to ring the bells. Rec. of Son. ofLeic. i, 369. 



415 Line. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton, iii. There is a case between the vicar of Melton Mowbray and hi* 

 patron, the prior of Lewes, about this time (1294), which reads unpleasantly. The vicar complained that he 

 had to serve four parochial chapels as well as his church, that he had not a sufficient share of the tithes, and 

 that if a parishioner died leaving only one live beast, the rector claimed it. He finally resigned his claims, 

 in consideration of being allowed to appoint his own holy-water clerk. Cal. of Anct. D. A. 7935. 



" Catthorpe (Thorp Thomas), Swinford, Dalby on the Wolds, Congerstone, and Withcote, besides the 

 six Leicester churches, are found in the Matriculus but not in the Taxatio. The church of Weston, which in 

 1220 had neither parson nor patron, and was served three times a week by the monks of Merevale, was 

 probably already abandoned in 1291. The church of Aldeby on Soar, of which we are told by Chary te that 

 it was in the thirteenth century disused and pulled down, and Enderby made the parish church in its place, 

 is not mentioned at all in the Matriculus. Nichols, Leic. iv, 159. 



360 



