38 HISTORY OF HARTING. 



Tymberbury in the church of Romsey, on the 22nd 

 July, 1344.* Thus for two months Harting had the 

 distinguished honour of having for its rector William 

 de Edynton or Edington, afterwards Bishop of Win- 

 chester, first Chancellor of the new order of the Garter 

 and also Lord Chancellor of England. Milner says 

 of Edynton, that " he was a prelate only inferior to 

 his successor, William of Wykeham, in virtues and 

 talents." William de Edynton (i.e. born at Edinton 

 in Wiltshire) was the patron, ordinary, and pattern of 

 William of Wykeham. Edynton's saying, when as 

 Bishop of Winchester he was offered the Arch- 

 bishopric of Canterbury, is well known, viz. : " that 

 Canterbury was the highest rack, but Winchester the 

 deepest manger." He commenced the rebuilding of 

 Winchester Cathedral, and the great William of 

 Wykeham professes in his will to have completed 

 Edynton's work. Edynton's beautiful shrine is on 

 the north side of the nave, immediately under the 

 choir screen at Winchester ; and his effigy, in full 

 pontificals, is set over the extreme point of the west 

 end of the longest and most stately of all England's 

 Cathedrals. He thus presides over one of the chief 

 examples of the perpendicular style, of which he may 

 be said to have been the father. He was also chief 

 Almoner in the terrible plague, the Black Death of 

 1 349, f when one half of England, nine-tenths of 

 the Clergy and three Archbishops were swept away, 

 and Oxford, from 30,000 scholars in 1300 A.D., was 

 reduced to 6,000 at the time when Wykeham's college 

 was opened. (Lives of Wykeham, Waynflete, and 

 More.) Bishop Edynton died at Waltham, 8th Oct. 



* Bishop Orleton's Register, Winchester Cathedral, Tom. II. 

 fol. 103 104. Communicated by Mr. F. Baigent. 



f It is characteristic of Edward the Third's levity, that he 

 celebrated his great feast on the institution of the Order of the 

 Garter, of which Edynton was first prelate, in the midst of the 

 Black Death. See Stubbs, Vol. II., " Constitutional History." 



