ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



licenses for non-residents were unusually numerous during this short 

 episcopate. For the most part these licenses were for a year or two 

 years for study, and were granted to enable those in minor orders to 

 prepare the better for their priesthood. Among those granted for 

 exceptional reasons may be mentioned leave of absence for a year to the 

 rector of the churches of Nutshelling (Nursling) and West Tytherley, 

 that he might accompany the Archdeacon of Winchester to the Roman 

 court ; to the rector of Crux Easton, that he might go on pilgrimage to 

 divers religious places beyond the seas ; to the rector of St. Michael's, 

 Southampton, that he might be in attendance on the Lady Mary 

 (daughter of Edward I.), who was a Benedictine nun at Amesbury ; to 

 the rector of Minstead, to be in attendance on Dame Sibil, Abbess of 

 Romsey ; and to Gerard de Seysiniaco, to be in attendance on the 

 Archbishop of Lyons. 



It was rather awkward for Sandale, who had himself been so great 

 a pluralist, that Pope John XXII., moved by a spirit of righteous 

 reformation, suddenly withdrew the numerous dispensations of plurality 

 granted by his predecessors, and commanded the immediate surrender of 

 all benefices with cure of souls save the one where the incumbent was 

 resident. Moreover each bishop was enjoined to make a return of the 

 names and value of such livings, together with the names of the incum- 

 bents and the churches which they had resigned or from which they 

 had been dismissed. Whatever might have been his views Sandale 

 yielded prompt obedience to the pontiff. On 31 March, 1318, he 

 directed the Archdeacon of Winchester to certify the names of all 

 pluralists and their benefices, and on 29 May he forwarded a letter to 

 the pope certifying that his new constitution against pluralists had been 

 carried out, and enclosing a schedule giving the required particulars. 

 The benefices thus vacated in the county of Hampshire through this 

 righteous ordinance were those of West Tytherley, Farley, Warnford, 

 Bedhampton, Itchenstoke, Freshwater, Atherton, Michelmarsh and 

 Church Oakley. 1 Sandale joined with the Archbishop of Canterbury 

 and the rest of the prelates of the southern province in a letter which 

 was sent to the pope on 30 May, thanking him for this reform, but 

 stating that, in consequence of his reservation of the churches thus left 

 vacant, many were without pastors. They asked for facilities to enable 

 them to fill up these benefices, or else that the pope would himself 

 confer such benefices on one or other of the clerks named in separate 

 schedules which were forwarded to him by the respective bishops. 

 This action of the pope seems to have stirred the bishop to look 

 generally into the question of non-residence, and early in March, 1318, 

 he directed his archdeacons to admonish in high-toned scriptural 

 language non-resident incumbents (apart from plurality) to return 

 within three months and to take up continued residence, so as to sustain 

 hospitality and the other burdens of their cure. The archdeacons were 

 to furnish him with the names of non-resident rectors before Easter. In 



1 Winton. Epis. Reg., Sandale, ff. 

 n 25 



