A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



the following October he appointed a special commission to take pro- 

 ceedings against non-resident incumbents. 1 



Bishop Sandale evidently looked closely after the efficiency of his 

 clergy. In November, 1316, the bishop addressed the king's justices, 

 informing them that he had pronounced sentence of excommunication 

 against the prior of St. Helen's, Isle of Wight, for various offences and 

 contumacy. There seems to have been some serious objection to the 

 bishop's authority in that part of his diocese, for two years later he 

 directs a letter to the king for the arrest of certain rectors and vicars 

 of his diocese who had been under sentence of the greater excommuni- 

 cation, and contumacious for forty days and more. These were chiefly 

 incumbents in the Isle of Wight, and included the prior and warden of 

 St. Helen's, the rectors of Motteston, Shorewell and Newchurch, and 

 the vicars of Shalfleet and Brading. 2 



A dispute having arisen between the parishioners of the chapel of 

 Northwood and the vicar of Hayling as to neglect of services, the bishop 

 intervened, and ordered the vicar to fulfil his obligations at Northwood, 

 whereby he was to provide full services in the weeks of Christmas, Easter 

 and Whitsuntide, and on all double feasts, as well as on every Sunday, 

 namely, mattins, mass, evensong and compline, together with mass on 

 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday throughout the year. 3 



On two occasions he directed his Hampshire rural deans, taking 

 with them a sufficiency of rectors and vicars of the deanery, to hold 

 local inquests as to age and infirmities of incumbents, and whether they 

 were competent to discharge the functions of their sacred calling. One 

 of these related to the vicar of Whitchurch in Andover deanery, and the 

 other to the rector of Eastrop, in the deanery of Basingstoke. 4 



The only ordination of a Hampshire vicarage during this episco- 

 pate was that of Eastmeon, the rectory of which pertained to the Bishop 

 of Winchester. Richard de Wardington, the vicar, complained that the 

 late bishop (Henry de Woodlock) had made certain provisions for the 

 vicarage, but these had proved far too slender and the bishop was about 

 to augment them when death intervened. Bishop Sandale made certain 

 arrangements for the augmentation in February, 1318, and issued a 

 formal instrument of ordination in June of the same year. By this it 

 was provided that the vicar and his successors should receive all the 

 tithes, great and small, of the hamlet of Froxfield and the chapel of 

 Westbury, and all the oblations of the church of Eastmeon and its three 

 chapels of Froxfield, Steep and Our-Lady-in-the-Fields ; also that every 

 tenant of the parishes should pay five eggs at Easter ; also that five 

 quarters of corn and ten acres of arable land should be assigned to the 

 vicar from the episcopal granges. Thus far was the old vicarage endow- 

 ment ; to this Bishop Sandale added, in augmentation, the small tithes 

 of the whole parish and chapelries, namely those of milk, cheese, calves, 

 fowls, pigs, geese, eggs, milk, honey, hay, pigeons, flax, hemp, gardens, 



1 Winton. Epis. Reg., Sandale, ff. z6b, 31. Ibid. ff. 5, 27. * Ibid. f. 21. 



4 Ibid. ff. 5 b, 2 3 b. 

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