ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



were to be taxed according to the bishop's judgment for largess for the 

 poor parishioners. 1 



Exchanges of benefices are a usual feature of mediaeval registers, 

 but they were remarkably frequent in Winchester diocese during the 

 episcopate of Wykeham, particularly in Hampshire. One out of every 

 five of his institutions in that archdeaconry was of the nature of an 

 exchange. It has been conjectured that these changes were chiefly 

 owing to a spirit of unrest that was then abroad and the absence of local 

 ties among a celibate clergy. But such reasons would equally affect 

 other dioceses and other periods, and we are inclined to think that Mr. 

 Moberly is right in attributing the chief cause to the bishop's great 

 interest in his diocese, which led him to believe that five or six years in 

 the same cure was sufficiently long for the average parochial priest. 2 

 There are in Hampshire instances where the same church changed hands 

 seven and even eight times during Wykeham's episcopate of thirty-seven 

 years. 



None of the superiors of the various religious houses of Hampshire 

 (save the Premonstratensian abbot of Titchfield, who was exempt from 

 ordinary episcopal or diocesan control, and the alien priories) could be 

 appointed without the house having first obtained a conge <felire from the 

 bishop, and the formal submission of the superior elect to episcopal 

 benediction. Such matters received special attention from Bishop 

 Wykeham, and are set forth with much detail in his registers. Even 

 the abbots of the Cistercian order, though exempt from diocesan 

 visitation, made a qualified submission to the bishop on appointment 

 and received his benediction. 



On Sunday in Passion week, 14 March, 1372, brother Henry 

 Inglesham, abbot-elect of the Cistercian house of Netley, made the 

 vow of canonical obedience to William of Wykeham in the chapel 

 of Waltham. The bishop, after mass, bestowed his episcopal benedic- 

 tion on Inglesham, giving him a book of the rule of St. Benedict, and 

 placing a crosier in his hand. The abbot at the same time read out 

 publicly his vow of obedience to the bishop and his successors, ' salvo 

 ordine meo,' affixing his signature and signing it with the sign of the 

 cross. The forms of the petition from the monastery to the bishop for 

 leave to elect, and the presentation of the abbot-elect to the bishop, are 

 appended to the account of the ceremony of the benediction of Abbot 

 Inglesham. 8 



On Saturday, 20 October, 1375, before Master John de Bukyngham, 



1 Winton. Epis. Reg., Wykeham, pt. iii. f. 6. It would seem that the rule in all cases of licensed 

 non-residence was for the bishop to assign some portion of the income to the poor, but that it depended 

 much on the zeal or laxity of the particular bishop. According to Archbishop Peckham's Constitutions 

 of 1279, the share for the poor was to be p'mguis fordo, the exact amount of which was to be deter- 

 mined by four trustworthy parishioners. Wilkin's ConciRa, ii. 33 ; Lyndwwd, p. 133. 



3 Moberly's Life of Wykeham, p. 246. Of course, now and again, the exchange was made from 

 self-interested motives. In Archbishop Courtney's denunciation of various abuses among the clergy, as 

 to non-residence, etc., special mention is made of what he terms ' Choppe churches.' His injunction of 

 5 March, 1392, is copied into Wykehanfs Registers, pt. iii. f. 254. 



3 Winton. Epis. Reg., Wykeham, pt. iii. f. 38. 



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