ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



vicars was not generally superior to those that had rectors, for the two cen- 

 turies preceding the dissolution of the monasteries. In every set of diocesan 

 institution books of this period, where it has been tested and it is certainly 

 the case with those of Norwich diocese the scandal of admitting to bene- 

 fices men who were not qualified to fulfil the duties of the sacred office, 

 occurred in the cases of rectories and only in the very rarest instances with 

 vicarages. 1 It was the rule rather than the exception with many, if not most, 

 of the wealthier rectories of mediaeval Suffolk, to find rectors who were mere 

 boys or continuing in minor orders, and frequently absent altogether from 

 their supposed cures. It is safe to say that for one absentee or pluralist vicar, 

 there would be several rectors. The monasteries, at all events, often made 

 some effort to supply the parishes, whose great tithes they absorbed, with 

 men of earnest lives ; and the bishops had advantages over such appointments 

 in various ways that they could not put into operation against powerful 

 lay patrons. Moreover the assignment of some portion of the church's 

 income to the poor of the parish, as enjoined both by canon and statute 

 laws, was insisted on by the bishops in the formal ordination of vicarages. 



It should also be borne in mind, in order to get a true grasp of the 

 rectory and vicarage problem, that the appropriation of the great tithes only 

 occurred where the income of the church was fairly large, and that the 

 amount allotted to the vicar in such a parish was often more than that held 

 by the rectors of small parishes or those with much fen land and but little 

 corn. This was specially the case in Suffolk. It scarcely matters into which 

 deanery we look, instances at once occur. Take the example of but two 

 deaneries chosen absolutely at hazard. In Sudbury archdeaconry, in the 

 deanery of Sudbury, Acton vicarage was worth 9 6s. 8d. a year ; but in 

 the same deanery were the following rectories, Cornard Parva 8 2j. 8j^/., 

 Groton, 8 is. 8*/., Somerton 6 i6s. Sd., and Preston 5 6s. v\d. In 

 Suffolk archdeaconry, in the deanery of Bosmere, Bramford vicarage was 

 worth 13 3-f. qd. whilst in the same deanery there were seven rectories of 

 less value. 8 



There are two of those exceptional cases in Suffolk wherein duly 

 ordained vicarages reverted to the position of rectories. The church of 

 Burgh was appropriated to the small priory of Herringfleet in 1390. But 

 the prior and convent only retained the rectory for a few years ; in 1403 

 they resigned it to the bishop of Norwich, reserving to themselves a small 

 pension. 8 The church of Redenhall, which had been formally appropriated 

 by Bungay nunnery in 1346 and a vicarage endowed, was disappropriated in 

 1441, and a pension of 40^. assigned to the priory. 4 



This question of the vicarages is essentially one of East Anglia, for the 

 proportion of benefices in that district that became appropriated to the 

 monasteries was much larger than in many other parts of England, particularly 

 in the south and west of the kingdom. 



In round numbers, half of the Suffolk benefices had become vicarages 

 by the time the new Valor was taken in the reign of Henry VIII. 6 It is 



1 Dr. Cutts, in Parish Priests and their People (i 890), pp. 324-9, says this evil ' was specially the case with 

 the rectories "... and ' a large proportion of the rectories were served by such men,' i.e. in minor orders. 



' Bacon, Liber Regis, 723-5, 767-73. * Norw. Epis. Reg. vi, 340. * Ibid, x, 48. 



6 This was also the case in Sussex, but in Winchester diocese the rectories were 289 to 95 vicarages, in 

 London 731 to 201, and in Exeter 524 to 185. 



a 17 3 



