ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



worth 10 a year, had been taken and retained by Sir Edward Bedingfield 

 in the reign of Henry VIII. Two chantries in Dennington church had 

 been dissolved in 1546 and given to Richard Fulmerston, whilst the 

 chantries of Brundish and Kedington had also fallen into lay hands. 



Two cases of the absorption of incomes assigned to stipendiary 

 (chantry) priests for ninety-nine years in neighbouring parishes, are also of 

 interest as showing the fairly good use to which the money was put. The 

 commissioners found that the income of the foundation at Southwold had 

 been already converted to the use of the town ; they bore testimony that it 

 was but a poor town owing to sea encroachments, and that the money was 

 used to maintain 'jetties and peyres.' At Covehithe they found no stipendiary 

 incumbent, for the income had been assigned to the vicar, as the vicarage 

 was not worth eight marks a year ; it was a poor and populous town, with 

 sixteen score housling people. 



By far the greater part of the 270 separate entries on the Suffolk 

 certificate of the commissioners relate to the small endowments, usually of 

 the nature of a rent-charge, that provided for an ' obit ' or anniversary of 

 some departed person on the recurrence of the burial day. The ordinary 

 notion is that these obits were simply absorbed by the celebrant of the mass. 

 But this is a complete mistake, for such bequests provided largely for the 

 poor, so that by their suppression a far more grievous wrong was done to the 

 indigent and aged than to the parish priest. Suffolk affords a great number 

 of instances, according to this certificate, wherein the proportion of an obit 

 assigned to the poor far excelled the pittance received by the priest. 



In addition to the annual value of the endowments secured by the 

 Suffolk commissioners for the crown by the suppression of the chantries, 

 hospitals, gilds, &c., a considerable amount of other spoils was secured. 

 They obtained 165 ounces of silver-gilt plate, 142^ ounces of parcel gilt, and 

 284 ounces of white or silver plate. Other ornaments and utensils were 

 valued at 85 ys. yd. A stock of money to the value of 52 6s. 8d. was 

 actually confiscated from the sums in hand belonging to those church benefit 

 societies, the gilds. Unmolten lead on the roofs of chapels was estimated to 

 weigh 62 fother, and bell-metal 8,005 cwt. 26 li. 



There was a fairly generous pension scheme assigned to the priests of 



j these suppressed institutions who did not hold any other preferment. On 



.' 20 June, 1548, Sir Walter Mildmay, knt., and Robert Kelwaye, esq., were 



I -commissioned to issue letters patent, under the great seal of the Court of 



\Augmentations, to ' the Incumbents and Mynysters of dyverse late Colledges, 



^Chauntries, and free Chappelles, and to Stipendarie priestes ' of the county of 



.Suffolk. Two days later the patents were granted. 1 



There were many abuses in connexion with the pensions granted at this 

 time, but more particularly with those granted to the dispossessed members of 

 the religious houses ejected during the previous reign. Necessity compelled 

 :some to part with their pension patents for ready money, and in other cases the 

 pension distributors were exacting illegal fees. An Act was passed in 1 549 

 to regulate these matters, and to compel the restitution of patents held by 

 those to whom they had not been granted. 3 This Act remained to a consider- 



1 Accts. Exch. Q. R. bdle. Ixxvi, I. ' z & 3 Edw. VI, cap. 7. 



31 



