YETMINSTEIl CHURCH. 147 



parish is extensive, and, together with the daughter Chapelry of 

 Chetnole, occupies upwards of 4,300 acres, and when it formerly 

 comprised the adjoining parishes of Eyme Intrinseca, Clifton 

 Mayhank, and Leigh the last only separated from it in 1849 it 

 must have been one of the most important in the neighbourhood. 

 To this position testimony is borne by a custom still remembered 

 by the old people of Minterne as having existed in their fathers' 

 days, if not in their own, that the bearers of corpses for burial from 

 Middlemarsh to Minterne, on reaching the summit of the range of 

 hills at Dogbury, would stand and " face the Mother Church," as 

 they express it, that is, the church of Yetminster, about four miles 

 distant as the crow flies, thus testifying to the prominent position 

 occupied by this minster and parish in mediaeval Dorset. 

 Yetminster contains four manors, and supplied the endowments of 

 two Prebends, and partly that of a third, in the Cathedral of 

 Sarum. At the date of the compilation of Domesday it belonged 

 to the Bishop of that See a certain William holding of the Bishop 

 some six hydes out of the entire 15 at which the estate was then 

 rated and in all probability it may have formed a part of the 

 ancient endowments of the See of Sherborne. On the foundation 

 of the Cathedral Establishment at Old Sarum by Osmund, Saint and 

 Bishop, it was one of the original estates given by him in his 

 charter of A.D. 1091 for its maintenance. (Keg. Osmund, Vol. I M 

 p. 198. Rolls' Series, 1883.) Here the Dean exercised Peculiar 

 Jurisdiction, except that in some respects his authority was ousted 

 by the Prebendary of Yetminster and Grimstone, two years out of 

 every three. Such being the ownership of the land, Yetminster 

 has naturally failed to be the seat of any great manorial families. 

 Their place has been taken by Ecclesiastics or their Lessees, who 

 occupied the position of landlords. Lists of the holders of the three 

 Prebends are extant, dating from the year A.D. 1226, when William 

 de Len held the Prebend of Yetminster Prima (otherwise called 

 Superior, Overbury, or Upbury), Tancred that of Yetminster 

 Secunda (otherwise Inferior or Southbury), and R. de Maupodre 

 the Prebend of Grimstone and Yetminster, which has a double 



