ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



of prayers and masses for the benefit of the donor and his family, and friends, 

 combined in most instances with almsgiving, and the establishment of such 

 a chantry as that founded by the countess of Richmond and Derby in Wim- 

 borne Minster, in the early sixteenth century, when education was beginning 

 to be part of the popular religious creed, to which was appointed a priest 

 ' ther to kepe continuall residence and teche frely gramer to all them that will 

 come thereunto.' Of the number of these memorial chapels the return 

 furnished by the commissioners of Henry VIII and Edward VI in the six- 

 teenth century furnishes but a slight idea. Most of those connected with 

 the monasteries appear to have vanished at the Dissolution, of the ten or a 

 dozen founded in Shaftesbury Abbey, for instance, only three are given in the 

 return ; and it is equally certain that many had ceased previously, owing to 

 the difficulty in maintaining them during the financial difficulties of the four- 

 teenth and fifteenth centuries. 



In spite of the advance in ecclesiastical organization the episcopal 

 registers, the series of which commence on the eve of the twelfth century, 

 show a considerable amount of neglect and irregularity then prevalent in the 

 diocese : churches so defective that Bishop Simon of Ghent in a letter 

 addressed to all his archdeacons in October, 1 299, after a recent visitation, 

 remarks a year's income would hardly suffice to cover the cost of their repair; 

 want of books, ornaments, and other necessaries for the celebration of divine 

 service ; absentee rectors and vicars, incumbents who had neglected to take 

 higher orders, benefices held in plurality and in the possession of those 

 who could show no title. ^^' Measures were in the first instance taken 

 with regard to those fabrics that had not yet been dedicated, and in 1298, 

 soon after his promotion to the see. Bishop Simon wrote to the locum 

 tenens of the dean of Salisbury calling his attention to this matter, citing in 

 particular the church of Lyme Regis, and desiring that all the prebendal 

 churches should be consecrated without delay.'"" A further examination 

 brought the extensive nature of this neglect into such prominence that the 

 bishop in April, 1302, wrote to the archdeacon of Dorset, ordering him to 

 institute a special inquiry into the circumstances of those churches still uncon- 

 secrated, of which he had heard an inordinate number {effrenatam multitudineni) 

 still remained in the archdeaconry, and to warn all rectors and vicars ; ''*' 

 this order was followed by a commission to the archdeacon's official directing 

 him or the dean of Shaftesbury to summon the rectors of the following 

 churches to provide everything necessary for the consecration of the edifices 

 at the dates fixed in the inclosed schedule : Stour Provost on the Friday 

 after the Feast of St. James the Apostle, Manston the Sunday following, 

 Iwerne Courtney, Okeford, Stoke Wake, Bishop's Caundle, and Pulham on 

 the days immediately succeeding as should be most convenient.'^^ The 



'" Sarum Epis. Reg. Simon of Ghent, fol. 23. In regard to the care of churchyards and cemeteries, 

 regulations for which were passed in the thirteenth century, the bishop in 1 3 1 1 wrote to the dean of 

 Shaftesbury denouncing the rough games and sports that were allowed in the inclosure {atrium') round the 

 canventual church of Shaftesbury, and the pasturing of animals turned in to graze ' where the bodies of the 

 faithful rest,' desiring that such practices should be put a stop to, and all neighbouring rectors and vicars 

 warned to proclaim their abolition ; ibid. fol. I 34. 



'■* Ibid. fol. 5 d. 



"' Ibid. fol. 22. This refers, probably in every case, to re-consecration necessitated by structural 

 alterations, and does not imply that the churches had not been duly dedicated at the time of their erection. 



■'■ Ibid. 



15 



