ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



^94 Ss. 2J.^°^ Besides a number of small endowments for the maintenance of 

 lamps, obits, and various services, the foundations surveyed in both certificates 

 relating to Dorset comprise some 25 or 26 chantries, 14 free chapels, 

 4 gilds or fraternities,^"^ and 9 hospitals. ^°^ In many cases reference to the 

 benefits rendered by these foundations gives some idea of what the county was 

 to be deprived on the plea of abolishing the superstitions with which they 

 had unfortunately become associated ; the worst to be gathered from the 

 returns is that in a few cases funds had been diverted from the objects 

 originally intended, while on the other hand frequent entries testify to the 

 good work done in connexion with many of the chantries and of the lofs 

 occasioned by their destruction. Thus, under the chantry in Netherbury 

 church, the certificate notes a grammar school kept by Martyn Smyth, priest, 

 who received for his stipend £^ 6s. 8^.^°' Under Wareham the sum of _^8 

 constituting the endowment of a free school founded by Sir John Loders, priest, 

 and others in the parish of Milton Tregonwell, was yearly paid to the ' scole- 

 master for his stipend.'"" A memorandum states that the free chapel of 

 West Hemsworth was ordained for a schoolmaster to be maintained in Long 

 Blandford."^ As regards the hospitals the endowment of that of Allington 

 near Bridport served only to maintain a chaplain, the ' power men ' living by 

 alms of the town,"^ and in the same way the income of St. John Baptist of 

 Bridport, amounting to £6 Ss. gld. clear, was assigned to the priest serving 

 it."'' The inmates, five poor men, of the hospital of St. John Baptist of 

 Shaftesbury, had to rely for their maintenance on the charity of the inhabit- 

 ants of the town, the whole of the revenues, consisting of 73J. 6d. yearly, 

 being handed over to the chaplain."* 



The district on which the confiscation of these endowments fell most 

 heavily was Wimborne ; there are several indications of the important 

 part played by the college in the social and ecclesiastical life of the 

 neighbourhood now deprived of the services of four priests and four clerks 

 which the dean and prebendaries were bound to provide to serve the four 

 chapels round : St. Peter's in the town, St. Catherine's of Leigh, St. James 

 at Holt, and St. Stephen's at Kingston. ' Mem"^.' runs the report of the 

 commissioners 



to have 4 priests to serve the cure in the parish of Wimborne because there be t, chapels 

 wherein there is devyne service which said chapels be distant from the church of Wimborne 

 3 miles and are for the ease of the people.*'' 



There was also the ' schole masters chauntry ' of Margaret, countess of Rich- 

 mond and Derby, in the collegiate church."* 



'»" Coll and Chant. Cert, xiv, Nos. 1-35. 



™' The gilds are that of Corpus Christ! in Wareham, the fraternity of Our Lady in St. Peter's church, 

 Dorchester, that of St. George in Poole, and St. George in Weymouth. 



"' These were at Allington, Bridport, Dorchester, Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Wimborne, and Wareham. 



•"'Ibid. No. 59. ""Ibid. No. 81. 



"' Ibid. No. 115. '" Ibid. No. 62. '" Ibid. No. 6i. 



"* Ibid. No. 100. In the case of Wimborne the alms of the town supplemented the scanty endow- 

 ment of the hospital which produced only a yearly income of 29/. id., and the return states that the 

 eight poor men ' not only live by the profits of the said house but by the devotion of the people of 

 Wimborne' (ibid. No. 112). The hospital of Sherborne, the last religious house to be erected in 

 Dorset, had by far the richest endowment, out of a clear income of ^^3 1 5/. the chaplain received half- 

 yearly £\o 6s. id., the remainder being assigned to the finding of eleven poor and impotent men and four 

 poor women (ibid. No. 91). 



"' Ibid. No. 1 10. »'« Ibid. No. 106. 



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