ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



with the decree of the legate Otho at the council of London in 1237,* he 

 dedicated a great number of parish churches, bidding the priests write 

 the year and day over the altar, 8 and keep the festival. 5 Among these 

 was perhaps St. John's Church, Gloucester, for in 1234 the parson and 

 parishioners undertook to build a new aisle.* In 1239 the bishop dedicated 

 the churches of Tewkesbury Abbey, 6 St. James's Priory at Bristol,' Winch- 

 combe Abbey 7 and of the abbey of St. Peter at Gloucester, 8 and in 1251 of 

 Hayles Abbey. 9 



In 1240, at a synod in his cathedral church on the morrow of St. James's 

 Day, he promulgated fifty-nine constitutions for the clergy. 10 Some of these 

 embodied the decrees of Lateran Councils and synods of the English Church, 

 others were adapted to the special needs of his diocese. He ordered that the 

 churches should be cleansed of everything which defiled them, the roofs 

 should be kept in good repair, and ornaments, including vestments, altar- 

 cloths, chalices, pyxes, lenten veils, banners, and processional crosses, should be 

 provided according to the resources of each church, but all must possess the 

 necessary service-books. 11 The canon of the mass must be correct, and the 

 feasts of the Church should be observed according to the Use of Sarum. The 

 bishop had found that burial-grounds were put to uses which dishonoured 

 the dead, and he ordered that they should be enclosed with a hedge or wall ; 

 no unseemly games might be played within them, nor might they serve as a 

 market-place, 13 and no markets might be held anywhere on Sundays." Every 

 baptismal church must possess a font of sufficient size and depth and decently 

 covered. He told the parish priests that it was their duty to instruct their 

 people every Sunday about having their children baptized and confirmed, 

 especially as owing to the spread of error they no longer brought them on 

 the vigils of Easter and Pentecost, the two days which had been solemnly set 

 apart by the Church for baptism. 1 * They should instruct them in the ten 

 commandments, the seven sacraments of the Church, and about the seven 

 deadly sins. Heathen beliefs still influenced the lives of the people, who resorted 

 to soothsayers and fortune tellers and worshipped springs, and the bishop 

 told the priests to forbid their parishioners to gather at Cerney, and at 

 Rolla's Spring, near Gloucester, and other places. They should teach their 

 parishioners how to make their confession once a year before they came to 

 their Easter communion, and they should take no offerings from the poor. 

 They should be diligent in visiting the sick. They were forbidden to ask 

 fees for marriages or funerals, or for any of the sacraments, but if offered 

 by the faithful, they might be accepted. If the parishioners kept back their 

 tithes and had been solemnly admonished on three Sundays, the rectors might 

 excommunicate them. The bishop bade the priests live as true scholars and 



1 Wilkins, Concifia, i, 650. ' Ibid. 666. ' Ibid. 678. 



4 Cal. of Close, 18 Hen. Ill, m. 31. ' Ann. Man. (Rolls Ser.), i, 112. 



' Ibid. ' Ibid. ' Hut. et Cart. Glouc. (Rolls Scr.), i, 28. 



* Dugdale, Mm. v, 686. 10 Wilkins, Concilia, \, 665-78. 



" Ibid. 666, ' Missale, breviarium, antiphonarium, gradale, troparium, manuale, psalterium, ordinale in 

 qualibet ecclesia propria volutnus contincri ' ; cf. Wordsworth and Littlchalcs, Old Service Books of the English 

 Church. 



"Cardinal Ottoboni forbade the use of churches as market places in 1267 ; Wilkins, Concifia, ii, 14. 

 The holding of markets in cemeteries was forbidden by Edward I, 1 3 Edw. I, Winton, cap. 6. 



' The Cirencester market was held on Sundays in 1131 ; Dugdale, Man. vi, 177. 



14 Swete, Servicet and Service Books before the Reformation, 138. 



II 



