ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



The bishop directed that an inquisition should be held, and if he was satisfied 

 with the report he granted the petition. Thus Childs Wickham was 

 appropriated to Bordesley in I3O2, 1 Wotton to St. Augustine's, Bristol, in 

 1312,* South Cerney to Gloucester in 1317,* Longborough to Hayles in 

 1325,* Duntisbourne to Dore in 1229,' Tytherington to Lanthony in 1330,* 

 Tetbury to Eynsham in 1331,* Campden to Chester in 1340,* while 

 Tewkesbury secured Thornbury in 1315* and Fairford in I333- 10 In the 

 deanery of the Forest the bishops of Hereford appropriated Newland to the 

 bishop of LlandafF in 1303 " and Newnham to St. Bartholomew's Hospital 

 at Gloucester in 1333." The religious usually got possession on the death of 

 a rector, but sometimes they persuaded him to resign in their favour, as in 

 the case of Thornbury, when the rector secured a pension of 100 marks a 

 year during his lifetime. 18 When the monasteries were in great need of 

 money some of the clergy had sufficient means to purchase corrodies, which 

 provided them for life with lodgings, food, lights and firing for themselves 

 and one or two servants. 1 * There was great extravagance in several of the 

 larger monasteries," and the bishops attempted to bring their finances into a 

 sounder condition by insisting on the rendering of accounts and con- 

 trolling the granting of corrodies. Relaxation of discipline occasionally 

 called for a comment, and a disputed election at Lanthony in 1324 resulted 

 in fierce internal dissensions ;" but except at Bristol in 1320," when one canon 

 was charged with evil living, nothing more serious than an accusation of 

 worldliness could be brought against the religious. 



The Black Death reached England in the autumn of 1348, but 

 Gloucestershire was not affected until the early spring of 1349." The plague 

 was at its worst in the summer months, and Bishop Wulstan de Bransford 

 instituted to many vacant livings, himself falling a victim on 6 August. Bristol 

 suffered severely, 1 ' but it seems that in the rest of the county the mortality 

 was not nearly so great as in East Anglia. 80 Between March and September 

 about eighty livings had to be filled on account of the deaths of the incum- 

 bents." It is probable that there were many more deaths among the 

 unbeneficed clergy, for in February, 1350, soon after his accession to the see, 

 Bishop Thoresby wrote to his vicar-general, the prior of Lanthony, lamenting 

 that on account of the scarcity of priests many churches were ill served. 8 " 

 Between January and September, 1350, he held eight large ordinations. 83 

 The economic results of the pestilence seriously affected the position of the 

 clergy and of the monasteries. The scarcity of labourers produced a great 

 and permanent rise in wages, and in Gloucestershire as elsewhere the 



' Reg. Sede Vac. (Wore. Hist. Soc.), i, 79. ' Wore. Epis. Reg. Reynolds, fol. 76. 



' Ibid. Cobham, fol. 56. ' Ibid. fol. 113. ' Ibid. Orlton, fol. 1 6, i.e. Duntisbourne Rous. 



' Ibid. fol. 21. ' Ibid. fol. 23 </. ' Ibid. Bransford, fol. 41. 



* Ibid. Maidstone, fol. 22. " Ibid. Orlton, fol. 54^. 



" Heref. Epis. Reg. Swinfield, fol. 140. " Ibid. T. Charlton, fol. 34. 

 11 Wore. Epis. Reg. Maidstone, fol. 22. 



" Royce, Landboc monasterii de Winchekumba, i, 262, 300, 320, 333. 

 " V. C. H. Glouc. Reftg. Houses, Gloucester, Winchcombe, 57, 69. 



" Ibid. Lanthony, 89. " Ibid. Bristol, 77. 



" Wore. Epis. Reg. Bransford, pt. 2, fol. 10. " Seyer, Memoirs of Bristol, \\, 143. 

 10 Jessopp, Diocesan History of Norwich, 1 1 8-2 1 . 



" Wore. Epis. Reg. Bransford, pt. 2, 10-12 J. ; Reg. SeJe Pat. (Wore. Hist. Soc.), 231-5 ; Heref. Epii. 

 Reg. Trelleck, 21-24. 



" Wore. Epis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 6 ; cf. toJ. " Y. C. H. If ore. ii, 32, Eccl. Hist.' 



'9 



