A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



unbeneficed clergy were discontented with their salaries, 1 which were fixed 

 by Islip, archbishop of Canterbury, at 7 marks a year in 1354.* They tried 

 to supplement them by wandering out of the parishes to which they were 

 attached, and charging higher fees for masses for the dead, but Bishop Thoresby 

 inhibited them from doing so. 3 Although supported by parliamentary 

 legislation in 1362,* the ecclesiastical authorities found great difficulty in 

 limiting the stipends of curates and chantry priests. 5 The problem of 

 making adequate provision for the spiritual needs of the people was more 

 acute on account of the non-residence of rectors and vicars, and on 

 26 February, 1350, Bishop Thoresby sent a mandate to his sequestrator 

 general to deprive the absent priests of their benefices and take the fruits.* 

 In 1362 Bishop Barnet attempted to enforce residence on penalty of 

 excommunication, as many rectors had farmed their churches and were away 

 without licence. 7 The very numerous exchanges of benefices also illustrate 

 the restlessness of the clergy, and in 1391 Archbishop Courtenay issued a 

 mandate to his suffragans to deal severely with ' choppe-churches,' who 

 trafficked in benefices and were guilty of simony. 8 Though many of the 

 parish priests lacked learning, John Trevisa, the vicar of Berkeley, has won a 

 great reputation for his translation of the Polycbronicon of Ralph Higden, 

 which he completed in 1387.' 



Many of the monasteries in the county were seriously embarrassed by 

 the falling off of their revenues. 10 In 1353 a royal commission was appointed 

 to have the custody of Winchcombe until the debts had been discharged, 11 

 and in 1366 St. Augustine's, Bristol, was also in the hands of the king's 

 commissioners. 12 The bishops attempted to restore order by issuing in- 

 junctions for the better administration of the finances, 13 but the religious were 

 bent on adding to their income by further appropriations of parish churches. 

 Awre was assigned to St. Oswald's, Gloucester, in 1351," Cam to St. Peter's, 

 Gloucester, 16 in 1 3 6 1 , Twyning to Winchcombe in 1 3 79, 16 Toddington to Hayles 

 in 1 386." By means of papal bulls the religious baffled the bishops' opposi- 

 tion, and in spite of the decrees of councils and synods they appropriated the 

 vicarages of churches which they already held to their own use, thus securing 

 the whole of the revenues and serving the church by one of their own number 

 or by a salaried chaplain. The vicarages of St. Nicholas, Bristol, and Berkeley 

 were given to St. Augustine's, Bristol, in i 399," the vicarage of Winchcombe to 

 the monastery in I398. 19 In 1402 Boniface IX allowed the abbot and convent 

 of Winchcombe to appropriate Bledington without making any provision for 

 a vicar, 20 but the bishop compelled them to do so. sl In 1411 the rich benefice 

 of Westbury-on-Severn was appropriated to the college of vicars choral of 

 Hereford by Bishop Mascall." After the Black Death it became customary 



1 Wore. Epis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 6. Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 30. 



1 Wore. Epis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 49. 36 Edw. iii, cap. 8. 



5 Wore. Epis. Reg. Barnet, 1 1 d. 17 d. ; Wakefield, 130 ; Morgan, 5. 



6 Ibid. Thoresby, fol. 26. ' Ibid. Barnet, fol. z d. 



8 Wore. Epis. Reg. Wakefield, fol. 97 ; Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 215. 



9 Polychronicon Ranulphi Higdeni (Rolls Ser.), i, lix. 



10 V. C. H. Glouc. Refig. Houses, Winchcombe, 70. Ibid. Ibid. Bristol, 77. 



Ibid. Gloucester, Bristol, Tetokesbury, Cirencester, 58, 63, 77, 82. " Heref. Epis. Reg. Trelleck, fol. 102. 



14 Wore. Epis. Reg. Brian, i, fol. 35. 16 Royce, op. cit. ii, 95-101. 



17 Wore. Epis. Reg. Wakefield, fol. n6. 18 Cal. Pap. Letters, vi, 191. 



Royce, op. cit. ii, 139-45. M Ibid, ii, 42. 



" Wore. Epis. Reg. Clifford, fol. 76. " Heref. Epis. Reg. Mascall, fol. 43. 



20 



