A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



surrendered in March, 1539, and in December the commissioners arrived to 

 take the surrenders of the remaining houses, completing their work at Tewkes- 

 bury on 9 January, 1 540. The endowment of the new sees at Gloucester 

 and Bristol was contemplated by Henry VIII, and accordingly the commis- 

 sioners arranged for the maintenance of the services at Gloucester until the 

 king's pleasure was made known. Fourteen monks were at once dismissed 

 with pensions, twenty-two others were left in the monastery under the charge 

 of the late prior of the cell of St. Guthlac at Hereford, stipends were provided 

 for singing men and choristers, and wages for bellringers and a number of 

 servants. 1 The canons were all dismissed from St. Augustine's, Bristol, and 

 the custody of the monastery was committed to Mannyng, the king's farmer. 8 

 At the wish of Latimer, Holbeche, prior of Worcester, had been nominated 

 as suffragan bishop of Bristol in I538. 3 



The dissolution of the religious houses caused but little discontent in the 

 county, because the middle class, which gained most by the spoliation of the 

 Church, was so large and prosperous.* A large number of church livings 

 were transferred from ecclesiastical to lay patronage, but the change was not so 

 sudden as it appeared to be, for there is evidence that in the sixteenth century 

 some of the religious houses sold the right of presentation to benefices, 6 and 

 that they farmed the rectorial tithes. 6 Thus at South Cerney in 1510 the 

 lessee of the rectorial tithes undertook to keep the chancel in repair, and 

 though timber and stone were provided from the land of the abbot and 

 convent of Gloucester, he had to bear the cost of carriage and of quarrying. 7 

 The inhabitants of Tewkesbury had always used the nave of the abbey as 

 their parish church, and they purchased the transepts, choir, and chapels, 

 except the Lady chapel, from Henry VIII for 45 3." 



In 1541 Henry VIII founded the bishopric of Gloucester, erecting the 

 late Benedictine monastery into a cathedral church, dedicated to the Holy 

 Trinity, and fixing the county bounds as those of the diocese. 9 The juris- 

 diction of St. Oswald was taken from the see of York ; the deanery of the 

 Forest from the see of Hereford ; 10 and the town of Bristol, with the exception 

 of a few parishes in the diocese of Bath and Wells, was included in the 

 new diocese of Gloucester. The new chapter consisted of a dean and six 

 canons, and the right of presenting them was reserved to the crown. The 

 bishopric was endowed with part of the possessions of the monastery, and 

 the remainder fell to the dean and chapter. The abbot's lodging was assigned 

 as the bishop's palace. In 1542 the king founded the bishopric of Bristol, 11 

 including in the new diocese the city and county of Bristol, the manor of 

 Leigh in Somerset, and the county of Dorset, which was taken from the 

 diocese of Salisbury. The church of St. Augustine's Abbey became the 



1 Aug. Off. Bk. 494, fol. 93. ' Ibid. fol. 48. s Demaus, Hugh Latimer, 290. 



4 Creighton, The Story of some EngRsh Shires, 267. 



* Reg. Braunche, fol. 90, MSS. Dean and Chapter of Gloucester ; MS. Rawlinson, B. 3 26, fol. 106, 123 

 <Bodl. Lib.). 



6 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, passim. 



1 Reg. Braunche, fol. 95 d. ; cf. Reg. Newton, fol. 66 ; Reg. Parker, i, 172 d. ; MSS. Dean and Chapter 

 of Gloucester. 



8 Dugdale, Man. ii, 58. Rymer, Foedera, xiv, 724. 



10 No mention was made of exemption from the jurisdiction of the archdeacon of Hereford, and he 

 continued to exercise it in the deanery of the Forest until 1836, Land. Gaz. 1836, p. 1735. 



11 Rymer, Foedera, xiv, 748. 



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