A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



they were appropriated. The appointment of vicars is usually regarded as dating 

 from the Lateran Council of 1 179,' but probably the rules then laid down only 

 recognized and regulated a practice which had been in actual operation some 

 time previously and even in some cases as early as the year 1 1 54 ;^ the taxation 

 of Bishop Walter mentions eighty vicarages as already in existence ; that of Pope 

 Nicholas gives 176. Five marks a year seems to have been here as elsewhere 

 the average stipend of a vicar, whatever the value of the benefice he served may 

 have been.' It must be remembered that this was the income of a celibate 

 clergy, and there were benefices in Norfolk whose value was returned as less 

 than five marks yearly, which is not surprising when the large number in exist- 

 ence is considered. And though in some cases the vicar might be paid by the 

 religious house which appointed him a stipend in excess of the value of the bene- 

 fice he served, the result of appropriation was as a rule the impoverishment of 

 the churches appropriated, and the enrichment of the religious house by the 

 process; for, while appointing a vicar at a fixed stipend, the religious house 

 kept the main part of the tithe, and the parish was thus deprived of the major 

 part of its endowments. 



The parish priests had little cause to love the monks, but both they and 

 the monks resented the encroachments of the friars, who pushed their way 

 into the parishes, and were from the first exceedingly popular in Norfolk. It 

 cannot be doubted that they did a very excellent and much needed work here, 

 and that the religious enthusiasm exemplified by the church building and 

 restoration of the fourteenth century, of which Norfolk is so conspicuous an 

 example, owed much to the revival that was the result of their preaching. 

 According to Bartholomew Cotton the Friars Minors and Preachers began to 

 settle in Norwich in 1226,* and the Austin Friars came to Lynn in 1293 

 according to Capgrave.' The taxation of Bishop Walter mentions the Friars de 

 Pica, the Friars Minors, the Friars of the Sack, the Carmelite Friars, and the 

 Friars Preachers as already settled in Norwich ; ' and ultimately the cities of 

 Norwich, Lynn, and Yarmouth, seem to have been divided into four parts, 

 assigned to Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians.^ The Grey 

 Friars at Norwich had a cloister in their priory on the north side of St. 

 Vedast's Church, called Pardon Cloister because the convent had procured from 

 the pope indulgences for all those who should be buried there ; and vast num- 

 bers of persons were also buried in the famous cloister called Scala Coeli at the 

 convent of Austin Friars in the same city, that they might benefit by indulgences 

 conferred by the pope on this place, so that at last the custom of burying in 

 the churches of the friars became so injurious to the regular clergy, that in 

 I 376 ' an agreement was made between the prior of the Carmelites in Norwich 



' Stephens, Hist, of the Engl. Ch. ii, 294. 



* Compare the important charter in Round, Cal. Doc. France, 444. 



* Pof>e Nich. Tax (Rec. Com.), passim. The Norwich Domesday Book shows that while there was a 

 considerable number of vicarages worth less than five marks a year, there were also some worth a larger sum. 

 The vicarages of St. Bartholomew in Hanworth in the deanery of Reps, and of St. Margaret, in Thorpe Market 

 in the same deanery, were worth only i 5/. each yearly ; the vicarages of St. Peter at Corpustie in the deanery 

 of Ingworth, appropriated to the prior and convent of Horsham St. Faith, and of St. Mary in Appleton in the 

 dcaner\' of Lynn, appropriated to the prior and convent of Westacre, were valued at 30;. each yearly. The 

 vicarage of St. Michael at Ailesham in the deanery of Ingworth, appropriated to the prior and convent of Battle, 

 was worth twenty-eight marks yearly, that of All Saints, Lynn, appropriated to the prior and convent of 

 Westacre, twelve marks yearly, and of St. Mary, Roughton, in the deanery of Reps, eleven marks yearly. 



* Earth, de Cotton, De Rege Henrico III (Rolls Ser.), 113. ' De i/lustribus Henricis (Rolls Ser.), 138. 

 ' Harl. MS. 1005, fol. II. ■ Taylor, Index Mcnasticus, ix. ' Ibid. 



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