A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



struenda at the latter place for the souls of himself and his ancestors. 1 But 

 the fashion did not take hold of the public mind till a much later date, 

 when it became a rule to found chantries in parish churches. We have 

 a notable example of this when it became necessary to transplant the 

 chantry of Bramwra to the church of Hutton in 1361. Owing to the 

 depreciation in the value of land caused by the scarcity of tenants and 

 labourers after the great pestilence, 2 the endowments of the chantry were 

 quite insufficient to maintain a chaplain at Bramwra. The chapel had 

 been vacant for a long time and no priest was willing to undertake the 

 duty. In these circumstances Thomas de Hoton in the Forest, upon 

 whom the right of the founder had devolved, reconstituted the chantry 

 in the church of St. James in Hutton, and gave, in addition to the old 

 endowment, land in the vill of Hutton to sustain a perpetual chaplain to 

 celebrate at the altar of the blessed Mary there for the souls of himself 

 and his wife, Isabel, and for the souls of their parents and all their pre- 

 decessors. It was stipulated that the advowson and patronage of the 

 chantry should be vested in Thomas de Hoton and his heirs. In giving 

 confirmation to the transference of the institution, Bishop Welton 

 ordained that the chantry priest should sing or say (dicat cum nota ve/ 

 sine nota] the Canonical Hours daily with the rector or parish chaplain 

 of Hutton and celebrate at St. Mary's altar on Sundays with special 

 commemoration of all souls above mentioned, using on other days of the 

 week the office of the dead with Placebo and Dirige. It should be 

 mentioned that the chaplain of the chantry was subject to the rector in 

 all canonical and lawful demands. 3 The subjection of the chaplain to 



1 Inq. p.m. 28 Edw. I. No. 133. On 20 October 1302 a writ ad quod damnum was issued to the 

 sheriff to inquire if Thomas de Capella may alienate to the bishop of Carlisle a messuage and forty acres 

 of land in Newton Reigny (Carl. Epis. Reg. Halton MS. f. 62). The founder made an addition to the 

 endowment of the chantry in 1310-1311 (Orig. R. 4 Edw. II. m. 19 ; Inq. ad quod damnum, 4 Edw. II. 

 No. 66), and the bishop of Carlisle obtained the appropriation of the chapel in the following year (Orig. R. 

 5 Edw. II. m. 21). John de Capella, a burgess of Carlisle, founded a chantry in St. Katherine's chapel in 

 the church of the Blessed Mary, Carlisle, the chaplain of which was obliged to celebrate for his soul and 

 for the souls of all the faithful departed for ever. In 1366 some of the tenants of the burgages, with 

 which the chantry was endowed, withheld the rents from J. de Galwidia, the perpetual chaplain, to ' the 

 peril of their souls and the prejudice of the said chaplain and chantry ' (Carl. Epis. Reg. Appleby MS. 

 f. 156). 



2 We have little local information about the havoc made among the clergy by the great pestilence 

 or Black Death of 1349 in this diocese. There is an ominous gap in the diocesan registers between 1347 

 and 1352. When the plague attacked the province of York, the pope sent the archbishop an indulgence 

 allowing every one to choose his own confessor with a proviso that the privilege should not be abused. 

 A copy of this brief was sent to the bishop of Carlisle on 28 April, 1 349 (Letters from the Northern Registers 

 [Rolls Series], 399-400). There is more explicit evidence of the devastation among the clergy caused by 

 the second visitation, which was the cause of the removal of the chantry from Bramwra to Hutton. In 

 1363 Bishop Appleby complained to the pope of the lack of priests in his diocese owing to the late pesti- 

 lence, and prayed for the necessary faculties to promote forty persons, secular and regular, of the age of 

 twenty to all the holy orders that they might minister in the same, and also to dispense twelve persons 

 of illegitimate birth and six others being sons of priests or illegitimate sons of married men, so that they 

 might be ordained and hold benefices with cure of souls (Cat. of Papal Petitions, i. 437). 



3 Carl. Epis. Reg. Welton MS. ff. 78-9. There is an account of a very curious dispute about the 

 patronage of a chantry in the church of Brigham in 1532. Sir John Lamplugh had the King's letters to 

 induct one Richard Robinson, clerk, but the church was held by force in the interests of the Earl of North- 

 umberland. The parish priest was obliged to go ' to his chamer to say his mattens ' as ' the chirche 

 dorrys was shett upe ne culd hawe entres in the chirche bot at such tymys as he was lattyne in.' The 

 earl's servants abode day and night in the church ' and hawd meytt and drynke and a bed within the sayd 



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