WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



WIGAN 



Instituted 



1265 . . . 



? I28l . . . 



22 Sept. I 303 . 



15 June 1334 . 

 1 3 Nov. 1 344 

 26 Dec. 1344 



oc. 1347 . . . 

 12 Mar. 134950 



3 May 1350 . 

 10 July i 359 . 



4 Sept. 1359 

 2 Jan. I 361-2 . 



Presented by 

 Robert Banastre 



Jo! n de Langton . 

 Sir Robert de Langton 



Name 



Mr. Richard de Marklan 34 . . 

 Mr. Adam de Walton 3i . . . 

 Mr. Robert de Clitheroe " . . 

 Ivo (John) de Langton 3 ' . . . 



John de Craven 38 ,, 



Mr. John de Craven S9 . . . . 



Henry de Dale, M.A. 40 .... 



John de Winwick 4I The King .... 



Richard de Langton " Sir Rob. de Langton . 



Robert de Lostock 43 



Walter de Campden " John Earl of Lancaster 



Cause of Vacancy 



d. of J. Maunsel 



d. of Rob.de Clitheroe 



res. R. de Langton 

 res. R. de Lostock 



Lanes. Inq. and Extents, i, 147. In local 

 history he is notable as procuring the first 

 borough charter. He died abroad in 

 great poverty at the end of 1264 or be- 

 ginning of 1265. 



There are numerous references to him 

 in Cal. of Papal Letters. Alexander IV, in 

 1259, approved the dispensation granted, 

 at the king's request, by Pope Innocent, 

 allowing Maunsel to be ordained and 

 promoted although his mother married 

 his father, a man of noble birth, not 

 knowing that he was a deacon ; his father 

 repenting, resumed his orders, and a di- 

 vorce was declared ; the dispensation 

 should hold good, even though the mother's 

 plea of ignorance and the reputation of a 

 lawful marriage could not be sustained ; 

 ibid, i, 362. Many documents refer to 

 his superabundance of benefices ; see 

 specially ibid. 378. 



84 He in July 1265 joined with the 

 patron, Sir Robert Banastre, in assigning 

 an annual pension of 30 marks to the 

 mother church of Lichfield. Canon 

 Bridgeman states : 'A sum of 16 is now 

 (1887) paid annually by the rector of 

 Wigan to the sacristan of Lichfield Cathe- 

 dral.' 



Master Richard was itill living in 

 1278; Assize R. 1238, m. 33d. His 

 surname shows that he was a local man. 

 He had a son Nicholas, who in 1292 was 

 summoned to warrant William, rector of 

 Donington, in the possession of a mes- 

 suage in Wigan claimed by Robert Sper- 

 ling and Sabina his wife ; Assize R. 408, 

 m. 35 d. 



85 This rector was probably appointed 

 at the vacancy in 1281, when the king, as 

 stated in the text, claimed the patronage. 

 Adam was the rector summoned in 1292 

 to show his title to manorial rights in 

 Wigan ; Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 

 371. He was chancellor of Lichtield 

 Cathedral from 1276 till 1292, when he 

 was made precentor, retaining the latter 

 office till his death in August i 303 ; Le 

 Neve, Fast, i, 579. His executors were 

 Adam de Walton, rector of Mitton, Adam 

 de Walton, junior, and Richard de Ful- 

 shaw ; De Bane. R. 164, m. 300 d. 



Lichfield Epis. Reg. i, fol. gb. He 

 was not ordained priest till he became 

 rector ; ibid, i, fol. 98^. John de Lang- 

 ton, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, pre- 

 sented as guardian of Alice Banastre, 

 heiress of the barony of Newton. 



The new rector was a king's clerk and 

 held several public appointments ; Parl. 

 Writs, ii (3), 685-6. Leave of absence 

 was granted by the bishop in September 



1322 ; Lich. Epis. Reg. ii, fol. 7. He sided 

 with Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and in 



1323 was called upon to answer for the 

 part he had taken in the rising of 1321. 

 By the jury of the wapentake of West 



Derby it was presented that Robert de 

 Clitheroe, rector of Wigan, who had for 

 thirty years been a clerk in the king's 

 chancery and for some time escheator this 

 side of Trent, had at his own cost sent 

 two men at arms to the earl's assistance, 

 one of them being his own son Adam de 

 Clitherow, accompanied by four men on 

 foot, all properly armed ; also, that on a 

 certain solemn day, preaching in his 

 church at Wigan before all the people, he 

 had told them that they owed allegiance 

 to the earl and must assist him in his 

 cause against the king, which was a just 

 cause ; in consequence whereof divers of 

 his hearers joined the earl. Robert at 

 once denied that he had sent anyone to 

 swell the earl's forces ; and all he had 

 said in church was to ask his parishioners 

 to pray for the king and the nobles and 

 for the peace of the realm. He was, how- 

 ever, convicted, and made peace with the 

 king by a fine ; Parl. Writs, ii (2), App. 

 240. 



At the beginning of the next reign he 

 sued for relief as to the payment of his 

 fine of 300 marks, alleging that most of 

 it had been paid, though the sheriff, since 

 deceased, had not accounted for it to 

 the Exchequer. He did not obtain his 

 request. He acknowledged that he had 

 sent a man mounted and armed for the 

 earl's service, as indeed he was bound to 

 do by the tenure of hit rectory ; Rolls of 

 Parl. ii, 406. 



He died 4 June 1334 and was buried in 

 Sawley Abbey. He granted his ' manor of 

 Bayley ' to the abbey of Cockersand in 

 1330 ; Harland, Salley Abbey, 64, 65 ; 

 Whitaker, Wballey (ed. Nichols), ii, 471. 



7 Lich. Epis. Reg. ii, foL 109^, where 

 he is called John, son of John de Langton. 

 On the day of his institution two years' 

 leave for study within England was granted 

 him, on condition that he proceeded to 

 the higher orders, ibid, ii, fol. 8. The 

 new rector was a younger brother of the 

 patron, with whom in 1343 he had a dis- 

 pute as to the tithes of Hindley ; it was 

 alleged by Robert that Ivo was bound to 

 pay him twenty marks a year, and ,20 

 every other year, and that the tithes taken 

 had been assigned in lieu of the pension ; 

 Assize R. 430, m. 8 d. ; 434, m. 3 (quoted 

 by Canon Bridgeman). 



Ivo was still rector in 1344 ; Assize R. 



H3 5. m- 37- 



Clarice de Bolton, ' formerly aunt of the 

 rector of Wigan,' in 1354 brought a suit 

 against the Langtons to recover an an- 

 nuity ; Duchy of Lane. Assize R. 3, m. 

 4d, i. 



88 Lich. Epis. Reg. ii, fol. 118, may re- 

 fer to his nomination. See De Bane. R. 

 358, m. 50. Though presented it is not 

 certain that he was instituted ; he is prob- 

 ably the John de Craven indicted two 



61 



years previously for entering into a con- 

 spiracy to procure the presentation of him- 

 self to the rectory ; Lanes, and Cites. Recs. 

 (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and Ches.), ii, 362. 



89 Lich. Epis. Reg. ii, fol. 1 18 ; De Bane. 

 R. 358, m. 50. Master John de Craven 

 was a canon of St. John's, Chester, from 

 1344 (or earlier) until 1363; Ormerod, 

 Ches. (ed. Helsby), i, 308, 309. Before 

 1 348 he was commissary for Peter Gomez, 

 Cardinal Bishop of the Sabines, as arch- 

 deacon of Chester; Cal. Pat. 1345-8, 

 pp. 245, 297. 



In 1351 he was fined 40 for extortion 

 in his capacity as official of the deanery 

 of Warrington ; Assize R. 431, m. 2. 



40 In 1347 the pope reserved to Henry 

 de Dale, M.A., B.C.L., B.M., a dignity 

 in Wells, not episcopal ; he held various 

 canonries and the churches of Higham 

 and Wigan, but was ordered to resign the 

 latter ; Cal. of Papal Letters, iii, 242. See 

 also Cal. Close, 1349-54, p. 54. Nothing 

 further seems known of this rector's pos- 

 session. 



41 Lich. Epis. Reg. ii, fol. 126, 125*. 

 The dispute as to the patronage has been 

 related above ; John de Winwick was 

 twice presented and instituted. He was 

 another busy public official ; see Rymer, 

 Feed. (Syllabus), 330, &c. Among his 

 ecclesiastical preferments he held the 

 treasurership of York Minster ; Le Neve, 

 Fasti, iii, 160. He was entrusted with 

 the wardship of William de Molyneux in 

 1359 ; Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxii, App. 346. 

 He died about the end of 1359 and was 

 buried at Huyton, where a chantry for 

 him was founded. In 1352 the pope 

 granted him the union of the rectory with 

 the Treasurership of York, of which he 

 was not yet in actual possession ; Cal. 

 of Papal Letters, iii, 460. 



A detailed account of his career will be 

 found in Canon Bridgeman's work, 47- 

 56. 



43 Lich. Epis. Reg. iv, fol. 6 ; he pro- 

 mised to pay the 20 a year to Lichfield 

 Cathedral. 



<* Lich. Epis. Reg. iv, fol. 6 (quoted by 

 Canon Bridgeman). 



44 Lich. Epis. Reg. iv, fol. 80 ; he took 

 the oath to pay the pension. John of 

 Gaunt presented, owing to the minority 

 of Ralph de Langton. The new rector 

 had leave of absence granted him in Jan- 

 uary 1365-6 ; ibid, v, fol. izb. 



This rector complained to the pope as 

 to the pension he had to pay to Lichfield ; 

 the Bishop of London was thereupon, in 

 1367, directed to inquire into the matter, 

 and if the facts were found to be as 

 alleged he was to relax the rector's oath 

 regarding this payment ; Cal. of Papal Let- 

 ters, iv, 66. Walter de Campden died at 

 Plymouth 10 July 1370, as appears by the 

 Lich. Reg. 



