ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



At last, in 1253, the pope, anxious to make a final effort for the support 

 of the tottering kingdom of Jerusalem, commissioned Richard to preach a 

 crusade. This task he willingly undertook and passed through his own 

 diocese along the south coast as far as Dover, preaching as he . went. At 

 Dover, where he was to consecrate a church to the honour of his beloved 

 and now canonized master St. Edmund, he lodged in the hospital, and was 

 there taken ill, and rapidly becoming worse, passed quietly away the next day, 

 in the presence of his old friend Simon of Tarring, to whom almost his last 

 words were addressed. 



The purity of his life and the cheerful benevolence and sympathy of his 

 nature justifiably caused the populace to regard Richard as a true saint, and 

 the miracles the report of which resulted from or accompanied this belief 

 were at last considered by the papal court to afford undeniable grounds for his 

 canonization, which was formally enacted at Viterbo on 26 January, 1262. 

 The next scene in the saint's history took place on 16 June, 1276, when in 

 the presence of King Edward I and a vast multitude, the primate with many 

 assistant bishops translated the body of St. Richard to his new shrine. 86 The 

 archbishop at this time took the opportunity of securing a relic for his church 

 by appropriating an arm of the saint 87 : it was possibly the memory of this 

 action that encouraged the bishop of Chichester in 1444 to write to the 

 chapter of Canterbury and ask for a limb of St. Wilfrid, the founder of his see, 

 to be enshrined with the relics of St. Richard ; a request with which the 

 chapter obligingly complied. 83 The shrine of St. Richard rapidly attained a 

 more than local fame and became a great pilgrimage centre, drawing the 

 stream of pilgrims westward through the county as that of St. Thomas at 

 Canterbury drew them eastward. His name retains its place even yet in the 

 Anglican calendar, and his fame travelled so far that for some mysterious 

 reason he was chosen by the Coachmen's Guild of Milan as their patron saint. 89 

 The only other Sussex church that appears to have been a regular centre of 

 pilgrimage was that of St. Mary in the castle of Hastings, 90 where a certain 

 holy rood was the object of adoration. Temporary local pilgrimages, how- 

 ever, were often encouraged for the assistance of a church needing repairs or 

 otherwise impoverished; thus in 1399 indulgence was granted to all who 

 should visit and give alms to the parish church of Chiddingly 91 on certain 

 feast days, and a similar privilege was offered in 1405 to those who would 

 bestow alms upon the hermit of St. Cyriac's chapel at Chichester, 98 while in 

 1413 relaxation of penance was promised to all who visited the altar of 

 St. Catherine in the parish church of St. Swithun of East Grinstead at certain 



times. 93 



The great Taxation of Pope Nicholas IV in 1 29 1 is important as giving us 

 a valuation of the benefices and a statement of the spiritualities and temporalities 

 in the hands of the clergy at this time. 9 * The total value of the spiritu- 

 alities in the county was returned as 4,708 l6j. 8</., and that of the temporali- 

 ties 2,102 9-r. 1 1 \d. ; there was a further sum of i 18 14*. 2(1. for annual 

 pensions arising from churches, bringing the total up to 6,948 iqs. 



96 Fbrei Hist. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 47. ST Gervase of Cant. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 47- 



*Litt. Cant. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 187. " 'Suss. Arch. Coll. xliv, 185. 



90 See below in the account of the college of Hastings. " Cat. Pap. Let. v, 278. 



91 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. \\a. m Cat. Pap. Let. vi, 446. 

 " Tax. Eccl. (Rec. Com.), 134-42. 



II 



