i88 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



In all these cases the mother church is distinguished from its 

 dependent churches, and received at Stoneham all the tithes, 

 and at Mottisfont all the dues. 



Possibly, too, we see in the Thorney case signs of the 

 future custom, that when a district church is erected to relieve 

 the mother church, the endowments of the latter are divided. 

 Hugh of Montfort was claiming that, as his men had erected 

 a chapel to relieve the mother church, 23 acres of the glebe 

 of the latter should go to endow the new chapel. On the 

 other hand, the Derbyshire 



" jurors say of Stori, the predecessor of Walter of Douai, that without 

 any one's licence, he could build for himself a church on his own 

 land and in his own soke, and could send his tithes where he 

 would." 1 



This liberty to build a church may be exceptional, but, 

 at all events, it is a sign that the parochial system was not 

 then so rigid as it is to-day. 



Most of the village churches in Domesday Book were 

 possessed of property in the shape of glebe, tithes, and dues ; 

 a landless church is a rarity. The holdings of the priest by 

 way of glebe are recorded in fifteen vills in Middlesex, and 

 varied from I hide at Harrow and Coleham, to half a virgate 

 at Sunbury, Shepperton, and Kensington. The acreage of 

 the glebe of the Norfolk and Suffolk churches is usually 

 given, and occasionally we find that the church had only 5 

 acres of glebe. 2 



Churches in towns were also endowed. In Norwich, the 

 church of St. Simon and St. Jude was endowed in 1066 with 

 three parts of a mill, half an acre of meadow, and one house 

 in Norwich; 3 and the church of St. Michael, with 1 12 acres 

 of land and 6 acres of meadow on which one team was em- 

 ployed. 4 The church of St. Gregory at Sudbury had 50 acres 



1 D. B., I. 280 a 2. 2 Norton: D. B., II. 209 b. 



* Id., II. ii7b. * Id., II. ii6b. 



