CHAP, ii.] DOVECOTES OF TORE. 47 



are the Dovecotes to which so many privileges once 

 attached, though they are now nearly obsolete. It is 

 certain that Dovehouse Pigeons were kept for use and 

 profit at an early period of English History. In 

 Degge's " Parson's Counsellor," Ellis's edition, p. 314, 

 we find that " there was a canon made by Robert Win- 

 chelsea, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his clergy, in the 

 year 1305, whereby it was declared, that ' all and every 

 parishioner shall pay honestly and without diminution 

 to their churches the below mentioned tithes ; that is to 

 say, . . . of Pigeons . . . &c. &c., on pain of 

 excommunication,' " although the claims of the clergy on 

 these birds do not seem to have universally obtained in 

 England. For in Blomefield's elaborate history of Nor- 

 folk we find that, " in the time of King James I. 

 there was a long suit about the customs of the Rectory 

 of Dice or Diss, and at length it was ended, and an ex- 

 emplification under seal passed" of what the rector was 

 to receive in kind, and what in lieu thereof. Goslings, 

 Eggs, Bees, and Milk, are mentioned, but not a word 

 about young Pigeons, a delicacy which would have been 

 hardly omitted, had they been then and there subject 

 to payment of tithes. Neither are they enumerated 

 among the customary payments from copyhold tenants, 

 which in those days seem to have been very strictly 

 exacted. Among all the oppressive claims that were 

 then insisted upon, none appears, that we can find, on 

 the poor Pigeons or their Dovecote. See Blomefield's 

 account of the Manor of Brisingham. The " Parson's 

 Counsellor," at p. 343, indicates somewhat of a middle 

 course : " But of young Pigeons in Dovecotes or in 

 Pigeon-holes, about a man's house, tithes shall be paid 

 if they be sold ; but if they be spent in the family no 

 tithe shall be paid for them." 



