266 NOTES ON THE CHURCH OF ST. IVES. 



the results were satisfactory the petition slioiild he granted. 

 The second bull refers to a dispute between the parishioners and 

 John, the vicar of Lelant. The bishop directed the precentor 

 and chapter of Crediton, rectors or proprietors of Lelant, and the 

 vicar, in especial, and all others interested, in general, to appear 

 before him personally in the church of Crediton. Shortly 

 afterwards we find the bishop in Cornwall, and, the enquiries 

 having evidently proved satisfactory, on the 9th of October, 1411, 

 at " Lananta" he granted his licence to celebrate Divine offices 

 in those chapels, during pleasure, and without prejudice to the 

 rights of the mother church. '" 



The construction of the licence granted to St. Ives 

 seems to have been a source of much litigation and ill- 

 feeling. In Bishop Lacy's register (ii. 21) is a copy of a long- 

 decree of the bishop, dated from Crediton, referring to it. The 

 bishop commences by an expression of regret at the habit men 

 have of perverting the meaning of words that are really quite 

 plain, and waxes indignant over this evidence of man's depravity. 

 He recalls the recent consecration of St. Ives chapel, saving ever 

 all accustomed rights of the parish church of St. Euninus, and 

 complains that, nevertheless, some of the parishioners of the said 

 chapel of St. Ives impudently presumed to assert that mortuaries 

 of which the said parish church of St. Euninus had been from 

 ancient times in peaceable possession, since the consecration of 

 the said chapel, neither belonged nor ever could belong to such 

 church, because in the ordinance recently made on the occasion 



i6 The phrase "Mother Church" originally meant the minster church, 

 entitled to tithes, the oratories on private estates, now known as parochial churches 

 and chapels, not being so entitled. From the earliest times the interests of 

 the mother church were carefully protected, not only in the matter of repairs, but 

 especially of tithes and offerings. In King Edgar's ecclesiastical laws of the year 

 958 we read: "This is the principal point, that God's churches have their right, and 

 that everyone pay his tithes to the ancient minster to which the district belongs. 

 . . . . If there be any thane who hath on his bocland a church with a burying- 

 place belonging to it, let him pay the third part of his tithes into his own church. 

 If he hath a church with no burying-place belonging to it, let him give his priest 

 what he will out of the nine parts, but let every church-shot go to the ancient 

 minster from all the grounds of the freemen." 



In the time of Henry I we find the minster still called the " mother church," and 

 the parochial church with a burying-place called the " parochial mother church." 

 The distinction between church and chapel involved great variety of privileges. The 

 penalty for laying hands on those going to them varied from loos. in the case of a 

 mother-church to los. in case of a chapel. See hereon Rev. O. J. Reichel in Trans 

 Devonshire Association, vol. xxx, pp. 269 sqq. 



