176 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



his title-deeds are to remain and be preserved among the deeds of the said 

 chapel. So far as can be ascertained from the deeds that have been preserved, 

 the chapel possessed, up to that date, no deeds save one. This solitary deed 

 was a Licence in Mortmain from King Edward III to Eichard Wright, 

 chaplain, to assign to the parson and parishioners of St. John's Church the 

 plot of ground upon which the chapel was to be built [no. 45 (45)]. With that 

 one exception, all the deeds which are dated prior to the death of John Lytill 

 appear to be the title-deeds of his possessions, or deeds which would be among 

 his famQy archives. His first wife Alianora, by whose side he desired to be 

 buried, had been a member of the family of Comyu, and i-ome of the deeds 

 refer to possessions of that family. The only deed in the collection which 

 deals with property situated outside the county of Dublin is a grant 

 [no. oo (35)J to Thomas, sou of William Comyu, knight, from Eobert Talbot of 

 Kilkenny, of a messuage at Thomastown, near Kilkenny. 



The earliest deed in ihe collection may be dated about 1233, but from the 

 year 1289 there is practically a complete record of the successive owners of 

 those lands and houses with which John Lytill endowed his chantry. They 

 consisted of a large portion of the east side of Fishamble Street, partly in 

 St. John's parish and partly in St. Olave's, and of some houses and gardens 

 near the east end of St. Michan's Church. These properties passed, after 

 some life-interests had been satisfied, into the hands of the parishioners of 

 St. John's parish ; and their further history can be traced by the series of 

 leases made to private individuals by the proctois or churchwardens of the 

 parish. The iirst of these is dated 1467, thirty-three years after John Lytill's 

 death [no. 126(127)]. 



The endowmeuts of St. Olave's Church, which came into the possession of 

 St. John's by the union of parishes, consisted of two houses in Castle Street, 

 a house in St. Francis Street, and some gardens in St. Andrew's parish out- 

 side the Dames Gate of the city of Dublin. These latter were bounded by a 

 street which, so late as the end of the fourteenth century, still bore the name 

 of 'i'engmouth Street, from its having led from the city to the Thingmote of 

 the Xorse founders of Dublin [no. 56 (55)]. On the south side of this street 

 there stood in 1467 an elder or guelder tree {sambiicus sive viburnum) which 

 was sufficiently prominent to be mentioned as a boundary of the garden in 

 which it grew [no. 127 (l"<i4)]. 



Besides the union of the parishes of St. Olave and St. John already men- 

 tioned, another union seems to have taken place about the same time, 

 i.e., shortly before 1558. By it the parish of St. Mary del Dam, then popularly 

 known as "the parish of the Dames," was united to that of St. Werburgh 

 [no. 171(167)]. 



