54 General History of Bath. 



VI. Grammar School, and the maintenance of ten poor 

 persons. Still later it was discovered that there were yet 

 other possessions of the church, which had been concealed ; 

 and Elizabeth, in 1585, granted these also to the citizens. 

 The property comprised in this last grant consisted of houses 

 belonging to the Church of St. Michael extra muros, but 

 these were appropriated by the Corporation. 



The citizens entered with real zest upon the work of 

 plunder. In 1572 they obtained a gift from Col thurst of the 

 dismantled Abbey Church, and then persuaded Elizabeth to 

 make but one parish of the whole city, and give the advow- 

 son to them. The scheme was only partially successful. 

 Two of the churches, St. Mary de Stalles and St. Mary intra 

 muros were desecrated, and the church of St. Michael intra 

 muros was annexed to St. John's Hospital, but the parish- 

 ioners of the other city churches and the chapel in Wid- 

 combe, were successful in preventing the spoliation from 

 absorbing them. But the central city parish ceased to be 

 St. Mary de Stalles, and was designated the parish of SS. 

 Peter and Paul, the Abbey having been dedicated to these 

 saints. 



The effects of the Reformation were far reaching in the 

 civil as well as the ecclesiastical order. The citizens con- 

 ceived the idea of managing the spiritual as well as the 

 temporal affairs of the city, and, for many years, administered 

 the Rectory of Bath. In 1584 they had presented Richard 

 Meredith to the living ; but six years afterwards he granted 

 to the Corporation a lease during his life of the whole bene- 

 fice, except the Rectory house, at a rent of ^^52. The 

 citizens hired preachers from Sunday to Sunday, collected 

 offerings, received fees for burials, in fact farmed the living. 



The estates of the Hospital of St. John they appropriated. 



