A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



was that the first ministers of the church, corre- 

 sponding to the later canons, were called Culdees, 

 i.e. Colidei, and were seven in number.' The 

 foundation of their common property was a grant 

 of a thrave or sheaf of wheat from each plough 

 in Yorkshire, which after the Conquest was 

 transferred by the chapter to the hospital of St. 

 Peter, later known as St. Leonard's.* The 

 actual date of this grant is not known, but 

 Athelstan, by a charter dated in 930, gave the 

 whole of Amounderness to the church of St. 

 Peter and Archbishop Wulfstan ; ' and the grant 

 of the Yorkshire thraves, which may be com- 

 pared with the more famous grant attributed to 

 Athelstan of thraves from the East Riding to the 

 church of Beverley, may belong to the same 

 period. Athelstan was regarded in the 12th 

 century as the founder of the liberties and cus- 

 toms of the church of York ; and although they 

 cannot be attributed to him with certainty, yet 

 his fame in the north of England as a king whose 

 conquests gave unity to the scattered fragments 

 of his kingdom made his reign a convenient 

 starting-point for the constitutional history of the 

 Yorkshire minsters. 



The privileges of the church as men remem- 

 bered them to have existed in the days of the 

 Confessor and Archbishop Ealdred are enumerated 

 in a charter of confirmation granted by Henry I.' 

 This seems to have been the result of an inquiry 

 made in the shire-mote at York in 11 06 by 

 request of Archbishop Gerard, when the Sheriff 

 of Yorkshire was attempting to override the 

 jurisdiction of the church.' The land of the 

 canons was declared to be quit of all claim from 

 the king's officers or the sheriff; the canons 

 themselves had all suit of their tenants and heard 

 their pleas before the door of the church.' They 

 were bound to contribute only one man to the 

 army, who should carry St. Peter's standard to 

 war at the head of the burgesses of York. The 

 church had the right of sanctuary within its 

 precincts and in the stone chair or stool of peace 

 by the altar, where the criminal was safe from 

 his pursuer; but at York the sanctuary-man 



' Hugh the Chanter, Hist. Ch. of York (RoUs Ser.), 

 li, 107. The word Colidei, under the form ' Kaladeus,' 

 occurs in the presentment of a jury in i 246, by which 

 the right of the dean and chapter to collate a master 

 to St. Leonard's Hospital was established (ibid, iii 

 162-5). 



*Ibid. Mbid. iii, 1-5; cf. ii, 339. 



* Printed ibid, iii, 34-6. 



' See the letter from the chapter of York to the 

 chapter of Southwell, printed from the ' Liber Albus ' 

 of Southwell in Visit, and Mem. of SmthweU Minster 

 (Camd. Soc), igoetseq. This embodies the text of 

 the charter, and adds much detail from the evidence 

 of the inquest. 



* The reason for this is given in the charter as the 

 obligation of the canons to say their hours in church • 

 when the beU rang they could go into quire, and 

 return when the office was done. 



376 



does not seem to have been allowed the wider 

 boundary which at Beverley and Ripen was 

 marked by ' mile crosses.' In view of possible 

 controversies between the canons and archbishop, 

 all forfeitures from the chapter lands were decreed 

 to belong to the chapter alone. The right of the 

 archbishop was confined to the collation of 

 canonries with the advice and assent of the 

 chapter. These privileges, mutatis mutandis, are 

 practically identical with those which we find 

 acknowledged at Beverley and Ripen. 



The common life ef the canons was furthered 

 by Archbishop Ealdred, who provided them 

 with a frater.' The wasting of Yorkshire by 

 William I drove the canons from the minster. 

 Thomas of Bayeux found only three out of the 

 seven in residence, and to his work of rebuilding 

 the church added that of reorganizing its consti- 

 tution.'" He recalled the absent canons, raised 

 their number, restored their frater and dorter, 

 and appointed a provost to administer their 

 common property. This, however, was evidently 

 a temporary arrangement. For the eventual 

 constitution he was indebted to the church of 

 Bayeux, in which he had been treasurer." The 

 school had probably been disorganized by the 

 events of the previous few years, and Thomas 

 appointed a chancellor before he turned his 

 attention to the other dignities of the church. 

 The creation of a dean, treasurer, and precentor 

 followed. With these appointments came the 

 assignment of a fixed prebend in land and money 

 to each canon, which made the provostship a 

 superfluous office. By the custom of York, which 

 was followed at Lincoln and Salisbury, the four 

 major dignitaries took precedence of the canons. 

 In Thomas's constitution the treasurer seems to 

 have taken the first place after the dean, and the 

 north side of the quire was known until late in 

 the Middle Ages as the pars thesaurarii}^ In 

 the oldest existing statutes, however, the normal 

 order of dean, precentor, chancellor, and treasurer 

 was observed ; " and the right of the chancellor 

 to the third dignity was established by an inquest 

 held in 1 191, when it was ordained that he 

 should take precedence of all after the precentor." 



Thomas of Bayeux is credited with the ap- 

 pointment of archdeacons," but their territorial 



' Hist. Ch. o/TorkiVioWs Ser.), ii, 353. 



Ibid. 362. No dates are given, but the transition 

 in constitution is clearly marked. 



" Bradshaw and Wordsworth, op. cit. i, 101 et seq. 



^'rork Fabric R. (Surt. Soc), 246, 252. The 

 dates of the documents cited are 1409 and 1472. 

 The treasurer is mentioned next after the dean in 

 Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 362, where the 

 chronicle printed is of the 12th century. In York 

 Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 22 1 d., there is a statement 

 of the duties of the precentor, followed by the form 

 of oath taken by the treasurer on admission. 



Bradshaw and Wordsworth, op. cit. ii, 94 et seq. 



" Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 91. 



" Ibid, ii, 382. 



