A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



daries.'' After Nevill's deprivation, the succeeding 

 vacancies in the archbishopric at short intervals 

 gave the Crown much patronage."^ Henry IV 

 appears to have usurped the archbishop's rights 

 of collation after the battle of Shrewsbury : this 

 was one cause of Scrope's rebellion,** the failure 

 of which was followed by a further succession of 

 Crown appointments.^' The fabric of the quire 

 of the church, which was approaching comple- 

 tion in Scrope's lifetime, was hindered during 

 these turbulent times ; and the work of the great 

 tower in 1407-8 was endangered by a dispute 

 which broke out between the local masons and 

 the master-mason appointed by the king, ap- 

 parently upon the question of imported labour.*^ 



The chapter visitations of the 14th and 15th 

 centuries indicate a careless condition of affairs, 

 which, however, was by no means peculiar to 

 York. Non-residence throughout the 15th cen- 

 tury was on the increase. In 1409 the precentor 

 was found to neglect the payment of the sub- 

 chanter's salary as master of the song-school.*^ 

 In 1472 the precentor and chancellor were non- 

 resident in defiance of the statutes : the residen- 

 tiaries failed to appear at church, so that on 

 double festivals the high altar was served by the 

 parsons and vicars, and the custom observed by 

 the residentiaries of saying mass at the high altar 

 four times in the octaves of Christmas, Easter, 

 and Pentecost was neglected. The services 

 were often slovenly : there was much talking 

 and laughing outside the quire doors, even during 

 mass. The parsons, instead of taking their place 

 in the Sunday procession at the proper time, would 

 wait for it in the nave and aisles, and stroll to 

 meet it. One of them, who was treasurer of 

 the fabric fund, presented no accounts. Notice 

 is taken elsewhere of the shortcomings of the 

 vicars. Dogs were suffered to roam about the 

 nave, and howled and barked so that those 

 in the quire could not hear the lection for the 

 day.^" In 1472, 1481, 1495, and 1519, there 

 are long catalogues of defects in the churches, 

 both in York and elsewhere, belonging to the 

 chapter and its individual members.*' 



Archbishop Lee made a visitation of the 

 chapter in August 1534, in which he abode by 

 the composition of 1328 with regard to the 

 comperta and corrigenda^ but issued decrees of his 

 own on general points. He commented upon 

 the fewness of residentiaries, the unwillingness of 

 the canons to give copes and palfreys to the 

 church, and asked for a remedy against the with- 



" See Cal. Pat. 1385-g, pp. 159, 200, 216, &c. 

 Sixteen collations, &c., occur between Feb. and June 

 1389. 



^ See Cal. Pat. \i^S-^, passim. 



" Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 431. 



« Cal. Pat. 1405-8, pp. 24, 35, 45, &c. 



"Ibid. p. 4S2. 



«' York Fabric Rolls (Surt. Soc), 245. 



^ Ibid. 250 et seq. ^ Ibid. 253, &c. 



380 



holding of pensions payable from impropriators 

 to whom the chapter had leased their churches. 

 Criminous women were forbidden to dwell 

 within the close. Non-resident canons, if they 

 happened to be in York, were enjoined to attend 

 matins, processions, high mass, and vespers, 

 especially on doubles and principal feasts.™ 

 These mild injunctions were followed, in Lee's 

 lifetime, by the royal statutes of 154 1. The 

 expenses of the major residence were so irksome 

 that prebendaries could not meet them from the 

 fruits of their prebends, and therefore seldom 

 came into residence at all. Only one prebendary 

 was resident at the date of the statutes. The 

 new measures, while changing none of the 

 ordinary conditions of the major residence, re- 

 moved its extraordinary burdens. The possi- 

 bility of depriving the church of any resi- 

 dentiaries was guarded against by the provision 

 that one residentiary out of two or three, two 

 out of four or six, three or two out of five, must 

 be present throughout the year. Twenty-four 

 weeks constituted a minimum residence. If 

 there was only one residentiary, his minimum 

 was thirty weeks, and his presence was required 

 on all double feasts. The entertainment by 

 each canon of four vicars in his major and two 

 in his minor residence was discontinued, and a 

 yearly money payment was substituted. No canon 

 was allowed to reside who had not a prebendal 

 house in the close or could not spend j^ 1 00 a year. 

 To guard against the entire control of funds by 

 the residentiaries, all canons, irrespective of resi- 

 dence, were to be summoned to chapter meetings. 

 The chancellor, as in the older statutes, was 

 enjoined to find preachers : these, however, were 

 to be paid from a fund to which the prebendaries 

 contributed in common. The preachers were 

 to have the archbishop's licence ; but the dean, 

 chancellor, and others were not therefore excused 

 from the duty of preaching themselves.'' 



By charter of 20 April 1547 Edward VI con- 

 firmed to the dean and chapter their spiritual 

 jurisdiction within the common possessions and 

 their various prebends.'^ In this year the trea- 

 surership of the church was resigned to the 

 Crown, and the annexed prebend of Bishop 

 Wilton disappeared with it. The monastic pre- 

 bends of Salton and Bramham were suppressed 

 with the priories of Hexham and Nostell. The 

 two rich prebends of South Cave and Marsham 

 were also secularized as a result of the Reforma- 

 tion.'' Of the remaining prebends, Driffield, 

 annexed to the precentorship, and Laughton, 

 annexed to the chancellorship in 1484,'* con- 



" York Archiepis. Reg. Lee, fol. 93d.; printed in 

 Yorks. Arch. Joum. xvi, 433-5. 



" Staiutesprlntedin A/OTj///fo», vi, 1200-2. These 

 and the other statutes of the church were also printed 

 privately by the late Canon Raine in 1879. 



" Lawton, ColL Rer. Eccl. 1-2. " Ibid. 2-4. 



" York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, fol. 99 d.- 1 00 d. 



