A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 
Leighton Buzzard, one from Biggleswade and two from Caddington.’ 
The total value given was: spiritualities, £1,204 145.; temporalities, 
£811 115. As the list of churches is not complete,’ the valuation cannot 
be quite accurate. The poorest endowments were those of Ampthill, 
Chicksand, Goldington and Willington, which were only £2 135. 4d. each; 
the richest—those over {20—were Leighton Buzzard, £96 135. 4d. ;° 
Luton, £66 135. 4d.; Biggleswade, £46 135. 4d.; Shillington, £40 ; 
and Felmersham, £26 135. 4d. The rest of the benefices vary from 
£4 to £5, with a few at £10, £12 or £20. £4 to £5 was evidently 
considered a sufficient maintenance. 
Many of these churches were already held in plurality, though not 
to the same extent as in the next century. In 1294 the prebendary of 
Leighton Buzzard had four other churches ; in the same year the rector 
of Shillington had thirteen others." Master Walter of Wootton, pre- 
sented to Marston Moretaine in 1282, received a canonry of Lincoln 
and two prebends in 1292 ; and in 1295, when he became archdeacon of 
Huntingdon, the chronicler of Dunstable, though looking upon him as 
a real friend to the monastery, notes with a little touch of disapproval 
that he resigned none of his former benefices.° 
There is abundant evidence that until the time of the Great Pestilence 
the generosity and devotion of the English laity to the Church was the 
same as it had always been. The number of religious houses already 
built was amply sufficient for the needs of the country ; fresh endow- 
ments and direct benefactions were discouraged by the Statute of 
Mortmain ; but there were other ways open. The rebuilding of parochial 
and conventual churches at the beginning of the fourteenth century, in 
Bedfordshire and elsewhere, shows how ready men still were to give to 
objects of this kind. A few chapels were still built for districts not well 
served ; as at Upper Gravenhurst before 1369,° and at Stanbridge before 
1344. The bridge chapel at Biddenham was built in 1296,° and that 
of St. Thomas the Martyr at Bedford not long after ;° these were in- 
tended for the convenience of travellers, to provide them with an early 
mass, and sometimes even with a place of refuge from thieves.” But the 
1 These two were and still are attached to St. Paul’s, London. 
2 Eleven are missing : St. John’s, St. Cuthbert’s and St. Peter’s at Bedford, with the parish churches 
of Tillsworth, Arlesey, Langford, Chellington, Harrold, Stevington, Tingrith, Gravenhurst ; and of nine 
churches only the pension is mentioned which they paid to some religious house, and not the whole 
income. A few churches have the value of the vicarage set down as well as the rectory, but by no 
means all. The total valuation is therefore lower than the real value. 
3 As complaints were so often made of the small stipends allowed to the vicars of appropriate 
churches, it is worth noting that the vicar of Leighton Buzzard only received from the wealthy preben- 
dary £4 6s. 8d. a year ; while the vicar of Luton received £16 from St. Alban’s, 
* Both these are found in the Ca/. of Pat. Rolls, 22 Edward I. 
5 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iti. 401. 
§ Linc. Epis. Reg, Memo. Gynwell, 84, 87. Licensed for masses to the inhabitants of the vill 
of Shillington. 
7 Ibid. Memo. Bek. 74d. Annexed then to the prebend of Leighton Buzzard. 
8 Ibid. Memo. Sutton, ii. 162. Licence to grant lands in mortmain. Pat. 28 Edw. I. m. 12. 
® Linc. Epis. Reg., Memo. Burghersh, 107 (1323); mentioned as lately built with sumptuous 
work, and since damaged by the water. In Pat. 13 Rich. IT. pt. 2, m. 2, it is called ‘ the king’s free 
chapel.’ 
10 Stated in the licence to the chapel of Biddenham Bridge. 
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