A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



seriously crippled by the Normans in their desire to increase the power of 

 the monks. 



AFTER THE CONQUEST 



St. Albans and other religious houses in this county acquired the 

 patronage and tithes of many churches. In these cases the parishes may 

 possibly have received proper ministrations, but when the patron of the 

 church was a foreign abbey such as Grestein, Fougeres or St. Ebrulf, all of 

 which houses had churches in Hertfordshire, difficulties were bound to 

 arise. An attempt to meet the situation was made by the appointment of 

 stipendiary priests whose pay appears to have been a matter of individual 

 arrangement. At Walkern a vicar was in charge before the Abbot and 

 convent of Colchester were admitted parsons in 1204, and his status seems 

 to have been permanent.'" Many of the stipendiaries, however, held a tempo- 

 rary position, such as that of ' Master Geoffrey,' whom the Abbot and 

 convent of St. Albans placed in charge of the church of Bramfield upon 

 the understanding that he was possessed of no ecclesiastical benefice." 

 Throughout the 13 th century there was a struggle between the religious 

 houses and the bishops who were striving to secure for the stipendiary parish 

 priests at once permanence of tenure under episcopal control and a competent 

 livelihood. 



The first object of the bishops was to secure the presentation of the 

 incumbents. The rule was apparently insisted upon with some strictness."' 

 Presentation involved institution, which of itself made the vicarage perpetual, 

 in that the incumbent became directly dependent on the bishop and was no 

 longer amovable at the whim of his patron. Hugh of Wells as Bishop 

 of Lincoln was particularly active in the work of securing to these priests 

 adequate support, and the Hertfordshire vicarages of St. Peter's in St. Albans, 

 Pirton, Weston, Great and Little Wymondley, Hitchin, Kimpton, Sandon, 

 Bengeo, Little Gaddesden and St. John and All Saints, Hertford, were all 

 ordained in his episcopate (1209-35).'' No registers for the diocese of 

 London are extant for this date, but it is known that the vicarages of Bark- 

 way,'* Great Hormead," Ware and Cheshunt'" were ordained in the first forty 

 years of the 1 3th century. In either diocese the general practice was for 

 the tithes to be divided, the lesser tithes being assigned to the vicar, who 

 as the officiating priest received the oblafions and obventions of the altar. 

 Both these sources of income were, of course, extremely variable. What 

 obventions and oblations meant in a town parish may be gathered from the case 

 of St. John's, Hertford, where the church belonged to the prior and convent 

 of that place. The vicar derived his income from all offerings made in the 

 name of tithe, mass pennies and altar bread [in toto pane altaris), an offering 

 of 2^- on Christmas Day, the entire offering at the first mass on Easter 

 Day morning, all offerings made at confessions, annual and triennial dues 

 and half the offerings at marriages. In addition to this the vicar had daily 



^ Colchester Chartul. fol. 126. " Rot. Hugonis de Welles (Cant, and York Soc), i, 29 ; c£ 21 



'^ Ibid, iii, 35, 42. " Gibbons, Liber Antiquus de ordlnationihus Hugonis de Welles, 26-9. 



^ See p. 35, above. '^ Newcourt, Repert. \, 834. " V.C.H. Herts, iii, 394, 455. 



294 



