ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



a loaf, 3 gallons of beer, the mess of a monk of the house, and an annual 

 stipend of Ss. 8^."' At Bygrave the vicarage appears to have been originally- 

 endowed with oblations and small tithes, and in or about 1223 a return was 

 made showing that the total value of the vicarage was £^ 3J. 5^., made up 

 of offerings: on All Saints' Day is., on Christmas Day ys., on the Purification 

 3J., confessions and Palm Sunday 2j., offerings on Easter Day 6s. Sd., on 

 St. Margaret's Day i6j. ; cartage at All Saints was valued at 9^., bread at 

 Christmas at Bd., eggs at Easter at is., bread at 8^., the tithes of lambs, wool 

 and flax yielded 20J., those of cheese 8j. and small tithes and all other 

 obventions ioj. Besides these the vicar received 2 quarters of wheat and 

 3 quarters of oats from the parson's grange.'* The fact of inquiry being 

 held seems to indicate that there was some uncertainty about this arrange- 

 ment, and shortly afterwards these payments were commuted for a stipend 

 of 5 marks." 



The wish to obtain a regular income was not confined to the vicars ; the 

 rector or appropriating house was equally desirous of the same thing, and the 

 fluctuating value of the tithes resulted in the arrangement by which a pension 

 or fixed charge was paid by the actual incumbent. In the case of 

 vicarages the pension was recognized by the bishop and set out in the 

 ordination. It varied in amount from the mark chargeable on the vicarage 

 of Layston ^°'' to 1 3 marks paid by the vicar of Hitchin to the Abbess and 

 convent of Elstow.* The bishops looked on these pensions with jealous eyes, 

 and that they were unfair in some cases seems undoubted. At Ware the 

 church was served by a vicar provided by the priory there, a cell of the 

 Norman abbey of St. Ebrulf. This vicar was ' insufficient,' as a result of 

 being required to pay to the prior not only the tithes of all mills in the 

 parish and of the park and wood of the lord, but also a pension of i o marks. 

 Ware was a place of importance, and a petition was promoted to Gregory IX. 

 As a result a papal commission of inquiry was issued in 1228-9 to the 

 Bishop of London and the Dean of St. Paul's ; the pension was remitted and 

 a competent portion secured to the vicar by the ordination of a vicarage.^ 

 This was not the first case of interference by the higher authorities. In or 

 about 1224 Bishop Hugh of Wells had demanded proof of the existence of 

 a pension of 3 marks, said to be due from the vicar of All Saints, Hertford, 

 to the prior and convent of that place.^ The system was frequently adopted 

 by religious houses where no vicarage was ordained, and at the same time as 

 the Hertford inquiry was taking place the bishop forbade the newly insti- 

 tuted rector of St. Peter's, Berkhampstead, to pay any pension to the patrons, 

 the Abbot and convent of Grestein, until they should have proved it due and 

 customary.* The arrangement was not unusually made in cases where an 

 alien house had received the grant of a church. The Prior and convent of 

 the Breton house of Fougeres made an agreement at the beginning of the 

 1 3th century with the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, whereby the latter 

 were to receive a pension of 8 marks ' ; in a similar way Warner, Prior of the 



''■ Gibbons, Liier Anttquus, 29. '' Rot. Hugonis de Welles (Cant, and York Soc), iii, 40. '^ Ibid. 42. 

 ^"X* Newcourt, Repert. i, 843. 1 Rot. Hugonis de Welles (Cant, and York Soc), i, 191. 



^ Newcourt, Repert. i, 900. ^ Ibid, iii, 46. 



* Ibid. cf. 41. For pensions paid in the diocese of Lincoln see Salter, A Subs, collected in the Diocese of 

 line. 173-9. ' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 33. 



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