ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



rector from obtaining other preferment." The granting of dispensations was 

 a distinct source of income arid was jealously guarded by the papacy. Hugh 

 de Nottingham held the rectory of Hatfield in plurality in about 1318, and 

 was proceeded against and forced to resign ; the living, valued at ^37, was 

 then granted in plurality to William de Steeping, warden of the hospital of 

 St. Andrew, Denhall, co. Chester, in the diocese of Lichfield."' It must be 

 conceded that except in the case of a few men such as Grossteste or 

 Peckham mediaeval public opinion was not shocked by pluralism. The king 

 and the great lord were apt to pay their secretaries in livings rather than 

 ready money. Thus in 1343 John Earl of Warenne sought a canonry of 

 Exeter for John, son of William Pippard, rector of Aspenden,"' and in 1363 

 Mary Countess of Pembroke begged for her clerk John de Audelliers a 

 canonry of Chalons in addition to his church of Anstey and a canonry of 

 Lincoln for her clerk Philip de Melrith, rector of Westmill." More 

 acquisitive than these men was John de Saucey, B.C.L., who persuaded his 

 patron in 1351 to apply for a licence to enable him to hold the churches of 

 St. Magnus, London, and Cheshunt as well as a prebend of Glaseneye and 

 a promised prebend of Wells.^* 



The non-resident or pluralist rector was, of course, faced with one very 

 real difficulty. His revenues, paid partly in kind, were generally agricultural 

 in origin, and it would seem to have been no easy matter to find a reliable 

 steward.^^ It was natural, therefore, that the system of composition, that 

 universal solvent of mediaeval difficulties, should be adopted. The arrange- 

 ment took the form of a lease of the rectory for a fixed annual rent or farm 

 to the incumbent. Abuses were bound to follow, and in 1321 Bishop 

 Burghersh issued a mandate to all archdeacons in the diocese of Lincoln for- 

 bidding the letting of any rectories to farm without episcopal licence." The 

 matter was also regulated by various constitutions, though these were always 

 liable to be superseded by papal action. Thus in 1437 ^^^ powerful pluralist 

 Robert Fitz Hugh, vicar of St. Michael's, Wood Street, rector of Kelshall, 

 canon of St. Martin-le-Grand, and prebend of ' Buoghes,' obtained licence to 

 let to farm for any term and to any person, laymen not excepted, the fruits 

 of any or all benefices in his hands."^ The difficulty raised by the prohibition 

 of lease to a secular person was occasionally overcome by associating the 

 stipendiary priest with the farmer in the grant. At Clothall the rector in 

 January 1485-6 was Richard Woodward, clerk in the King's Chancery ; he 

 leased the tithes, lands of the rectory and the glebe-house to William Frank, 

 chaplain, and Simon Wright, of Baldock, yeoman, for three years.*' A some- 

 what similar lease made in March 1543-4 by the rector of Hinxworth led 

 to some disorder, for the rector complained that when at the end of the term 

 he refused to renew the lease, the farmers cut down ' forty great Elmes and 

 Asshes ' in the churchyard and carried them away." It was to be expected 

 that the farmer, while responsible for the charges incidental to the possession 

 of the rectorial tithes," should avoid expense as far as possible. The result 



" Ca/. Papal Pet. 149. "^ Cal. Papal Letters, ii, 172- 



« Cal Papal Pet. 19. «* Ibid. 410. "^ Ibid. 219. 



«' See the numerous cases of pardons recorded in the Patent Rolls for failure to render accounts. 



" Line. Epis. Reg. Burghersh, Memo. fol. 27. 



M Cal Papal Letters, viii, 636. «' Anct. D. (P.R.O.), C 2887. 



™ Star Chamb. Proc. Edw. VI, bdle. 5, no. 81. '^ i.e. the repair of the chancel, &c. 



301 



