A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



upon his ministers. One of Edward's non-resident rectors of Manchester was 

 his well-known councillor Walter Langton,'" who had previously had papal 

 licence to hold the rectories of St. Michaels-on-Wyre and Croston without 

 residing therein or being ordained priest.'" He resigned his benefices on 

 becoming bishop of Lichfield in 1296. The rectory of Childwall was given, 

 with four others in different parts of England, and numerous prebends to 

 another crown servant, who in due course was raised to the episcopal bench. 

 This was John Drokensford, bishop of Bath and Wells from 1309 to 1329. 

 He received Childwall while still under the canonical age,"' and as late as 

 1298 was only in deacon's orders. The rectory of Prescot was held for 

 thirty years by Alan le Bretoun in commendam with that of Coddington 

 and the treasurership of Lichfield.'" Church revenue was further trenched 

 upon by the demands of pope and king. The taxation of spiritualities 

 initiated by the Saladin tithe of 1188 became common in the thirteenth 

 century. At first it was taken by papal authority, and usually for a crusade 

 or some other quasi-ecclesiastical object, but the popes sometimes allowed 

 Henry III to relieve his necessities from this source, and thus paved the way 

 for the regular taxation of the clergy as an estate of the realm introduced by 

 Edward I. From the middle of the century the amount taken was nearly 

 always a tenth. The bringing of the clergy under contribution rendered 

 necessary an assessment of benefices.'" Such an assessment is recorded to 

 have been made in 12 19, and perhaps remained in force until Pope 

 Innocent IV in 1253 ordered a new valuation for the tenth which he had 

 granted to Henry III for a fresh crusade. The re-assessment was carried out 

 in the following year by Walter Suffield, bishop of Norwich, and was 

 therefore generally known as the 'Norwich Taxation.'"' Its figures are only 

 preserved in isolated cases from which no trustworthy inferences can be 

 drawn. The assessment of Garstang rectory, for instance, was raised from 

 20 to 33 marks, in addition to a vicarage taxed at 8 marks ; but there are 

 no means of deciding whether this was due to greater stringency or to 

 a corresponding rise in the value of the benefice."' Thirty-four years 

 later Pope Nicholas IV ordered a new assessment to be made, which was 

 completed in 1291 for the province of Canterbury, and in 1292 for that of 

 York. This 'Taxatio,' never subsequently revised for the greater part of 

 England, remains among the archives of the kingdom, and was printed in 

 1802 by the Record Commission. For Lancashire it is valuable as giving 

 the first fairly complete summary of church property in the county as well as 

 a more partial record of appropriations and vicarages. Fifty churches are 

 named, twenty-six in the diocese of Lichfield, and twenty-four in that of York 

 The list is not quite exhaustive. Six are omitted for reasons which except 

 in one case, can be gathered from the later document known as the Inaui 

 Sim Nonarum}^ Bolton-le-Moors and Bolton-le-Sands were exempt from 

 taxation as being annexed to the two archdeaconries, Kirkbv Ireleth a<; 

 appropriated to the cathedral church of York, RadclifFe and North Meols on 



'" Cui. Pat. I2Q2-I 301, p. iqo. 1^4 /-„/ .f D ^ I J 



■" Ibid, i, 577. - Lich. Epis. Reg. Langton, fol ^^ "^ '^." sS V"} h'^' ?.5°' 559- 



- Stubbs (loc. cit.) wrongly attributes it to an order of Alexander IV in ,. fi r 7' ""'■ "' '7+-5- 

 '» Cockersand Chart. 286. In . 292 the rectory was taxed atTl" T/ J h ' ' '' l^''' 



- See above, p. 6. The vicarages in that part of the county which wasbfhV'H""'' "'A'K^'' ''^■ 

 also omitted, unless indeed they are included in the valuation of theTectori« ""' °^ ^''^^^^^ 



are 

 22 



