A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



and it was found necessary to make sweeping reductions of the taxable va ue 

 of benefices throughout the greater part of the province of York, inciu g 

 the archdeaconry of Richmond. The Lancashire churches "^j,^,,,^] 

 deaconry were relieved of two-thirds of their rating, or about £^^°- 

 this /375 was allowance for loss of tithes from lands wasted by the bcots, 

 the rest took the form of an exemption of small tithes, oblations, and glebes 

 from taxation. The reduction varied in different parishes from fifty P^^ ""*•' 

 e.g. at Heysham, Melling, and Tatham, to over eighty per cent, at Alding- 

 ham, Cartmel, and Ulverston. One rectory— Pennington— and four out of 

 seven vicarages were entirely freed from taxation, on the ground of their 

 poverty."^ On an average the relief given to the monasteries in consideration 

 of the depreciation of their temporalities in North Lancashire was even 

 greater than was accorded to the churches. What had been rated in 1292 

 at ^371 IS. 2^. now paid only £s^ i°^- ^ reduction of eighty-six per 

 cent. Furness must have suffered most ; the annual value of its temporal 

 possessions was reckoned to have sunk from £176 to £12 6j. Sd'."' The 

 Ribble was practically the southern limit of the Scottish invasion to the 

 west of the Pennine Range, and none of the Lancashire churches in the diocese ' 

 of Lichfield were included in the ' New Taxation,' as it was called. 



No provision seems to have been made for a re-valuation of the northern 

 parishes on their recovery from the effects of the harrying they had received, 

 and apparently they continued to enjoy this exceptionally low rating down to 

 the sixteenth century. Some slight improvement in a few parishes within 

 the twenty years which followed is revealed by the returns of the commis- 

 sioners appointed to assess the ninth of sheaves, fleeces, and lambs granted by 

 Parliament to Edward III in March, i 340.^^* The ecclesiastical ' Taxatio,' 

 mainly based as it was upon the great tithes, afforded an obvious guide in 

 their labours, and their instructions were to take the church assessments as a 

 standard in ascertaining the true value of the ninth."* So closely did they 

 follow them that in many cases at all events the tax became a tenth and not 

 a ninth. In seventeen out of twenty-four Lancashire parishes in the arch- 

 deaconry of Richmond the ' New Taxation,' which only took into account 

 the great tithes, was returned as the true value of the ninth. But in five 

 parishes a higher figure was given, the assessment being recognized as too 

 low. The difference was not, however, great, except at Dalton, where the 

 ninth was valued at twice the amount of the assessment of twenty years 

 before."'' Preston affords a solitary instance of a parish in which the com- 

 missioners put the value of the ninth below even the low assessment of the 

 ' New Taxation.' "' South of the Ribble the returns show greater variety. 

 In ten parishes the ninth was estimated as exceeding the valuation of 1292, 

 in five as exactly equal to it, and in thirteen as falling below it. In the last 

 class of cases we are occasionally told that the difference consisted of allow- 

 ances for glebes, small tithes and oblations, and for the exclusion of boroughs 

 (where they existed) which paid a ninth of goods instead. The explanation 



n ,00° ^tI '?"''" '^aT'"' " P""'"'^ '° '^^ ^'^' ^''^- '^'"'- 3^9- For iu date see 'Political Hi.tory ' 



"n '^'^'^^ '^"^'^^ '^°'^^ ^°™ ^^^ Inquisitio Nonarum (Rec. Com ) 



Cal. Pat. I 340-3, p. 125. .7. j„^ ^^„ jg_ ,„ Ibid. 37. 



24 



