ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



been intended by John de Winwick for the foundation of a new college at 

 Oxford. His brother secured its diversion to Burscough Priory on the 

 ground of the poverty of that house, but subject to the institution and 

 maintenance of a chantry at Huyton."' The almost complete absence of 

 such foundations in that part of the county comprised in the archdeaconry 

 of Richmond speaks eloquently of the impoverishment of North Lancashire 

 by the Scottish ravages. 



The position of the parish churches in relation to the rehgious houses 

 was little altered during the fourteenth century. Three or four more were 

 appropriated. The rectories of Melling and Leyland, whose advowsons had 

 long been held by Croxton and Evesham respectively, were bestowed upon those 

 houses in 1310"' and 1331."" Childwall, the advowson of which had been 

 acquired by Sir Robert de Holland and given to his new college at Up- 

 holland, was appropriated to the Benedictine monks who replaced the seculars 

 there in 1319."^ Preston, which Whalley had attempted to secure, but 

 without success, was appropriated to the dean and canons of Henry of 

 Lancaster's college of St. Mary Newark at Leicester between 1380 and 

 1415,^'^ when the first mention of a vicar occurs. At Leyland and prob- 

 ably at Melling the ordination of a vicarage accompanied the appropria- 

 tion."' Childwall had had a perpetual vicar appointed while its patronage 

 was still in lay hands. Edward I, as already stated, gave the living to his 

 minister John de Drokensford. Drokensford, a pluralist and non-resident, 

 consented voluntarily or otherwise in December, 1307, shortly before his 

 promotion to the see of Bath and Wells, to the ordination of a vicarage at 

 Childwall."* Light is thrown upon the staff of clergy considered necessary 

 for an important church by the provision made for the support of three 

 chaplains and a deacon in addition to the vicar."^ 



The vicar's independence in regard to the religious who held the 

 appropriation not infrequently led to friction between them, especially when 

 the church was close to the monastery. The monks of Whallev maintained 

 that Henry de Lacy had never intended that a vicarage should be established 

 at their very gates, and complained bitterly that it had been excessively 

 endowed. In 1330 they induced Bishop Northburgh to make a new 

 ordinance considerably reducing the emoluments of the vicar of Whalley."* 

 Ten years later Northburgh had to settle a dispute between Burscough 

 Priory and the vicar of Ormskirk as to the portion due to the latter. But 

 neither house remained content with this. As early as 1285 the canons of 

 Burscough had secured a licence from Bishop Roger Longespee, on the 

 ground of the proximity of Ormskirk church to the priory, to present canons 

 of their house to the living after the next vacancy."^ In 1339, having, in 



•'* Reg. of Burscough, fol. i6b ; Cal. Pat. 1377-81, p. 560. "' Cal. Pat. 1307-13, p. 229. 



'™ As additional endowment of the cell of Penwortham {Priory of Penwortbam, 41-6.) 



™ Cal. Pat. 1317-21, p. 353. "' Smith, Rec. of Preston Ch. 5, 37-8. 



^^ Priory of Penwortham, 47. The vicar took part of the great tithes; but besides defraying the synodals and 

 procurations he had to pay an annual pension of forty shillings to the abbey, which had bound itself to com- 

 pensate the see of Lichfield for the loss it sustained owing to the appropriation — the cessation of vacancies 

 during which the bishop took the profits of the benefice — by a yearly payment to that amount. 



'^ Lich. Epis. Reg. Northburgh, vol. i, fol. 28. The case is somewhat similar to that of Walton-on- 

 the-Hill. See above, p. 16. 



"' The council of Oxford in 1222 had made a canon that churches with wide parishes should have two 

 or three priests ; Wilkins, Concilia, i, 588. 



'** Whalley Coucher, 216-20. '" Reg. of Burscough, fol. io6i. 



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