ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



foundation of chantries. Another feature of the plague period was the great 

 increase in the number of licences granted to the local lords for the celebra- 

 tion of divine service in the oratories of their manor-houses,"' and here too 

 we may perhaps detect an attempt to obtain a more direct and personal 

 intervention with heaven coupled in some cases doubtless with a dread of 

 infection. These licences were only granted for a short term of years, or, 

 occasionally, during the bishop's pleasure, but their effect was unfortunate in 

 so far as they tended to raise a barrier between the lord and his tenants. 



Allusion has been made to a probable lowering of tone in the clergy and 

 religious as one of the results of the Black Death. It must be admitted, 

 however, that this was not marked enough to come out in the rather scanty 

 information at our disposal as to the state of the Church in Lancashire during 

 the fourteenth century. Both before and after the great pestilence there is 

 some reason to believe that the appropriate churches were better served than 

 those under lay patronage. The frequent occurrence of the names of 

 Langton, Standish, Halsall, and Le Walsch among the rectors of Wigan, 

 Standish, Halsall, and Aughton illustrates the habitual use of livings by lay 

 patrons as a provision for younger members of their families. Rectors 

 were instituted when only in minor orders, or even with the first tonsure, 

 occasionally under the canonical age, and so little qualified for their work 

 that licences of absence for several years to study at a university had to be 

 granted to them."" The bishop might and did insist that the cure should 

 not be neglected ; but for this there was no real guarantee when its duties 

 were performed by chaplains not too well paid and without security of tenure. 

 Leave of absence was also freely granted to rectors for other reasons the 

 nature of which is seldom expressed,'" and in such cases they were allowed 

 to put their churches to farm. Between 1355 and 1383 Thomas de Wyk, 

 rector of Manchester, was absent from his cure for eleven years altogether. 

 The episcopal registers contain only one instance of such permission in the 

 case of a vicar, and then only for a year ; in 1 309 the vicar of Blackburn 

 received leave to go on pilgrimage for that length of time.'" Robert de 

 Clitheroe, rector of Wigan from 1303 to 1334, undertook the work of 

 escheator beyond Trent and other royal commissions without formal leave of 

 absence ; he had an acknowledged (but of course illegitimate) son born after 

 he was ordained priest, and was an active partisan of Earl Thomas of 

 Lancaster, for which he was tried and heavily fined in 1323."^ He pleaded 



"' Lich. Epis. Reg. passim. The licence was sometimes granted to rectors and even chaplains ; ibid. 

 Scrope, fol. 124. An enigmatic entry in 1394 records the grant of a licence to the prior of Penwortham to 

 celebrate divine worship in his parish church without prejudice to the oratory in his priory for two years ; 

 ibid. fol. 131^. Taking advantage of the increased demand for their services and the reduction of their 

 numbers by the plague, chaplains (like labourers) demanded higher salaries, 10 or 12 marks a year, with the 

 result that Parliament in 1362 fixed 6 marks as a maximum for parochial chaplains and five for those without 

 cure of souls ; Rot. Pari, ii, 271. 



*" They were usually licenced vaguely insislere studio generali, but in one case Oxford is specified ; 

 Lich. Epis. Reg. Scrope, fol. 135. A rector of Walton in 1328 obtained permission to study for seven years 

 ' according to the canon,' but two or three years was the average time allowed. In the case of Henry Halsall, 

 who in 1395 was admitted to the family rectory of Halsall at the early age of 19, no licence appears on the 

 registers ; ibid. fol. 59^. He was described as Master H. H. however when promoted in 1413 to be arch- 

 deacon of Chester ; ibid. Burghill, fol. 1031J. 



"' A rector of Leyland was given leave of absence in 1322 while an advocate in the Court of Arches ; a 

 rector of North Meols in 1 324 to serve the earl of Huntingdon, who was lord of Widnes ; ibid. Northburgh, 

 i, fol. 123, 13. 



'« Ibid. Langton, fol. 57. "' mst. of the Ch. of Wigan (Chet. Soc), 38-45. 



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