548 Marlborough Chantries and the supply of Clergy in olden days. 



Rector of St. Peter's and the Vicar of St. Mary's and Vicar of 

 Preshute, the priests who were responsible for the Jesus service 

 in St. Peter's, a stipendary there (for our Lady's service), the 

 priest of Bridde's Chantry at St. Katharine's altar, a stipendary 

 in St. Mary's, Foster and Pengryve's chantry priest there, and 

 the Master of St. John's Hospital. 



The prior of St. Margaret's (John Sympson) with four others of 

 the Gilbertine house 1 had surrendered on Jan. 16th, 1539 (State 

 Papers, Domestic, Henry VIII., xiv. (i.), 75 ; cf. id., 78). 



The friar responsible for St. Martin's, Marlborough (founded in 

 1240, and destroyed some time between 1548 and 1565), was, 

 presumably, one of those five white friars, or Carmelites, who 

 were reported to T. Crumwell, in July, 1530, as being ready to 

 receive " dyscharge, and to change their apparell " for secular garb. 

 (Cotton MS., Chop. E., iv., f. 253, an enclosure.) It may, however, 

 have been the case, as the late Mr. J. Milburn suggested in a 

 lecture delivered at Marlborough College, that St. Martin's Church 

 was used no more after about 1491, when the neglect (according 

 to the complaint made in 1499) began. 



As regards yet earlier documents, it did not fall within the 

 scope of Domesday Book, A.D. 1086, to tell us more than the fact 

 that William de Belfou held in capite, " in Merleberge, 1 hide with 

 one church, value 305." and that "Bristoard, presbyter, holds 

 the church of Bedwinde (as his father had done before him in the 

 time of K. Edward Confessor), with 1£ hides thereto belonging," 

 p. 16 (ed. W. H. Rich Jones, who notes that temp. Henry III. there 

 were two Churches in Marlborough. Hundred Rolls, ii., 256, ubi 

 supra, p. xxiv.) The Taxcdio Ecclesiastica, A.D. 1291, is equally 

 reticent. It merely includes under temporalia (p. 189&) "Ecclesia 

 de Prescut (Preshute) cum capell : taxatio £20." From Lay 

 Subsidies, Wilts, 2 Ric. II., Boll 96, 44, A.D. 1378—9, we gather 

 that the Rector of the Church of St. Peter had a servant named 

 William, and the friars of the town had four servants named 

 Henry, Hugh, William, and John, and that the last-named John 



1 The site of St. Margaret's, late Gilbertine Priory, was granted Jan. 5th, 

 1J40, in partial satisfaction of the dower of Anne of Cleves. 



