122 The Early History of the Upper Wylye Valley. 



Sunday after the day of this popular but political saint. He must 

 have been a favourite in this neighbourhood, for at Mere it is 

 probable that in one of the windows 1 of the south chapel the Arch- 

 bishop figured there is Becket, and certainly in 1220 there was an 

 altar in that church to his honour. Again, some time between 

 1165 and 1170 he grants an indulgence of forty days to benefactors 

 of the Church at Heytesbury and to those who piously visit the 

 relics there; and in 1220 his episcopal " slipper" (crepida) is 

 mentioned among the treasures of the church. It is quite possible, 

 too, that Norton Bavant has a trace of him in one of the bells, 

 which bears this inscription : — " Sancte Tome, ora pro nobis." 



We get a glimpse of some of these churches and the clergy in 

 the account of a visitation held by Dean Wanda in 1220, who was 

 Dean when the first service was held in the new Cathedral. 

 Horningsham had a stone church roofed with wooden shingles ; 

 its churchyard was not enclosed, but was " open to beasts, and 

 routed up by the pigs," large droves of which were fed in the 

 neighbouring forest. Hill Deverill had a stone church, in need of 

 repair, and with the internal fittings dilapidated. There is a 

 mistake in Hoare's account of the visitation of this church. He gives 

 {Heytesbury Hundred,^. 11), "est dedicanda," "it has yet to be 

 dedicated"; but Jones, Regist. Osmundi, i., 312, gives the right 

 reading, " est dedicata," " is dedicated." The remark, therefore, in 

 Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xxviii., p. 239, must be corrected. 



The entries are precise and business-like, chiefly inventories of 

 books, vestments, and ornaments ; sometimes of tithes, and of 

 repairs needed, and "dilapidations." The "insufficient hymnaries" 

 of these poor churches, the " missals that need binding," the " old 

 and thumbed psalters," point to the dearness and scarcity of books, 

 quite as much as to neglect ; although no doubt this visitation 

 stirred things up. 



We find a few more local traces of the later history of the 

 Church, though no doubt much more might be gathered from the 

 history of the Collegiate church at Heytesbury. 



Wilts ArcL Mag., No. 86, p. 26. 



