360 On the Appropriation of the Rectory of Lacock. 



the Church of Lacock had been built at the joint expense of the 

 lords of Lacock and Lackham, and the parish formed by the 

 coalescence of these two manors. It had been agreed, before the 

 foundation of the Abbey, that the contemplated arrangement 

 should not interfere with the rights of the Parish Church or the 

 Kector thereof ; 1 but as time went on, the Nuns began to try to 

 get part of the Hector's income into their own hands, and at p. 355 

 of the Cartulary 2 we find that Nicholas Longespee, then Rector, 

 and afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, surrenders to them the third 

 part of the tithes on their demesne lands within the parish of 

 Lacock, which they had, in fact, enjoyed ever since the foundation 

 of the Abbey. The date of this instrument is 1290, and it is 

 confirmed by William de la Corner, Bishop of Salisbury from 1289 

 — 1292, when Nicholas Longespee succeeded him. Still, there was 

 one great obstacle which prevented the nuns from doing as most 

 other religious houses had done, and as they themselves had done 

 in the case of Winterbourne Shrewton as early as 1241, and 

 obtaining the appropriation of the Rectory to their own uses : and 

 that was, that they only held the alternate right of presentation, 

 or half the patronage. Before the benefice could be appropriated 

 it was necessary for them to acquire the whole patronage, and 

 accordingly they seem to have entered into negotiations with 

 Sir John Bluet, lord of Lackham and co-patron, with a view 

 to buying out his interest. What course these took we are 

 not able to trace with exactitude ; but by the beginning of the 

 year 1312 an agreement seems to have been reached, and 

 Simon of Ghent, then Bishop, issues his formal sentence of 

 appropriation, which is preserved in the Record Office. 8 The 

 reasons assigned are the death of Margaret, Countess of Lincoln, 

 patroness of the house (or direct descendant of the foundress), 4 and 



1 Older Cartulary, fol. 176. Newer, fol. 5a. Appendix No. II. 

 2 Appendix No. III. 

 3 Court of Wards, Deeds, &c, Box 94 E, No. 66, (Appendix No. IV.). 

 4 She was daughter and heiress of William Longespee III., and so great- 

 granddaughter of the foundress ; she married Henry Laci, Earl of Lincoln, 

 and died in 1309. (Bowles & Nichols, p. 149.) 



