By the Rev. Canon W. H. Jones. 



271 



though a member of the cathedral body might have a " stall in 

 choir/'' he had no " voice in chapter/' unless he were possessed also 

 of a prebend ; and such, according to the statutes, is the case to 

 this day. Of those canons, four (Quatuor Persona?) were " princi- 

 pal/' or, as they were sometimes called, "internal" dignitaries; 

 (1) the Dean, who was the head of the cathedral, its " immediate 

 ordinary," charged with the cure of the souls of all its members, 

 and the general control and discipline ; (2) the Precentor, who had 

 the general direction of the services and the ritual, and the ordering 

 of the choristers or other youthful ministrants, the christian Levites 

 serving in the sanctuary; (3) the Chancellor, who was not only 

 the secretary of the chapter, but the instructor alike of the younger 

 canons in theology, and of the "pueri," the still more youthful 

 members of the cathedral body, in grammar ; charged with the 

 care, in the first instance, of the library ; bound to deliver, or procure 

 to be delivered, lectures in theology, and at his own cost also to 

 provide books for divine service; (4) the Treasurer, who was not 

 simply a bursar or steward, but had special care of all the sacred 

 vessels and vestments belonging to the church ; and a mere glance 

 at the list of " Ornamenta Ecclesise " in the time of Bishop R. Poore, 

 as contained in the Old Register (and printed from it in Hatcher and 

 Benson's "Salisbury" p. 7 18), will shew how important and responsible 

 an office his must have been. Dean Hook, in his life of St. Edmund 

 of Canterbury, once Treasurer of Sarum (Lives of Archb. of Canterb., 

 iii., 127), gives a vivid description of the manifold duties of this 

 office, which included the reverent ordering of all the accessories of 

 divine service, and the appointment of the six ** Altarists/' or servers 

 at the various altars — a title afterwards changed into that of" Virgi- 

 feri " (or Virgers). 



The Abbot of Sherborne for the time being held a " stall in choir 

 and place in chapter," in virtue of the prebend of Sherborne. In 

 like manner, Savaric, Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, and once 

 Treasurer of Sarum, founded two prebends at Wells, which were to 

 be held by the Abbots of Muchelney, and Athclncy, for the time 

 being. The abbots of monasteries were bound to come to their own 

 Bishop for the formal benediction ("mumis bemdictionis") on their 



