By Canon W. H. Jones. 325 



arbitration in a dispute concerning the prebend of Hustborne), during 



his episcopate from 11SS — 98, the ground- work of certain statutes 

 I for the government of the chapter of Lichfield, and the regulation 



of its services and ritual. In fact Bishop Hugh de Nonant borrowed 



unstintedly from " the book of Osmund " — from a copy which has 

 ' probably long since perished — not only adopting his ordinances, but 

 ! keeping so closely to the letter of them as to make it clear that he 



did little more than copy verbatim such passages as he thought fit 



to embody in his own statutes for Lichfield. 



Of the ready acceptance of the " consuetudinary " in other dioceses 

 ' besides Sarum and Lichfield we have ample evidence. The " use of 



Sarum" was introduced into Ireland by authority of the synod of 

 ! Cashel in the year 1173; and into Scotland some seventy years 

 ' later. Amongst the acts of Gervase, Bishop of St. David's, and 



his chapter in 1223, was one establishing the precentorship there, and 



ordaining, that, at all events as regards two important " offices," 

 . they should be carried out according to the " Use of Sarum." 



The manuscript in which is contained the oldest known copy o£ 

 ! the consuetudinary — and this, as we shall presently see, is not quite 



complete — forms the first nineteen folios of a quarto vellum codex 

 i still preserved in the bishop's registry. The rest of the volume is 

 | filled with documents of a miscellaneous character, arranged without 

 I any especial regard to chronological order, many of them relating 

 : to the establishment of prebends in the cathedral ; and some portion 

 ' of it being more like a chapter register, containing — though even 

 ! here the account is given in fragments suggesting the thought that 

 [ the leaves are wrongly stitched up — a full narrative of the removal 

 ; of the see from Old to New Sarum. and the efforts made for building 

 i the new cathedral. This latter part is evidently from the dictation, 

 ' if not from the pen of William de Wenda, who was Dean from 

 1 1220-37. We have also in this same volume an account of the 



visitation of the prebendal churches and estates by Dean William 

 * de Wenda, as well as an inventory of the " ornamenta " of the 

 ; cathedral at the commencement of the thirteenth century. 



The volume itself is labelled outside " Vetus Registrum ; " and, 



as a heading to the " Consuetudinary," we have u Tractatus de 



