By the Rev. Canon W. H. Rich Jones. 



159 



and thence returning, each to his own city, there to carry on the 

 same good work of serving God, and leading those also to serve 

 Him who were especially committed to his charge. 



Now it is of one of these prebends of Sarum that I want, as far as 

 I can, to tell you the story. The one I select is that of Netheravon, 

 to which I was myself collated by my Bishop eleven years ago, 

 no long time after he came into possession of the see. The 

 place is in South Wilts, not far from Amesbury. The Church of 

 Netheravon was given to the cathedral some seven hundred and 

 fifty years ago, by a charter of King Henry I., during the episcopate 

 of Bishop Roger, about the year 1131. At the time of Domesday 

 the whole estate proper belonged to the King, but the Church, with 

 its tithes and glebe-lands, was in the hands of Nigel, described some- 

 times as " medicus, " who was the Conqueror's physician. He is in 

 one place spoken of as "presbyter." It was not at all an unusual thing 

 for medical men to be in holy orders in those days, and it would be 

 well, I think, if at least all missionary clergymen were instructed in 

 medicine now. At Salisbury we have several instances of physicans 

 holding stalls ; and amongst them, as late as the sixteenth century, 

 was the family-doctor of Henry VIII., who must have had rather 

 a difficult patient to deal with, and well earned his medical fees, 

 whether in money or kind. Anyhow, it was a convenient way for 

 kings to pay their doctor's bills, by the appropriation of a few 

 prebends in divers cathedrals for that specific purpose. 



The prebend of Netheravon was never a valuable one, and, as I 

 have already intimated, it is still less so now. Nevertheless, profit- 

 less as it is materially, it has a history ; and what this is I will try 

 and tell you. 



Now it is a remarkable fact, that, when people get on in the 

 world, they commonly shew a great interest in their grandfather, 

 and their great-grandfather, and are apt to exalt those same 

 venerable ancestors to a position which to themselves would perhaps 

 have appeared strange. And then they find out what they call the 

 old armorial bearings of the family, though the said great-grand- 

 fathers, if they could be appealed to, would perhaps answer as did 

 one who sympathised with Sidney Smith's friends—-" For my part I 



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