160 The Story of a Prebendal Stall at Sarum. 



do not trouble about such things, but generally seal my letters with 

 my thumb." Well, after all, it's only a little almost venial vanity, and, 

 i£ folks do not themselves " get too big for their shoes/'' there's not 

 much harm in it. But when you speak of your ecclesiastical or 

 spiritual forefathers — and can look back and tell them up one after 

 another, as I can, for more than six hundred years — then I think it 

 may be a matter not only of honest pride, but of devout thankfulness. 

 At all events it shows us the continuity of the Church of England ; 

 and encourages us to hope, that as the gallant old ship has battled 

 with many a storm already, and still rides the waves triumphantly, 

 so, with God's blessing, and the timely repair of a timber here and 

 there that from very age has become a little decayed, she may still 

 survive all the attacks of open enemies. And after all, her danger 

 arises not so much from the batteries of her foes, as from the mutiny 

 of her crew between the decks. 



Of the earliest of my predecessors of whom we have any record — 

 Roger, and Hugo de Perth — I know nothing beyond their names. 

 It has been said " The world knows nothing of its greatest men." 

 This may have been the case here — but as I lack all information upon 

 the point, we will pass on to the next name, which is that of one, 

 not only well-known, but famous in the history of our diocese. 



This was Roger de Mortival, who, after having held the Rectory 

 of Ambrosden, in Oxfordshire, and the Archdeaconries of Huntingdon 

 and Leicester, became Dean of Lincoln in 1310. He was also 

 Chancellor of Oxford in 1293. He was collated to the Prebend of 

 Netheravon in 1297, and, after holding it for eighteen years (for 

 some eight of them together with his deanery at Lincoln) he vacated 

 it, on being consecrated as Bishop of Sarum in 1318. And an 

 earnest-minded and brave bishop he seems to have been. Abuses 

 had already crept into his cathedral church through claims made 

 by successive Popes to appoint to vacant dignities and prebends, and 

 from the number of foreigners, most of them non-resident, who held 

 them. Thus there is a remarkable letter from the Bishop, to Pope 

 John XXI I., iu which he complains that out of some fifty dignities 

 and prebends in the gift of the Bishop, there were on March 21st, 

 1325, a dean, an archdeacon, and six prebendaries, who had been 



