Annotated by Mackenzie E, C. Wafcott, 



355 



was issued for the survey of church goods, "to cause inventories to 

 be made by bills or books indented of all manner of goods, plate, 

 jewels, bells and ornaments, as yet remaining or any wise forth- 

 coming and belonging to any churches, chapels, fraternities, or 

 guilds, and the one part of the same inventories to send and return 

 to our Privy Council, and the other to deliver to them in whose 

 hands the said goods, plate, jewels, bells and ornaments, shall 

 remain to be kept preserved. And they shall also give good 

 charge and order that the same goods and every part thereof be at 

 all times forthcoming to be answered, leaving, nevertheless, in every 

 parish church or chapel of common resort, one, two or more 

 chalices or cups, according to the multitude of the people in every 

 such church or chapel, and also such other ornaments as by their 

 discretion shall seem requisite for the Divine Service, in every 

 such place for the time." The indentures for Wilts as for Devon, 

 Somerset, Leicestershire, etc., are not forthcoming ; the niggardly 

 grant of a single " cup " and the bells to each parish will be found 

 below. The Commission were also to enquire into the embezzle- 

 ment of such ornaments by " certain private men," hence the 

 return in the second list of chantries. The Commissioners were 

 required to use " wise persuasions in all places of their sessions, 

 and such sober and discreet manner of proceeding as the effect of 

 the Commission may go forward with as much quiet and as little 

 occasion of trouble or disquiet of the multitude as may be ; " a 

 politic injunction showing that the English people did not view 

 with favour the sacrilegious harrying of their churches, and the 

 suppression of additional services within them. 



We find that the chantry priests (cantaristse) or stipendaries, 

 were often elective by the parishioners, as their own ministers were 

 by a guild, and removeable. Without their aid large cures could 

 not have been served, and a regular form of petition stating this 

 fact is frequently appended to the certificate. They also kept 

 school ; in some instances the vacancies remained unfilled, and in 

 other places young laymen held the post as an exhibition or main- 

 tenance for study. The incidental notices of the number of 

 communicants and clergy in large parishes in the time of Edward 



VOL. XII. — NO. XXXVI. 2 c 



