By the Rev. G. S. Master. 



271 



An old cottage, built upon the waste ground near East Grimstead 

 Chapel, and replaced only this year by a new one, has been held to 

 the present time by what is called " key tenure/' 



Ecclesiastical History. 

 West Dean, with its appendant chapelry of East Grimstead, is a 

 rectory in the Deanery of Amesbury and Archdeaconry of Sarum ; 

 and from the period of the Conquest, when the two adjacent manors 

 were possessions of the same lord, has been a consolidated benefice. 

 At West Dean, however, there were formerly two distinct parishes, 

 each with its Church and rector — whereof one, lying in Hants, 

 owed allegiance to the Bishop of Winchester ; the other, in Wilts, 

 to the Bishop of Salisbury. In 1473, for good and. sufficient reasons, 

 hereafter set forth at length, the two were united. The following 

 document referring to this arrangement, and preserved in the 

 diocesan registry at Salisbury, is here translated. There is no 

 record of the union in the episcopal registers at Winchester, which 

 are imperfect at that date. It cannot be said that legal verbiage 

 was much less diffuse in the fifteenth century than it is at present. 1 



" To the reverend father in Christ and lord the lord William, by the grace of 

 God Bishop of Winchester, Richard, by the same permission Bishop of Salisbury, 

 salutation and continual increase of brotherly affection. We have received the 

 letters of your commission, presented to us by the worshipful man, Master John 

 Emwell, rector of the parish Church of the Blessed Mary, of West Dene, in our 

 diocese, the purport of which is as follows. To the reverend father in Christ, 

 and lord the lord Eichard, by the grace of God Bishop of Salisbury, William, by 

 the same permission Bishop of Winchester, salutation and continual increase of 

 brotherly affection. For acknowledgment, perception, and appointment in the 

 cause or business of the union, annexation, and incorporation of the parish 

 Church of All Saints, of West Dene, in our diocese of Winchester, and the parish 

 Church of the Blessed Mary, of West Dene, in your diocese aforesaid, and for 

 examination and settlement according to canon of the same cause or business 

 with all and singular its issues, of whatever kind, arising, depending, and belonging, 

 and for the union, annexation, and incorporation of the same Church of All Saints 

 to the said Church of the Blessed Mary ; after assembling those who, resorting 

 together in this part, ought rightly to be assembled, and with the unanimous 

 consent of all whom it concerns, so that nothing be lacking of canonical statutes, 

 saving always in all things our episcopal rights and those of our Cathedral Church 

 of Winchester : also for the perpetual possession of the same Church of All 



1 " Bishop Beauchamp's Register," vol. ii., f. 5, in the middle of the book. 

 VOL. — XXII. — NO. LXVI. U 



