272 Collections for a History of West Dean. 



Saints with all its members and appurtenances by the present rector of the said 

 parish Church of the Blessed Mary and his successors, future rectors of the same 

 Church, for their own proper uses, under the title of rectors of the said parish 

 Church of the Blessed Mary, of West Dene, to be granted by our office and 

 authority, and for the making, appointing, publishing, and perpetually defending 

 the orders and statutes in the premisses, and concerning these obligations and our 

 demands : also for the faithful payment in perpetuity by the rector for the 

 time being of the said Church of the Blessed Mary to us and our successors, 

 Bishops of Winchester, in our palace of Wolnesey, every year at the feast of 

 Easter, by way of our indemnity, and in recompense of the emoluments which 

 we and our successors at the time of avoidance of the aforesaid Church of All 

 Saints, during vacancy, have had, and ought to have, of an annual pension or 

 tax of 20^. of the fruits of the said Church of All Saints : and for the faithful 

 payment, appropriation, and assignment, every year at the feast of Easter, for 

 ever, by the rector for the time being of the aforesaid Church of the Blessed 

 Mary to our present Archdeacon of Winchester and his successors, by way of 

 their indemnity, and in recompense of the emoluments which they have had, and 

 ought to have, from the said Church of All Saints, 8d. every year at the feast 

 of Easter for ever, to be so paid in perpetuity, subject to ecclesiastical censures 

 and other penalties of the Church, to be decreed, appointed and ordered, even by 

 sequestration of fruits : and for doing, receiving, and despatching all and 

 singular other things which in and about the premisses shall be necessary or 

 in any way desirable : to your reverend authority we commit the aforesaid 

 instruction, carefully considering our plans, so that accepting the charge of our 

 said commission to you and the business being by you expedited, you may be 

 willing to certify us of everything which we have done in the premisses ; having 

 this original document signed and sealed. In testimony of which thing our seal 

 is appended. Given in our mansion of Waltham, in our said diocese, the twelfth 

 day of the month of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred 

 and seventy -three, and of our consecration the twenty-seventh. 



44 Hearing which authoritative statements in the matter of the union proposed 

 to be effected, We, Richard, Bishop, having summoned the parties entitled to be 

 summoned, in the year, month, day, and place underwritten, have made diligent 

 inquiry, by which we have.found and ascertained that the fruits, dues, tenths, obla- 

 tions, profits, and all other emoluments of the aforesaid Church of All Saints of 

 West-dene, in your diocese [which, on account of its poverty, is still vacant], as well 

 from the scantiness of the parishioners of the said Church, as from the sterility 

 of the soil, the deficiency of tillage, and many other accidental reasons, have so 

 decreased and are diminished, that they are at this time and will in future be 

 barely sufficient for the proper maintenance of one chaplain, with the cure of souls 

 of the parishioners of this Church, as rector of the same : on the plea of which 

 poverty, insufficiency, and scarcity, the cure of souls of the parishioners of the 

 said parish Church of All Saints is little cared for in daily ministrations, nor are 

 the sacraments and such -like offices duly administered to them : and that the 

 parish Church of the Blessed Mary of Westdene in our diocese aforesaid can 

 conveniently be united and annexed to the parish Church of All Saints : Therefore 

 We, Richard, Bishop aforesaid, your commissary in this matter, for the causes, 

 premisses, and other reasons in this wise moving us, with the consent and assent 



