By the Bev. Canon 3Io5erlj/. 



139 



number, the nearest contemporary evidence is Leland ; who sixty 

 years later describes them as " eight poor women and four poor 

 men." If this were so, they still keep to the total number of 

 twelve. 



2. But the statutes also contemplate hospitality upon a larger 

 scale, and desiring to restrain this within limits, enact that only 

 considerable benefactors shall be received. It was then the custom 

 to receive such benefactors to lodge within the hospital — and such 

 hospitality had been unwarrantably extended. 



3. The master in 1478 was as a rule resident, and it was the 

 exception when he did not officiate in the canonical hours himself ; 

 in fact he was bound by Bingham's charter, and so was to serve 

 the chapel of St. Nicholas next the hospital with the same ritual as 

 in the Cathedral. He was probably still assisted by a chaplain, who 

 was one of the three priests of St. Nicholas, the other two officiating 

 in St. John's Chapel. Where the chapel where the master officiated 

 was, is another point of doubt : for the present chapel was not 

 consecrated till 1501. 



In 1494 Warden Sutton resigned ; and Bishop Blyth appointed 

 his brother, Geoffrey Blyth, who the same year was made treasurer 

 of the Cathedral, and in 1503 bishop of Lichfield. And in 1496 

 we find transcribed in the bishop's register a copy of the agreement 

 of 1260, whereby the dean and chapter gave up the patronage of 

 the wardenship of St. Nicholas' to Bishop Bridport. This looks as 

 if the controversy about the patronage had been renewed. The 

 dean of the time was Edward Cheyne ; and considering the low 

 ebb to which Church matters had been reduced at this period, it is 

 noteworthy to find Dean Cheyne presiding at a convocation of 

 canons called in 1490, to promote measures "for extending the 

 usefulness of the Church of Sarum." The dean and chapter perhaps 

 asserted their right to appoint, urging Bingham's Ordination, when 

 Sutton resigned in 1494 ; and the controversy, perhaps, was only 

 set at rest by Bishop Blyth's promulgating again the settlement of 

 two hundred and thirty years before. 



But in 1498 1 something happened which led to the demolition of 

 1 The exact date is giveu by Hickman's MS. 



