By the Rev. Canon Moberly. 



141 



" The chapel of St. Nicholas Sarum, within the hospital at the same 

 place, was consecrated on the Thursday of the Paschal Week, i.e., 

 the 15th day of April, 1501, by the venerable father Sir John, Bishop 

 of Mayo, at that time the suffragan of the reverend father Henry, 

 Bishop of Salisbury : and the same day the cemetery was reconciled. 

 Witness, myself William Wylton then warden of the said hospital, 

 and others." 



Let us pause to remark on the significance of this entry. 



1. The "Wiltshire Institutions," which have supplied us with 

 the list of masters regularly since 1397, that is for the last hundred 

 years, fail us after the institution of Geoffrey Blyth in 1494, and 

 record none till that of Geoffrey Bigge in 1593 — that is for the 

 next hundred years. Why is this ? I can account for it in no other 

 way than by supposing that the controversy as to the patronage of 

 the hospital, which had been settled by Bishop Blyth, was re-opened 

 on Bishop Deane's appointment, and closed by the patronage being 

 given to the dean and chapter, the wardenship no longer being 

 considered an office requiring episcopal institution. Thus, though 

 Warden Wilton was one of the chapter themselves, and though 

 others may have been prebendaries, for the next hundred years 

 there was no guarantee against laymen holding the office of warden 

 —a thing contravening the whole spirit of Bishop Bingham's 

 foundation charter. 



2. Henry Deane was promoted from the see of Bangor to that of 

 Salisbury in 1500, and the next year advanced to that of Canterbury, 

 where he became papal legate. He can hardly have been resident 

 at Salisbury at all : but in 1501 he appointed John Bell, Bishop of 

 Mayo, to act for him as suffragan, and it was he that consecrated 

 St. Nicholas' chapel. It looks as if Bishop Blyth had intended to 

 do it, had he not died; and they got the first episcopal services that 

 they could. But what had happened that this should require con- 

 secration ? Had it not been consecrated before ? And the " ceme- 

 tery," or " litton " — which he " reconciled," or re-consecrated after 

 defilement — on the same day : what had happened to this ? We know 

 from Mr. Hickman's map, that the old " litton/' or burying ground, 

 was the piece of ground extending along the north side of the 



