380 ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS. verj"^ narrow limits, and that the aggregate number must have been propor- tioned rather to the devotion and wealth of the founders than to the real wants of the citizens. In truth, the erection of a church or chapel in the 11th and immediately succeeding centuries did not necessarily imply any living congregation at all. The object of the founder, as expressed in the current forms of dotation, was fully satisfied by the prayers of the ministrant " pro salubri statu dum vixerit, et pro salute animse cum ex hue luce migraverit." There is, moreover, some ground for suspecting that the number of churches has been somewhat overrated. In the Appendix to the "History of Winchester," there is an imposing list of eighty churches and chapels, chiefly extracted from the episcopal registers of the 14th century, not including twelve collegiate and conventual churches. As we learn from the same authority that the glory of the city had then been waning for two hundred years, and that twenty, if not forty, churches had been destroyed in the reign of Stephen alone (Milner, vol. i. p. 162), Dr. Mihier would compel us to conclude that Winchester, under Henry I., was the rival of Rome itself in excessive development of ecclesiastical architecture." Upon the whole 1 incline strongly to the opinion, that, although we cannot doubt the comparative importance of the city at this time, or the grandeur of those public structures, castellated and con- ventual, of which the remains have survived almost to our own times, the enormous expansion of Winchester in the reign of the first Henry is a fable mainly founded on the apocryphal authority of Alderman Trussell and the imagination of Dr. Milner.' In the latter part of the record there is a short statement of the revenue arising from the " consuetudines " or customs of the city. They consist of,- The custom of burrells and chalons, already noticed. The custom or toll paid at the city gates, with the profits of the fairs of St. Barnabas and St. Swithin. The custom of pesage, or weighing of wool. Payments made by " consuetudinarii," (customary tenants?) and in respect of petty customs. Pleas and perquisites of the city courts. Custom paid by persons upon entry or exit into or out of the cit}. This seems to be a toll traverse, distinct from the gate toll. One was, perhaps, a personal toll ; the other an octroi upon merchandise.^ The profits arising from permits or licences to merchants, and from escheats. The above document suggests some further observations. ^ Some of the chapels (as those attached toriaii,vhowroteinthereignof James I., or to the Castle) must have been private. Charles I., is cited as "Johannes Lesleus, The County Hall figures as the chapel of Episcopus Rossensis, that wrote in the St. Stephen. Here, too, we must not reign of Eu'jenhis, third Tcinrj of Scot- confound a mediajval " capella " with a land/" The date of Trussell's dedication modern London proprietary or district is 1644. chapel. - The gate custom and pesage are mcn- ' Some few years ago an opportunity tioned twice in the statement of revenues, was afforded to me by a friend of reading but they are the same tolls or custom the MS. history of Wincliestcr by Trussell. paid during two periods, viz. from Michael- Jt is a loose, raml)ling work, of little, if mas to St. Giles, and from the .Morrow of any, value. The incompetency of the Holy Cross to Michaelmas, — leaving out author to deal with mattei's of historical the duration of St. Giles' fair, when all research is patent. LcsliiJ, the Scotch his- tolls ceased except those of the bishop.
