the burgesses should elect two bailiffs from amongst themselves annually, and that these should be presented and sworn; on the other hand, however, the convent reserved to itself the perquisites arising from the courts, stallage, assizes of bread and ale, etc., and annual rents due at the period of festival legally appointed as above. The names of the following gentlemen are appended to the deed as witnesses:—Radulphus de Mouroyd, William le Botyler, Robert de Holonde, Henry de Kytheleye, John Venyal, William de Clifton, Thomas Travers, and others.
In 1327 an edict was published by the dean of Amounderness in the church of Kirkham on behalf of the archbishop of York, which commanded that the abbot or some one connected with the convent of Vale Royal, should appear before that prelate at the cathedral of his see on "the third lawful day after the Sunday on which is sung Quasi modo genite vira et munimenta,"[1] to show by what right and authority the Cheshire convent held the church just mentioned. In answer to this summons a monk, named Walter Wallensis, from Vale Royal, appeared before the archbishop on the day named, in 1328, and produced in proof of the title of his monastery to the church, the charter of Edward I., the bull of the pope, and letters from several archdeacons, recognising the proprietorship of the convent. In addition he brought four witnesses, viz., William de Cotton, advocate in the court of York, who stated that for eighteen years the abbot and convent of Vale Royal had supplied the rectors to the church of Kirkham; John de Bradkirk, who said that he had known the church for forty years as a parishioner, and had on many occasions seen the charter confirming the grant of the advowson, etc., to Vale Royal, as for fifteen years he had been in the service of that monastery, and at the time when the present archbishop of York farmed the church of Kirkham, twelve years ago, from the convent of Vale Royal, had been the bearer of the money raised from this church to that dignitary at York; Robert de Staneford, of Kirkham, who gave similar evidence, and bore witness to the existence of the charter of Edward I., which he had seen; and Robert de Blundeston, of Vale Royal, who gave evidence as to the genuineness of the documents produced having been admitted by
- ↑ That is, the Sunday after Easter.
