Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/103

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stipend merely the daily allowance of a canon in the Abbey, so that it can have been no great sacrifice to the Abbey to part with it. I should not be surprised if the chantry of 1331 was contemplated in order to keep up the parochial services: the normal services in parochial chapels and churches, where there was no vicarage ordained, were frequently called chantries, and were precisely on the same footing."

"It appears from some old writings," says Nichols, "that a lane from the North Gate, turning westward to the Friars adjoining, and then running southward between the said Friars and the backs of the houses opposite to All Saints' Church, is called St. Clement's Lane, and therefore it is probable that the church was situated in or near it."

The church was visited by John Leland, the antiquary, about the year 1536. He noticed a knight's tomb in the choir, and a flat alabaster stone with the name of Lady Isabel, wife to Sir John Beauchamp of Holt; and in the north aisle he saw the tomb of another knight, without scripture, and in the north cross aisle a tomb having the name of "Roger Poynter of Leicester armed," (? armiger, i.e., esquire). Shortly after his visit, the church was demolished. A century later its very memory was beginning to fade away, for, in connection with the Metropolitan Visitation which Archbishop Laud held in 1634, Sir John Lambe made the following note:— "St. Clement's, Quaere, where it stood? no such now."

(2) THE CHURCH OF ST. PETER.

This church also belonged to Leicester Abbey. The Vicar was instituted by the Bishop, his salary "ab antiquo" being five marks {£3, 6s. 8d.). The clerk was chosen by the Abbot. St. Peter's seems to have been one of the six parish churches of Leicester recorded in Domesday Book, but the earliest reference to it by name appears to occur somewhere about the year 1200, when one of the witnesses of Richard Basset's charter to St. John's Hospital was "Gervasius clericus de Sancto Petro." The name of its vicar was given in 1221 as Robert the Chaplain. The parish, which was situated between those of All Saints and St. Martin, included part of the old High Street, and the church

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