dispute between William, Bishop of London, and his tenant William Fitz-Benedict, over a soke in Colchester, the case being heard before the Barons of the Exchequer. A soke was a property the holder of which enjoyed special privileges, such as of jurisdiction, and thus the holding in question was in the same privileged class as that recorded in Domesday Book, and in both 1206 and 1086 the owner was a Bishop of London.
The Bishop's soke is described in the fine as extending "from St. Mary's Lane as far as to the Lane against Havedgate and as far as to the wall of Colchester toward the West and as far as to Havedstrett toward the East." This definition, which is discussed later (p. 9), provides another clue to the identity of the soke, for the area within these boundaries, making allowance for minor changes in the course of seven centuries, is four acres, the same as that recorded for the Bishop's holding in Domesday Book.
In the fine Fitz-Benedict acknowledged "all that soke with all its appurtenances: viz., with the School of the same township of Colchester (cum scolis ejusdem ville Colcestr') and with the advowson of the Church of the Blessed Mary of the Wall and with the Chapel of St. Andrew and with the Capital Messuage which belongs to the soke to be the right (esse jus: i.e. to be in the jurisdiction) of the said Bishop and to belong to the Barony of the Bishopric of London "; and in return for this acknowledgment the Bishop granted the soke and its appurtenances to Fitz-Benedict. But certain qualifying clauses were included, still further emphasising the Bishop's authority, and Fitz-Benedict and his heirs were forbidden to sell or mortgage any part of the soke without the licence of the Bishop.
These qualifying clauses indicate that the Bishop had by no means lost his control over the soke, including the school—authority resting with him, ownership with Fitz-Benedict. That is to say, while such concrete possessions as the land, the capital messuage, and the school building belonged to Fitz-Benedict, the actual jurisdiction, such as the advowsons, was retained by the Bishop and his successors. And this power will have been exercised also over the school, for it seems from the fine that what had passed to Fitz-Benedict was the school building merely. Indeed, the Bishop's authority may be traced down to recent times, until in 1899 by a new scheme the Bishop of St. Albans[1] took his place by receiving the power to appoint a nominee to the Board of Governors.
In 1844 the Bishop of London, with the Dean of St. Paul's, had already once recast the School’s "Statutes and Ordinances," acting therein upon the authority of the Letters Patent of 1584, by which not only was the Bishop of London, in consultation with the Dean of St. Paul's, empowered to frame suitable "statutes and ordinances in writing concerning and touching the appointment, government,
- ↑ St. Albans is a new diocese, in which Colchester was then included, established in 1875. The diocese of Chelmsford was established in 1914. The first appointment of a Suffragan Bishop of Colchester, at least in recent times, was in 1882.
