ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY prebends were often bestowed. At Biggleswade the vicar was accused of living in his mother's house the life of a common tradesman, of brewing and selling ale there. This however he denied, and purged himself by oath ; but there must have been something unsatisfactory in his service of the cure. Further, the chaplains who belonged to the church did not attend the canonical hours, or, if they came, they only stood in the chancel and took, no part in the office. They were ordered by the bishop to remain in choir in future, under penalty of a fine, and to provide themselves with surplices by the coming festival of Easter, unless they wished to be suspended. The high altar of the church had never been consecrated, and the rectory was in ruins owing to the non- residence of the prebendary. At Leighton Buzzard also some complaints were made. The pro- per vestments were not provided, and there was no holy water clerk kept for the parishioners. The stipend of the vicar, always very small, had now become quite insufficient ; it was augmented by Bishop Grey in 1436.' Chantries were still founded from time to time, especially in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV. ; the civil wars no doubt gave a fresh impulse to this form of devotion. Some well known names still occur among the founders — Sir Neel Loring's chantry at Chalgrave was re-endowed by Robert Braybrook, Bishop of London, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, 2 and Sir John Trailly and his son made Northill church collegiate, and established a chantry there about the same time ; 3 but the rest of them bear the names of men of the middle class, or else their founders are unknown.* It is expressly stated of the chantry of Biddenham, which belonged to the Grocers' Company, that it involved a distribution of money to the poor ; while the priests who served those of Houghton Regis and Tempsford were to keep schools for poor men's children ; " and probably others had like charities attached to them. The establishment of gilds and fraternities at this period is also connected with the history of the middle class. The object of these was quite as much social as religious ; and yet the religious element in them was sufficient to class them, a little later, among foundations whose 1 Line. Epis. Reg., Memo. Grey, 183d. The last vicarages ordained in Bedfordshire were Lidlington, 141 3 (ibid. Inst. Repingdon, 305) ; Biddenham, 1527 (ibid. Inst. Longland, 248). 1 Ibid. Memo. Repingdon, 81 (1413). 3 Chant. Cert. i. 4 These were : — A new chantry in the chapel of Biddenham Bridge, 1 2 Edw. IV. ; the chantry in the chapel of Wyboston, Eaton Socon, 1 6 Edw. IV (both in Chant. Cert, i.) The chantry of Corpus Christi in St. Paul's, Bedford, 20 Henry VII. (ibid.) The chantry in the church of Tempsford (ibid, and Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 262). The chantry in the church of Houghton Regis, 1519 ; and in the private chapel of Sewell in the same parish (Chant. Cert, i.) The chantry of St. Anne in Northill church (ibid.) The chantry of St. William in Biddenham church (ibid.) B Chant. Cert. i. The founder of the chantry of Houghton Regis, a citizen and mercer of Lon- don, left provision in his will that if the licence for alienation in mortmain could not be obtained, the lands he left were to be sold, and the proceeds used for the ornaments of the church, for the mending of the highways, for the assistance of poor folk, and for poor maidens' marriages. I 329 42
