ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY A very curious document of the year 13 17 has been preserved,^*' giving the rules of a ' confederacy ' formed among the London clergy on account of the simplicity (simp lie has) of some rectors and curates and the non-observance of the synodal statutes of the City archdeaconry. Its members were known by a special dress, but were sworn to secrecy on admission under a penalty of expulsion. The officers were a referetidarius, who was to summon meetings and generally to act as the supreme authority, four arbitrators or conservators of the articles of the confederacy, who were to settle disputes (which were not to be taken to a lay tribunal), two chamberlains, each of whom had a key of the common box, and a treasurer, who kept the box and was respon- sible for seeing that the members' contributions of a penny a week were paid regularly. All property was to be used for the common advantage, and the whole body was to attend and give oblations at the church of each member on the dedication festival, special arrangements being made when several such feasts fell on one day. Certain ceremonies were to be performed on the death of any member, and any in need were to be assisted. If a ' capellanus vel clericus parochialis vel minister alicujus ecclcsiae ' deserted his rector on any malicious pretext he was not to be employed by any of the other confederati until he was reconciled. Four general meetings were to be held annually, on the Thursdays before Christmas, Palm Sunday, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and Michaelmas, in the churches of St. Bartholomew the Little, St, Olave Silver Street, St. Margaret Pattens, and St. Andrew Cornhill respectively, and at the last meeting the money remaining in the box ^'* was to be distributed to those brothers then present, ' or it should be otherwise ordained concerning it as seemed best.' An audit of the accounts was to be made once a year, and the conduct of the officers was to be reviewed, when if found wanting they were to be replaced by others. The penalty for neglecting to attend the meetings personally or by proxy for a year was expulsion. The ordinances are followed by a list of the members in 13 17, when they numbered twenty-two. The ordinances of this ' confederacy ' bear some resemblance to those made for the clergy of the archdeaconry of London in the time of Roger Niger. ""^ The chapter then formed lasted into the 14th century, and was known as communitas rectorum or comtnunitas capellamrum ; bequests for the augmentation of the ' pittance ' of the priests of London are found in wills from 1228 to I 368,^ after which there is no further evidence of the existence of the chapter. The same volume which contains the ordinances of the con- federation also contains a petition of the rectors of London concerning the division of the pittances in the quarterly chapter of the archdeaconry. But the two bodies were not identical.'" The chapter was a publicly recognized body, while the confederation was a private union embracing a comparatively small
- " Camb. Univ. Lib. GG. 4, 32, fol. 1 12 seqq. The contents of this volume are very miscellaneous ;
it was possibly a commonplace book belonging to a rector of St. Martin Vintry. '" ' Gazophylacion ' ; cf St. Luke xxi, I . =« FUe supra, p. 187. '^ D. and C. St. Paul's, Liber A. fol. 68 ; A. box 66, no. 6 ; Jrch. Joum. xxiv, 343 ; Sharpe, Cal. of Pf'ills in Court of Husting, i, 49, 103, 330 ; ii, 107, 115, 187. '" John Skip, rector of St. Martin Vintry, and William Marshal, rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, appear in 1306 as the representatives of the ' communitas rectorum,' when they made a present of 20 marks to Ralph Baldock, the new bishop {Ckron. Edw. I and Edu). II [Rolls Ser.], i, 148), and in 1319 as the representatives of the ' communitas capellanorum ' in a dispute about a bequest to that body (Sharpe, Cal. Letter Bk. E. 101). Now the rector of St. Martin's was an official of the confederation, but the rector of St. Mary's was not even a member. 203
