A HISTORY OF LONDON
tried to establish a similar claim against Elsing Spital, the hospital was declared a parish by itself, exempt from parochial dues elsewhere.[1] The last arrangement of the kind was made in 1517, when the master of the Hospital of the Savoy agreed to pay the rector of St. Clement Danes 26s. 8d. annually, and to administer the sacraments to the inhabitants of the hospital, and in return was exempted from all parochial dues.[2]
A list compiled in 1428[3] shows that the value of London churches had greatly increased since the 13th century. Eleven were worth only £6 13s. 4d. (the ordinary salary of a chantry priest[4]) or less; but over thirty were worth £20 or more, and ten exceeded £30 while the majority were between £10 and £20.
Perhaps as a result of this increase in value the City livings seem to have been occupied after about 1420 by men superior in character and attainments to their predecessors, and the tradition, very noticeable henceforth, that a London rector ought to be a 'learned man,' probably arose during the 15th century. One of the earliest of this type was the famous William Lyndewode, rector of All Hallows Bread Street from 1418 to 1433. Another was William Lichfield, rector simultaneously of All Hallows the Great and St. Mary Magdalen Old Fish Street, who wrote many books and composed 3,083 sermons; according to his epitaph he ornamented and enlarged his church and was a pastor vigil et studiosus, dear to the poor, an able adviser of those in doubt.[5] An inventory made by the rector of St. James Garlickhithe in 1449, notes that he had given the church three 'cloths (pieces of tapestry?), with the life of James and John,' the crucifix in the rood-loft, the fourth bell in the steeple, and two great pairs of latten candlesticks.[6] Such gifts from the clergy to their churches were common during the 15th century.[7] The traffic in benefices was no longer a flagrant abuse,[8] and there was probably a corresponding improvement in the behaviour of the clergy in other respects.[9] An official list shows, however, that between 1401 and 1440 one priest a year, on an average, was punished for immorality. The guilty man was taken by the Ward beadle to the 'Tun' with minstrels playing; next day he was brought before the mayor and aldermen, proclamation was made that no
- ↑ D. & C. St. Paul's, A, box 1, no. 552.
- ↑ Lond. Epis. Reg. Fitzjames, fol. 118.
- ↑ Rec. Corp. Letter Bk. K, fol. 52b et seq. For the values of some churches in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, cf. Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 338, 380, 388, 426; v, 90, 264, 579 (of Cal. of Papal Pet. i, 467), 613; vi, 38, 72, 300; vii, 198, 223; Add. MS. 35096; and Harl. MS. 60, fol. 89, which gives that of sixty-one churches added on to a copy of part of Pope Nicholas' Taxation for London. It professes to supply the value of benefices not given in that Taxation, but the copy the compiler used must have been incomplete, for the values of some of the churches he gives are included in the Taxation under the heading of small benefices. It is undated, but is in a 15th-century hand; the vicarage of St. Dunstan in the West, to which the first vicar was instituted about 1437, is mentioned, and that of St. Stephen, Coleman Street, which was ordained in 1457, is not. These documents differ considerably in the values assigned to particular churches, but all support the general statement above.
- ↑ Parochial Records, Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), and Chant. Cert. 34, passim. These are of course later than 1428, but many incidental references (e.g. Kingdon, Grocers' Records, 78; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vi, App. 412; Joum. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xxiv, 250-1) indicate that in London 10 marks had become the usual salary before the end of the 14th century, in spite of the Constitutions making 7 marks the maximum; Wilkins, Conc. iii, 135, 402; cf 335.
- ↑ Stow, Surv. (ed. Munday, 1618), 434; Hennessy, Novum Repert. Lyndewode also was a pluralist; Cal. of Papal Letters, vii, 198. For other dispensations for non-residence or plurality, see vi, 510 (cf vii, 155); vii, 223, 435, 471 (cf. vi, 291, 300, 369). The rector of St. Nicholas Shambles was only a sub-deacon in 1424; ibid, vii, 362. The rectors of St. Andrew Hubbard and Holy Trinity were accused of immorality in 1421 and 1426; Sharpe, Cal. Letter Bk. I, 280, 282.
- ↑ D. & C. Westm. Press 6, box 4, parcel 34, no. 4.
- ↑ Parochial Records.
- ↑ Vide supra, p. 217.
- ↑ This is based on the negative evidence of the Patent Rolls.
228
