ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY one in future should give him employment in the City, under pain of a fine twice as large as his salary, and then he was handed over to be dealt with by the ecclesiastical authorities."" In estimating the significance of this list the very large number of priests then serving in the City must be taken into account. In 141 9 most of the parish churches had two or three besides the rector, several had seven or more, a few as many as twelve. There must therefore have been at least 400 priests attached to parish churches in addition to those at St. Paul's and in the religious houses. These assistant clergy were divided into three classes : ' parish priests ' (those holding the cure of souls in the place of an absentee rector), stipendiaries, and chantry priests."^ The chantry priests were expected to help in singing the services, but were to a great extent independent of the rector, being appointed and paid by the administrators of the chantry property, by whom they might be dismissed for misconduct or neglect of their duty."^ The little evidence which exists as to the character of the London clergy from about 1440 to 1480 is chiefly in their favour. A long dispute about oiferings "' seems to have been carried on with much less ill-feeling than the similar one in the i6th century. The fact that residence was definitely required of the rector of St. Peter's Cornhill might be taken to indicate that non-residence was a prevalent evil, but official records show that very few City rectors held two livings in the diocese."* Sometimes when the rector was absent the priest left in charge farmed the revenues of the benefice."^ Disputes which arose in consequence of these arrangements led to suits in the Court of Chancery, the records of which also furnish details of other quarrels in which priests were concerned. For example, a church- warden of St. Andrew's Undershaft daily and hourly gave 'words of . . . rebuke maliciously' to the rector in the church; the rector waited till Lent, when the churchwarden had to come to him to be shriven, and then told him that he had no power to assoil him of such offisnces. This led to inter- ference by the bishop's court ; the churchwarden successfully sued the parson in the King's Bench for bringing into an ecclesiastical court an action which properly belonged to the king's court, and the parson appealed to the chancellor. A brewer brought an accusation of trespass against the rector of St. Margaret Lothbury, and had him arrested as he was kneeling before the high altar to say his devotions after High Mass on Whit Sunday ; ' divers worshipful men of his parish ' offered to be his sureties, but the mayor would not allow him bail ' of inward malice.' "* The facts recorded by the '*" Sharpe, Cal. Letter Bk. I, 279 et seq. ; Liber Albm (Rolls Ser.), 457 ; Riley, Mem. 566, n. ; cf. Sharpe, Cal. Letter Bk. H, 339. '" Add. MS. 35096. '" Wills of the 14th and 15th centuries; Parochial and City Records, /<;/;«« ; e.g. Cal. Pat. 1385-9, p. 451 ; 1 391-5, p. 185 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vi, App. 411 ; Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxiv, 251 ; Overall, Accts. of St. Michael Cornhill, 207-8 ; Arch. 1,53; Sharpe, Col. Letter Bk. I, 129, 171. ^^ Vide infra. '** This statement is based on an analysis of the lists in Newcourt's Refertorium. A similar analysis gave a very different result for the early 1 6th century ; vide infra. "* Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 46, no. 382 ; cf. no. 316, and bdle. 43, no. 272, when the curate had the oblations due to the parson. In 1458 the vicar of St. Giles Cripplegate was presented as non-resident ; Visit, of Churches behnffng to St. Paul's (Camd. Soc), 108. Cf. Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of Engl. Ch. Hist. 142. '*' Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 31, no. 340 ; bdle. 46, no. 207. For other cases see ibid. bdle. 16, no. 214 ; bdle. 45, no. 16; bdle- 46, no. 315. The pardon granted to a City rector in 1467 was probably, like that of Bishop Kemp in 1471, for political offences ; Cal Pat. 1467-77, pp. 42, 267. 229
