A HISTORY OF LONDON residents on the score that they, as much as other canons, swore observance of the statutes of the cathedral."^ In the latter half of the fourteenth century the efforts for reform had a significant expression in the formation of various corporations in con- nexion with St. Paul's. The movement appears to have been due consciously to a literal faith in the virtue which emanated from agatliering of ' two or three.' ^^ In 1352 a gild of St. Katherinewas formed to keep one wax light burning in St. Katherine's Chapel. In 1362 the brothers and sisters agreed to maintain a chantry priest who should celebrate in the chapel for all faith- ful departed. This gild had, in 1389, two wardens who were citizens of London.^'* The brotherhood of All Souls was founded, in 1379, for the maintenance of the chapel over the charnel-house,'^* in which it had its centre, and the care of which had lately been urged in a sermon by the archbishop of Canterbury. It existed in 1389, but does not appear to have been careful of the charnel-house.^"* But more important than these were the more or less developed corporations which were formed among the inferior clergy of the cathedral, and whose origin must in great part be ascribed to the influence of Robert Braybrook. In 1353 Robert of Kingston, a minor canon, bequeathed his hall in Pardonchurchhaugh, with the adjoining houses, to his brothers, that they might have a common hall in which to take food together."' The minor canons seem to have been aroused at once to much activity of cor- porate existence. They obtained a charter from Dean Richard of Kilmington in 1356, which stated that they excelled all other chaplains in name and honour, and that they were able to officiate in the place of major canons at the great altar and the choir. ^ It was confirmed by Bisiiop Simon Sudbury, and in 1373 by a bull of Urban VI."' Finally they acquired a charter '" MSS. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, D. 6, fol. 16. '" MSS. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, /«//;>/. '" Cert, of Gilds (P.R.O,), Chanc. No. zo. '" This chapel w.is dedicated to the Virgin, and stood over a vault in the churchyard in uhich many bones of the dead had been piled. It was rebuilt shortly before 1276, when Roger Beyvin and others founded in it a chantry of one priest. The revenue of the chapel was so diminished in 1430 that divine service was no longer held in it. It received a new endowment in this )car from Jcnkyn Carpenter, an executor of Richard Whitt ngton, and a chantry of one priest was once more established in it, that there might be prayers for the souls of the departed, and especially for those of Roger Beyvin and Richard Whittington (Dugdale, Hist, of St. Paufs, 126, 274 ; Cal. of IViUs proved in Ct. of Hustings, i, 29, 4.2). '"= Cert, of Gilds (P.R.O.), Chanc. No. 209;^ ; Seymour, Surv. of Lond. i, 650. "' Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson), 322. "' Ibid. 323. '"' Wilkins, Cone, iii, 134. of incorporation from Richard II in 1395—6, and in the same year they 'gathered together in the common hall of their college' and defined the rules and customs which bound them. By the king's charter they received the title of the College of the Twelve Minor Canons in the Church of St. Paul in London. It was ordained that one of them should be set over the others as warden, and that he, with the college, should constitute a legal person.'"" Bishop Braybrook ruled that henceforth the minor canons must take food in their new hall at due hours in com- mon, ' for the increase of the fervour of their devotion and charity ; ' and imposed on them a penalty of ;^300 if they should fail to fulfil their promise of keeping the statute.-, and ordinances of their college. The bishop of London was con- stituted their visitor.'^' Several colleges took form almost contempo- raneously among the chantry priests. A dwell- ing for the chaplain or chaplains was often part of the endowment of a charity.^ Before 1318 a piece of land in the churchyard was assigned to the chantry priests,'^' and lodgings situated on it and called ' chambers ' might thenceforth be granted to the holders of chantries, by donors or legators, or by the dean and chapter.^ Thus a number of chantry priests came to live in the building variously known as the ' Presteshouses ' and St. Peter's College. '*' These chaplains were compelled personally to inhabit the separate chambers allotted to each ; and always, or usually, to keep such in repair at their own cost.'*' In 1 39 1 Bishop Robert Braybrook ordered that all chantry priests, who belonged to no other college of the cathedral and who were bound to give suit to the choir, should take their food in the hall of the ' Presteshous ' and that the dean and chapter should allot chambers to as many of them as possible.'" By this measure the corporate life of the chaplains must have been stimulated and defined. Their technical position, however, remained that of a congregation of individuals ; in 1424 they had no common seal.'*^ Their pro- perty was probably regarded as being vested for their use in the dean and chapter. Yet individual priests paid rents to the body of the chap- lains ; '*' their college had statutes which they were bound to observe." In a compilation by ^"^ Arch. Ixiii, 183 etseq. ^*' Lond. Epis. Reg. Braybrook, fol. 34. '»= MSS. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, A. Box 74, 1934, &c. '*'Ibid. A. Box 74, 1918. '*'Ibid. A. Box 74, 1922, 1938, 1950; Cal. of Wills proz-ed in Ct. of Hustings, i, 184, ii ; 539, 637. '«'MSS. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, A. Box 75, i960. ^Ibid. A. Box 74, 1938, 1950. ^' Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson), 149. ^ MSS. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, A. Box 75, i960. '"Ibid. A. Box 74, 1950 ; Box 75, i960. "^/r-i. hi, 174. 426
