Lrs.

Camden
Soc.

pp. 150,

the General Chapter laid the duty of exacting the annual payments, or of themselves finding the money, upon the Chapters of the English Tinterne and of the Irish Abbey of Mellifont jointly, and there is evidence that occasionally from this source something was received during the century. In 1370 a statute was passed at Guildford, heavily taxing absentee Irish landlords, and even in some cases forbidding payments to them. The argument employed was, that those who received the profits of the country ought to be present on the spot to defend it, or at least they ought to suffer in pocket for their neglect of their military duties. On the promulgation of this statute the Convent of Canterbury appealed to Edward III., who, in this last year, granted them an exemption from its penalties during the lifetime of the actual Prior. In 1380, Richard II. similarly dispensed them from the penalties of the statute with the same limitation to the life of the Prior. With these exemptions the history of these Irish estates during the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries came to an end.

At the beginning of the 15th century there were seven years of rent unpaid, and the Canterbury Chapter appealed to Archbishop Arundel, who distrained the profits of the rectory of Lydd which was appropriated to the Welsh Tynterne, the mother who had undertaken to be security for her Irish daughter.

1

About 1430 the intervention of the Earl of Ormond and of Sir James Cornwaleys, the Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer 1 was solicited, but they, apparently, only succeeded in demonstrating the existence of difficulties, of which the landlords were only too conscious before.

Three letters in the present volume prove the difficulty 162, 192. with which the English landlords obtained even a fraction of their Irish rent, and the last of the three indicates

1 He married Maud (Plunket), widow of Sir R. Talbot, ancestor of

Sir Gilbert Talbot mentioned hereafter.

that they quite despaired of collecting the arrears due to them, seeing that they were willing to forgive the past entirely, in the hope of regular payments in the future.

In 1470 the absentee owners evidently gave up all p. 248. hope of receiving their rent of 13 marks directly from their lessees, and they therefore leased all their interest. in the annual pension to one James Sherlock, for a yearly payment of nine marks. This man had for a long time. previously acted as Irish agent for the English Convent, and evidently looked forward to a clear yearly profit of four marks; but after being in possession for a year or two, he writes to the Prior of Christ Church: “hit is soo that Maister Gilbard Talbot, att his beyng nowe " in this lande, hath seisied in the seid tethynge and in all other landys and tethynges that Tynterne "hath of your gyfte; pretendyng his aunsetryes to be "founders therof, wher in dede Hervye Momorthe is "foundour." Sir Gilbert Talbot appears to have proved himself too powerful an opponent to be resisted, for from the date of the above-quoted letter no mention of the Irish estates is to be traced either in the registers or in the Treasurer's accounts. It is not impossible that his descendants may be in possession at the present day.

From the numerous foundation deeds (ordinationes) Chantries of chantries which are contained in the Chapter archives and Colleges. a typical selection is printed in these volumes. The number is too great to allow of the publication of the whole collection, and, moreover, the multiplication of examples would not contribute any fresh information on the subject of the foundations, endowments, and objects of these institutions. Since all chantries of the same type were endowed in a more or less similar manner, and similar duties were enjoined upon the chaplains, it has been thought expedient to give only one or two examples of each of the chief classes of these foundations.

Of the simplest kind are those where a well-to-do founder established an altar in the aisle of his own. village church (Bocking, Ickham), and endowed it with an estate yielding an income sufficient for the support of one priest, who was bound to perform certain religious offices on behalf of the founder and his nominees.

More stately in form, but similar in kind and object, were those chantries which the Archbishops Arundel, Chicheley, Bourchier, and Warham endowed in their cathedral church; in each of which cases chaplains were appointed to perform the daily offices at an altar near the sumptuous tomb of the founder for whose spiritual benefit the offices were recited. Another kind of chantry is indicated in the indented deeds by which the Chapter of Canterbury pledge themselves to provide commemorative services, for Archbishop Courtenay at Canterbury, and Dr. Chandler at Oxford, in gratitude for benefits already voluntarily conferred on them, without stipulation for this or any other kind of repayment. The annual celebrations by which the Chapter requited the favour of King Richard II. who relieved them from the burthen corrodies" were of the same class as those last

of

mentioned.

On the principle that "tres faciunt collegium," those foundations which consisted of more than two members were named colleges, but where that number was not reached they were described as chantries. The colleges ranged in importance from the little rural establishment at Bredgar, where one priest presided over two scholars or socii, who were eligible for admission to their office at seven years of age, to the great corporations at Maidstone and St. Michael's, London. The former of these had provision for twenty-four members, and the latter consisted of four priests (of whom the rector of the parish was the chief) and a proportionate number of clerks and choristers.

At the end of the 14th century, and for some time after, it was held that a stipend of about ten marks, with a dwelling-house free of rent, was sufficient for the maintenance of a chantry priest. Thus at Bocking the chaplain was passing rich with an income of seven pounds and a house standing in a rood of ground. The third chantry priest at Maidstone was endowed with exactly ten marks, and, without doubt, rooms in the college. Again, although the priests of the Black Prince's Chantry in the crypt of the cathedral had, between them, an income of twenty pounds and a dwelling in common, in their special case this sum was not found sufficient for their support, in consequence, probably, of the greater demands upon their pockets as chaplains of a royal foundation. We gather as much as this from the complaint of the Chapter, who state that, whilst the expenses amount to forty pounds a year they can only realize twenty pounds from the manor of Vauxhall, with the profits of which the chantry was endowed; and therefore they propose to resign their position of trustees, and to hand over the manor to the chaplains, and so to give them the opportunity “to make it as good as they kan." At Bredgar College the income and the expenses were so nicely balanced, that the founder foresaw a difficulty in finding money to pay for any extraordinary outlay which might be required for repairing the buildings, and he therefore, in his ordinatio, arranged that when the College became dilapidated, the Master might sing anniversary masses in other chantries of Bredgar Church -that is, he might condescend to become an annueller

unum annuale per unum annum vel duo ad magis celebrare poterit "-the fees received for the obits to be applied for the restoration of the college buildings. In the case of the Bekesbourne chantry the income had in 1363 fallen as low as six marks, farther diminished by the cost of a pair of spurs, which the priest was bound to present yearly to the founder's heirs. As this small

sum could not suffice to provide a maintenance for the chaplain, Archbishop Islip consented to the transfer of the chantry to the archiepiscopal hospital of St. Thomas of Eastbridge in the City of Canterbury, with an addition of four marks, in consideration of the increased duties, to the priest's stipend. But in 1375, seeing that ten marks with a dwelling was the minimum amount upon which the priest could live, the bare ten marks to which the income was raised proved to be insufficient to tempt any qualified person to take the office, and therefore Archbishop Sudbury, in lieu of providing a house, added five and a half marks of lodging money to the salary.

The process of endowment of an ordinary village chantry was simplicity itself: the founder, having first procured the licences which common law and the statute of mortmain demanded, settled real estate (Ickham), or a rent-charge purchased for the occasion (Bocking) upon the first priest, whom he himself nominated, and his successors; giving by his foundation deed a power of oversight-a limited trusteeship-to the rector and churchwardens of the parish; who checked waste, and exacted continuity of the religious services prescribed by the founder. In those cases where the Chapter voluntarily undertook the commemoration of their benefactors, the priest-monks of the monastery were told off in turn to officiate at the altar selected for the special services, and a small payment, amounting to about two pence for each mass, was made to them.

A more complex process was of course necessary for the foundation of the larger colleges, especially when the endowment was derived from quasi-public funds, as for instance, when the profits of Northfleet Church were diverted by Archbishop Arundel to the support of his foundations at Canterbury and Maidstone. In these cases papal Bulls were required, permitting the diversion of the income, and providing for the maintenance of an