Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/151

THE ORIGIN OF USES. 13S necessity may they be diverted from this use. So land may be given * to God and the church of St. German of Selby to buy eucharistic wine {ad vinum missarum emendumY ; Selby Coucher, ii. 34. In the ecclesiastical context just mentioned usus is a commoner term than opu%. But the two words are almost convertible. On Curia Regis Roll No. 115 (18-9 Hen. III.) m. 3 is an action against a royal purveyor. He took some fish ad opus Regis and converted it in usus Regis. X. In the great dispute which raged between the archbishops of Canterbury and the monks of the cathedral monastery one of the ques- tions at issue was whether certain revenues, which undoubtedly belonged to * the church ' of Canterbury, had been irrevocably devoted to certain specific uses, so that the archbishop, who was abbott of the house, could not divert them to other purposes. In 11 85 Pope Urban III. pronounces against the archbishop. He must restore certain parochial churches to the use of almonry. * Ecclesiae de Estreia et de Munechetun .... ad usus pauperum provide deputatae fuissent, et a . . . praedecessoribus nostris eisdem usibus confirmatae . . . Monemus quatenus . . . prae- scriptas ecclesias usibus illis restituas.' So the prior and convent are to administer certain revenues which are set apart ' in perpetuos uses lumi- narium, sacrorum vestimentorum et restaurationis ipsius ecclesiae, et in usus hospitum et infirmorum.' At one stage in the quarrel certain representatives of the monks in the presence of Henry II. received from the archbishop's hand three manors ' ad opus trium obedientiariorum, cellerarii, camerarii et sacristae.' See Epistolae Cantuarienses, pp. 5, 38, 95- XI. We now come to the very important case of the Franciscans. Thomas of Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum (Monumenta Franciscana, i. ), p. 16: ' Igitur Cantuariae contulit eis aream quandam et aedificavit capellam . . . Alexander magister Hospitalis Sacerdotum ; et quia fratres nihil omnino appropriare sibi voluerunt, facta est com- munitati civitatis propria, fratribus vero pro civium libitu commodata . . . Londoniae autem hospitatus est fratres dominus Johannes Ywim, qui emptam pro fratribus aream communitati civum appropriavit, fratrum autem usumfructum eiusdem pro libitu diminorum devotissime designavit . . . Ricardus le Muliner contulit aream et domum communitati villae [Oxoniae] ad opus fratrum.' This account of what happened in or about 1225 is given by a contemporary. Prima Fundatio Fratrum Minorum Londoniae (Monumenta Francis- cana, i.),p. 494. This document gives an account of many donations of land made to the city of London in favour of the Franciscans. The first charter that it states is one of 1225, in which John Iwyn says that for the salvation of his soul he has given a piece of land to the communitas of the city of London in frankalmoin ' ad inhospitandum _a word missing^ pauperes fratres minorum [minores?] quaradiu voluerint ibi esse.' 19