It is clear that the archbishops and bishops regarded the difference between the sum due to the pope and the total collection as a part of their income. In the Sede Vacante Register of the diocese of Worcester in 1302 there is an entry that the sum total of Peter's pence yearly was £34 12s. 7½d., of which £10 5s. 0d. was paid to the pope, so the bishop had £24 7s. 7½d.[1] In the later years of the thirteenth century in the diocese of Ely, Peter's pence reached a total of £15 or over, and £5 was paid to the pope.[2] There are entries in the Pipe Rolls showing the amount collected for Peter's pence during the vacancy of bishoprics and the profit to the exchequer after the fixed sum was paid over for the pope; the most striking was in the case of the diocese of York in 1185, when the exchequer profited to the amount of £105 18s. 5d. after £11 10s. 0d. had been paid to the archbishop of Canterbury for the pope.[3]
In the fifth article the clergy asked that the bishops should dispose of the goods of the bishops and clergy who died intestate, and that they should not be obliged to answer to Geoffrey of Vezano or to pay over anything to him. They pointed out that Cardinal Ottoboni had recognized the law of the kingdom under which the bishops disposed of the goods of intestates 'to pious uses'.[4]
It was decided to send Master Robert of Gloucester and Master Anselm of Eastry to present the petition to the Pope.[5] Master Robert of Gloucester was probably the doctor of canon law who had held a prebend of the cathedral church of Hereford since 1283; he was the bishop's official, and had been at the papal curia as his proctor.[6] He now begged to be excused on the ground of ill health and other reasons, of which one perhaps was his appointment on 25 October 1297 as official of the old and infirm bishop of Worcester.[7] In a letter to the bishop of Norwich, dated 27 October, Archbishop Winchelsey wrote that after much discussion with those whom he usually consulted and other persons, it was agreed that Master Hamo of Gateley, rector of East Tuddenham, should be appointed in the place of Master Robert.[8] He begged the bishop to put the common good before his own advantage and to persuade Master Hamo, who was then
- ↑ Registrum Sede Vacante, ed. J. Willis Bund (Worcestershire Hist. Soc.), pp. 33, 34.
- ↑ Vetus Liber Archidiaconi Eliensis, ed. C. T. Feltoe and E. H. Minns, p. 28.
- ↑ Madox, Hist. of the Exchequer (ed. of 1769), i. 309, n. r.
- ↑ Lyndwood, Provinciale, Constitutiones Legatinae, p. 121. This was a grievance of many years' standing; cf. Archbishop Kilwardby's letter, dated 1277, entered in Episc. Reg. of Winchester, Pontissara, pp. 356, 357.
- ↑ Reg. Cant., Winchelsey, fo. 226.
- ↑ Reg. Heref., Swinfield, pp. 5, 41, 66.
- ↑ Reg. Worc., Giffard (Worcestershire Hist. Soc.), p. 489.
- ↑ Reg. Cant., Winchelsey, fo. 226.
