debts or support their burthens. The king, therefore, "of his favour, and in consideration of forty pounds paid down," grants and allows them to have the advowsons of the churches of Alfricheston and Fflechyng to their own uses:—but with a proviso that "the vicarages of the said churches be sufficiently endowed according to the order of the diocesan, and some competent sums be every year distributed among the poor parishioners of the aforesaid churches according to the statute in that behalf made and provided." The king witnesses his own deed, "at the town of Salop," (Shrewsbury) February 3.
It would seem that the £40 thus extracted from the canons (notwithstanding their alleged poverty) was thrown away, owing to the deposition of this unfortunate sovereign. For in the next year, when the prior and convent state that the appropriation was not yet executed, and supplicate his successor to order execution, the king, in consideration of the premises, and "also of ten pounds paid in our hanaper[1] by the said prior," consents to their request, and orders the appropriation to be carried into effect.[2]
Even when possession had been obtained, from Roger Gosselyn, Thomas "Enlewyk," Richd. Sessingham, and Richd. Parker, acting under the authority of the pope and bishop, it was thought necessary to apply once more for an indemnity to those persons, who had no deed to exempt them from the penalties of the Mortmain Act. This is granted by the king, "de uberiore gracia," by writ of privy seal, and made a pretext for exacting another £10 paid, as before, into the royal "hamper."[3]
Finally, this same King Henry IV granted the canons, in 1411, the fullest confirmation ("peramplissima confirmatio") of their manors, lands, and liberties, as recited and sanctioned in the charters of his predecessors.[4]
Thus at length endowed with an adequate revenue, the priory seems to have received no further accession of property, nor do we find any more complaints of poverty.
Passing now from property to income, the first valuation
- ↑ "Hanaperium" was originally a basket in the King's Chancery for receiving the fees paid for the sealing of briefs, charters, and other such documents.
- ↑ Rot. Pat. 1º Hen. IV, p. 7, m. 11. Westminster, 26 May, (1399).
- ↑ 3º Hen. IV, p. 1, m. 16. He speaks of the unhappy Richard as "carissimum dominum et consanguineum nostrum nuper Regem predecessorem nunc defunctum!"
- ↑ Rot. Pat. 13º Hen. IV, p. 2, m. 5.
