disputes also in 1279 about Datchet [1] and Little Kimble.[2] A year or so later, when Oliver Sutton became bishop of Lincoln, there was more trouble about Turville, because no proctor was sent to represent the church at the synod held at Aylesbury ; and the bishop ordered the sequestration of the fruits in consequence. The sequestration was only removed after an appeal to the Court of Arches.[3]
The parochial chapels of this period seem to deserve a special notice, though they were probably not more numerous in Buckinghamshire than in other parts of the country. It is most likely that nearly all good sized hamlets had their own chapels, dependent on the parish church, and served thence by chaplains either daily or three times a week, according to the value of the endowment.[4] At a time when frequent assistance at mass was considered to be a part of the ordinary Christian duty of all men, secular or religious, gentle or simple, the badness of the roads and the floods of winter would have been a serious hindrance both to the lord of the manor and his tenants, unless these chapels had been provided. Occasionally, as time went on, they were further endowed, and became either free chapels or parish churches ; if they were not re-endowed, they usually became unable to support a chaplain in the fourteenth century after the Great Pestilence.
The principal ones in this county were :
In the parish of Oakley : Brill, Boarstall and Edingrave [5] ; in the parish of Haddenham : Cuddington and Kingsey [6] ; in the parish of Aylesbury : Bierton, Buckland, Stoke Mandeville and Quarrendon [7] ; in the parish of Chesham : Hundridge, [8] Chesham Bois [9] and Latimer [10];
- ↑ Gesta Abbatum (Rolls Series), i. 440-2.
- ↑ Ibid. 447.
- ↑ A rather interesting point of jurisdiction came up in connexion with the sequestration. It was carried out by John de Clare, vicar and dean of Wycombe, by the bishop's orders, in spite of warnings from the abbot of Waltham, acting in defence of St. Alban's. In consequence of this, the abbot of Waltham, through the vicars of Winslow and Little Horwood, declared John to be excommunicate. But the official of the archdeacon of Buckingham replied by ordering the vicars of Hughenden, Med- menham and Penn to announce publicly in the church of High Wycombe that this sentence was null : inasmuch as a dean could not be excommunicated by persons who had no jurisdiction, ordinary or dele- gate, over him. And therefore he impleaded those two vicars. Ibid. 457.
- ↑ There is a Roll among the Lincoln Registers containing a list of parish churches and chapels in the county of Leicester, made out in preparation for the Taxatio of 1291, and showing which chapels had resident chaplains and which were served only on certain days in the week : three times was certainly the average, though a few were served only once or twice. The chapels are very numerous, and many churches have two, three or four. The duties of a visiting chaplain are given in Cur. Reg. R. 2 John 24, n. 26. See V.C.H. Beds, i. 318-9.
- ↑ All three mentioned in the twelfth century at the first endowment of St. Frideswide's Abbey, Edingrave, is last mentioned in the fourteenth century during the time of Bishop Burghersh. Kennet, Parochial Antiquities (ed. 1818), i. 536.
- ↑ Both in existence in the time of Bishop Hugh of Wells.
- ↑ All mentioned in Line. Epis. Reg. Inst. Sutton Ii8d. Stoke Mandeville has a doorway of the Norman period.
- ↑ In existence before the reign of John, Cur. Reg. R. 2 John 24, n. 26. It still stands, and has one window in the perpendicular style, so it was probably used at any rate till the fourteenth century. Records of Bucks, i. 126.
- ↑ First mentioned in Feet of F. (Rec. Com.), 4 John, p. 253, and had then been standing some time.
- ↑ Records of Bucks, vi. 37, where the history of the chapel is fully dealt with. It may be mentioned here that there is no sort of doubt that the original dedication of this chapel was to St. James ; it occurs several times in the Lincoln Registers, as it afterwards became a free chapel.
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