ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY expressly said to be parishioners, helped the minister in charge to make the inventory. These men were probably the forerunners of the two or four
- more honourable parishioners ' so often associated in later times with the
parson as trustees for gifts to the church or chantries founded therein, who were generally called in the 14th century 'wardens of the fabric and orna- ments,' and in the 15th by the name which has survived to our own day — that of churchwarden. These visitations also throw some light on the question of the position and style of the London clergy in the 1 2th century. By comparing them with other documents preserved at St. Paul's it can be seen that the Dean and Chapter had two distinct ways of dealing with the churches in their patron- age. In the first case a church was granted to a clerk in holy orders, who made an annual payment to the chapter, varying very much in the case of different churches, and held the church for life provided he kept his agree- ment.^^" This grantee was, in the 12th century, generally a priest ; only one such grant made by St. Paul's to a deacon is recorded in that period.^^^ In the second case it was also generally granted for life, but the grantee might be either a layman or a clerk and need not necessarily serve the church himself, though he was entirely responsible both for providing for the cure and for the annual payment due from the church to the canons.^^^ Both methods are illus- trated by the 1 2th-century visitations. In eight cases the sum of money due to St. Paul's, varying from ^d. to 20j-., was paid directly by the incumbent of the living ; in six cases it was paid by a person holding the church according to the second method.^^' One of these cases deserves special mention : in St. Martin's Orgar and St. Botolph's Billingsgate a woman named Cristina was responsible for paying the pension ; she was probably the daughter of Orgar the deacon, who had given these churches to St. Paul's some years before.^" With regard to the style of the London clergy the impression conveyed by the evidence available for the 12th century and earlier is one of great confusion. The familiar term 'rector' applied to the person who served the cure seldom appears until the middle of the 13th century ; the title of
- parson ' {persona) is used in the visitations in only one instance, when it is
applied to the woman Cristina. The most frequent titles 2L.re, sacerdos, presbyter, or capellanus of such-and-such a church.^^ 'Vicar' {yicarius) appears not infre- quently, but naturally not with the definite meaning afterwards attached to it. The term is generally used with regard to churches provided for in the second method described above,'^^ although this was by no means its only sense, "° For agreements of this sort see Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 11, 63^, 63^, 64a. '" Ibid, ix, App. i, 23^. "' Ibid. 24a, 6ia, 6b ; D. and C. St. Paul's, Lib. A, fol. 22. Tlie presentations to churches in the patronage of St. Paul's in the 1 2th century are frequently complicated by the recognition of the hereditary rights of the donors of the churches. See the instances quoted above with regard to the hereditary holding of churches by clerks in orders. ^ In the case of three of the six remaining churches the person paying the pension and returning the inventory is mentioned without the information whether he is a priest or layman. The Prior of Butley answered for two churches, and the remaining church of St. Thomas had been granted by the canons {Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 2.^0), half to Stephen, a priest, and half to Henry de Taenthona ; each apparently paid half the pension. '^* Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 63a ; D. and C. St. Paul's, A. box 15^, no. 839. '" See many lists of witnesses in Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, passim ; Cat. Anct. D. passim. "° For such instances see the grant of St. Helen's to William Fitz William {Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, I 3(j), and an interesting dispute about St. Mary Magdalen Milk Street ; D. and C. St. Paul's, Lib. A. fol. 22. 183
