A HISTORY OF LONDON but in July, 1378, the dean and chapter were excommunicated and suspended/^ The king then sent ambassadors to Pope Urban VI asking that the case might be submitted to the chan- cellor, and his request was granted on condition that an agreement was made between the parties within a year. No settlement being arrived at in that time, the matter was referred to Parlia- ment in 1380, but with no result. A further appeal was then made to Rome," and sentence was given against the college in 1382;*^ the dean and chapter nevertheless refused to pay the fine and costs ^^ to which they were condemned, and although they were excommunicated for contumacy ^^ they did not yield until 1393.*' The next year *' an agreement was at length made with the abbot and convent as follows : ^^ The chapel of St. Stephen's with the chapter- house and the chapels of St. Mary in the Vault and St. Mary of Pewe, as well as the cloister and the houses within the precinct™ inhabited by the thirty-eight persons serving in the chapel, the new kitchen of the vicars, and a room beneath the star chamber, were to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the abbot and convent ; all other chapels and places within the palace as well as the houses of the thirty-eight if not inhabited by them were to remain subject to the abbot and convent ; the dean and college were not to be exempt for faults committed without the precincts and in the parish of St. Margaret. The abbot and convent were to have probate of wills of all persons within or without the precinct except of the thirty-eight persons, the probate of whose wills belonged to the dean ; the members of the households of the thirty-eight were to be con- sidered parishioners of St. Margaret's ; the dean and college should have free burial in their chapel and cloister as far as the thirty-eight were concerned, but in the case of others half of all oblations should go to the abbey unless bequests were made to a member of the college separately, when the monks were not to participate ; with these exceptions all oblations and obventions
- Doc. of D. and C. of Westm. Westm. parcel 23,
pt. 2 continued. No. 18477. Ibid. " Points were being raised in January, 1 383, in consequence of the judgement. Ibid. No. 18492, " The abbot and convent estimated their expenses at 500 marlcs. Ibid. ^ Ralph de Kesteven was absolved in 1390 from the excommunication he had incurred as a member of the college. Ca/. Pap. Letters, iv, 328. ^ Ibid, iv, 462. ^ In August, 1394, the agreement is statad to have been lately made. ^ Cott. MS. Faust. A. iii, fol. 293-314 ; Doc. of D. and C. of Westm. Westm. parcel 23, pt. 2 con- tinued, No. 18470. '" This was very carefully defined, and was not to be extended. Cott. MS. Faust. A. iii, fol. 295-99, 310. 568 made in St. Stephen's were to go to the dean and college, but those offered in the chapel of St. John the Evangelist and all other oratories with- in and without the precinct were to belong to the abbot and convent ; the dean and college might have a baptismal font for baptizing the children of kings and magnates, but they were to administer no other sacraments to any without the authority of the abbot and convent especially granted ; the dean and college were bound to give the greater tithes from their precinct to the abbey but not the lesser ; the dean was to receive investiture from the abbot, and at his installation was to take an oath to observe the agreement ; as an indemnity to the abbey the college promised to pay an annual pension of 5 marks. The interests of the crown were so bound up with those of the royal chapel in the above con- troversy that during the period of its duration some special sign of the king's favour might almost be expected to occur, and it was in 1384, after the judgement pronounced against the chapel at Rome and while the dean and chapter still refused to submit, that the king was arranging to build a cloister for the college across the close and a house for the vicars.'^ The firm establishment of the college as a whole had hitherto been the main concern. When this was secured, attention could be given to details. Thus the position of the vicars and clerks seems to have received too little consideration,"^ until in 1396 King Richard ordained, on condition that they observed the obit of the late Queen Anne, that the vicars, clerks, and choristers should hence- forth form a corporate body which should have a common seal and power to acquire land,"^ and of which one of the vicars, elected by themselves without any necessity to ask the king's leave or assent, should be warden.'* This ordinance, however, was not to affect the power of the dean and canons to appoint the vicars and to exercise authority over them. The king granted to them in frankalmoign the houses which he had built for them, and also a piece of land between the palace and the river where they were making a garden at their own cost. The numerous grants made to St. Stephen's during the next century for the maintenance of anniversaries and chantries must have amounted in the end to a considerable sum. Among other gifts the college received ;^5o in 1399 for the " Ca/. of Pat. 1381-5, p. 365. Edw. Ill had built cloisters for them. Smith, Jntiq. of Westm. 222. " See supra the grant made to them on account of deamess of provisions in 1370. Rich. II in his grant speaks of their indigence. " They could thus have property quite apart from that of the college, and in 1469 the dean and canons made over to them a yearly pension of 7 marks from their messuages in Westminster. Cal. of Pat. 1+67-77. P- 'SO- " Ibid. I 391, p. 669.
