CORRECTIONS.

Pages 219, 225, for "Pamplona," read "Pampelonne in Navarre."

Page 264, cancel footnote.

Page 362, for "deaconesses," read deanesses."

PREFACE.

Parts III and IV of Wykeham's Register are dealt with in this volume. They are bound up in one volume of 414 leaves, 14 ins. high by 10 ins. wide, written on both sides, with an average of 45 lines to a page. Part III contains a variety of instruments concerning the internal administration of the Diocese. Part IV contains instruments from without, such as crown and judicial writs, privy seals, and writs of summons to Convocation or Parliament, with a few miscellaneous documents. In both parts, more than 1800 documents are recorded, mostly uninteresting. The interest of any legal document consists in its effect, and not in its form.

The Register, although apparently perfect, must not be regarded as a complete record of the business of the episcopate. Some instruments, such as institutions, ordinations, and monitions of divers kinds, were inrolled as a matter of course; others were not, unless the parties required it. Thus we find the admissions of the first fellows of Winchester college (p. 456) and not the charter of foundation of the college; the swearing of canons of Southwick to say masses for the repose of the souls of Wykeham's parents in the chantry founded by him in Southwick priory church (p. 349), and not the foundation deed of the chantry in which the masses were to be said.

Any episcopal register necessarily exhibits the demerits rather than the merits of the clergy of the diocese. Among the shortcomings of Wykeham's clergy absenteeism is conspicuous. Monitions to reside, both general and particular, licenses of nonresidence, and dispensations from the obligation of residence,

occur throughout Part III. Such licenses and dispensations were often granted in order to enable a young rector or vicar to finish his studies at one of the Universities, and were made subject to a proviso that the church should be efficiently served, and the accustomed hospitality of the parsonage house maintained during the absence of the incumbent (see an example, p. 14). To relieve wayfarers was in Wykeham's time, and earlier, the duty of every beneficed man. It will be seen in the case of the vicarage of Taunton (p. 420) on what a scale provision had to be made for the performance of this duty in a populous place.

The frequency of exchanges, alluded to in the preface to Vol. I, may have been due to something more than the restlessness of a celibate clergy, if we attach much weight to archbishop Courtenay's denunciation of " choppe churches" (p. 431). These were a class of clerics who, according to the archbishop, lived chiefly in London and occupied themselves in exchanging benefices for their own advantage. Either the archbishop's language is exaggerated, or dimissory letters were too easily obtainable.

The clergy bore their share of the burden of war with France in person as well as in purse. Mandates pro arraiacione cleri occur repeatedly, summoning the clergy and their people to arms for the defence of the coast of Hampshire, or of the Isle of Wight, which was actually raided in August, 1377, when the French came as far as Arreton (p. 273). A tenth was the usual war-tax, and it was levied on the taxacio or assessment of assessed benefices, which was always lower than the gross annual value, like "rateable value" in the present day. The machinery of collection was simple. In the province of Canterbury, whenever a tenth was granted by Convocation, the archbishop directed a mandate to the bishop of London, the bishop of London circulated it amongst the other bishops of the province, and the bishops of the province appointed collectors for each of their archdeaconries. Tenths were collected without difficulty;

but when the king imposed through Convocation a subsidy of £50,000 (p. 129) very great difficulty was experienced in collecting it, owing to the unaccustomed form of the impost, and to the fact of benefices not previously assessed, and the incomes of the stipendiary clergy, being included; and the consequent delay in remitting the quota of the diocese seems to have afforded a handle to the political opponents of the bishop (pp. 577, 578), of which they were not slow to avail themselves.

Demands on the part of the pope had also to be met. There were procurations occasionally for the support of his nuncios, and in the year 1375 a subsidy of 100,000 florins towards expenses incurred in resisting invasions of the territory of the church. An appeal of Gregory XI to Wykeham to use his influence with the clergy to get this subsidy paid (p. 244) seems to have met with success (p. 246). The pope rested his appeal on the ground that the clergy of England were rich, and that the realm had not suffered from invasion. Let us see how rich the clergy were then. It will be seen (p. 129 note) that two tenths and half of a third tenth-that is to say a levy of twentyfive per cent.-were deemed sufficient to raise the subsidy of £50,000 granted in 1371. The assessable income of the clergy was therefore four times that sum, or £200,000, equivalent to £2,400,000 per annum in the money of our day. It appears (p. 247) that the bishop's quota of the halfpenny in the mark levied in 1374 for the expenses of a mission to Flanders was £9. 6s. old. It may be inferred that his assessable income was £2976. 135. 4d., say £35,720 in our money. And this did not include fines, heriots, wardships, marriages, fruits of vacant benefices (of which he was entitled by custom to one half), and other casual sources of income. A procuration of a farthing in the pound on the goods of the bishop and clergy of the archdeaconry of Winchester yielded £20. 3s. old. (p. 228), indicating a revenue of £232,140 in the money of our day. The pope was not wrong when he described the clergy as rich. The interests of the parochial clergy were guarded in various